Sozialalmanach - Caritas Luxembourg

Particular questions arise about the role of Government itself. There is an almost
undisputed role for government in maintaining macro-economic stability. But it is also
clear that government ‘co-creates’ the culture of consumption and provides an essential
‘commitment device’ to help protect social goods and long-term goals 9 .
Evidence for a cultural drift towards materialistic individualism suggests an erosion
of commitment and a clear risk to long-term prosperity. This cultural drift is not entirely
uniform across all countries. For example, different ‘varieties of capitalism’ place more or
less emphasis on de-regulation and competition. But each of them has a structural requirement
for growth, and as such a structural requirement for individualistic consumerism.
Government itself is conflicted here. On the one hand, it has a role in ‘securing the
future’; on the other, it holds a key responsibility for macro-economic stability. For as long
as macro-economic stability depends on economic growth, Government will have a tendency
to support social structures that reinforce materialistic, novelty-seeking individualism.
Conversely, freeing the macro-economy from a structural requirement for growth will
simultaneously free Government to play its proper role in delivering social and environmental
goods and protecting long-term interests. This role has for too long taken second
place to the narrow pursuit of economic growth. To redress the balance, Government must
now engage urgently with several inter-related needs:
1) to develop and apply a robust macro-economics for sustainability;
2) to redress the damaging and unsustainable social logic of consumerism;
3) to establish and impose meaningful resource and environmental limits on economic
activity.
The Transition to a Sustainable Economy
The policy demands of this analysis are significant. But the financial crisis presents
a unique opportunity to re-build our economies on a more resilient basis and to put
sustainability at the heart of them.
First and foremost, there is a need for a concerted and committed effort on the part
of government to establish a detailed set of viable and effective policies for a sustainable
economy. This is a challenge that governments can no longer afford to ignore. Beyond
that need, it is possible to identify a range of broad policy recommendations on which the
transition to a sustainable economy could be built.
A series of steps that governments can take now to initiate the transition to a sustainable
economy have been outlined. In the following paragraphs, these recommendations
9 Offer (2006); Jackson (2005).
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