Thin notes

Notes from: Thin, Neil. Social Progress and Sustainable Development. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press, 2002.

1 Three pillars or triple bottom line economic, environmental, social

2 why is it necessary to remind ourselves that people are involved in development and that there are human and social dimensions? What other goals besides human well-being are there?

2 Brundtland Report 1987 published calling for sustainable development

3 'Sustainable' will be dropped when sustainability has truly been integral to our thinking.

3 1940s-1970s world leaders enamored with idea of endless progress through centralized planning, technology transfer, and economic growth and ignored messiness of social relations and cultural diversity. When people were left out, it was a technological necessity or rational decision in national interest or economic growth

4 generally agreed to today that human dimension of development important

7 Social change needs to be pursued or observed and analyzed both for its intrinsic value and for its instrumental importance:

9 BITE 

• Biophysical (natural and cultivated/manufactured goods and processes, human health and disease
• Institutional (formal and informal, social, political, educational, legal and financial
• Technical (broadly conceived to include material and non-material tools, techniques and knowledge)
• Ethical (the philosophical and attitudinal influences on policy and behavior)

BITe mostly about social sustainability mostly ethical and institutional

10 Social transformation makes us continually reach out towards new goals - being adaptive and aspirational.

Four themes in social development in desirable process that is socially meaningful

• social justice (equal opportunity towards achieving all human rights)
• solidarity (empathy, cooperation, understanding, associational life)
• participation (opportunities for everyone to play a menaingful part in development)
• security (livelihood and safety from physical threats)

13 four core elements of sustainable development objectives

• progress: improving the quality of life (multidimensional, and better than a basic minimum)
• Justice (universal human rights and equity)
• Durability (laasting progress)
• Stability/resilience (being adaptive and avoiding excessive fluctuations, quick recovery)

Principle 1 of Rio Declaration: Human beings are at the center of concerns for sustainable development - in conflict with deep ecology movement

14 shortlist of important associated principles

• Ecological holism
• Future orientation
• Social responsibility and colective action
• Aspiration
• Adaptibility

17 Concepts of social:

1. fRelational processes like empowerment, participation, communication, organization, possibly education
2. Public as opposed to private provisioning - education and health, basic needs provisioning and unemployment get called social sector
3. social pathology - when things go wrong they must be social when often they are economic

Residual things that governance and economists overlook

Should relink social with society

22 What is society? 

23 poverty still seen as a social issue and not an economic issue

29 confusing individual and social development. UN confused pseudo-science of economics and scientism of biophysical disciplines. These planning paradigms focused on numbers and abstractions and scientific over-emphasized things.