ETHICS AND THE ECONOMICS ECOLOGY DILEMMA:
TOWARD A JUST, SUSTAINABLE,
AND FRUGAL FUTURE

JAMES A. NASH

Executive Director
Churches' Center for Theology and Public Policy

THE PROBLEM[1]

An obscure blurb appearing last year in The Washington Post (6/15/93) noted that the Clinton administration has formed the President's Council on Sustainable Development "to find new ways to combine economic growth and environmental protection." Justifiably, this "event" received little media coverage; it was hardly newsworthy. The President was simply pronouncing a truism, one that his immediate predecessors in that office and the bulk of the American public have taken for granted.

The standard expectation in North America is that the community of nations can have both ecological security and continuous economic expansion in material production and consumption. No doubt, there are difficulties and dangers ahead. We have, for instance, a lot of polluted messes to clean up; a number of threats, like ozone depletion and climate change, to prevent or ameliorate; and a number of creative controls to impose on environmental abusers. But to an economically robust people these are challenges, not insurmountable obstacles. With vision, energy, commitment, and not least technological innovation, we can have both.

In fact, this vision is no longer strictly nationalistic, as it tended to be in the past two administrations. In his first major policy address on the economy, the President described one of his major goals as "global growth" for "global prosperity." The United States is called to be "the engine of global growth."[2] This goal corresponds with the "positive economic nationalism" advocated by Clinton's Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich, in which "each nation's citizens take primary responsibility for enhancing the capacities of their countrymen for full and productive lives but who also work with other nations to ensure that these improvements do not come at others' expense."[3] There is no "limited market to be shared"; national and global welfare can thrive together through economic growth.[4] Modest reforms but not radical or paradigm shifts are necessary.

Admittedly, I often wish this vision were valid. In fact, nearly all of us probably want to believe--some seemingly to the point of making believe--that human communities can have progressive prosperity without undue harm to the rest of nature or other nations. Life would be considerably less confusing and more consoling if we did not have to fret about biophysical and moral limits to ecological exploitation. But while this growth vision provides comfort, it is a false comfort. The consequences of marching toward this mirage will be economically and ecologically ruinous. As one wag (Larry Rasmussen) noted, "If present trends continue, we don't."

Thus, my purpose in this essay is to argue that the community of nations faces a genuine and severe economics-ecology dilemma, one that can be resolved only by abandoning the current growth model and replacing it with a new paradigm of economic goals, characterized not only by revised moral norms of equity and sustainability but also by the forgotten--and feared--standard of frugality. The global growth policy is an hallucinatory hope, a faith grounded in an ecological myth of practically inexhaustible abundance. In reality, we live in an age of global "ecological scarcity."[5]

In a society that celebrates economic growth as the panacea for our ills, the heretical voices that pronounce limits are often called doomsayers, apocalypticists, and alarmists. Despite this name-calling, it seems rationally fitting to express alarm to the extent--no more, no less--that a situation is alarming.

My argument is anything but novel. I and many others have been voicing the same theme for more than two decades. Even though my argument is not new, however, perhaps I can still offer some ethical insights and emphases that will enhance the case. In any event, the basic concern seems sound, increasingly compelling, and worthy of regular repetition.

DEFECTS OF THE GROWTH MODEL

The economics-ecology dilemma is the continuation of an ancient problem--conflicts over the conservation of nature versus the consumption and destruction of its resources. Probably every generation and culture of sufficient numbers and technical means have faced the dilemma, when human economic needs and wants have exceeded ecological possibilities. It is now a ubiquitous and massive problem as a growing human population armed with sophisticated technology creates universal ecological havoc. The dilemma is evident in every dimension of the ecological crisis, from agricultural pesticides to the extinction of species. The northern spotted owl versus the loggers of the Pacific Northwest is only one prominent example of a dilemma that exists in countless locales. Economics and ecology cannot be compartmentalized; they interpenetrate and confront us with what are finally ethical dilemmas.

My focus here is not on the many microcosmic manifestations of the dilemma, but rather on its major macrocosmic catalyst. The dilemma is largely a systemic problem that revolves around the ideology of economic growth.

A commitment to economic growth has long been a prime tenet of the North American economic faith. It is a bipartisan commitment; Republicans and Democrats compete over which party can give us the greater growth more quickly and consistently. It is almost an imperative of patriotism to consume liberally to keep the system going and growing. Indeed, it is now an expression of internationalism with the commitment to "global growth." Among most contemporary nations, growthmania is the one obsession that unites capitalist, socialist, and mixed economic ideologies. Allegedly, the perpetual expansion of production and consumption is necessary for "progress and prosperity"--measured quantitatively in Gross Domestic Product and now Gross Global Product--to satisfy the basic needs and insatiable wants of national and international consumers, and to provide employment opportunities for expanding populations.

The system not only responds to but creates every conceivable desire of people. Ubiquitous advertising pressures us through sophisticated techniques to want more, bigger, better, faster, newer, more attractive, or "state of the art." We are bombarded with an abundance of commercials peddling wares that promise to enhance our virility or femininity, our excitements, social status, and power. Commercials encourage impulse and therapeutic buying to improve self-esteem. They stimulate feelings of envy and inadequacy unless we own given products. The more and bigger we can buy, the "better off" we are, since wealth, not character, is the measure of human worth. Indeed, the more sales we boost, the "better off" the national and even world economies will be. This promotional system not only caters to our wants; more importantly, it creates them, in order to provide goods and services to supply these demands. The dynamic seems to be fed more by the needs of competitive production than by the actual wants of consumers. In any case, shopping--accelerated by instant credit--is now the main means of recreation for millions. The "pursuit of happiness" has become the quest of acquisitions.

Not many market incentives and disincentives in this system limit production and consumption. The system may be generally microeconomically efficient as individual suppliers seek to cut their costs for competitive purposes, but it is macroeconomically inefficient as the total economic product incorporates a wealth of waste and irrelevancies to human welfare.

Indisputably, the growth system in the United States has a positive side. It has enabled some important values: competition and profits as incentives to energize the system; jobs in the scores of millions; a multitude of goods and services, many of which we can applaud; capital for investments and improvements; tax revenues for government programs, including social services and ecological protection; creativity and technological innovations, many of which are socially and environmentally beneficial; pensions that increase in value; and philanthropic benefits that have strengthened nonprofit associations, including churches and colleges. In many respects, the growth system has provided some significant benefits to most Americans, along with a variety of liabilities.

The prevailing rationale argues, furthermore, that economic growth is the prime cure for poverty. Indeed, global growth is the means to the Third World's prosperity by providing markets for exports. Creating a bigger pie means that more people can have a satisfactory slice. Growth means more jobs and more income in a multiplier effect.

There is certainly some truth in this claim, but there is an ominous side that is underemphasized. In the United States, wealth remains severely and increasingly maldistributed. Unemployment and underemployment remain high while the economic elect wallow in profligate consumption. Millions suffer in the absence of adequate government interventions and assistance. Moreover, in international relations, the excessive use of the world's finite resources in the overdeveloped world is sometimes a significant force in depriving some poor nations of sufficient resources for their basic needs. Profligate prosperity for a minority is a contributing factor to absolute poverty for many.

A prime flaw of the growth system, however, is its self-destructiveness. It is a major factor in destroying the ecosystems on which the wellbeing of economic and all social systems finally depends. Unconstrained production and consumption are key factors in the excessive exploitation and toxication of the renewable and nonrenewable gifts of nature.

In reality, we face global "ecological scarcity"--prospectively at least, actually on some particulars. The planet is finite. We face limits everywhere--limits on this planet's carrying capacity for the human population; limits on using the rest of nature as the source of our products (like food, fuel, and minerals); limits on using nature as the dump for our waste products (like pesticides, acid rain, and C02 emissions); limits on the capacities of species and ecosystems to recuperate from human intrusions; limits on the political, creative, moral, and financial capacities of societies; and even limits on technological powers to transcend biophysical limits. Virtually everything material can become scarce--if it is not already so by nature--by overuse.

For instance, non-renewable resources, including fossil fuels and industrially significant minerals like iron and nickel, will run out by definition. The only question is when, the short or long term (and does that make an ethical difference, if we have long-term responsibilities to future generations?)? Yet, if growth in the consumption of some minerals continues, shortages are likely to develop sooner rather than later, in decades not centuries. Despite new resource discoveries and extraction techniques, these limits are already being approached in some cases-- oil being a prominent example. Certainly these limits can sometimes be extended through technology, such as recycling or resource substitution of a common commodity for a scarce one--like fiber optics for copper. But substitutes are not guaranteed; technical progress is not inevitable. Technical optimism is nothing more than groundless faith apart from reasonable expectations.[6] And even when substitutes are feasible, what eventually will substitute for the substitutes? While technological innovation is truly impressive and often valuable, it too is subject both to human deficiencies like finitude and folly and also to biophysical limits.

Moreover, so-called renewable resources--like fisheries, forests, and soils--are periodically regenerative through natural cycles. But functionally, they can become non-renewable when pushed beyond their thresholds of tolerance. Our present plight includes the unsustainable reduction of many of the world's renewable resources through overuse. For instance, agricultural lands are severely degraded in many places because of human-induced erosion, salination, and pesticidal pollution. Overfishing has dangerously depleted stocks of most commercial species worldwide--even in some of the fishing banks off the coasts of New England and Newfoundland, the historical center of the once bounteous cod. The reductions of nonhuman populations and the extinctions of species-- plant and animal--are proceeding at an appalling pace. The main causes include multiple forms of pollution, human overpopulation and overconsumption, and habitat destruction for the sake of "economic development." Plus, if the threats of human-induced global warming and ozone depletion materialize, we can anticipate a mega-enhancement of these trends.

We could continue this litany of laments for at least many pages, but the central point would remain the same: material economic growth is a strategy for living beyond planetary means--to the detriment of the poor in our time, future generations, and nonhuman species. This ideology assumes the practical indestructibility and inexhaustibility of the products and capacities of nature. It denies ecological scarcity and ecological interdependence; it presumes boundlessness and human autonomy. These assumptions, however, make this ideology a utopian illusion. The growth system is ecologically and economically unrealistic because it is built on a "biophysical impossibility."[7] Material economic growth is eventually destructive of the conditions for economic health. Economic systems cannot be sustained unless environmental systems are sustained, because human welfare depends on the productivity, diversity, and dynamic stability of the natural world. Our dilemma is that we want contradictory goals: economic growth and ecological sustainability. Increasingly, it appears that we cannot maintain both.

Let it be clear, however, that the rejection of current patterns of economic growth among the prime opponents is not generally simplistic opposition to growth per se, contrary to the popular caricatures of this position as an easily dismissed "no growth" posture. Rather, it is opposition to indiscriminate material growth in both resources used and wastes produced. It is a call for discriminating judgments. Economic growth is possible, though still limited, in selected areas, such as agricultural productivity in some places. But current growth patterns are not sustainable in a great number of other areas, such as commercial fisheries or tropical forests in most places. Moreover, material economic growth is necessary and just in poor nations to satisfy their citizens' basic needs for food, jobs, housing, education, health care, energy, and transportation. But if global resources are scarce, this growth does not seem ecologically feasible without restricting production and consumption in affluent nations in order to enable the material conditions for sustainable growth globally. Thus, Ian Barbour argues for "selective growth"[8]--which also suggests non-growth, including reduced production and consumption, in areas where sustainability and other relevant conditions cannot be satisfied. Similarly, Herman Daly and John Cobb are concerned about "the optimal scale of the economy relative to the ecosystem,"[9] and allow for selective growth and nongrowth.[10] Moreover, while the opponents reject quantitative growth, they all appeal for qualitative growth--growth in efficient, ecologically compatible technologies, growth in human services, growth in cultural and natural aesthetic sensitivities, growth in the structuring of community relations and patterns of just economic distribution, and growth in the breadth and depth of moral responsibilities.

THREE NORMS FOR GUIDANCE

Compounding the economics-ecology dilemma is that no one has yet developed a full-fledged and acceptable alternative--though promising options that deserve critical exploration and development are emerging. Designing and implementing alternatives will be extremely complex and traumatic. Simplistic answers will not resolve the dilemma; in fact, oversimplification is a chief weakness of the growth model itself.

The most I can do in this context is to propose three ethical norms that should guide us in designing and evaluating concrete strategies for resolving the economics-ecology dilemma. They are among the conditions that must be satisfied for ethical acceptance. These three are indispensable and interdependent; we cannot talk about one without assuming or implying the others. Other norms for responsible economic life--such as universal solidarity and public participation--are also important, but they are incorporated in these basic three in my interpretation. The three that need particular emphasis are: equity, sustainability, and frugality.

EQUITY

Equity here is simply a synonym for distributive justice. It is a moral imperative in the Jewish and Christian traditions. Indeed, it is a prominent theme in scripture. Biblical justice is covenant fidelity, a social bond which demands provisions for the basic needs and rights of all, including a special concern for the economically vulnerable and powerless, as an expression of loyalty to the Lover of Justice (Ps. 99:4) and as a condition of harmony (shalom) in the community (Is. 32:17). The Reign of God, the central feature of Jesus' preaching, is intended to be the fullness of the prophetic vision of justice (Luke 6:20-31; Matt. 5:3-12; 6:33). Indeed, the Suffering Servant is understood as the one who "proclaims justice" to the nations (Is. 42:1-4; Matt. 12:18).

Distributive justice can be defined as the ethical process of comparing, differentiating, and apportioning benefits and burdens, on the basis of morally relevant similarities and differences, and in the midst of conflicts of claims, in order to ensure that all parties with stakes in the outcome receive their due or proper share. Distributive justice is concerned not with "the greatest good of the greatest number," but with a fair apportionment of "goods" and "bads."

Under the moral mandate of distributive justice, all human beings, equally and universally, have God-given rights to the material and other essential conditions for expressing their human dignity and for participation in defining and shaping the common good. These rights are numerous, but they include basic biophysical needs (for example, adequate nutrition, shelter, and health care), environmental security as an extension of biophysical needs, full political participation, and social ground rules for fair treatment and equal protection of the laws. These rights are moral claims on others, entailing duties of justice by others in proportion to their capacities and resources. In fact, however, because of limitations on our individual capacities and resources, governments, precisely because they are the agents of our interests, are also the prime representatives of our corporate responsibilities.[11] These human rights, moreover, demand not only national but international justice.[12]

Economic Maldistribution

This norm of distributive justice contrasts sharply with the present human condition. Radical disparities in resources are fundamental features of the modern world. Less than a fifth of the world's population lives in comfort or luxury, some in gluttony, consuming and often wasting three quarters of the world's economic goods, and disproportionately polluting the planet. More than another fifth of humanity, however, lives in chronic poverty--primitive housing, illiteracy, debilitating diseases, vulnerabilities to natural calamities, political powerlessness, malnutrition, and, in multiple millions of cases annually, starvation. This chronic poverty has not only severe social effects but comparable ecological effects. In the absence of sufficiency, the poor are often forced to exploit their natural resources--forests, waters, grasslands, croplands--beyond the point of sustainability simply to survive in the present. And the process is accentuated by rapid population growth (bred partly by poverty!). Thus, poverty spurred by overpopulation is a driving force behind ecological degradation. Then in a vicious cycle, this deterioration reduces the availability of resources and further propels poverty.[13]

Yet, these opposite ends of the global economic spectrum are not empirically nor ethically separable. Empirically, in the light of ecological scarcity and the interdependence of the global market, the excessive use of the world's finite resources by the overdeveloped world seems often to be one significant factor in depriving some poor nations of sufficient resources for their essential needs--through, for example, the exploitation of indigenous resources, the exporting of toxic industries and wastes, trade inequities, debt burdens, the roles of powerful multinational corporations, and "structural adjustments" forced by the World Bank. A strong causal relationship, however, is not always clear or perhaps even present, and certainly a variety of internal factors are involved in the poverty of the South. Moreover, in many cases, the prosperity of the North offers some offsetting benefits to the nations of the South by providing markets for exports. The relationship between global prosperity and poverty is complex and ambiguous, but it is also real.

Ethically, from a Christian perspective, the peoples of this planet are an interdependent community of moral equals, sharing responsibilities for one another's welfare. Basic biophysical needs are fundamental moral claims on others, entailing duties of justice by others in proportion to their capacities. Thus, Pope Gregory the Great expressed a principle of justice that has been characteristic of much Christian ethical thought: "When we minister the necessities of life to those who are in want, we are returning to them their own, not being bountiful with what is ours; we pay a debt of justice rather than fulfill works of mercy."[14] On this assumption, the deprivation of necessities for any is an issue of justice--whether or not ecological scarcity is a reality, whether or not there is a causal relationship between poverty and prosperity.

Thus, even in the absence of scarcity and causality, the wealthy must reduce the consumption of their bounty in order to share with and provide sufficiency for the poor. Some might argue, however, that the case for justice here is unconvincing. Instead, the issue is perceived as one of benevolence or charitable generosity. If so, that standard is quite demanding in itself, even exceeding the minimal demands of justice!

If, however, a causal relationship exists and if the world's actual and potential goods are insufficient to tolerate both profligate prosperity for some and economic adequacy for all, the case for distributive justice is clear and compelling. In this case, economic sufficiency for all cannot be realized by creating a "bigger pie," let alone by lifting all peoples to the "American way of life." That is biophysically impossible. Instead, economic justice requires the substantial reduction of production and consumption in affluent nations in order to provide the materials for essential economic development in poor nations. This process also contributes indirectly to ecological integrity and population stability insofar as these depend on distributive justice.[15]

Other Distributive Considerations

Distributive justice, however, deals with much more than the fundamental problem of economic disparities. The practical applications of the norm are numerous and complex. Since it is not possible here to give an adequate account of even a single application, I will simply list some questions that give the flavor of the issues that are particularly relevant to the economics-ecology dilemma.

Whose costs and benefits deserve what weight in determining levels of toleration for pollutants and other forms of ecological degradation? Do the economic interests of, say, agribusinesses and chemical complexes, take precedence over other contenders? Is the prevention of job losses in particular locales more important than the social and ecological costs there or elsewhere?

How should the full and fair costs of production and distribution of ecologically harmful products be assessed? Should they not include the "externalities," the social and ecological effects of extraction, production, and consumption?

What about the interests of the poor and powerless, particularly in African American and Hispanic American communities, near whose residences toxic industries and dumps are disproportionately situated? Is this not environmental racism and classism? Is this not a deprivation of human rights to equal protection from arbitrary discrimination? What are just distributional standards for the production and disposal of toxic materials? What compensations or reparations are just for the losers in the unavoidable battles of NIMBY?

Do only national interests count? What about the interests of Third World nations which are often used as cheap dumps for the industrialized nations' toxic wastes, which are often the sites of hazardous industries and technologies transferred from nations like the United States, and which are often the importers of pesticides, like DDT, banned for use in the United States? What about the rights of nations that are the victims of transboundary pollution, like acid rain, from other nations? Do not environmental impact assessments need to consider global consequences in an ecologically interdependent world?

Is "free and informed consent" by workers, communities, and nations a relevant moral consideration for the siting of toxic dumps and industries when the conditions of that consent cannot be satisfied--when, for example, the full risks are largely unknown or the relevant population is insufficiently educated, when genuine alternatives are not available because of economic necessity, or when the bargaining powers of the parties are no match for confronting economic and political principalities?[16]

These are among the many questions that a concern for distributive justice forces us to confront. The task is obviously formidable. Evaluations must be local and global, economic and ecological, immediate and, as I shall later argue, long-term.

Biotic Justice

Reflecting the anthropocentric imperialism dominant in our culture, the most likely parties to be excluded from distributive considerations are nonhuman species. Under the prevailing cultural paradigm, which has prompted wanton destruction of nonhuman populations and species in the twentieth century, humankind is an ecologically segregated species, designed for managerial domination and possessed with a virtually unrestricted right to exploit nature's bounty for human benefit. The Earth is defined exclusively by human purposes and subject entirely to human "improvements." The moral significance of otherkind is reduced to instrumental values--"renewable resources," "capital assets"--for human needs and wants, without regard for the fact that these others are also an astonishing diversity of lifeforms struggling for sustenance and space in complex interdependency. If, however, nonhuman life has a moral status independent of human purposes, anthropocentric imperialism is a serious moral deficiency.

In my view, the most defensible alternative to this paradigm is the extension of concepts of distributive justice beyond human relationships. This extension is an effort to redefine responsible human relationships with the rest of the planet's biota, and to ground these human responsibilities not only, weakly, in human utility or even generosity, but also, strongly, in the just dues and demands imposed on us by the vital interests of otherkind.

Otherkind seem to qualify for moral consideration in the process of just apportionment. They certainly have heavy stakes in the outcomes of public policies; indeed, they are vulnerable and powerless in the face of human hegemony. Moreover, whatever their instrumental values for human interests or ecosystems, they are also intrinsic values, ends or goods for themselves. These intrinsic values provide a sufficient moral basis for at least basic claims for justice from human communities. The moral issues surrounding this extension of justice to the rest of the biota are, of course, mind-numbing in their novelty and complexity.[17]

This concern for justice to nonhuman life represents a major dividing line between proponents and opponents of expansive production and consumption, because it introduces a major moral limit to economic activity that advocates of material growth generally do not perceive. If biophysical scarcity were not a problem for human relations and if nonhuman lifeforms were nothing but economic instruments to enhance human wealth and welfare, then expansive material prosperity would not be a problem of distributive justice. If, however, other species are ends or goods for themselves, obligations are imposed on the human community to restrict production and consumption in order to protect these biotic values. If so, economic policies need to pursue "the biocentric optimum," not the "anthropocentric optimum" of the first option.[18]

The biocentric optimum assumes that all species are entitled to a "fair share" of the goods, including the habitats, necessary for their welfare and perpetuation. Of course, defining a "fair share" is extremely difficult, particularly when humans must destroy other lifeforms in order to survive and create in a predatorial biosphere. Yet, it is a concept that we must struggle to define in order to stifle human imperialism over the rest of nature. We need moral limits to economic activity to prevent the excessive commodification and toxication of wildlife and wildlands. Profligate production and consumption are anthropocentric abuses of what God has designed for fair and frugal use in a universal covenant of justice.

Any morally acceptable resolution of the economics-ecology dilemma must advance distributive justice, providing a fair share of scarce resources to allparties with stakes in the outcome--and that includes the whole biotic community, human and nonhuman, present and future.

SUSTAINABILITY

The contemporary ecological crisis has brought into prominence a "new" ethical norm--though new only in the sense of being made explicit, rather than remaining implicit--namely, sustainability or responsibilities to future generations. Historically, Christian ethics generally assumed the moral validity of sustainability. Just as we have moral duties to strangers in remote lands, so we have duties to future strangers in remote times.[19] God's covenant is with you and "your offspring forever" (Gen. 13:15). But this assumption may be more of a liability than an asset. In the absence of historical controversy and debate, Christian ethics generally has not fine-tuned its case for sustainability. It has not yet had anything substantial to say on a norm of monumental significance. Thus, a major task of Christian ethics--and, in fact, all other ethics--is to interpret sustainability, particularly its moral significance and implied responsibilities, and to evaluate prevailing social-ecological models, notably"sustainable development," in the light of this norm.

The Nature of the Norm

What is sustainability? In the context of the economics-ecology dilemma, sustainability is living within the bounds of the regenerative, assimilative, and carrying capacities of the planet, consistently and indefinitely. Its prime concern is indefinitely extended intergenerational justice--not only, myopically, to our generation's children and grandchildren, but also to the progeny of all generations (and species), until the end of the age. It is a covenant of solidarity linking past, present, and future, on the assumption that the planet is "a global commons shared by each generation."[20] Sustainability seeks a just distribution between present and future generations, steering through the dilemmas by avoiding public policies that sacrifice one for the other, and following policies that ensure the ecological conditions necessary for thriving in both the present and future. Thus, "a sustainable society," according to the Worldwatch Institute, "is one that satisfies its needs without jeopardizing the prospects of future generations."[21] While we cannot know the precise forms of future generations' needs, we can reasonably anticipate (because they are our biological heirs) the general functions of their needs-for instance, sufficient and safe resources. Sustainability recognizes that though we mortals are by definition unsustainable, we have obligations to our successors, because the cultural and ecological heritage that we pass on will shape them and their prospects profoundly for good or ill.

Sustainability has become a celebrated norm today, particularly in some circles of environmentalists and economists, and with considerable justification. The evidence is compelling that a primary characteristic of present patterns of using the planet as source and sink is unsustainability. The moral tragedy of the ecological crisis is not only the damage done in the present, but the harm caused to future generations. Their vital interests are being sacrificed for present gratifications, particularly by the affluent. A portion of humanity is receiving generous benefits by living beyond planetary means, while future generations will bear most of the risks and costs--from nuclear wastes and possible climate change to species' extinctions and human overpopulation. Future generations will be major victims of our generation's excessive production, consumption, toxication, and reproduction.

The concern for sustainability forces us to think prospectively, in formidable ways that almost defy imagination. The current time stress is on decades, which is imperative and laudable in light of the rapidity of change (but also absurd when, for example, the problems are nuclear wastes and incremental extinctions). Thus, the U.S. Competitiveness Policy Council defines the long-range future as somewhat longer than ten years,[22] the Environmental Futures Project of the Science Advisory Board of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency defines it as thirty years, and some contemporary environmentalists as seven generations. All of these perspectives are important, particularly when the political premium is on immediacy or at the latest the "next election." But they are not the genuinely long-run perspective,[23] which may, in fact, shift current interpretations of responsibilities. For instance, low risks defined in decades, such as nuclear energy wastes or irrigation from nonrenewable aquifers, may be high risks if the benefits are in the present but the liabilities are postponed to the far-off future, or if the full costs over time are counted equally and compounded fairly. Again, adaptability or flexibility must be built into our present projects, such as protecting humanly threatened species or ecosystems, to allow for unpredictable, long-term shifts in ecological dynamics-such as climate changes, natural calamities, or normal population fluctuations.[24] Sustainability compels us to think in centuries, perhaps even millennia, particularly if one moral objective is to perpetuate the human species and its successors until the end of their natural time. Our responsibilities seem to extend as far into the future as our influences are significant and plausibly foreseeable. Thus, a commitment to sustainability asks: Considering the diverse ecological harms caused by humans over the brief span of economic modernity, what responsibilities are demanded of us now for the sake of the genuinely long run? Despite the difficulties in this question, we often have enough evidence for at least suspecting future outcomes and thereby making reasonable estimates of our duties.

The concern for sustainability also forces us to think holistically. For the sake of both present and future generations, our assessments of environmental risk must abandon the prevailing individualistic and isolationistic approaches. Cumulative, synergistic, and persistent effects of, say, pollution and extinctions now must carry much greater weight. How, for example, should we deal with a potential problem that may be extremely serious for future generations: the prospect of cumulative catastrophes, in which many single, small hazards, each of which is now "allegedly acceptable," combine into a dangerously unacceptable aggregate over time?[25] With tens of thousands of synthetic chemicals interacting in the atmosphere, ecosystems depending on sometimes unknown keystone species, deforestation affecting hydrological cycles and climate changes, and a host of other connections, the problem is neither trivial nor simple. Similarly, an abundance of microeconomic activities by corporations, each of which is ecologically tolerable in isolation, may be ecologically intolerable when the combined effects are considered in a macroeconomic context. This problem is generally ignored by those who claim that continuing and substantial business growth is compatible with sustainability.[26] In contrast, Herman Daly and John Cobb rightly stress the importance of the "optimal scale of the economy relative to the ecosystem."[27] Sustainable strategies must reflect the fact that we live in an interdependent and interactive ecosphere in which the cumulative economic activities in the present may have severe, even catastrophic, consequences for the future.

Thus, sustainability proceeds with cautious care, as a way of minimizing the risks of disaster in the light of the virtual inevitability of human error and evil. Sustainability seeks to leave the ecosphere to our successors in as healthy a condition as it was received, and even to enhance this condition by cleaning up the messes that our forebears left behind. Sustainability pollutes no more, and preferably far less to allow a substantial margin of error, than can be naturally assimilated. It depletes renewable resources no more, and preferably far less, than their rate of regeneration. It depletes nonrenewable resources only to the extent that it can provide substitutions, preferably renewable ones like solar energy for the overuse of fossil fuels, as reparations or compensation to future generations. It reproduces no more, and preferably far less, than is compatible with preserving the ecological conditions necessary for the continuous thriving of humans and other species. Clearly, as these generic responsibilities suggest, sustainability depends on a host of complex calculations. It has nothing in common with simplicity.

From a perspective of sustainability, future interests cannot be arbitrarily discounted or depreciated. Discounting functions as a euphemism for stealing from the future. Any preferential treatment for the present must be justified on the criteria of distributive justice, especially morally relevant differences. These can be a heavy burden of proof.

Despite the growing popularity of sustainability as a moral norm, one must exercise great caution in evaluating various interpretations of sustainability. In fact, in many interpretations, the definitional character of sustainability as responsibility for future generations seems to be lost or diminished.[28] In a bizarre irony, the future is discounted in the name of the norm that denounces such discounting!

Sustainable Development

Sustainability is not the same as "Sustainable Development" (SD), the dominant, fashionable, and still conceptually incoherent slogan in which the idea of sustainability is most frequently embodied. The slogan is popular--even faddish--today. SD was a major theme of Our Common Future by the World Commission on Environment and Development and of the United Nations' Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio, June, 1992. President Clinton embraced the slogan in his Council on Sustainable Development, as did a new department in the United Nations. In both "official" and popular usage, however, the term is often characterized by a "politically expedient fuzziness." Its value is in vagueness, which enables an apparent reconciliation of interests in generalities that are probably irreconcilable on specifics.[29] SD in most cases is still a slogan in search of a significant and shared interpretation.

A large part of the problem is that SD suffers from multiple interpretations, some solid and some mushy. I can readily accept, for example, J. Ronald Engels'"radical" redefinition of SD as the "kind of human activity that nourishes and perpetuates the historical fulfillment of the whole community of life on Earth." For Engels, SD includes social and ecological justice, qualitative change rather than quantitative growth, participatory democracy, etc. He sees the term as evolving positively and worthy of preserving as a means of bonding divided forces.[30] Equally, I feel generally comfortable with the interpretations of SD in Paul Hawken[31] and Herman Daly and John Cobb.[32] But these interpretations, though they have many elements in common with other interpretations, are not the dominant ones. The term also shows signs of negative evolution, becoming little more than a euphemistic synonym for the continuation--indeed, the universalization--of the current economic paradigm, while maximizing efficiency and providing environmental protections to the extent necessary to perpetuate that paradigm.[33]

The term, in fact, has been subject to cooptation, to give an aura of moral respectability to practices that seem alien to the moral intention of the concept.[34] For instance, Gro Harlem Brundtland, the Prime Minister of Norway and the celebrated chair of the World Commission on Environment and Development, defended resumption of minke whaling by Norway, in defiance of the International Whaling Commission, on grounds that these cetaceans have become abundant and need to be harvested for "sustainable management."[35] This interpretation of SD--or really rationalization to preserve the Norwegian whaling industry-- stretches precariously even the ambiguous and anthropocentric interpretation of her World Commission. The cooptations of SD remind us that no slogan is ever really safe from malinterpretations or useful without substance.

SD, however, is much more than a slogan; it also has a substance-- in fact, different substances in different interpretations. If SD has an "official" substance, however, it will be found in the principles of the Rio Declaration and the chapters of Agenda 21, the comprehensive agreements for international action, both emerging from the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED, June, 1992).[36] It will also be found in Our Common Future by the UN's World Commission on Environment and Development,[37] which was the catalyst and foundation for UNCED. UNCED never specifically defines SD, though the term is used abundantly (and not clearly consistently) in the forty chapters of Agenda 21. It comes close to a definition, however, in Principle 3 of the Rio Declaration: "The right to development must be fulfilled so as to equitably meet developmental and environmental needs of present and future generations."[38] This understanding of SD is dominant throughout Agenda 21, and corresponds with the definition of SD in Our Common Future:

Sustainable development seeks to meet the needs and aspirations of the present without compromising the ability to meet those of the future. Far from requiring the cessation of economic growth, it recognizes that the problems of poverty and underdevelopment cannot be solved unless we have a new era of growth in which developing countries play a large role and reap large benefits.[39]

Our Common Future notes, however, that the "quality" or "content" of growth must be changed, to be "less material- and energy-intensive and more equitable in its impact."[40] In these interpretations of SD, the stresses are on both intergenerational and international equity.

As interpreted in Agenda 21 and the Rio Declaration, SD is a broad, complex, and morally ambiguous concept. On the one hand, some key elements are worthy of enthusiastic support--notably enhanced international cooperation (Rio Principle 5; Agenda 21 preamble); global economic equity (Agenda 21 chs. 3, 6, 7, 33); full and equal rights to political participation, particularly for women (Principle 20; ch. 24) and indigenous peoples (Principle 22; ch.25); and environmental-developmental integration (Principle 4; ch. 8). Important value questions, of course, must be raised about the particulars in each. On the other hand, some key elements seem ethically unacceptable-notably sovereign rights of all nations to exploit their natural resources without external interference (Principle 2); the consistently anthropocentric orientation which reduces otherkind to instrumental values or "capital assets" (Principle 1; chs. 11, 15, 16, 17); the banalities on overpopulation (ch. 5) and overconsumption (ch. 4); and the blandly optimistic and simplistic concept of substantial and sustainable economic growth in all countries (Principle 12; chs. 3.3, 9.3). If these latter elements are inherent components of SD, then those who reject them must also reject SD in itself. If, however, SD is not bound to these particular policy directions, then the question is still open on whether or not SD itself can be a generally acceptable paradigm that is subject to debate and reform on its programmatic particulars. But if so, one must then indicate the specific version of SD that one advocates or rejects before the term can have any clear meaning, and even then it will have that clarity only in a given context and not generically. Thus, SD seems to need not only a lot more definitional clarity but a much greater development, indeed transformation, of its purposes and goals. But these changes probably would make SD unacceptable to the majority of its current fans! Despite, or partly because of, the content given by UNCED, SD remains both a slogan and a standard in search of a shared and significant interpretation. Moreover, for some additional reasons, SD seems unlikely to rise above that status.

The leading interpretations of SD are not consistently or sufficiently adequate to allow SD to serve as a comprehensive and consensual paradigm for our moral responsibilities in confronting the global economics-ecology dilemma. It sometimes appears that Agenda 21 does not adequately perceive the severity, interactivity, and magnitude of the problems, and, thus, the radical nature of the paradigm shift that seems necessary. In fact, it often seems to neglect the long-range future, thus discounting it, contrary to the moral essence of sustainability. SD is still a truncated model that fails to incorporate all relevant values--such as respect for the intrinsic values of nature, standards of sufficiency or frugality for the affluent, and norms for reproduction that recognize the global community, rather than simply the family or nation, as the morally relevant whole. Moreover, SD fails to interpret adequately some of the key values that it does incorporate. This is particularly evident in its simplicities and rigidities concerning sustainable growth and ecologically exploitative sovereignty. In so doing, SD distorts appropriate descriptions of our global moral responsibilities.

Thus, SD deserves mixed reviews from an ethical perspective-- particularly from one of Christian ethics. A task of Christian ethics is to advocate all and adequately the moral values that are socially and ecologically relevant and compatible with our theological affirmations, and to avoid being simply a promoter for the prevailing but shriveled values of our cultures. Christian ethics must be both culturally receptive, incorporating cultural wisdom for the sake of enhancing our moral expressions of the faith, andculturally maladjusted, functioning critically when necessary of cultural--in this case, political--malformations.

Moreover, symptomatic of the ethical deficiencies in SD, the term itself is a distortion of our moral responsibilities--and that is much more than a simple semantic problem, for language helps to shape our understandings and exercises of responsibilities. On the one hand, "sustainable" is not a sufficient qualifier of "development." Sustainability, of course, is an indispensable norm. No social and ecological ethic is adequate without stressing it. But it is not an all-encompassing norm that is sufficient in itself. It must be accompanied by and interactive with other norms of comparable value--particularly distributive, participative justice. If so, the World Council of Churches was on the right track in its former theme, the "just, sustainable, and participatory" society. Agenda 21 itself recognizes the insufficiency of sustainability, since much of its emphasis is on economic equity and full public participation. While probably all of its themes can be interpreted as relevant to some degree for the long-range future, its primary focus is often on the problems of the present and the directions for the near future--particularly on the maldistribution of economic resources and political power. This focus is critically important, but it is not appropriately described under the rubric of sustainability. Sustainability cannot serve as a substitute for other norms, lest these moral emphases be diminished, nor can it be submerged into them, lest sustainability itself be neglected. Justice also must be an explicit part of any adequate description of global moral responsibilities.

On the other hand, "development" is not a sufficient indicator of our ethical goals. "Development" is an equivocal word and concept. It comes in various models. One cannot endorse it apart from specific interpretations. It usually means primarily economic development. That is important for the nations of the South but not sufficient, as Agenda 21 itself recognizes. The mere word, however, tells nothing about the normative structure of communities or full human development, which is qualitative more than quantitative, and which may in some cultural settings be incompatible with high-tech industrialization.[41] Indeed, "development" is often a euphemism for economic "growth," as it usually is in most interpretations of SD. But unless the concept of growth is used and implemented discriminately, it will at least appear to many to be little more than a continuation of the very pattern that has helped cause ecocrisis. Moreover, development deals with improvements for human communities. One of our ecological responsibilities, however, is to avoid undue "development" of a variety of ecosystems out of respect for the rest of the biota!

Consequently, SD is not a satisfactory description of our full social and ecological responsibilities in a global setting. We need a better and broader description.

None of this means, however, that we should totally abandon SD. Actually, SD defines some of our social and ecological responsibilities fairly well. In particular, its integration of environmental and developmental concerns seems to be an essential response to the economicsecology dilemma under conditions of mass poverty--though this response is not primarily about sustainability, nor should it necessarily be. SD is a potentially valuable synthesis of two imperatives in tension. On the one hand, poor nations need economic development in order to satisfy their citizens' basic needs for food, health care, housing, energy, education, and infrastructure. These needs certainly entail increased material productivity--economic growth for a time. On the other hand, poor nations also need ecological security, living within the ecological limits of their regions. These twin objectives will require a virtual revolution in energy and technical efficiency, ecologically compatible technology, comprehensive recycling, resource and waste management, protection of biodiversity, regulatory prohibitions and disincentives (like full-cost pricing), the elimination of governmental subsidies which function as incentives for environmental degradation, limits to economic inequality, enhanced governmental integrity and effectiveness, and population stabilization--to name only the most apparent. These are essentially the same as the requirements for the affluent world, but with the added complication of starting from a much lower base. Yet, none of this seems possible, as Agenda 21 recognized, without major economic and technological transfers from the industrialized nations-and also, in my view, not without limits on production and consumption in the affluent nations to enable the material conditions for sustainable development globally.

Thus, SD, if refined, can be an important but partial expression of the norms of justice and sustainability. Nevertheless, neither justice nor sustainability can be credible or effective apart from frugality by the affluent.

FRUGALITY

An ethically adequate response to the contemporary economicsecology dilemma must highlight the relevance of an old and honored virtue that was once near the heart of Christian economic ethics, but a virtue that has become one of the most neglected and unnerving norms in modern morality: frugality!

Historically, frugality was a prime Christian norm. It was, for example, a prominent practice in the patristic and monastic traditions--though the vow of voluntary poverty in caring community often led beyond the moderation characteristic of frugality to various degrees of austerity. Moreover, frugality combined with industry, honesty, equity, generosity, piety, and covenantal solidarity constituted the core of the classical "Protestant ethic," which Max Weber described, with some exaggeration, as "worldly asceticism."[42] Both traditions reflect the fears about the spiritual perils of prosperity and the commitment to frugal consumption "in the service of love" evident in the churches of the New Testament.[43]

Yet, in contemporary cultures which celebrate the prospects of progressive plenty, frugality is often greeted with bemusement, ridicule, or even contempt. Frugality is the "miserly virtue," according to Lord Keynes, appropriate only to historical conditions of scarcity and now anachronistic under conditions of high productivity.[44] Even in Christian ethics (perhaps accommodating to these cultural values for the sake of political realism and/or reacting to the moral distortions of frugality among some of our forbears), frugality is usually forgotten or demoted. Often, frugality is figleafed with a generic appeal for a stewardship without specified standards or responsibilities.

Frugality, however, is not an anachronistic or innocuous norm--an "old fashioned" and "garden variety" virtue. On the contrary, it is a richly relevant and potentially transformative standard for production and consumption. Solutions to major social and ecological problems depend on the revival of this virtue and its re-formation into a social norm.

The Subversiveness of Frugality

In the contemporary economic and ecological context, frugality is the subversive virtue, because it is a revolt against an economic system that depends upon compulsive consumption and production to keep the system going and growing. It is an encounter with an economic ethos that cannot afford frugality if that ethos is to survive, and it is an effort to resist, even undermine, the central assumptions of that ethos. Three basic and interrelated characteristics of this "revolt" or subversiveness are important to note here.

First, frugality is the rejection of the "rational maximizer" assumed in some mainstream economic theory. This atomistic and egoistic creature is not an empirically grounded description but rather a fabrication drawn from pop psychology. In this model, "rationality" means maximizing selfinterest by individuals motivated by insatiable desires for economic gain. Rational and moral become synonymous. Personal vices like greed and gluttony become public virtues through the "Invisible Hand."[45] The function of economic institutions is to respond to the indefinitely elastic demands of these mythical humans--and to try to re-create real humans into that image by constantly stimulating demands. On these assumptions, frugality is irrational. Yet, as the antithesis of the consumerism and prodigality of affluent and effluent societies, frugality is living refutation of this simplistic moral anthropology and its self-fulfilling prophecy. It witnesses to the fact that humans are far more than instinctive bundles of insatiable appetites. They do have the moral capacities to control and distribute consumption.

Second, frugality is resistance to the temptations of consumer promotionalism--particularly the ubiquitous advertising, which pressures us to buy abundantly. By resisting these temptations, frugality is again a witness to the fact that humans are far more than manipulable consumers. It is an affirmation of human dignity--our moral potential, our deepest yearnings, our status as ends, not simply means--against the onslaught of mass manipulation. It is also an expression of purchasing power, with some potential for redirecting economic production to better means and ends.[46]

Third, and most important, ethically conscious frugality is a rejection of the prevailing ideology of indiscriminate economic growth. At this point we confront a fundamental claim of nearly all the major contemporary advocates of ethically conscious frugality, including Herman Daly,[47] John Cobb,[48] William Ophuls,[49] Christopher Lasch,[50] lan Barbour,[51] Lester Milbrath,[52] Theodore Roszak,[53] Lester Brown,[54] and Alan Durning:[55] In the light of planetary limits, frugality is a prime condition for the ethical acceptability of a new economic paradigm to replace the model of materially quantitative, indiscriminate growth. Frugality is a revolt against the Sumptuous Society. Thus, it rejects the gluttonous self-indulgence, compulsive acquisitiveness, competitive consumerism, casual wastefulness, and ostentatious materialism promoted by the peddlers of economic "progress."

What Is Frugality?

Frugality denotes moderation, temperance, thrift, cost-consciousness, efficient usage, and a satisfaction with material sufficiency--similar to the "contentment" celebrated in the first Pauline letter to Timothy (6:610). As a norm for economic activity, whether for individuals or societies, frugality means morally disciplined production and consumption for the sake of some higher ends. It is a means, an instrumental value, not an end in itself. As such, frugality thrives on conscientious conservation, restrained consumption, comprehensive recycling, and an insistence on built-in durability and repairability.[56] Overall, frugality should be understood as one dimension of stewardship, but if so, that dimension should be explicit and prominent, which it is not in most popular interpretations of stewardship.

Some might argue that temperance is a better word for the perspective and practices I am describing. This argument has some historical merit. In classical philosophy and theology, temperance was one of the four cardinal virtues and, like frugality, referred to the mean between deficiency and excess. It was the opposite of gluttony and greed, two of the seven "deadly" or principal sins in classical thought--and, indeed, major expressions of the "pride of power" that Reinhold Niebuhr saw as destroying nature.[57] Unfortunately, "temperance" was stripped of its classical meaning by some of our Protestant ancestors in their Prohibition campaign of the early twentieth century. Popularly, the word becomes synonymous with abstinence from "beverage alcohol." Consequently, temperance no longer has the rich breadth of meaning that it had in classical thought. Still, frugality seems to be more than an adequate substitute. It seems to me to be the preferable word and concept here, because, unlike temperance, the meaning of frugality is generally restricted to my central concern of economic activity.

Similarly, some might argue that "sufficiency" is a better term. This argument, too, has merit.[58] Frugality certainly includes sufficiency, but it is more than sufficiency. Sufficiency does not seem to comprehend the full economic connotations and consequences of frugality. In fact, frugality may be a less popular concept than sufficiency precisely because the former is clearer and more realistic in conveying the disciplined constraint and even sacrifice that are necessary as an adequate response to the economics-ecology dilemma. The same criticism applies, but even more forcefully, to Theodore Roszak's use of "plenitude" to give disciplined consumption honorific connotations.[59] Nevertheless, sufficiency, frugality, and even plenitude are useful concepts. Perhaps sufficiency and plenitude are best understood as ends to which frugality, always an instrumental norm, is the means.

I am not, however, wedded to a word. I can accept a variety of words, so long as they convey the full moral implications of frugality.

Distortions of Frugality

Unfortunately, frugality has been linked to values and practices which are not inherent characteristics of frugality and which may, in fact, distort its moral significance. The revival of frugality as a relevant norm depends on a dissociation from these distortions.

1 ) Frugality is not austerity--though if frugality is not chosen under certain conditions, biophysical limitations may impose austerity. For the balanced John Calvin, who argued that the godly life should "bear some resemblance to a fast"[60] and yet resources should be used not only for necessity but also for"delight and good cheer,"[61] austerity is "too severe;" it "degrades" us into "blocks."[62] In praise of frugality, Calvin denounced both excess and deficiency. This balance seems essential to the nature of frugality.

This balance, however, does not contradict the choice of voluntary poverty as a calling for some--particularly in identifying with the poor and witnessing against economic injustice. This is a noble vocation.[63] For the rest of us, however, while the calling to frugality does not require sharing in poverty, it still demands sharing in solidarity to eliminate poverty.

2) Frugality is not a world-denying asceticism that makes us feel competihvely righteous--but woefully deprived. It is not the triumph of the spirit over the flesh. It is not the self-mortification of some of the saints for the sake of spiritual purification, nor the elitist means of some of the Puritans for proving their divine election. These atomistic and ethereal distortions fail to reflect the communitarian and materialistic character of authentic frugality.

3) Frugality is not legalism. It does not lend itself to fixed formulas or casuistic rules. It is a relative concept, expressing a fittingness to appropriate ends.[64] Frugality allows for considerable variation in practices, depending on different needs, tastes, and talents; available resources; social and ecological conditions, etc. And surely there are even occasions for indulgence-for a festive frugality!

Still, the relativity of frugality is problematic. It can be an open invitation to rationalizations of excess. In this context, while we cannot have fixed rules, advocates do need to develop principles of frugality--and these principles must highlight just distribution (socially, intergenerationally, and ecologically), and place a burden of proof on luxuries for some in the absence of necessities for all.

4) Frugality is not a strategy for keeping the poor in their place. This distortion can be found occasionally--and not always subtly.[65] In contemporary debates about economic maldistribution, it is often argued that the globalization of North American standards of living would be ecologically disastrous. Yet, it would be ethically discriminatory to tolerate a double track, in which the nations of the South restrict their production and consumption while the nations of the North continue on the path of prosperity.

Frugality, however, as a middle way, is inherently concerned about both overconsumption and underconsumption. Its objective is not to keep the poor in their place, but to enable the poor to rise to a new and adequate place. On a planet with limited resources and a dramatically increasing population, this objective entails both floors and ceilings on production and consumption. The moral claim of frugality is directed not at the poor but at the prosperous.

5) Frugality is not a turn or return to a rustic or pastoral setting. This way of life can have a moral integrity that is worthy of commendation-and it usually is frugal. But it is possible, as well as desirable, only for a comparatively few. It cannot be generalized in a nation of nearly 260 million people, let alone on a planet approaching 6 billion. Nor can frugality be tied to a particular lifestyle; it is a generalizable norm, applicable to rural, suburban, and urban settings, local and global. Frugality is the rejection of a new Gilded Age, but it is not thereby the restoration of an old and largely idealized Arcadian Age.

6) Frugality is not simplicity. `Tis not necessarily a gift to be simple; it is a curse when complex problems require complicated solutions. Frugality is not an anti-intellectual phenomenon. For example, both the concept and the practice of frugality are in themselves complex, requiring sophisticated reflection on responsible consumption in relation to social and ecological conditions.[66] Nor is frugality an anti-technological phenomenon. It is quite compatible with a recognition of the ambiguities and great variations in the values of technologies. While some forms are socially and ecologically perilous, other technologies, like some medical innovations, can enhance the quality of life and expand human choices. Still others can improve energy efficiency, reduce toxic emissions, and advance ecological knowledge. Frugality offers no wholesale indictment or exoneration of technology. It insists, however, that acceptable technologies must be "appropriate" to relevant values and social and ecological conditions.[67] "Appropriate," in fact, allows for different scales of technology, from small to large, low to high tech, depending on the situations.

True, frugality includes the reduction of wants-a rejection of the ostentatious and excessive in favor of the functional, though not necessarily simple. Frugality also includes an appreciation of the free and ubiquitous goods of life-like natural beauties and wonders, but none of these is truly simple. There seems to be a great deal of equivocation in the usage of the word "simple," but none of these multiple and confused meanings is an appropriate synonym for frugality.

Frugality as the Quest of Abundant Life

The norm of frugality forces us to raise a number of basic questions about the adequacy of material provisions in relation to the "quality of life," questions that go far beyond the "crude and incomplete"[68] indicators of per capita income and gross national product now dominant in our culture. These questions include: What is a good "quality of life," and what kinds and amounts of goods are necessary or valuable for it? What is the relationship between "wealth" and "welfare"? Are our luxuries and conveniences significant benefits or liabilities to personal and communal enhancement? To what degree do they contribute to the thriving or depriving of others? Beyond the obvious reasons, why do we consume-- particularly the psychological and sociological reasons? How should we distinguish "needs" and "wants"? How should we reduce or redesign our wants? How can we be freed from being possessed by our possessions? How much is "enough" in quantity to sustain a reasonable quality of life, and to ensure that the rest of humanity and other species, present and future, have similar opportunities? If ecological scarcity is a reality, present or pending, what moral responsibilities arise for individuals and nations from this condition of existence? What must we sacrifice now for the sake of social and ecological sustainability in the future?

For Christians, the answers to these complex questions will depend in part on struggling with the counter-cultural values encountered in scripture. They will depend, for instance, on dealing with Jesus' radical critique of the idolatries commonly associated with wealth--the idea that one's treasures are indicators of ultimate values (Matt. 6:21). They will give heed to the wisdom in Jesus' parables of the rich, hoarding fool (Luke 12:15-21), the rich youth (Matt. 19:16-24; Luke 18:18-25), and the poor, generous widow (Luke 21:1-4), as well as to his disconcerting, hyperbolic teachings about alleviating materialistic anxiety (Luke 12:22-33; Matt. 6:25-33). In this view, there is, indeed, an insatiable yearning that is morally legitimate in the human creature, but it is not the unquenchable greed of the "rational maximizer." Rather, it is the persistent desire for values like love and justice and ultimate meaning that are beyond economic calculations. Christian answers will depend, moreover, on compatibility with the strong biblical commitment to justice.

Frugality is one strategic response to the above questions that seems consistent with the biblical witness, though it is not the only or most radical Christian response that may be so consistent. Frugality is a norm of moderation or balance that fits both scriptural witness and the needs of the age.

Frugality is an earth-affirming, enriching, even hedonistic norm that delights in the non- and less-consumptive joys of the mind and flesh, especially the enhanced lives in human communities and the habitats of other creatures that only constrained consumption can make possible on a finite planet. It is "sparing" in production and consumption--literally sparing of the scarce resources necessary for human communities and sparing of other species that are both values for themselves and instrumental values for human communities. It minimizes harm to other humans and otherkind, enabling thereby a greater thriving of all life. At its best, therefore, frugality can be described paradoxically as hedonistic selfdenial. It is a sensuous concern, or, as Alan Durning notes, "a true materialism that does not just care about things, but cares for them."[69] It is an affirmation of the biophysical in fidelity to the God who lovingly made the biophysical as Creator, who united lovingly with the biophysical as the incarnated Christ, and who dwells lovingly in the biophysical as the sacramentally present Spirit.

This type of frugality seeks the "plenitude"--the truly abundant life-- of which Roszak speaks. It is wanting more, but more of a different kind than economic abundance promises. It is being more rather than having more. Most subversively in a goutish, over-indebted culture, it is consuming less than we can afford. It is not shunning prosperity, but redefining prosperity in less consumptive forms. It is a concern not for the wealth of nations per se, but for the welfare of nations and nature. From the perspective of frugality, wealth has moral significance only insofar as it contributes to just and sustainable welfare--and it seeks to redefine both wealth and welfare in ways that cannot be simply correlated with economic indicators. Frugality is certainly not antagonistic to the great value of economic productivity; it is concerned only about sufficient productivity and the just distribution of the product.

Thus, the essence of frugality, from a Christian perspective, is sacrifice for the sake of Christ's cause of love, including justice. But it is a form of sacrifice that promises to bring fullness of being in solidarity.

As a norm of moderation, however, frugality does not go as far sacrificially as some might contend the Christian ethic itself demands or as far as some Christians believe that ethic demands vocationally for them.[70] The temperate character of frugality, however, is a distinct advantage over other contenders in the context of moral pluralism. Unlike austerity or other "severe" norms of consumption, which seem to depend on some Christian particularities concerning sacrifice, frugality is on common ground. It is an ethical norm that can be rationally justified and universalized in a morally pluralistic world, apart from appeals to privileged and parochial revelations or traditions. It is not dependent on a Christian confession, even though that confession may be a primary historical source of the norm or may provide the fullest warrant for the norm. A coherent case can be made for frugality as a rational and just response to the economics-ecology dilemma. Indeed, that case often is made by contemporary environmental and social analysts--and in ways that can substantially enrich Christian perspectives. The Spirit of divine wisdom cannot be confined within the bounds of Christian tradition; it enlightens whoever it wills through whatever sources--and Christians are wise to be receptive to that wisdom.

Frugality for Love, Justice, and Sustainability

Frugality in Christian interpretations is an expression of love--seeking the good or well-being of others in response to their needs and to the God who is love. The source of the sacrificial dimension in frugality is love of neighbor, for love always entails giving up at least some of our self-interests and benefits for the sake of the welfare of others in communal relationships.

The connection between frugality and love is common in much-berated Puritanism. It is found in John Winthrop's "A Model of Christian Charity": "in brotherly affeccion," we are called "to abridge our selves of our superfluities for the supply of others necessities"[71] (though Winthrop is also careful here, in a typical Puritan distortion of vocation, to remind his compatriots to stay in their stations). It is prominent in John Wesley's sermon on "The Use of Money," famous among Methodists for the homiletical maxim: "Gain all you can. Save all you can. Give all you can."[72] (with the emphasis on the last, at least for Wesley). William Penn focuses the connection sharply: "Frugality is good if Liberality be join'd with it. The first is leaving off superfluous Expences; the last bestowing them to the benefit of others that need."[73] For John Calvin, the "rule of moderation" is shaped by the "rule of love," as he spells out in nuanced detail.[74] Frugal self-denial leads to liberal help of neighbors, and both are part of stewardly accountability to God.[75] These interpreters rightly see that in the absence of generosity, in proportion to one's resources for present and potential needs, frugality is something else: miserliness or hoarding.

These Puritan positions on the frugality-love connection, however, are rooted in a long stewardship tradition of the church catholic. Indeed, similar comments, sometimes much stronger, can be cited from such Patristic theologians as John Chrysostom, Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, and Ambrose of Milan.[76]

Love, moreover, cannot be separated from justice. Distributive justice is one dimension of love. If so, frugality is an expression of love as distributive justice and sustainability (essentially distributive justice extended in time). In fact, frugality is a necessary condition of distributive justice and sustainability in situations of relative scarcity, where "enough" can be available for all--human and nonhuman kind, present and future--only if essential resources are not "hogged" by economic elites now.

Thus, from a Christian ethical perspective, frugality includes, as the tradition emphasized, positive duties--providing goods and services to others from our provisions. But it also, and more so in our social and ecological context, includes negative duties--non-interference through constrained consumption so that enough scarce goods are available for others to make provisions for themselves. Both by positive and negative duties, however, frugality defines in part the character and conduct of just neighbors.

The Damning Drawback

Traditionally, with a major exception being the early Calvinists, frugality has generally been interpreted as a personal virtue--a morally excellent trait or behavioral characteristic of individuals. A virtue issues in voluntary action. Not only means and ends but right motives matter. As a virtue, frugality is a feature of individual character ethics.

But frugality need not be so constricted. It can also be translated into a social norm, a standard for public practice. Both frugal persons and frugal societies can be moral realities. But when frugality is a social norm, its moral character, though not its substance, changes. The focus is now on social consequences rather than individual motives, on public decisions and structures more than personal character, on coercion as well as consent. Frugality is then a virtue only for those individuals who conscientiously and voluntarily practice it apart from social sanctions. In the light of the universal human tendency to grasp more than our due, however, a frugal society will never come by voluntarism alone. An operative social norm requires far more than the alleged Invisible Hand of the market; it requires the clearly Visible Hand of some level of public regulatory enforcement, in law and ethos, to compel privateers to serve vital public interests. Nevertheless, both personal virtues and social norms are necessary in public policy. Voluntary commitments and social sanctions function interactively.

Frugality is not a major problem for the Sumptuous Society when it is a personal virtue, even when practiced by hundreds of thousands of earnest individuals or thousands of conclaves of the committed. It is then more of an eccentric nuisance to the economy. But if frugality became a widespread social practice, even generating sufficient consent to initiate some structures of coercion, it would cause severe economic dysfunctions under the current system. The damning drawback of frugality as a social norm is that it is a formula for market depression in a socio-economic system that depends on expanding levels of production and consumption to keep the system going and growing.

Frugality as a social norm under the present system would mean significantly less economic stimuli as a result of decreased consumption. Thus, it would likely result in less productivity, fewer goods, smaller investments, lower profits, lower wages, higher unemployment, reduced public revenues, and decreased philanthropy. The social, not to mention the psychological consequences could be staggering, particularly for the poor and unemployed. Equitable distribution of limited resources would become an enhanced imperative but perhaps an even more difficult task. Internationally, the repercussions could be no less damaging, particularly for poor countries dependent on affluent countries for export markets and economic assistance. Undoubtedly, social and economic analysts could cite a host of other, intricately interwoven effects, both good and bad, of removing a major piece of an interdependent system. But this superficial analysis is sufficient to indicate the ambiguities of frugality--its long-term benefits and short-term liabilities. Frugality is an imperative for sustained human and biotic welfare, but it also could be a source of human agony under existing conditions. It is an essential condition of justice but potentially a temporary cause of injustice.

Does this ironic dilemma mean that ethics should forego frugality as a social norm? After all, ethical decisions regarding public policy must be made in the light of situational constraints to realize the "best possible." But that is not the same as diluting or distorting reasonable norms. No, the task of ethics is not to adapt its norms to fit current practices, but rather to challenge and enable societies to adapt their practices to fit ethical norms. That task will be supremely difficult in the case of frugality. Frugality simply does not fit the ethos of the Sumptuous Society. Frugality demands a new economic paradigm that fits this norm, because this norm fits, as indiscriminate growth does not, the biophysical limits of the planet to which all societies--and norms--must adapt.

Yet, for any ethics that claims consequences matter, the advocacy of frugality as a social norm is irresponsible apart from a concern for its potentially grievous economic effects, particularly the dangers of economic insufficiency and social injustices, and a commitment to envision and advance the policy directions for preventing these effects. Frugality need not have the predicted dire consequences that opponents love to recite in constructing a deterrent of fear. But we need technical models to show preventive alternatives. Indeed, some models already exist-for instance, the proposals of the Worldwatch Institute in the annual State of the World, the ecologically "restorative economics" of Paul Hawken,[77] and the "steady state" economy of Herman Daly.[78] These deserve serious consideration and critical review. Envisioning appropriate economies is an inherent part of the ethical task of promoting frugality as a social norm.

ARE THESE NORMS REALISTIC?

Is the social institutionalization of these three norms politically realistic? Of course, not! At least not if one expects full and/or immediate implementation. Of course, the same is also true of every other ethical norm that really matters, including elementary honesty in politics. In this case, however, the problem is severely exacerbated. A paradigm change of such magnitude, disrupting a way of life and adversely affecting every social institution in a multiplier effect, will be severely disorienting. Public resistance will be massive in affluent societies--particularly when concentrations of corporate economic power profoundly shape public opinion and literally buy the political process. The fact is that these three norms are far too radical to be now politically possible or realistic.

Yet, a great deal depends on how we define "realism." That is a slippery concept, subject to frequent equivocations and even more corruptions. As Beverly Harrison argues, the danger of political-moral realism is not in "hardheadedness" (its empirical approach, in fact, being a strength), but rather in the perversions of "hardheadedness."[79] If realism is understood as accommodation to the status quo because of the substantial unchangeability of that ethos, then it has degenerated into cynicism and moral determinism. It becomes a synonym for futility or despair. By resigning to the regnant powers, moreover, realism lends itself to "easy manipulation" by the beneficiaries of the status quo.[80] It is then a self-fulfilling prophecy, hindering the very goals it claims are impossible. The main problem with this alleged realism is that it is unrealistic, misreading reality through ideological lenses.

In contrast, an authentic realism demands illusionlessness but not visionlessness. We must always take seriously the pervasive and persistent powers of sin or self-interest and its injustices, particularly in the exaggerated forms of social collectives--the "principalities and powers." Resistance to moral norms is inevitable; some coercion of the recalcitrant (all of us to some degree and some of us to an extreme degree) is necessary. The realization of any norm in this context is partial, provisional, and precarious. Yet, an authentic realism also recognizes the potential for good in the ambiguous character of human beings and the genuine possibilities of various degrees of social transformation through substantive struggles over time. It does not succumb to the "myopic short-term thinking" of which Beverly Harrison rightly accuses deterministic distortions of realism.[81] Possibilities must be calculated not immediately but over time. In this sense of realism, the social institutionalization of these three norms is not perfectionistic. The norms are not beyond the bounds of the moral malleability of individuals and societies.

The prospects for these norms increase, however, when one looks at the other side: the consumptive model is itself economically and ecologically unrealistic! It is a biophysical impossibility over the long run. Since we cannot change biophysical possibilities, we have no choice but to change political possibilities. The quest of a just, sustainable, and frugal future is the only potentially realistic means of resolving the economicsecological dilemma--particularly when inequity and unsustainability are already serious problems and yet the human population will likely increase from the present 5.5 billion to over 10 billion by 2050! In this type of situation, a widespread consciousness of the alternatives can transform both political possibilities and a governing ethos.

Still, the prospects do not inspire optimism. The task is daunting, but it is also necessary and not hopeless. New possibilities are always emerging on the socioeconomic scene, often as a consequence of necessity but also, from the perspective of faith, by the interventions of the God who creates new possibilities. In response, a perennial task of Christian ethics is to help us envision and realize an expansion of political possibilities-in this case, new possibilities that correspond with the vision of a just, sustainable, and frugal world economy.

NOTES