“We are the people (that our parents warn us about).” -- A bumper sticker.
HERE'S ADVICE for companies in need of creating better and more friendly environment. Stop security checking by the gateway. Stop harboring suspicion. Instead, let’s start nurturing trust.
Sound too naïve? To most building managers, it certainly does. But just get anywhere on Jakarta’s main roads—say Jalan Soedirman. Pick any office building and try to enter it. Chances are the security officers will have to halt and check you out, even if you have worked there for years. For you may be one of those bad guys.
The belief that men ought to suspect others has resurfaced after the 9/11; indeed, Bush’s political propaganda warring terrorism has been met with frenzy repercussions. As for Indonesia, national tragedies in Bali and Poso may well have been our unfortunate versions that helped heighten the disquieting atmosphere. No good site-managers exist who do not have robotic security checking implemented. World’s urbanites are teaching children that we are all potential crooks, and we should fear ourselves more.
As implied, such disbelief in humanity is hardly new. Some thinkers of the past did “specialize” themselves in focusing on the dark side of human soul. Never before is every single one pf us being regarded as a fox to our fellowmen than it is in our age.
Is such a philosophical maxim absolutely true? No longer must we believe that each of us being is also capable of being good. Otherwise, why chose and amplified the dark side? Why made suspicion a principle?
It is time to challenge the trend. Crimes committed by individuals do happen once in a while but they are actually petty and few, especially when compared to the devastation caused by, say, wars. Besides, this conspicuous security control is not always suitable for all kinds of businesses, for all kinds of office buildings. Certain businesses may need extra security. Security aspect has been included early on in every recruitment process. Employees are advised to wear tags partly for this reason. Reception desks registering guests are designed partly with such precaution.
Moreover, most security checking only becomes a routine done half-heartedly.
Unnecessarily it steals away our precious minutes. The long queue of vehicles entailing the process is, really, the last thing we need after the grueling traffic jams.
Therefore, this mostly useless practice must stop. Apart from yielding greater efficiency, this means putting more trust in fellowmen and respect to workers, differed as they are according to the role they play within the division of labor.
Convincing building managers on the benefits of this trusting business is no easy matter. They may think this proposal stupid. Yet, we all know that working environment used to be more friendly, more human. We know of the time when human beings were better more appreciated.
In the end, we are all workers. It's time, really, to re-appreciate ourselves.
(12/8)
The flawed premise of sustainability
Just what exactly is sustainable development?
One of the most popular definitions comes from the Brundtland Report of the World Commission on the Environment and Development (1987 -- named after chairman Gro Harlem Brundtland, then Prime Minister of Norway), where it is defined as: "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."
This definition does indeed seem virtuous. Could it be one of the noblest ends to strive for?
It must first be recognized that the definition is too vague to be operative. Human needs are a subjective concept which can neither be compared nor aggregated. If we consider different points in time, human beings at different income levels in different cultural contexts or national backgrounds, no sound economics can be used to deal with it.
In A Poverty of Reason (2003) Wilfred Beckerman even argues that the concept of sustainable development is based on two major, yet flawed, propositions: that economic growth will soon come up against environmental constraints -- from climate change, to limits on resource availability; and, that it represents the moral high ground. To the Oxford economist, the first proposition is vastly exaggerated. His major argument says that the fears that we will run out of resources conflict with all empirical evidence from the past.
Furthermore, it is a fact that the deceased and the unborn do not exist. The deceased may still have power to bind the living. For example, a dead person's will can still bequeath a living offspring some right or responsibility enforceable to affect actions of the living. Yet, the case is different with the unborn.
If A says to B, "This 100 hectare block of land belongs to C." B may ask in amazement, "That's cool! And who is this lucky C?" Imagine if to that B replies, "Well, actually, C does not exist". Thus, the unborn cannot possibly possess any right. Nor can they have any basis to confer one to the living. Adds Beckerman, "No moral credit can be earned by redistributing from the poor to the rich."
None of the above paraphrasing from his thesis implies we have no obligations to future generations. Rather it strongly warns us that the environmental striving underpinned by development sustainability is a vain struggle for an invalid end, both economically and morally.
One of the first things any serious environmental forum owes to itself is to address such critical insight openly and satisfactorily, even if there is but one Beckerman out there. The forum can embrace or reject it, but must not neglect it.
Environmentalism has not come without perils, predominantly related to economic retrogress or arrested development that otherwise could improve the lives of the living. Far-fetched attempts to reach out for future generations hit their most ironical nadir when confronted with the fact that a majority of the living today still persist in abject poverty. Such enterprise turns preposterous when most solutions being offered lead nowhere further than to greater bureaucracy, favoritism and protectionism.
There may be little doubt that under the sustainable-development drive, the only thing sustainable will be bureaucracies. Bureaucratic talks about global climate change are on the verge of becoming dear yet empty rhetoric, so long as they fail to deal properly with an important source of our global disquiet.
This brings us to the arrangement of property rights.
A common myth globally shared is that the total or near-disappearances of forests and biodiversity have been dismally attributed to the "capitalists" who, in their shortsighted greed for profit, loot the natural resources. (From this escalates the belief that interference from political institutions is a necessity: They must step in, either to seize ownership or regulate the use of natural resources and development as a whole.)
Yet would we be foolish enough, if we were entrepreneurs ourselves, to slay our own geese that laid the golden eggs? Very unlikely. Given our realities, it follows that something has been grossly amiss with the way we have arranged the ownership of our "geese".
Any private entrepreneur owning a forest would instinctively know the trees in it. Each time a tree is cut down and sold, he would know what it means. It means a decline in the capital value of his asset, hence the need for rebalancing and reinvesting. Every geese farmer would know how many eggs her geese lay each day. Rather than being culprits, private enterprises are the ones we can turn to, to address long and short term environmental views.
To the rest of us non-farmers/entrepreneurs, the perspective can offer totally different solutions. For instance, rather than having to sway the masses to reduce paper use, encouraging them to use more and more of it -- in fact means saving forests.
As long as the "natural" economic incentive remains unhampered, entrepreneurs will produce more paper by growing more trees. The perspective acknowledges that trees "grow" on money as money does on trees.
On the contrary, in a system with fuzzy land titling and property rights, problems over natural abundance such as illegal logging, deforestation, pollution, and other "curses" will certainly occur. As soon as impersonal political entities claim rigid ownership over natural resources, public officials will be incentivized to serve as ad hoc managers. This is also where public-private partnership sets itself in motion, when colluding to extract natural resources is made possible for short-term gain.
If Mother Nature has lain precarious and endangered due to the property-rights system we have, in this sense it is purely man-made. Then the ultimate question for the living is: are we going to pursue the very end by employing the same means? []
Note: Originally titled Sustainability vis a vis Property Rights, this posting is published in the Jakarta Post today (Dec. 17) under the current title. Its earlier version, in Indonesian, is available here. Please see also my prev. post below.
One of the most popular definitions comes from the Brundtland Report of the World Commission on the Environment and Development (1987 -- named after chairman Gro Harlem Brundtland, then Prime Minister of Norway), where it is defined as: "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."
This definition does indeed seem virtuous. Could it be one of the noblest ends to strive for?
It must first be recognized that the definition is too vague to be operative. Human needs are a subjective concept which can neither be compared nor aggregated. If we consider different points in time, human beings at different income levels in different cultural contexts or national backgrounds, no sound economics can be used to deal with it.
In A Poverty of Reason (2003) Wilfred Beckerman even argues that the concept of sustainable development is based on two major, yet flawed, propositions: that economic growth will soon come up against environmental constraints -- from climate change, to limits on resource availability; and, that it represents the moral high ground. To the Oxford economist, the first proposition is vastly exaggerated. His major argument says that the fears that we will run out of resources conflict with all empirical evidence from the past.
Furthermore, it is a fact that the deceased and the unborn do not exist. The deceased may still have power to bind the living. For example, a dead person's will can still bequeath a living offspring some right or responsibility enforceable to affect actions of the living. Yet, the case is different with the unborn.
If A says to B, "This 100 hectare block of land belongs to C." B may ask in amazement, "That's cool! And who is this lucky C?" Imagine if to that B replies, "Well, actually, C does not exist". Thus, the unborn cannot possibly possess any right. Nor can they have any basis to confer one to the living. Adds Beckerman, "No moral credit can be earned by redistributing from the poor to the rich."
None of the above paraphrasing from his thesis implies we have no obligations to future generations. Rather it strongly warns us that the environmental striving underpinned by development sustainability is a vain struggle for an invalid end, both economically and morally.
One of the first things any serious environmental forum owes to itself is to address such critical insight openly and satisfactorily, even if there is but one Beckerman out there. The forum can embrace or reject it, but must not neglect it.
Environmentalism has not come without perils, predominantly related to economic retrogress or arrested development that otherwise could improve the lives of the living. Far-fetched attempts to reach out for future generations hit their most ironical nadir when confronted with the fact that a majority of the living today still persist in abject poverty. Such enterprise turns preposterous when most solutions being offered lead nowhere further than to greater bureaucracy, favoritism and protectionism.
There may be little doubt that under the sustainable-development drive, the only thing sustainable will be bureaucracies. Bureaucratic talks about global climate change are on the verge of becoming dear yet empty rhetoric, so long as they fail to deal properly with an important source of our global disquiet.
This brings us to the arrangement of property rights.
A common myth globally shared is that the total or near-disappearances of forests and biodiversity have been dismally attributed to the "capitalists" who, in their shortsighted greed for profit, loot the natural resources. (From this escalates the belief that interference from political institutions is a necessity: They must step in, either to seize ownership or regulate the use of natural resources and development as a whole.)
Yet would we be foolish enough, if we were entrepreneurs ourselves, to slay our own geese that laid the golden eggs? Very unlikely. Given our realities, it follows that something has been grossly amiss with the way we have arranged the ownership of our "geese".
Any private entrepreneur owning a forest would instinctively know the trees in it. Each time a tree is cut down and sold, he would know what it means. It means a decline in the capital value of his asset, hence the need for rebalancing and reinvesting. Every geese farmer would know how many eggs her geese lay each day. Rather than being culprits, private enterprises are the ones we can turn to, to address long and short term environmental views.
To the rest of us non-farmers/entrepreneurs, the perspective can offer totally different solutions. For instance, rather than having to sway the masses to reduce paper use, encouraging them to use more and more of it -- in fact means saving forests.
As long as the "natural" economic incentive remains unhampered, entrepreneurs will produce more paper by growing more trees. The perspective acknowledges that trees "grow" on money as money does on trees.
On the contrary, in a system with fuzzy land titling and property rights, problems over natural abundance such as illegal logging, deforestation, pollution, and other "curses" will certainly occur. As soon as impersonal political entities claim rigid ownership over natural resources, public officials will be incentivized to serve as ad hoc managers. This is also where public-private partnership sets itself in motion, when colluding to extract natural resources is made possible for short-term gain.
If Mother Nature has lain precarious and endangered due to the property-rights system we have, in this sense it is purely man-made. Then the ultimate question for the living is: are we going to pursue the very end by employing the same means? []
Note: Originally titled Sustainability vis a vis Property Rights, this posting is published in the Jakarta Post today (Dec. 17) under the current title. Its earlier version, in Indonesian, is available here. Please see also my prev. post below.
Taking the world in entirely the wrong direction
Last weekend I wrote and sent an article to a prominent newspaper where I voiced my skeptical view on the Bali Climate conference. I’m still waiting for a response. If it is published, I’ll link to it here. If it doesn’t, well, I’ll will post it.
Meanwhile, today I found an open letter to Secretary General of the United Nations Ban-Ki Moon, charging that he is leading the world to a wrong direction.
Meanwhile, today I found an open letter to Secretary General of the United Nations Ban-Ki Moon, charging that he is leading the world to a wrong direction.
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