SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT: INTEGRATION OF FREE MARKET AND NATURAL ECONOMIC SYSTEMS

Two basic and successful economic systems exist. One, the natural economics system represents reality and has the members with the knowledge, the organization and the "rules of the game" (i.e., the infrastructure) in place to sustain the human species at a subsistence level. The other, the free market economic system has performed well, but not well enough to satisfy everyone, and will not insure sustainment of a standard of living and quality of life above the subsistence level for current populations because the appropriate infrastructure is not in place. Thus, humans are faced with the ethical issues of providing the appropriate infrastructure to serve the interests of both present and future generations. The human objective should be to integrate the two systems so as to take advantage of their common self-organization and self-regulation features and to alter the cost accounting and pricing system elements of the free market system such that the integrated system will self-organize and self-regulate to achieve sustainable development. This must be done in conformance with human wants and values and a natural economics basis for allocating costs. The minimal actions that appear necessary to ensure attainment of sustainable development through self-regulation are: (1) the adoption of a National Sustainable Development Policy; (2) decision making based on Natural Economics Impact Assessments (which provides a sound scientific basis for "full cost" accounting) as a part of the assessment process for decision making; and (3) the establishment of a nonpartisan Sustainable Development Board to serve as a Prudent Person Surrogate for setting the at-source price of nonrenewable resources.