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Putting ‘Good Society’ Ahead of Growth and/or ‘Development’: Overcoming Neoliberalism's Growth Trap and its Costly Consequences
Author(s) -
Khan M. Adil
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
sustainable development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.115
H-Index - 64
eISSN - 1099-1719
pISSN - 0968-0802
DOI - 10.1002/sd.1572
Subject(s) - nature versus nurture , neoliberalism (international relations) , economics , equity (law) , just society , social justice , sustainability , degrowth , political economy , sociology , development economics , political science , law , ecology , politics , anthropology , biology
With the rise of neoliberalism, a corporate‐dominated state‐assisted deregulated growth strategy, which has caught most countries in the throes of what can be termed a ‘growth trap’, has indeed yielded significant economic gains for many but has also entailed inexorable social, moral and environmental adversities. This paper argues that the reason we experience the incongruities between economic growth and social nourishing is the fact that we treat economy over society as our end goal. We regard economic growth as the end‐all sum. Given the social and other costs this obsession with growth has inflicted upon societies, it is important that we escape the neoliberal growth trap and recalibrate our focus from the economy to society, to ensure that neither growth nor ‘development’, but rather formation of what this paper terms ‘good societies’, those that nurture and thrive on values of equity, empathy, social justice and environmental sustainability, should be the end goal. By drawing lessons from several philosophical and practical ideas, the paper offers policy options relevant to the implementation of the ‘good society’ concept both within and across nations. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment