After reading Tufts' Urban and Environmental Policy Professor Julian Agyeman's recent op-ed piece for MSNBC, "From Responsibility to Sustainability," I sent it through a mass email and received the opportunity to read someone's criticism of his article. Since the criticism is popular, I felt the need to address it. However, since the critic's identity is unimportant, I will neglect this bit of information.
In his article, Agyeman argues that the "American Dream" is defined in terms of consumption of goods and services, and that if this trend were to continue, the world simply could not support six billion people who live like Americans. Agyeman continued, that America must redefine the "American Dream" and grow in a different way; using mental resources instead of natural resources.
The critic, however, argues against Agyeman on the grounds that America is only fulfilling a demand in the world's market for products and services. Therefore, the blame for America's large consumption of natural resources should be shifted onto the consumers of those products and services, rather than the producers, or, at least, the blame should include the consumers as well as the producers."
Being careful not to set up a straw man, I will characterize the critic's argument in the following way. If a country produces a huge amount of products and services for the international market, then that country has significantly more resource needs. This means that in order to produce all of these products and services, the producing country needs a lot of natural resources. America, being one such country, does not produce only for itself, rather, it produces for everyone. Everyone is abusing the world's natural resources and everyone has a responsibility in the matter. Finally, if we wish to cut back on America's disproportional use of the world's natural resources, then we ought to have the world cut back on their disproportional use of American products made from these natural resources.
While I admit that addressing hypocrisy is important, in this case, I do not believe that the critic's argument is worrisome. First, it does not follow that because a country supplies many other countries with many or even all of their products and services, that the resources used in production must be natural resources. Simply put, Agyeman is trying to make this very point. Agyeman mentions that producers need to draw upon their "mental resources" more and our world's natural resources less. Therefore, it is quite compatible with Agyeman's argument that the US could disproportionately supply products and services without disproportionately consuming the world's natural resources.
Second, the critic points out that America's consumers share a responsibility for the consumption of the world's natural resources. I have no problem with this criticism, but only in its weak form. If the critic thinks that sharing responsibility translates into America having less responsibility, then I must disagree. Assume that the critic does think this. Then, the idea is that the US is less responsible for the predicament of consumption because they are simply fulfilling a demand in the economic market. However, this is not a good move. If we commit ourselves to that view, then we must also commit ourselves to the view that slave sellers are less blameworthy than slave buyers because slave sellers are only fulfilling a demand in the economic market. The problem is that our economic dealings are not, all by themselves, immune from moral responsibility. So, I hope that the intent in this designation of responsibility is not meant to relieve the US of any responsibility, but only to assign some responsibility to US consumers. There is, however, at least one way to assign greater responsibility to the US.
As Agyeman argues, Americans have a responsibility to redefine the "American Dream." Insofar as the American Dream would be unsustainable if everyone adopted it, if everyone adopts the American Dream, the world's natural resources are doomed.
I will go one step further than Agyeman and propose that Americans have a "special" responsibility to make sure no one else follows our dream. The American Dream is an American responsibility because it is a dream that we created, or at least one that we had a large part in creating. The dream is globally unsustainable, and therefore it is not only our responsibility to redefine the dream, but it is also our responsibility to make sure that no other countries follow our dream as it currently stands.
This may sound strange, but here is an analogy. Insofar as nuclear warfare was an American war tactic and insofar as global nuclear warfare tactics are unsustainable, America has a special responsibility not only to redefine war tactics, but also to make sure that no other countries follow our old tactic of using nuclear warfare. So, much like our special responsibility to discontinue nuclear warfare, America has a special responsibility to discontinue the American Dream. (If it seems unfair to keep other countries from following the American Dream, look at it this way... No country deserves the American Dream, therefore America should keep every country from realizing the American Dream, itself included.)
For instance, if America cut back on its own use of products and services originating from its own consumption of natural resources, but allowed the world to maintain its current disproportional use of American products, even if the products stem from America's disproportional consumption of natural resources, then this arrangement would lessen America's disproportional use of natural resources. Furthermore, since the American population is disproportionately small relative to our presumably large consumption of natural resources (for ourselves), one could argue that Americans ought to make the sacrifice, due to the unspoken rule that each country is only entitled to her "fair share" of the world's natural resources. In fact, the latter is partly Agyeman's point. American livelihood is closely tied to a principle of wastefulness that ought to be rejected.
Thus, Agyeman's position is more plausible than the critic originally gives credit. Agyeman merely asks for America to rightfully assume a leadership role in solving the problem of the world's depleting natural resources. Furthermore, one way to lead, Agyeman recommends, is to redefine our dream into one that is more compatible with preserving our world's natural resources.
Quayshawn Spencer is a graduate student in Philosophy.
