1.5. How can societies support good life?

The well-being of individuals and individual economies is connected with larger economic structures and systems. As we learned on the course “Systems and planetary well-being”, changing such structures and systems is both political and practical work. In the context of good life, however, we must consider economy from at least two standpoints that are left unanswered by the system-level perspective: 1) why have we organised our economy like this and not in some other way? And 2) what kinds of good life do our current economic arrangements enable? These questions open up more questions on value judgements, needs and desires, and the material boundaries of our activities.

Organising good life requires knowledge of its limitations (planetary boundaries), understanding of how we can steer into the right direction (good life within planetary boundaries) as well as measures with which the development of the situation can be monitored. The very first thing that we must consider is the limitations set by the biophysical systems of the planet.

Well-being within planetary boundaries

The biophysical systems of Earth place fundamental boundary conditions on the sustainability of pursuing good life. Preserving the stability of the systems is a precondition for future generations’ pursuit of good life. We also know that in many vulnerable areas, climate change already makes pursuing a safe and good life more difficult as changes such as increased heat or drought cause more health problems and make food production more difficult. Therefore, good life must be pursued within the limitations of the biophysical boundary conditions of sustainability.

These boundary conditions have been outlined through the model of planetary boundaries, developed by the work group of sustainability scientist Johan Rockström and geoscientist Will Steffen. Planetary boundaries affect nine global systems or processes that are necessary for human life. These include climate change, biodiversity loss, ocean acidification, ozone depletion, atmospheric aerosol pollution, freshwater use, biogeochemical flows of nitrogen and phosphorus, land use change, and release of novel chemicals. Measures have been determined to define each process. Every measure has a defined safety threshold that harm caused by human activity should not cross. Crossing the safety thresholds significantly increases the risk of extensive and uncontrollable changes and ecological catastrophes.

Currently, most of these measures have already crossed the limits of what is safe or are close to crossing them. As of 2022, scientists have estimated that six of the safety thresholds have already been crossed and are close to being crossed in many others. (The six processes that were mentioned are climate change, biodiversity loss, changing use of land, nitrogen and phosphorus use, the release of novel chemicals, and freshwater use.) 

Moreover, the safety thresholds of planetary boundaries have been defined from an anthropocentric perspective to reflect the preconditions for the good life of humans. Securing the preconditions for non-human well-being would require more strict safety thresholds in many places: for example, climatic temperatures that are still manageable for humans are already devastating for many other species. Most people have surely seen pictures of polar bears on melting ice floes.

Social sciences have drawn on planetary boundaries to ask how the well-being of humans can fit within them. Economist Kate Raworth has suggested a model called “doughnut economics” in which a safe and just operating space is defined for the activities of human societies. This doughnut-shaped operating space is restricted by planetary boundaries (outer limit) on one hand and the minimum objectives for social well-being (inner limit) on the other. So, the objective is to ensure human societies an adequate level of well-being without endangering the stability of planetary processes. This model is one way of seeing, as supported by the measures, what a sustainable way of living could mean globally, nationally and locally. In recent years, we have seen the doughnut model being applied as a tool for regional planning projects.

Source: DoughnutEconomics - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=75695171

Fitting the pursuit of well-being within the doughnut is a challenging task. According to the assessment of ecological economist Dan O’Neill's research group, not a single state has thus far been able to provide their citizens adequate well-being within planetary boundaries. Crossing the planetary safety thresholds is usually the problem in countries with a high income level, whereas in countries with a low income level, the challenge is achieving the social objectives. According to the assessment, the challenge with staying within the safety thresholds is not satisfying the basic physical needs of humans, such as adequate nutrition, water and sanitation. In principle, these needs could be secured for seven billion people within the planet's carrying capacity if some practices were changed (currently, for example, the harmful effects of food production on the environment lead to a significant crossing of the safety thresholds.) Even larger problems are qualitative social objectives, such as perceived satisfaction with life, healthy lifespan expectancy, higher education, the quality of democracy, social support, and equality. Reaching these objectives currently requires excessive use of natural resources: over two to six times more than the amount that would fit within planetary boundaries.

Regardless of the perceived factors of good life and well-being in different cultures, there are many material requirements pertaining to the basic preconditions for good life. The challenges pertain especially to the needs of housing, energy use, nutrition, healthcare, and transport. In particular, the production of food and energy comprise the majority of climatic and environmental effects, greenhouse gas emissions and ecological footprint caused by human activity. A lot of energy is spent just on the heating of apartments and the everyday transport of humans and objects. For example, a single long-distance flight can multiply an individual passenger’s annual climatic effects. However, as whole, the share of air travel in global emissions is merely a few percent (3% in the 2014 IPCC report) of which a significant part consists of the transport of objects. Therefore, even a total ban on air travel would not help much in reducing global greenhouse gas emissions. The production and consumption of food, however, comprise 21–37% of global greenhouse gas emissions, and food production is also one of the most significant reasons for the excessive use of fresh water, disturbed nutrient cycles, changes in land use, and biodiversity loss. So, it is necessary to find more sustainable ways for organising the good everyday life of humans. Addressing so-called luxury emissions is not enough, even if it would be the easiest target for action from a moral standpoint.

Researchers suggest that a good life that fits within planetary boundaries could be pursued by promoting moderation in consumption habits and by relinquishing economy-centred measures for progression. It is important to both improve the use of resources and the technology for it (for example, by transferring to the use of renewable energy) and advance social and economic equality and particularly the preconditions for the well-being of the disadvantaged. Many of the necessary political actions for these changes could in principle be implemented without increasing the use of natural resources at all. Jason Hickel, an economic anthropologist, has also suggested that rich countries that use too much natural resources would need to adopt a new kind of economic policy that lets go of economic growth as its central goal.

The best solution for organising good life in an equal manner depend on the circumstances of each society; is inequality primarily related to the income level of people or are there deeper structures in society upholding, e.g., the weak position of women? Since inequality tends to accumulate, it is especially important to attempt to understand how structural inequality can be decreased by improving the status of the most vulnerable people in society (see chapter 1.3.). Many perspectives of equality emphasise the meaning of education on equality and the pursuit of good life. The importance of education and learning on advancing ecological sustainability has also been increasingly emphasised. At its best, education can serve the purpose of good life within planetary boundaries by advancing both equality and environmental knowledge and skills.

Accommodating well-being within planetary boundaries has also been reviewed by other models besides the doughnut model. The UN developed the Human Development Index measure (see attached figure) which is based on capabilities. It is used to measure change in the quality of life globally, on a national level and between nations. The measure takes account of several perspectives: health, education, livelihood, and equality, among others. On an HDI scale, every country receives a grade between 0–1.0 (a “perfect” development would be 1.0) and the grades of 0.7 or 0.8 can be seen as the threshold for good life (the limits for high and very high development). The quality of life can then be compared with the ecological footprint of the nation. According to data from 2020–2021, no country has yet achieved good life within the limits of an ecological footprint (UN HDR 2020; see also Vogel et al. 2021.) However, it is equally important to notice that the ecological footprint of good life varies greatly between countries: On the HDI index, the most sustainable countries achieve good life on a third of the ecological footprint that is needed in the countries that consume the most.

Image. In the Human Development Index, the quality of life of each country (human development, displayed on the horizontal axis in the figure) is compared with its ecological footprint (measured by the number of Earths needed for the resources and displayed on the vertical axis in the figure). The upper limit for sustainable life relative to planetary boundaries is marked in the figure with a green dotted line (world biocapacity). Source: https://www.footprintnetwork.org/our-work/sustainable-development/

Similar findings have been duplicated, for example, in Finland in a study on the ecological footprint of people with low income. The research was conducted by the work group of Michael Lettenmeier in 2012. From the group that was studied, the only one who reached a sustainable ecological footprint was a homeless person. On the other hand, there were manifold differences in ecological footprints between different households, and even when those extreme ends are excluded, the difference between the smallest and largest footprint was 2.5-fold. Total income is therefore a bigger factor in the greenhouse gas emissions of a single household than individual consuming choices. The issue is complicated by the so-called rebound effect: if less money is spent on one area of life, the money saved is usually spent on something else that can be just as harmful or even more harmful to the environment. Public services and infrastructures also greatly affect the ecological footprints of individuals and societies.

Organising good life within planetary boundaries is also displayed in the development of the HDI measure. In 2020, a new ‘Planetary pressures-adjusted HDI’ index (PHDI) presented. In this measure, the amount of greenhouse gas emissions and the size of ecological footprint affect the final grade that depicts development and good life. A country that would remain within planetary boundaries in their climate change infliction and use of natural resources would have the same PHDI and HDI grades.

Image. PHDI measure used to depict sustainable development. The left side of the figure depicts a calculation model in which the HDI grade, which represents the human development of a country, is multiplied by an adjustment factor which takes the environmental pressure caused by a country into account. The carbon dioxide emissions and natural resource consumptions of countries are taken into account in the adjustment factor. The result is a number that depicts the human development of a country while also considering the environmental pressure it causes (PHDI). The right side of the figure depicts the logic of the PHDI measure: if the PHDI and HDI are the same, the pressure inflicted by the country remains within planetary boundaries. Source: UNDP, https://report.hdr.undp.org/part-3.html.

In early 1980s, Indian philosopher-economist Amartya Sen presented an idea which was considered radical in economics: from the perspective of the quality of life, well-being and justice, economic growth is a poor measure for development. According to Sen, we need better measures for monitoring the development of societies and organising good life. The measures should depict three dimensions of good life: the realisation of the preconditions for good life (needs and capabilities), the parity for the pursuit of good life (equality) and the ecological sustainability of achieving good life (planetary boundaries). Above, we have introduced some measures that aim to describe these dimensions.

Sen’s critique also urges one to consider what is ultimately the role of market economy in organising good life. In his book Politics, the Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle suggested the following: in a classic, household-based, economy, acquisitions are limited to the satisfaction of needs, and the nature of the economy is saturable, limited. Whereas in a system based on market economy, money itself becomes the object of pursuit and because it does not have the same kind of saturation limit, the pursuit of growth becomes infinite. Is there a danger that because of its infinite nature, growth becomes an objective in itself? Is the economy too easily seen as a tool for advancing almost any other objective? More and more fields of science have started to criticise market value as a “general-purpose tool for advancing good life” from their own premises. To end the section, we will briefly go through how economic growth and market economy have been criticised.

Well-being, economy and technology

During the last century, and especially during the Second World War, the mechanics of world economy, such as globalisation and the strengthening of capital-driven market value, have accelerated the use of natural resources. The pursuit of growth and profit has led companies and other organisations to accumulate as much value from nature and society as they can. At the same time, the cost of value production – i.e., the negative effects of polluting and causing inequality – has in many cases been outsourced to be shouldered by natural ecosystems and human societies. In this model of economy, the raw materials of nature have been available as if they were free, and there has been no requirement for monetary compensation for the environmental issues caused by procuring and processing them, nor has there been, for instance, a requirement to restore the ecosystems changed by industrial activity. Consequently, environmental costs have not affected the prices of products.

This form of business model favours competition and consumption and ensures that the cooperation of humans will continue to decrease planetary well-being. The economic model based on economic growth and profit-seeking is therefore in a severe conflict with planetary well-being. In recent years, there have been attempts to tackle such issues, as is evident from International Monetary Fund’s report which deals with the direct and indirect economic support of fossil fuels. Russia's invasion of Ukraine in the spring of 2022 has also rapidly highlighted the environmental and political issues regarding the production and sale of fossil fuels. The massive, and partly invisible, role of fossil fuels in society is illustrated by the fact that for many, for example, the dependence of industrial farming on natural gas-based fertilisers has come as a surprise.

Economic value judgements are connected with other societal and subjective values. If, for example, the easy flow of everyday life and entrepreneurship is considered important in Germany and Finland, and said flow is only possible through the flow of fossil fuels, political choices can be made to continue importing Russian fuels even in a situation in which such trading funds the Russian war efforts in Ukraine. In moments that determine the direction of world history, value judgements always hold an important, and often crucial, position.

Finnish philosophers Antti Salminen and Tere Vadén, among others, have proposed that the experience of an individual is thoroughly shaped by a society's habits of energy use. In the context of fossil-dependent societies, they call this “fossil subjectivity”. If one accepts this proposal, one must also consider which of the choices that we make as communities and individuals are dependent on fossil energy.

Modern technology also affects the state of the environment, and societal power relationships, in both obvious and obscure ways. The environmental problems caused by the production of various devices, such as smart phones and cars, are widely discussed, as are the environmental effects of different forms of energy production. The prevalent idea, however, is that technology also offers solutions to the environmental crisis, even ones that do not require changes on a societal level or in the everyday life of citizens (e.g., fusion power, carbon sequestration). However, the issue of technology is more complicated because its development trends and productions are connected with existing social structures.

Cultural anthropologist Alf Hornborg has focused his scientific work on attempting to demonstrate how modern technology is connected with the causes and mechanisms of the environmental crisis. According to Hornborg, technology cannot be adequately detached from global political-economic (power) relationships, inequality or local environmental issues. Even though technology is commonly thought to solve global sustainability issues and alleviate socio-economic inequality – and on some cases and especially in the short term, it has done that – the technologization of the world has also led to the very opposite situation: both environmental degradation and the inequality between humans have increased. One reason for this is unequal exchange i.e., a situation where the owners of capital, companies in dominant positions and superpowers largely dictate the development trends of both global economy and technology as well. As these trends are whatever benefits this concentration of power, the global production system is drawn towards a certain direction: a global system in which rich centres drain natural resources and capital from the peripheries of global economy. This means that some will benefit and make money at the expense of the living environments and work of others.

It has often been suggested that a shift should be made from values encouraging material consumption towards appreciating immaterial services and activities. Cultural interests are often considered immaterial. However, it must be kept in mind that cultural productions as well as consuming and practising culture are also connected with emissions, overconsumption and the exploitation both nature and humans. Even the modes of media consumption that we may understand as being detached from natural resources, such as browsing the Internet, have effects on humans and nature. Even a single Internet search consumes energy, not to mention the streaming services of music and videos. Additionally, the minerals needed for the batteries of mobile devices are primarily mined in poor countries, which causes harm to both the population and the nature of the areas.

The roles of material consumption and complicated technology are so ingrained in modern societies that their effects are both difficult to recognise and difficult to change. Because the nature of these questions is cultural and societal, dismantling them requires knowledge derived from the humanities and the social sciences. Next, we will deal especially with how the prevailing ways of thinking can be challenged and reformed through cultural activity. Therefore, we ask: how is good life imagined?