visser_logo_small.gif (1783 bytes)Women and Work in a Sustainable Society
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Section headings:

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1. Introduction

dot.gif (101 bytes) 6. Megatechnology, Commodification of Life and the End of Ethics
dot.gif (101 bytes) 2. "Add 'gender' and stir?" dot.gif (101 bytes) 7. The Need for an Alternative Perspective
dot.gif (101 bytes) 3. Colonizing women, nature and foreign peoples - the secret of permanent growth or accumulation dot.gif (101 bytes) 8. New Priorities
dot.gif (101 bytes) 4. Women's Work in the Global Economy dot.gif (101 bytes)

9. References

dot.gif (101 bytes) 5. Employment or Work?

 

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7.c.5  A new Concept of Satisfaction of Needs

A different definition of "good life" and an improvement of the quality of life implies different forms of satisfying fundamental human needs. Max-Neef and his colleagues, who developed this concept of fundamental human needs, stress that fundamental human needs are universal, but that their satisfiers - the means and ways how these needs are satisfied - vary according to culture, region, historical conditions. In capitalist industrial societies, commodities have become the determinant satisfiers: "In industrial capitalism the production of economic goods along with the system of allocating them has conditioned the type of satisfiers that predominate" (Max-Neef et al 1989:27). 1 find the distinction between needs and satisfiers useful for our discussion on consumer liberation, because it allows seeing that there are different ways to satisfy the same fundamental human needs. Max-Neef and his colleagues identified nine fundamental human needs, namely: Subsistence (health, food, shelter clothing etc.), Protection (care, solidarity, work etc.), Affection (self-esteem, love, care, solidarity etc.), Understanding (study, learning, analysis, etc.), Participation (responsibilities, sharing of rights and duties), idleness (curiosity, imagination, games, relaxation, fun), Creation (intuition, imagination, work, curiosity etc.), Identity (sense of belonging, differentiation, self-esteem), Freedom (autonomy, self-esteem, self- determination, equality).

These fundamental human needs are universal; they are the same in rich and poor, "overdeveloped" and "underdeveloped" countries. In "overdeveloped" industrial societies these needs are satisfied almost exclusively by satisfiers which have to be bought in the market, which are produced industrially, and which very often are pseudo-satisfiers, because they do not in the end respond to the need - like cars bought for status purposes, or cosmetics bought to satisfy the need for love - they are sometimes simply destructive. The arms race, e. g. is legitimized by the need for Protection, the need for Subsistence, the need for Freedom.

If we try to break out of the mental framework which industrial society has created and exported to all poor countries we discover that there would be many different ways, many of them not dependent on the market, to satisfy those fundamental needs Take the need for affection. Many women in the affluent societies try to satisfy the need for affection and recognition by going on a shopping; spree. Many buy clothes to satisfy this need. They hope that by following the latest fashion they will win the affection of their partners, of their surroundings in general. The self-esteem of women in our societies is closely linked to their outward appearance. We also know, that in spite of these efforts at compensatory consumption, this need for affection and self-esteem is never satisfied by buying new clothes or other pseudo-satisfiers. The women compensate a deep human need by buying a commodity. Within a consumer liberation movement one would have to find or invent new ways, particularly non-commoditized ways, to satisfy this need for affection and respect. For children, for example, this might mean spending more time with them or playing with them more instead of buying them ever more toys. Many non-commoditized satisfiers have the advantage of being synergetic. This means they satisfy not one but several need at a time. If one takes the time to play with children, a number of needs are satisfied: the need for affection, for protection, for understanding, for idleness, freedom, identity. And this applies both to the children and to the grownups in the interaction. If fundamental human needs are satisfied in non-commercial ways - I call them subsistence ways - the processes of satisfaction are often reciprocal: the one who gives something also receives something.

If such a change of life style would happen in the rich countries on a big scale, it would not only halt the destruction of the ecology and stop the exploitation of the Third World, it would also change the model for imitative and compensatory consumption which middle class people in the North provide both for the lower classes in their own country and for people of the South. Patterns of consumption of the North are imported into countries of the South and imitated there by political and economic elites. These consumption patterns then lead to more dependency, indebtedness, internal imbalances and a loss of cultural identity (Max-Neef et at 1989:47).

Max-Neef and his colleagues stress the need to break away from imitative consumption patterns in the Third World to free these countries from economic and cultural dependence and to make more efficient use of their own resources for their own well-being. It would be a necessary step for Third World countries towards self-reliance. In my view, however, a breaking away from imposed consumption patterns would also be a necessary step toward self-reliance of hitherto "overdeveloped", affluent societies. Most of these depend, as we saw, to a large extent on the exploitation of Third World countries and their resources. If sustainability and self-reliance are considered the correct path for countries of the South, they must necessarily also be the correct path for the countries of the North.

To cite an example, this was proposed by the poor rural and urban women at the workshop on sustainability in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992. These women - small producers, gatherers, poor peasants etc. - suggested closer links between rural producers and urban consumers, a direct exchange between different producers outside the money-economy, a direct exchange of different types of knowledge between different groups of women and men, a direct link also between Third world and First World women (Viezzer et al. 1992)

7.c.6  New Values and new Economic and Political Structures

These women also spelled out clearly a whole set of new values and principles which would be necessary if the aim were true social and ecological sustainability. The following are among those which they specified:

  • deliberate simplicity, not as an ascetic value but as a better life in harmony with nature and in peace with our fellow-beings on earth
  • self-reliance and self-provisioning instead of dependence on external import and export
  • co-operation instead of competition
  • respect for all people and all creatures
  • respect for the earth and its diversity

Implied in this list of new values is also the rejection of self-interest as the only driving force in economics. The women insisted on unitedness, togetherness, sharing as an important new value for survival. These values were not only ethical postulates but were already practiced in many of their grass-roots movements. They were necessary for their survival. The poor women in Rio said that their vision of a positive alternative to the destructive global supermarket-model in their local situation would also work at the global level. In order to realize these values, however, a restructuring at the economy as a whole has to take place at all levels. Here are some of the main features they suggest:

8. New Priorities

1. Agriculture before industry. As food still comes out of the earth, sustainable agriculture cannot be based on the industrial model and on global agro-business. Small peasants must be strengthened. Many more people than now can work in agriculture.

2. Land reform is urgently necessary. But it should be combined with ecological considerations.

3. Producer-Consumer Co-operatives cannot only guarantee the small producers a regular income but will also contribute to reduction of ecologically dangerous agricultural inputs like pesticides etc.

4. Such rural-urban links will also teach the urban consumers again the importance and the value of the work on the land and with nature. They will also make sure that unnecessary and dangerous things will not be produced (Viezzer et al. 1992).

I want to add to these suggestions what Helena Norberg-Hodge, Goering and Page propose for a restructuring of agriculture towards true sustainability or subsistence:

  • "Moving away from the centralising patterns of capital- and energy-intensive development towards real practical and economic decentralization

  • Removing subsidies that encourage agro-business and vast trading networks at the expense of small farmers producing for local markets

  • Taking steps (including economic incentives) to help farmers to make the transition to organic methods of cultivation

  • Supporting farm research and regions: information exchange

  • Removing funding for industrial agricultural programmes in order to support the recovery of indigenous systems

  • Changing the role of education ... in order to restore respect for agriculture as a profession and to reflect the diversity of environments and cultures" (Goring/Norberg-Hodge 1993)

The implementation of such suggestions and principles necessarily requires further structural changes, such as:

5. New rural-urban links and the principle of self-reliance and food security will require much smaller, decentralized economic reasons, also called bio- or eco-regions. Such bio-regions will be able to produce what is necessary for the basic survival in that region. The mainstream principle of comparative cost-benefit advantages and the globalization of the world-market will be abolished.   Trade and import will play a secondary and additional role. People will export what they produce over and above the satisfaction of their basic needs They will not starve while they produce luxury items for the affluent.

6. New global links will follow the same principle. This will lead to a shrinking of world trade, of transport costs, of packaging and waste, of dangerous and exploitative production relations, of monocultures etc.  More or less self-reliant societies in the South will necessarily lead to a restructuring of the industrial societies in the direction of more diversified economies. An economy like the German one, in which every third job is dependent on export is simply not sustainable.

7. World trade, whatever will be left of it, will be based on the principle of fair trade. This means work everywhere must have the same value. The phenomenon of "cheap labour" countries will no longer exist.

8. Bio-regionalism, decentralization, close rural-urban links will also restructure the relationship between the so-called private and public spheres, between production and consumption. As house work, communal work, ecological work will have the same status as wage-labour, much more work will be available nearby.

9. Reclaiming the commons: One of the demands of people driven away from their habitat is the resistance towards privatisation of traditional cultural and economic commons. The resistance of the Indian peasants against the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRlPs) of the GATT is a case in point (Shiva/Mies 1993). Ecological resources like water, air, land. forests, deserts, oceans, life etc but also the collective knowledge of a people are not to be privatized and commodified.

10. Money will be used as a means of circulation, an instrument of exchange only, not as a means of accumulation. For that interest has to be reduced or abolished, as Gsell suggested (Kennedy, Binswanger l992).

It is clear that all these new values, principles, structures require an altogether different anthropology, cosmology and epistemology than the existing mainstream one. But as the processes of restructuring the world toward what I call a subsistence perspective - others call it a sustainable perspective - are already underway, particularly at the grassroots-level in many parts of the South, this new world view will definitely also emerge. In these processes people are already practicing a different approach, a different understanding of politics, participatory politics instead of centralized representative politics. This is a sign of hope.

Maria Mies, 5 May 1995

9. References

Binswanger, Hans-Christof. 1991 Geld and Nature. Das wirtschaftliche Wachstum im Spannungsfeld zwischen Ökonomie and Ökologie. Edition Weitbrecht, Thienemanns Vedag. Stuttgart, Wien.
Brown, Lester R. (ed). 1993. State of the World. A World-Watch-Institute Report. Horizon India Books. New Delhi.
Club of Rome. 1991. The First Global Revolution. (transl. into German: Die Globale Revolution) Spiegel Spezial Nr. 2 1991. Hamburg.
Daly, Herman and J. Cobb. 1989. For the Common Good: Redirecting the Economy Toward Community, the Environment and a sustainable Future. Beacon Press.
Elson, Diana. 1994. Uneven Development and the Textiles and Clothing industry. In Sklair L. (ed.) Capitalism and Development. Routledge London.
Goring, Peter, Norberg-Hodge, Helena, Page, John. 1993. From the Ground up. Rethinking Industrial Agriculture. Zed Books. London.
Henderson, Hazel 1993. Paradigms in Progress: Life Beyond Economics. Adamantine Press. London.
Kennedy, Margrit. 1990. Geld one Zinsen und Inflation. Ein Tauschmittel, das jedem dient. Goldmann. München.
King, Ursula. 1993. Women and Spirituality; Voices of Protest and Promise. Pennsylvania State University Press. Pennsylvania.
Lummis, D.C. 1992. "Equality" in W. Sacks (ed.): The Development Dictionary. A Guide to Knowledge and Power, p. 38. Zed Books. London
Max-Neef, Manfred et at. 1989. Human Scale Development: An Option for the Future, Development Dialogue Reprint from l989. CEPAUR, Dag Hamarskjöld Foundation. Santiago de Chile.
Mies, Maria, Bennholdt-Thomsen, Veronika, v. Werlhof, Claudia. 1988. Women, the Last Colony. Zed Books. London.
Mies, Maria. 1992 "Do we need a new Moral Economy" Paper (unpublished)
Mies, Maria. 1991. Patriarchy and Accumulation: Women in the International Division of Labour. Zed Books London (4th edition).
Mies, Maria, Shiva, Bandana. 1993. Ecofeminism. Zed Books. London.
Mies, Maria. 1993. Consumption Patterns of the North - The Cause of Environmental Destruction and Poverty in the South, in F.C. Steady (ed) Women and Children First, Environment, Poverty and Sustainable Development. Schenkman Books, lnc. Rochester. Vermont
Patnaik, Utsa. 1993. "Impact of Economic Liberalization and Adjustment on the Food Security in India". Paper presented at the lLO/National Commission for Women National Workshops on Employment, Equality and Impact of Economic Reform for Women, New Delhi 27 - 29. January 1993 (unpublished paper)
Plumwood, Val. 1993 Feminism and the Mastery of Nature. Routledge. London.
Sarker, Saral. 1987. Die Bewegung und ihre Strategie - Ein Beitrag zum notwendigen Klärungsprozeß. in Kommune. Frankfurt.
Schmidtheiny, Stephan. l992. Kurswechsel. Globale unternehmerische Perspektiven für Entwicklung; und Umwelt. Artemis & Winkler. München. Changing Course - A Global Perspective on Development and the Environment. M.I.T. Cambridge (1992).
Schumacher, E.F. 1973. Small is Beautiful. A Study of Economics As if People Mattered. Blond and Briggs Ltd. London.
Shrivastava, Rashmi. 1994. Women Leadership in Saving Environment: A Case Study of Medha Patkar. Paper presented at XVI. IPSA World Congress, 21-25 August 1994, Berlin.
Sklair, Leslie. 1994 Capitalism and Development in Global Capitalism. In Sklair L. (ed.) Capitalism and Development. Routledge London
Steinem, Gloria. 1994 Moving Beyond Words. Simon and Schuster. New York.
Trainer, F.E. 1989. Developed to Death. Green Print. London.

Verhelst, Thierry. 1990. No Life without Roots, Culture and Development. Zed Books. London .
Viezzer et al. 1992. Com Garra e Qualidade. Mulheres em economies sustentáveis agricultura e extrativismo. Publicacao Rede Mulher. Rio de Janeiro 3 - 6 Junho 1992. Sáo Paulo.
Waring, Marilyn 1988. If Women Counted: A New Feminist Economics. Macmillan. London.
The World Commission on Environment and Development. 1987. "Our Common Future". Oxford University Press. Oxford.
Zerwas, Hans-Jörg. 1988. Albeit als Besitz. Das ehrbare Handwerk zwischen Bruderliebe und Klassenkampf 1848. Rororo. Reinbek.

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