Powerful and obstructionist: Why progress on sustainable development is slow

Rationality. Sustainability.

The United Nations defines the concept of Sustainability as:

"Meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."

It is a well-established fact that humanity is consuming Earth’s biological resources at a rate that is well beyond its means, driven by the capitalist economic system at the foundation of human society which encourages over-consumption of finite resources to ensure the stability of that economic system. Earth Overshoot Day marks the day each year when humanity has consumed all of the biological resources Earth can regenerate in one year and in 2023, this day was August 2nd.

Currently, humanity is consuming 1.75 Earth’s every year.  A system that tethers the consumption of resources to requirements for perpetual economic growth in a world of finite resources is irrational. A world in which scientific evidence is dismissed in favour of sustaining a system that jeopardises the survival of the human species is irrational. For a species whose evolution is underpinned by its exceptional rational capacity, its behaviour is irrational. The label ‘irrational’ is not often associated with the upper class and ‘elite’, and therein lies the problem.

Rational posturing by people in positions of power, such as politicians and capitalists, creates an illusion that the system they promote is the most logical and beneficial for all. After all, it is the system in which they have been successful and it could well be for you too, all generational wealth, nepotism, and privilege aside. However, the systems the powerful are so deeply invested in upholding has created the greatest levels of inequality of past generations. According to the Equality Trust, in 2022 the incomes of the poorest 14 million people in the UK dropped 7.5% whilst the incomes of the uppermost 20% increased by 7.8%.  

Those powerful few at the helm of society are steering this ship in the direction that continues to reproduce concepts of ‘economy’ that sustain their power at the expense of future generations. We only need look to the source of climate change to see examples of this abuse of power. It has been revealed that oil giant Exxon’s climate models from the 1970s were astonishingly accurate in forecasting climate change. Further studies of Exxon’s negative public discourse on climate science in subsequent decades led researchers to conclude that the company purposely misled the public to protect their main business stream. A generation of male leaders harvested the planet’s natural resources, controlling and exploiting them in the pursuit of profit, fully aware that their activities would reduce the habitability of the planet for future generations.

Antonio Gramsci introduced the vital concept of ‘hegemony’ to describe the process by which the values of the powerful ruling classes become the dominant ideologies of society that are reproduced by institutions, particularly political and educational, as values and ideas that represent the ‘natural order of society’. Gramsci conceptualised hegemony as a form of (false) intellectual and moral leadership employed by the powerful ruling class to achieve consensual domination across society. Maintaining a system that compromises the future survival and quality of life for the species is not true moral leadership, and it defies not only logic, a trait humans are thought to be uniquely capable of, but the biologically hardwired instinct of all animals to survive.