SIM Friends,
While the construct is being validated, it seems that becoming more familiar
with social capital as a tool to facilitate action in other better defined
areas of sustainability would be of utility.
A great text is: Halpern, D. (2005) Social Capital. Polity
Best,
Daniel E. Martin, Ph.D. | Assistant Professor, Department of Management
California State University, East Bay | College of Business and Economics
email:
daniel.martin@csueastbay.edu | phone: 510-885-2060
Alinea Group SF | Vice President
email:
dmartin@alineagroup.com | phone: 800-590-8095 | Fax: 800-203-7055
-----Original Message-----
From: Social Issues in Management Listserv [mailto:
SIM@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU] On
Behalf Of Frederick, William Crittenden
Sent: Monday, August 31, 2009 7:12 AM
To:
SIM@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
Subject: Re: [SIM] is social sustainability scientific?
Thanks, Susan,
I agree with you that the issue raised by Sheng Zhao is not only interesting
but is one that deserves greater attention. In speaking of the
"limitations" on "sustainability," I had in mind the effects and operations
of thermodynamics laws and their tendency to generate entropy in ecosystems
and in all organic systems. Entropy is a universal and unavoidable tendency
of such systems to move from a high-energy state to a lower-energy condition
and, without some countermanding process, to a zero-energy situation. There
is a sense in which "sustainability" in any absolute meaning is either not
achievable or is possible only in circumstances that "sustain" one part of
an ecosystem at the expense of other parts (and the organisms living there).
Entropic decline in this sense is universally present and challenges
"sustainability" advocates with a central dilemma. As Sheng Zhao pointed
out, some social systems exhibit greater "sustainability" than others, and
they do so by pushing their entropy onto other, generally weaker or unaware
social systems. No one has yet demonstrated how to avoid this problem or,
more importantly, how it would be possible to imagine a world in which
entropic decline is not present. The main approach employed by societies
--- ours being an exemplar --- is to search for new sources of energy to
replace more entropy-generating ones, and this search can go on successfully
for long periods, thereby creating an impression that human society can be
"sustained" indefinitely. And perhaps it can, thanks to technological
ingenuity. But these new energy sources are also subject to entropic
decline over time. The problem I have with "sustainability" advocates is a
general tendency to imply, if not to assert outright, that corporations,
societies, and planetary ecosystems can somehow be "sustained" if only we
come to our senses and act rationally to conserve energy. We live _within_
interconnected ecosystems and societies that mutually affect one another in
their respective anti-entropic energy efforts, so that Sheng Zhao is correct
to question the integrity of one society's efforts to "sustain" itself at
the entropic expense of other societies. Quite by chance, I happened this
evening to see an episode of "60 Minutes" in which a US E-waste recycling
corporation in Denver was shown to have some of its accumulated hazardous
waste (computer monitors, cell phones, etc.) turn up in a Hong Kong waste
dump where its disposal threatens the health and lives of waste-dump
employees and the surrounding local community (a remote poverty area). This
is a good example of US corporate entropy being exported to another society.
And that greenhouse-gas cloud enveloping the planet is nothing but the
entropic exhalations of corporations and their customers; it is no respecter
of national/ethnic boundaries. "Sustaining" ecosystem life is obviously a
planetary project.
I should also have said in my original posting that other physical and
biological laws of nature provide some positve opportunities for thinking
about and taking action about such matters. Here I am referring to
genetically embedded neural modules and normative behavioral tendencies
revealed by evolutionary psychology and neuroscience. Neither of these
approaches depends on socially ethnocentric concepts or beliefs such as
"sustainability." Until "sustainability" advocates begin to discuss such
issues in a broader planetary sphere and place the matter within what is
increasingly known about the natural components involved, I doubt the
validity of their socially-bound perspectives.
Now that you have heard my views, I would be pleased to hear your own
thoughts about it all. I've not found in others any simple answers, nor do
I have any to offer.
Best wishes,
Bill
William C. Frederick
Professor Emeritus
Katz Graduate School of Business
University of Pittsburgh
US Postal address:
1246 Murray Hill Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15217, USA
e-mail:
billfred@katz.pitt.edu
Website:
www.williamcfrederick.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Susan L. Kirby [mailto:
prof_kirby@yahoo.com]
Sent: Saturday, August 29, 2009 5:19 PM
To: Frederick, William Crittenden
Subject: Re: [SIM] is social sustainability scientific?
This is a very interesting thread. I'd like to hear more about your ideas
regarding the "reluctancy to face up to the limitations placed on the very
notion of "sustainability" by the physical laws of nature..."
Thanks.
Susan L. Kirby, Ph.D.
McCoy College of Business Administration - Rm 524 Texas State University San
Marcos, TX 78666-4616
Phone: 512-245-3309/Fax: 512-245-2850
http://www.susankirby.com
--- On Sat, 8/29/09, Frederick, William Crittenden <
BILLFRED@katz.pitt.edu>
wrote:
> From: Frederick, William Crittenden <
BILLFRED@katz.pitt.edu>
> Subject: Re: [SIM] is social sustainability scientific?
> To:
SIM@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
> Date: Saturday, August 29, 2009, 3:38 PM Dear Sheng Zhao,
>
> I appreciate your perceptiveness in noting that the phrase "social
> sustainability", and its use, are a function of cultural belief
> systems, not nature (or physical environment). And you are correct
> that one society's system of cultural beliefs, and policies based on
> those beliefs, may indeed burden another society (or several
> societies) with harmful practices. A frequently cited example of this
> kind of harmfulness is the economic and environmental divide displayed
> between the economically developed North and the lesser developed
> South, or specifically the many examples of environmentally disastrous
> resource exploitation in various underdeveloped nations by corporate
> interests based in technologically advanced nations where
> "sustainability" is often touted as company policy. You will
> discover, I fear, that "sustainability" advocates---whether speaking
> of economic, environmental, or social sustainability---have no clear
> way to cope with this dilemma, because they resist taking a position
> of cultural relativism and are generally reluctant to face up to the
> limitations placed on the very notion of "sustainability" by the
> physical laws of nature.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Bill
>
> William C. Frederick
> Professor Emeritus
> Katz Graduate School of Business
> University of Pittsburgh
> US Postal address:
> 1246 Murray Hill Avenue
> Pittsburgh, PA 15217, USA
> e-mail:
billfred@katz.pitt.edu
> Website:
www.williamcfrederick.com
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Social Issues in Management Listserv
> [mailto:
SIM@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU] On Behalf Of sh zh
> Sent: Tuesday, August 25, 2009 9:05 AM
> To:
SIM@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
> Subject: [SIM] is social sustainability scientific?
>
> Hello! Friends,
>
> I hope someone could explain about social sustainability.
>
>
>
> In my understanding, environmental sustainability makes sense because
> the natural environment is what all we need.
> But social environment is man-made, the culture and tradition you
> belong to might be a burden to me. So, social sustainability is equal
> to social desirability and may not be valid to others.
>
>
>
> I'd like to hear your opinions and explanations about it.
>
>
>
> Thank you,
>
>
>
> Sheng Zhao
>
>
>
>
>
>
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