Sustainable development for all

The culture of peace requires that economic development be based on "sustainable human development for all." "Social development, social justice and the eradication of poverty are indispensable." In contrast the culture of war has always benefited "from military supremacy and structural violence and [is] achieved at the expense of the vanquished and the weak."

Economic justice cannot be attained under capitalism. Capitalism, by its very nature exploits workers and maintains its power and wealth through structural violence. As Engels says, economic justice can only be attained through a revolution to socialism which will provide "the possibility of securing for every member of society, by means of socialized production, an existence not only fully sufficient materially, and becoming day-by-day more full, but an existence guaranteeing to all the free development and exercise of their physical and mental faculties."

Capitalism continues to widen the gap between rich and poor not only internally in capitalist countries, but also externally between rich countries and poor countries. This follows from the very nature of imperialism which Lenin has described as the highest stage of capitalism. Today imperialism continues to profit enormously from the exploitation of workers and the environment under the protection of their own or proxy military force. But that is not all. They also profit financially from interest on the debts they impose and from the depression of prices for the raw materials they obtain.

Following their revolutions, to a remarkable extent, the socialist countries have lived up to the promise of economic justice made by Marx and Engels. Despite economic blockades, sabotage and, in some cases, outright invasion by the capitalist countries, they have eliminated extreme poverty and reduced the gap between rich and poor.

The revolutionary socialist countries have reduced povery not only inside their own countries, but also in the other poor countries of the world. True to its commitment to proletarian internationalism, the Soviet Union devoted as much as 7% of its national budget to assistance for other socialist countries and national liberation movements. This is in sharp contrast to the capitalist countries of the north whose policies drive the countries of the south deeper into debt and poverty.

But development is not automatically sustainable under socialism. Until the second half of the 20th Century, there was little understanding of ecology. Hence, it is not surprising that under the stress of the Cold War, the socialist countries destroyed their environments as much as did capitalist countries.

In recent years, socialist countries such as Cuba have come to understand and take the lead in the struggle for sustainable development. This is exemplified by Fidel Castro's address to the Rio Summit in 1992: "The forests are disappearing. The deserts are expanding. Every year thousands of millions of tons of fertile soil end up in the sea. Numerous species are becoming extinct. Population pressures and poverty trigger frenzied efforts to survive even when it is at the expense of the environment. It is not possible to blame the Third World countries for this ... Unequal terms of trade, protectionism, and the foreign debt assault the ecology and promote the destruction of the environment. If we want to save mankind from this self-destruction, we have to better distribute the wealth and technologies available in the world."

In addition to taking environmental factors into consideration in national economic planning, the Cubans have given attention to the training of professionals in the field of environmental protection and education of the general public.

Keeping in mind the dialectical principle that "the interdependence and the closest and indissoluble connection between all aspects of any phenomenon," any action for sustainable development contributes to the overall struggle of the culture of peace versus the culture of war.

To take part in a discussion about this page, go to the Discussion Board Forum on Sustainable Development for All: