Women
and Work in a Sustainable SocietyMies, page 1 - 2 - 3 - 4
Section headings:
Women
and Work in a Sustainable Society
Mies, page 1 - 2 - 3 - 4
Section headings:
7.c.5 A new Concept of Satisfaction of Needs A different definition of "good life" and an improvement of the quality of life implies different forms of satisfying fundamental human needs. Max-Neef and his colleagues, who developed this concept of fundamental human needs, stress that fundamental human needs are universal, but that their satisfiers - the means and ways how these needs are satisfied - vary according to culture, region, historical conditions. In capitalist industrial societies, commodities have become the determinant satisfiers: "In industrial capitalism the production of economic goods along with the system of allocating them has conditioned the type of satisfiers that predominate" (Max-Neef et al 1989:27). 1 find the distinction between needs and satisfiers useful for our discussion on consumer liberation, because it allows seeing that there are different ways to satisfy the same fundamental human needs. Max-Neef and his colleagues identified nine fundamental human needs, namely: Subsistence (health, food, shelter clothing etc.), Protection (care, solidarity, work etc.), Affection (self-esteem, love, care, solidarity etc.), Understanding (study, learning, analysis, etc.), Participation (responsibilities, sharing of rights and duties), idleness (curiosity, imagination, games, relaxation, fun), Creation (intuition, imagination, work, curiosity etc.), Identity (sense of belonging, differentiation, self-esteem), Freedom (autonomy, self-esteem, self- determination, equality). These fundamental human needs are universal; they are the same in rich and poor, "overdeveloped" and "underdeveloped" countries. In "overdeveloped" industrial societies these needs are satisfied almost exclusively by satisfiers which have to be bought in the market, which are produced industrially, and which very often are pseudo-satisfiers, because they do not in the end respond to the need - like cars bought for status purposes, or cosmetics bought to satisfy the need for love - they are sometimes simply destructive. The arms race, e. g. is legitimized by the need for Protection, the need for Subsistence, the need for Freedom. If we try to break out of the mental framework which industrial society has created and exported to all poor countries we discover that there would be many different ways, many of them not dependent on the market, to satisfy those fundamental needs Take the need for affection. Many women in the affluent societies try to satisfy the need for affection and recognition by going on a shopping; spree. Many buy clothes to satisfy this need. They hope that by following the latest fashion they will win the affection of their partners, of their surroundings in general. The self-esteem of women in our societies is closely linked to their outward appearance. We also know, that in spite of these efforts at compensatory consumption, this need for affection and self-esteem is never satisfied by buying new clothes or other pseudo-satisfiers. The women compensate a deep human need by buying a commodity. Within a consumer liberation movement one would have to find or invent new ways, particularly non-commoditized ways, to satisfy this need for affection and respect. For children, for example, this might mean spending more time with them or playing with them more instead of buying them ever more toys. Many non-commoditized satisfiers have the advantage of being synergetic. This means they satisfy not one but several need at a time. If one takes the time to play with children, a number of needs are satisfied: the need for affection, for protection, for understanding, for idleness, freedom, identity. And this applies both to the children and to the grownups in the interaction. If fundamental human needs are satisfied in non-commercial ways - I call them subsistence ways - the processes of satisfaction are often reciprocal: the one who gives something also receives something. 
If such a change of life style would happen in the rich countries on a big scale, it would not only halt the destruction of the ecology and stop the exploitation of the Third World, it would also change the model for imitative and compensatory consumption which middle class people in the North provide both for the lower classes in their own country and for people of the South. Patterns of consumption of the North are imported into countries of the South and imitated there by political and economic elites. These consumption patterns then lead to more dependency, indebtedness, internal imbalances and a loss of cultural identity (Max-Neef et at 1989:47). Max-Neef and his colleagues stress the need to break away from imitative consumption patterns in the Third World to free these countries from economic and cultural dependence and to make more efficient use of their own resources for their own well-being. It would be a necessary step for Third World countries towards self-reliance. In my view, however, a breaking away from imposed consumption patterns would also be a necessary step toward self-reliance of hitherto "overdeveloped", affluent societies. Most of these depend, as we saw, to a large extent on the exploitation of Third World countries and their resources. If sustainability and self-reliance are considered the correct path for countries of the South, they must necessarily also be the correct path for the countries of the North. To cite an example, this was proposed by the poor rural and urban women at the workshop on sustainability in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992. These women - small producers, gatherers, poor peasants etc. - suggested closer links between rural producers and urban consumers, a direct exchange between different producers outside the money-economy, a direct exchange of different types of knowledge between different groups of women and men, a direct link also between Third world and First World women (Viezzer et al. 1992) 7.c.6 New Values and new Economic and Political Structures These women also spelled out clearly a whole set of new values and principles which would be necessary if the aim were true social and ecological sustainability. The following are among those which they specified:
Implied in this list of new values is also the rejection of self-interest as the only driving force in economics. The women insisted on unitedness, togetherness, sharing as an important new value for survival. These values were not only ethical postulates but were already practiced in many of their grass-roots movements. They were necessary for their survival. The poor women in Rio said that their vision of a positive alternative to the destructive global supermarket-model in their local situation would also work at the global level. In order to realize these values, however, a restructuring at the economy as a whole has to take place at all levels. Here are some of the main features they suggest: 8. New Priorities
10. Money will be used as a means of circulation, an instrument of exchange only, not as a means of accumulation. For that interest has to be reduced or abolished, as Gsell suggested (Kennedy, Binswanger l992). It is clear that all these new values, principles, structures require an altogether different anthropology, cosmology and epistemology than the existing mainstream one. But as the processes of restructuring the world toward what I call a subsistence perspective - others call it a sustainable perspective - are already underway, particularly at the grassroots-level in many parts of the South, this new world view will definitely also emerge. In these processes people are already practicing a different approach, a different understanding of politics, participatory politics instead of centralized representative politics. This is a sign of hope. Maria Mies, 5 May 1995 9. References
Verhelst, Thierry. 1990. No Life without Roots, Culture and Development. Zed Books. London . Viezzer et al. 1992. Com Garra e Qualidade. Mulheres em economies sustentáveis agricultura e extrativismo. Publicacao Rede Mulher. Rio de Janeiro 3 - 6 Junho 1992. Sáo Paulo. Waring, Marilyn 1988. If Women Counted: A New Feminist Economics. Macmillan. London. The World Commission on Environment and Development. 1987. "Our Common Future". Oxford University Press. Oxford. Zerwas, Hans-Jörg. 1988. Albeit als Besitz. Das ehrbare Handwerk zwischen Bruderliebe und Klassenkampf 1848. Rororo. Reinbek.
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