Resource management and the transition to a steady state

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine some characteristics of the transition to a steady state and its implications for Resource Management.

The transition means changing from a society based on exponential growth in population and resource consumption to a 'post-industrial' economy with a low rate of throughput and recycling of energy-matter. More importantly, it means a fundamental change in the world view or paradigm guiding the interaction of society with its environment. Such a change represents a cybernetic adjustment in the human system - an alteration of behaviour in the light of information fed back from its environment. During evolutionary history, such adjustments have enabled other species to adapt to change in their surroundings and to survive.

The study analyses the emergence of a new world view using the concept of paradigm shift from Kuhn (1962). It is argued that the 'anomaly' of the environmental crisis has led to a questioning of fundamental assumptions about growth and progress and the control of Nature, which underly industrial culture.

The major characteristics of the prevailing Technocratic paradigm are contrasted with some of the discernible characteristics of an emergent organic paradigm. The conflict between these two world views is treated as a dialectic process - leading to the reconciliation or synthesis of opposing trends.

It is suggested that Resource Management exhibits many attributes of the dominant social paradigm but that trends within it reflect the same struggle of world views developing in wider industrial society.