SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

  Although we have described the Constrained Growth Approach and the Resource Maintenance Approach as if there were little common ground between them, in practice the distinctions are not so clear. For one thing, most proponents of both positions agree that intergenerational equity is central to any discussion of sustainability. Moreover, those who hold to the constrained growth approach recognize the need for the affluent countries of the north to reduce their consumption of natural resources and consumer goods, and they agree that efforts to achieve sustainability ". . . must recognize ecological interdependence as well as the interdependence of humans and the natural environment" (Castle, 1993:281).

  For their part, proponents of the Resource Maintenance Approach have difficulty maintaining a rigid distinction between growth and development. Some allow, for instance, that short term economic growth in certain parts of the world may be a necessary prerequisite to sustainable development (Lele, 1991). In fact, given the extent to which capitalist development and its belief system has penetrated underdeveloped nations, it may be politically impossible for the north to demand that our less fortunate neighbors pursue policies which strictly adhere to the idea that development . . . refers to the qualitative change of a physically nongrowing economic system in dynamic equilibrium with the environment (Daly and Cobb, 1989:71).

  While the differences between these perspectives are neither trivial nor completely reconcilable, common themes can be discerned. Batie (1989:1085), for instance, suggests that both definitions can be subsumed under an alternative world view characterized by the following components:

• a perception that the biosphere imposes limits on economic growth,
• an expressed lack of faith in science or technology as the primary means by which human betterment can be achieved,
• extreme aversion to environmental risks,
• support for redistributive justice and egalitarian ethics and policies,
• concern over population growth and faith in the wisdom of human capital development, and
• survival of species, and protection of the environment and minority cultures are goals that are at least as important as economic growth (Batie, 1989:1085).

  Obviously, this definition most closely resembles the Constrained Growth Approach to sustainable development. Nevertheless, it is inclusive enough to capture all but the most extreme versions of each definition. Such an approach provides a space for compromise that is otherwise lacking in most debates over the meaning of sustainable development. This is essential if we are to get beyond the kind of polarizing arguments which regularly accompany the economic development-environmental protection debate. Hence, in the remainder of this paper sustainable development will refer to the broad, regulative principles outlined above.