Sustainability problems in substantive economies

Abstract

This article starts from the concept of sustainability adopted by the UN in 1987, based on the Brundtland Report, to analyse its subsequent instrumentalization by political and economic discourses based on a neoliberal logic.
To recover the essence that it had in its origins, the concept of sustainability must imply a balance between economy, society and the environment. This corresponds to a substantive conception of the economy, where the market constitutes a subsystem of society and nature, with the objective of providing sustenance to the community instead of maximising earnings.
For the purpose of this work, rural territories were taken as a reference where economic forms persist and, in most cases, predominate – such as peasant economies or community economies - which differ substantially from the capitalist market economy. Much practical and experimental knowledge has, over time, accumulated solutions for different problems. However, with the acceleration of changes in the last two centuries, many of these solutions -designed to maintain a balanced relationship with nature- were forgotten. On the other hand, this knowledge based on accumulated experience increasingly lacks tools capable of responding to complex problems on a global scale, such as the decline of biodiversity, contamination and the effects of economic globalization.
From this perspective, the pertinent question is whether scientific communities are not, in fact, prepared to engage in an exchange of knowledge for the valorisation of rural spaces and, therefore, in the construction of responses to all the problems previously stated.