ntil next time a tree gets in the way of progress

Until next time a tree gets in the way of progress…

When thinking about abstract philosophical concepts such as ‘progress’, it seems only natural that human being would like to quantify them. It is easier to deal with any concept, if you can see specific numbers. In this day and age, progress is far too often defined in purely economic terms. The gross domestic product (GDP) is the best indicator for this phenomenon.
‘If it’s good for the economy, it’s good for everyone’ seems to be the political dogma of our time.
The gross domestic product is a concept that was originated in the 1930s by economist Simon Kuznets. It is essentially a crude measure of national income – “the dollar value of finished goods and services”. The problem with the GDP is that any kind of economic activity, whether good or bad, adds to its growth. Any time an oil-taker spills its load or an airplane crashes, the GDP goes up. Environmental destruction is, in terms of conventional economic measurement, a gain, not a loss.
For any critical thinking observer, however, it is clear that economic growth should not be viewed in isolation as the determining factor for ‘making progress’. The important question remains, how we could measure progress more positively.
As a staring point, let’s look at the American Heritage Dictionary for clues. Progress is defined as “1.Movement toward a goal. 2.Development; unfolding. 3.Steady improvement, as of a society or civilization.” Well, progress can be many things. There are widely different definitions of progress in the history of Western philosophy.
Before the Enlightenment, human progress was only characterized as the absolution of human-kind through Jesus Christ. No other concepts concerning human evolution or progress existed at that time. In the 18th century, the Western world was undergoing an increasing secularization of all aspects of human culture. In turn, new philosophies concerning the future and fate of human-kind emerged. The French philosopher Voltaire, was maybe the first to express the modern idea of progress. He believed that history is unfolding toward a certain ideal – an improvement of the living conditions of all people. While this idea has been repeatedly criticized ever since it was first expressed, it seems that it is this idea that still informs the mainstream every-day usage of the word ‘progress’.
So it seems that in day-to-day language we all agree that social progress is the ’important’ kind of progress. In the political reality, however, progress is hardly ever defined in social terms. While this definition has informed and influenced a large number of recent political documents from the U.S. constitution to the United Nations Charter of Human Rights, the implementation of all its components seems a long way away still. Amongst these are: The erasure of injustice of any kind, just and humane living conditions for all, and the reduction of foreign control. Or in the words of the French Revolution: Egalité, fraternité, liberté.
One aspect that none of these definitions explicitly include though, is environmental conditions. Well, you may say, the environment does not really make much visible progress (evolutionary progress can take hundreds of thousands of years). But the negative human influence on the environment should be taken into account in any definition of progress in our times. If we accept “an improvement of the quality of life for all” as the basic definition of progress, environmental concerns have to be addressed. In environmental terms, quality of life has actually decreased in this century.
Oakland-based ‘Redefining Progress’ is a nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy organization, that seeks to address these concerns and ensure a more sustainable and socially equitable world. To this end, they have come up with the ‘Genuine Progress Indicator’ (GPI), which aims to offers Americans a better gauge of societal progress compared to the gross domestic product. While the GDP takes no account of such things as the increasing inequality in wealth distribution, pollution or damage to people’s health and the environment, the GPI aims to address all these issues. Its contents, for example, include Crime and Family Breakdown, Household and Volunteer work, Resource Depletion, and Long Term Environmental Change, amongst other things. “While conventional economic thinking discounts intrinsically valuable assets, such as safe streets, clean air, and a sense of community, we maintain that they can and should be integrated into decision-making since they represent the well-being towards which economics is meant to aim”, says Redefining Progress Sustainability Program Director Mathis Wackernagel, “We encourage debate about the true meaning of progress, one that goes beyond economic growth to incorporate environmental sustainability and social equity”.
The organization promotes various policies to encourage people to think about the ‘true’ meaning of progress. One of their initiatives is the accurate prices program, in which the prices of consumer goods would not only reflect their manufacturing costs, but would ‘internalize’ any additional costs that are produced during the production or consumption of the commodity. “Prices usually do not include these ‘social’ costs, such as pollution, health risks, or time wasted”, says Wackernagel.
Given our unprecedented rate of resource consumption and environmental destruction, it is about time that we seriously reconsider our existing assumptions about progress. In a kind of ‘second Enlightenment’, the public and political discourse should include the negative effects of human-kind on our environment and our own societies, and implement a universal indicator of ‘real’ progress. Although, this does not seem to be on any politician’s immediate agenda, it seems that this is one of the most important tasks we are faced with in the 21st century.