Global Corporations and Diversity

by Joshua Karliner



"Building a sustainable culture" is somewhat of a misnomer since the essence of sustainability is diversity. If we focus on building a single "culture" in the name of ecological sustainability, we only contribute to the homogenization of politics, economics, ecology and culture that is exacerbating the world's already grave social and environmental woes. No one can create and then distribute a formula for ecological sustainability.

Economic globalization however, is distributing a formula for disaster. It is bringing identical images, products and industrial practices to the far corners of the earth. Spearheaded by transnational corporations and the most powerful governments in the world, globalization is fostering the spread of an international monoculture of unabashed consumerism and "development." With this unparalleled economic growth comes increasing poverty for the majority of the world's people, an accelerating series of environmental crises, and the eradication of a vast diversity of cultures--many of whom have lived in harmony with the earth for generations.

Today those devastating the world's biological and cultural diversity are also masquerading as champions of "sustainable development." The very global corporations responsible for the destruction of the ozone layer, for the onset of global warming, for the clearcutting of pristine forests, and for many other ills, now do so in the name of sustainability. To a large degree, they have invented corporate environmentalism to coopt a movement that threatens their freedom to grow at the expense of the Earth and its people.

Corporate environmentalism generally promotes monocultures over diversity. It favors monocrop tree plantations over natural forests, and monocrop agribusiness over organic agriculture. It suggests that "clean coal" and nuclear power are environmentally sound energy sources, while shunning solar and wind. It promotes CFC substitutes that destroy the ozone. As this "environmental ethic" spreads across the planet in tandem with globalization, a diversity of ways of living with the earth are being overrun and, in some cases, wiped out in the name of a corporate culture bent on sustaining economic growth.

Instead of thinking about building a single sustainable culture, we should be thinking about halting the destruction of the diversity of sustainable cultures that do exist, while fostering the emergence of new ones. As we work to create our own sustainable communities (including sustainable businesses) we must also work to rein in economic globalization and the transnational corporations driving it. In other words, and this is the paradox, we must think and act both locally and globally.

The only way we can do this--the only we we can begin to attain the interrelated goals of ecological sustainability and social justice in this age of globalization is by building a broad international movement composed of a diversity of peoples grounded in their own sustainable cultures. This movement needs to work for greater democratic control over corporations at the local, national and international levels. It also needs to develop a series of crosscultural principles that promote fundamental human rights, ecological sustainablity, social equity and democratic participation.


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