PCDForum Column #64, Release Date November 1, 1993
by People’s Research Institute on Energy and Environment
In official discussions of the environmental crisis, one important reality
is consistently ignored or denied Sustained economic growth is simply
incompatible with environmental protection. Japan and other industrial countries
must trim their economies to reduce the burdens our lifestyles place on the rest
of […]
PCDForum Column #49, Release Date June 25, 1993
by Winifred Armstrong
Sustainability–of people and resources–is unlikely to be
achieved using either current capitalist or socialist
economic models. Both models have been posited on
assumptions of limitless economic growth. Both measure
increased prosperity by growth, and growth by consumption. Many people now recognize that the global economy has already grown to such […]
PCDForum Column #55, Release Date June 25, 1993
by Karen Christensen
Local self-reliance is an important strand in American history.
Unfortunately, that self-reliance has been, for many years, not simply
disappearing, but actively discouraged by an increasingly centralized economy.
Several experiences from the community to which I recently moved, Great
Barrington, Massachusetts, U.S.A., offer insights into the possibilities of
maintaining, even […]
A feature of the People-Centered Development Forum, Release Date September 19, 1993
ANGOC, IRED Asia and the PCDForum
A growing gap between rich and poor and accelerating environmental and social disintegration offer powerful testimony to the failure of conventional development practice in countries of both South and North. This failure has given birth to a global effort […]
PCDForum Column #48, Release Date April 15, 1993
by Jorge G. Castañeda and Carlos Heredia
Mexicans, Americans, and Canadians have all been
told by their governments that the recently negotiated
North American free-trade agreement will benefit all.
But what these governments have claimed is wrong.
The negotiated agreement ignores the profound
implications that flows of trade, capital, and investment bring with them. […]
PCDForum Column #63, Release Date October 8, 1993
by A.V. Krebs
The production, preparation, availability, distribution, and quality of food
the sustainer of life have shaped human cultures in fundamental ways throughout
history. We have good reason to be concerned when our food production,
distribution, and preparation system commonly known as the agribusiness system
becomes dominated by powerful and increasingly […]
PCDForum Column #60, Release Date Septemer 1, 1993
by Mike Nickerson
Economics has become a state religion based on the faith that growth,
efficiency and competition will for ever improve the human condition. This faith
was appropriate in days gone by when industrial humanity was young and had lots
of room for growing. Now that room has been filled. […]
PCDForum Column #45, Release date April 5, 1993
by James Stanford
Many labor representatives in the United States and Canada fear that a North
American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) will lead to a redirection of investment
toward low-wage regions of the continent, consequently reducing wages and
employment opportunities in higher-wage areas. Yet free trade advocates
regularly cite projections claiming that […]
Adapted by the PCDForum from Bishan Singh’s Column in The
Sun, Tuesday, August 17, 1993.
by Bishan Singh
In Malaysia we speak of budaya
lepak,which refers to the phenomenon of teenagers hanging
out at shopping complexes,
malls, supermarkets and transportation terminals. The loitering
culture has become a national
concern, in particular of the
Ministry of Youth and Sports
which has said it wants to […]
PCDForum Column #50, Release Date June 25, 1993
by Vandana Shiva
While gender subordination and patriarchy are the oldest of oppressions,
they have taken on new and more violent forms through the project of
development. Through its appropriation and destruction of the natural resource
base this project has systematically removed from women’s management and control
the land, water and forest […]