BOOK REVIEW

IN BUILDING A WIN-Win World Hazel Henderson welcomes the end of the "six thousand year experimentation with competition, territoriality, expansionism and military conflict". Underpinning conventional history of wars and conquests, the vast majority of human beings have cooperated in peaceful co-existence. Recognition of the limitations to competition, and of the value of co-operation, should become a priority for world leaders if social cohesion and environmental sustainability are to be maintained.

The book is divided into three sections. Global economic warfare, jobless growth and the erosion of sustainability are outlined first. Secondly, the book explores the reemergence of the "traditionally cooperative Love Economies". Finally, Henderson reviews theory and practice of building a "win-win" world. Work on new definitions of wealth, alternative indicators, new markets and new commons in global organizations appear to offer evidence of progress towards new international agreements and institutions capable of securing a sustainable future.

Readers familiar with Henderson s work will not be surprised to come across many key concepts and nuggets of information embedded within a wide-ranging argument. Thus, "We are just becoming aware of ecosystems as immanent intelligence; for example, it has been shown that grasses in typical grazing pastures are capable of growing themselves tougher and more unpalatable by increasing the cellulose content of their leaves in order to drive off excessive numbers of grazing animals." This intriguing piece of information is presented in the chapter on The Technology Trap.

The foundations for building a win-win economy are in the book, waiting to be revealed in all their elegance. In Chapter 3 we find a key reference to Lewis Mumford's The Myth of the Machine (1966). Mumford contrasts technological hardware and software. The hardware of a civilization, its weapons and artifacts, appears to offer indications of levels of sophistication of civilization. However, cooperative cultures may well have developed technological software which leaves no tangible trace. In the past, highly refined technologies may have been developed, but of the software variety: "techniques of conflict resolution, supportive interpersonal relationships, production systems based on elaborate barter, reciprocity and redistributive schemes; myths and taboos to regulate anti-social behaviour without use of jails, clubs or physical restraints." A culture using such software techniques would be less dependent upon artifacts providing the means of physical controls.

In Chapter 12 the theme reappears, in the form of a critique of Hardin's Tragedy of the Commons. Co-operative (win-win) communities can devise collective rules of fair access to the commons. Alternatively, enclosed commons can be designated private or group property, with plots being traded on the market. "The concept of private property . . . began as meaning all those goods, lands and resources that individuals wished to withhold from the community and deprive from common usage." Henderson concludes that "the world's oceans, the air we breathe, the planet's biodiversity are also commons - not property." They must be managed according to agreed rules to prevent exploitation.

Another fragment of the "love economy" emerges in Chapter 8. In a section entitled Ancient Myths May Provide Paths to the Future, Henderson argues that in the course of the 6,000-year experiment with competitive civilization women have lost control over their own fertility. The resultant population explosion could well be attributed to patriarchal religious belief systems which flourish in the male-dominated cultures of "development". Partnerships between men and women may once have offered, and could again promote, greater scope for a harmonious relationship among human beings and between human culture and the natural environment.

THE WORLD BANK'S 1995 appointment of James D. Wolfensohn is welcomed as an indication of a shift in the Bank's policy away from giant dams and other large projects. Despite references to works which recognize the nature of the global economy and the implications of powerful concentrations of multinational financial institutions (World Bank, International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organisation), Henderson envisages the world's economic élite coming forward to police the new "win-win world order. A possibility devoutly to be wished! It is tempting to believe that the wolf only needs to be told of the unfortunate effect of its lifestyle upon its victims for it to change into a lamb. The World Bank may well have become sufficiently schizophrenic in 1993-4, under the onslaught of the Fifty Years is Enough campaign, instituted by environmental and sustainable development activists, including Henderson herself, as to hire some of its critics. It is, however, questionable whether the new recruits can do more than provide the institution with sufficiently plausible sheep's clothing to avoid its survival being seriously challenged.

Building a Win-Win World is an indispensable work of reference. Henderson perceptively describes her work as her "most recent album of the 'snapshots' collected since the writing of Paradigms in Progress." A mine of information on the key players in the global environmental debate, this book is best approached via the index. Although most major works and bodies of thought are mentioned in some detail, some are merely listed, throwing readers back onto their own knowledge of the field. Gems like David Korten's When Corporations Rule the World, Claudia Zaslavsky's Africa Counts, Mary Mellor's Breaking the Boundaries and Joe Dominguez' and Vicki Robin's Your Money or Your Life and many more, a large number of which have been reviewed in Resurgence, appear merely in lists with no further explanation of their content or significance. Perhaps this is too much to ask in a work which already extends to almost 400 pages.

Building a Win-Win World is a mine of intriguing facts, information and references. Henderson is a widely read and respected figure in the field of alternative economics, and provides a weighty and authoritative account of the most urgent issues of the day. We are grateful once again for the author's dedication in producing this inspirational resource. Politicians, industrialists, bankers and world leaders will find the work invaluable. Indeed, we may all be guided by the author in asking: if "technology is the answer - what is the question?"

End

Frances Hutchinson is co-author of
Environmental Business Management
and a forthcoming book,
The Political Economy of Social Credit and Guild Socialism.

April 1997