Abstract
In this chapter, Global Safety and Sustainable Development, the relation between global safety and sustainable development is discussed as an example of a complex societal policy problem to which the Compram methodology can be applied. In this chapter we reflect further on research question d:
can one general methodology for handling complex societal problems support the problem handling process of different complex societal problems (expectation d)?
We emphasize in this chapter as a hypothetical theoretical example, the discussion of the definition of sustainable development in relation to agriculture, industry, and labor and the formulation of the desired goal of how the experts in step one of the Compram methodology could have performed this in their problem handling process regarding sustainable development. These are problem handling phases 1.4–2.1. Based on this hypothetical discussion, we give a definition of sustainable development and indicate how a desired goal can be discussed and formulated. In this example the view of only a few experts is given: the reflections of an expert on agriculture, on environment, and on economics. A further discussion of the other experts could lead to a different outcome of the discussion. Here only the way in which the Compram methodology can be applied is emphasized.
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Notes
- 1.
The agriculture is romanticized by painters like Jean François Millet.
- 2.
Child labor is widely spread in developing countries. This makes that these children are not able to go to school, do not get the proper education, meanwhile take over the jobs their parents should have for a very low salary. In this way poverty continues from generation to generation. Children are easy to suppress by their employers, often working without a contract under terrible health threatening conditions.
- 3.
In their Communist Manifesto published in 1848, Marx and Engels encouraged the workers (laborers) of the world to unite worldwide over the boundaries of the nations. Marx called the laborers the proletariat, because the only thing they possessed was their children.
- 4.
The work week is reduced from 12 h a day 6 days per week to 8 h a day for 5 days per week including some holidays and rights for sick leave.
- 5.
The profession of housewife created for women a non-sustainable environment. The women are dependent for their income on their husbands. This creates a very unstable emotional and financial situation, particularly in cases of divorce, death, or when the men gamble, drink, or fancy other women or men. Women worldwide do 80 % of the work and get only 10 % of the income; meanwhile 50 % of the women take care of their children without emotional and/or financial support of men. Even nowadays many women in Western Europe are financially dependent on men. In The Netherlands female civil servants were fired during the period from 1933 to 1969 just because they were married. In 2012 women earned only 77 cents for every dollar that men earn according to new data from the U.S. Census Bureau (2013) http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/p60_245sa.pdf. In The Netherlands women get, even in 2013, 10–30 % less paid than men for the same jobs.
- 6.
See riots in the suburbs of Paris and all over France in 2005 against a new law that allow employers to give young workers flexible contracts of no more than 2 years. The flexible contracts create a huge uncertainty for the young workers, because they can be easily fired.
- 7.
Even the extremely poorly performing managers get incredible high wages and bonuses such as a member of the management team of Ahold, Van der Hoeve, who was convicted for signing side letters (NRC Handelsblad, March 2006) and the management team of Enron (verdicts in USA in 2006 and 2007).
- 8.
George Soros speculated on the Asian currency in 1997 and played out in Asia large parts of the economic market which resulted in huge loss of capital on the Asian market with terrible consequences for the Asian employees … “on July 2 [1997] the baht was devalued, setting off a chain reaction throughout the region’s currency markets and then, …, around the world’s stock exchanges. While no hard number is available, the wolves that started all this turmoil were very well fed, probably with profits in excess of $3 billion” (Myers 2003).
- 9.
See for further discussion Chap. 10 on the subject of the credit crisis.
- 10.
The Kyoto Protocol by the United Nations (Kyoto 1997a, b, c) is constructed to diminish the greenhouse gas emissions. In 2005 the protocol was ratified by the European Union. In 2006 165 countries have ratified the agreement. In 2007 the USA and India still did not ratify the contract. In Bali, 2007, the politicians came to an agreement to make a new protocol at the moment the Kyoto Protocol will end. This new protocol will include all countries of the world.
- 11.
See George W. Bush Administration 2000–2008 in the USA and the Dutch government guided by the Christians and the Liberals in the period of 2002–2007 (Dutch government Balkenende I and II).
- 12.
The Iraq war (invasion March 2003 by USA and allies) was primarily to keep the oil reserves for the USA safe and cheap for the industry. The USA imports more than 40 % of the oil needed for the industry of which a large part comes from Arabic countries. Financing the Iraq war by the USA compromises the budgets for education and health care and gives much profit for the war industry.
- 13.
In China, India, and Africa the wages of the laborers are very low. $1 per hour in developing countries is not unusual; minimum wages in Western Europe are around $8 per hour.
- 14.
See the reaction in 2005 of a part of the US consumers on the way the Walmart workers are treated.
“Walmart has been subject to criticism by numerous groups and individuals. Among these are labor unions, community groups, grassroots organizations, religious organizations, environmental groups, and Wal-Mart customers. They have protested against Walmart, the company’s policies and business practices, including charges of racial and gender discrimination” (Kabel 2006). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Walmart.
Or see the reactions of the consumers on the negative way the Shell oil company treated black laborers in South Africa in the 1960s–1970s.
“As oil was fuelling the apartheid economy, a campaign for an oil embargo was organized. In this campaign Shell was the major target, being an Anglo-Dutch company and present in South Africa, and thus making profits at the expense of the black population. Consumers were urged not to fill their petrol tank at Shell petrol stations as long as Shell was benefiting from Apartheid policies: the consumers responded in large numbers to the call. Although the majority of the Dutch political parties supported the boycott, the Dutch government did not stop the export of oil to South Africa.” Wikipedia http://electronicintifada.net/content/sanctions-against-apartheid-south-africa-should-inspire-palestinian-people/5366.
- 15.
We assume here that the quality of life refers to quality of life in contemporary Western Europe.
- 16.
This is the concept of Langeveld, a Dutch pedagogue, the concept of “zelfverantwoordelijke zelfbepaling” (Langeveld 1979).
- 17.
Gross National Product (GNP) is the total value of final goods and services produced in a year by a country’s nationals, including profits from capital held abroad (Wikipedia 2006).
- 18.
RSI is Repetitive Strain Injury.
- 19.
See Chap. 4.
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DeTombe, D. (2015). Global Safety and Sustainable Development. In: Handling Societal Complexity. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-43917-3_9
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