Outlines on environmental philosophy part 6

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Work Phases
The value of the earth and of the ecoservices it provides were analysed from different
points of view:
Land and food
Natural resources and processes
Landscape and environmental settings
Disciplinary Advancements and Expected Results
Peoples’ rights and their link with natural resources might be underestimated also in
terms of communities’ autonomy, especially for those societies which live in close
relation with their surrounding environment and highly depend on it. Moreover, the
economic value of nature’s ecoservices might be estimated as greater than global
gross domestic product. It may be interesting to find out and compare the monetary
value of each sector of the economy and of the ecosystem.
An analysis of how the environment influences people’s behaviour within
working places is briefly looked at and might be further developed.
The Main Sources For the Research
The main sources for the investigation of the land and food issue were Bocci and
Ricoveri. Ricoveri was also the main reference in regard to the enquiry on
ecoservices, while Kaplan and Kaplan that for environmental settings and their
influence on human behaviour.

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13. THE LIMITS OF DEVELOPEMENT
Preface
It may seem relevant to underline how strictly interconnected the economic and
political system of a civilisation is with nature. It appears in fact to heavily affect
nature and its resources, as well as populations’ conditions: economy ought to be
considering also nature’s and people’s dimensions.
The Area of Research
The three economies are thoroughly investigated, namely the market one, the
economy of nature and that of subsistence. It is argued that any model of economic
system is totally dependent on the economy of nature, without which, development
might not be sustained. This seems to appear an economic reason for economic
systems to become more eco-friendly, in that overexploitation might in the long run
imply losses also in economic terms. Accumulation of capital may be translated in
social unease, in that it might affect in a negative way the economy of subsistence.
Many indigenous and local communities may be forced to live at the edge of society
in uncertain and unstable conditions.
The current economic, political and thus juridical paradigms often seem to
consider the concept of private property as sacred, often to the detriment of public
and collective interests, forgetting that in history expropriations were the norm in
many parts of the world, especially starting from colonisations from Western
countries. The juridical controversy of the dichotomy eminent domain/public trust
appears in this sense relevant: individual interests often seem to crush public ones
(although often the public interest is made to coincide with governments’ interest
instead than with collective one). Non democratic and centralised economic systems
often seem to undermine cultural, economic and political identities of local and
indigenous communities as well has not always allowing the political and economic

173
agenda to coincide for three economies (market, nature and subsistence) are deeply
interconnected.
Disciplinary Cultural and Scientific Objectives of the Research
The Limits to Growth report presented by the Club of Rome more than forty years
ago, although being widely recognised as a very relevant document for what ecology
is concerned, appears to be based on old assumptions, in that it does not seem to
sufficiently enquiry the need to conceive a model of development different to the one
proposed by the same industrial civilisation.
It is pointed out how the industrial revolution, for the first time in history,
supported an open economic model, a model in which for the first time the
production and consumption concepts did not take into account the quantity of
available resources within the area where a community lived.
Work Phases
Investigation on different sets of problems related to economic development was
taken following two different paths:
Description of market, nature and subsistence economies
Choice of enhancing more individual or collectives rights
It seems that economic visibility and value, through purchasing power, are not
always granted to the natural and social products of the economy. Which are the
examples that might be useful to investigate in this sense throughout the planet?
Where and how, furthermore, inequalities in this sense have arisen between
corporations’ and governments’ rights and nature’s and communities’ ones?

174
Shiva and Viale were the main sources for the three-model economy issue and its
implications. Shiva was also the main reference for the examination of the
dichotomy individual/collective interest.

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14. DEGROWTH
Preface
To talk about degrowth might appear at least questionable, according to many
intellectuals, economists and politicians nowadays. However, the opposite concept
of degrowth, namely growth, seems perhaps unrealistic as well as typical only of a
civilisation’s particular point of view. Most of the global issues the world is
currently facing might perhaps be dealt with from a degrowhtist perspective, as it
may prove to be the most effective and feasible one in many aspects.
The degrowth paradigm was developed starting from the second law of
thermodynamics, the one concerned with the entropy of any given system. A
degrowth-based society might prove the most appropriate one because it deals in a
feasible manner with the limited condition of the biosphere. A growth model typical
of Western civilisation seems to go in the opposite direction to that pointed out by
degrowth. Homeostasis within the ecosystem, moreover, is proposed as a model
based on three parameters. Energy, time and space may appear to be fundamental to
individuate how man relates with the different dimensions of his reality (his own
self, family, town, country, biosphere).
Intra-familiar solidarity seems to have become a pillar on which Western society is
based on. The depletion of rights, in all spheres, appears to have stimulated an ever
increasing importance of personal relations which had perhaps been forgotten for
quite a long time now. Autonomy to social groups and communities in deciding

176
which model of development to adopt seems fundamental. Often Western-type
development has arrived to the point of undermining the psychical, anthropological
and social aspects of communities, as well as their physical territories’ ones.
A most appropriate development might prove that based on democracy and the
quality of the environmental and social aspects (rather than material ones).
Work Phases
Degrowth theory was analysed by analysing it in two different steps:
Man’s homeostasis within the environment
An economy based on the degrowth model
Where and how the industrial model has changed the ecosystems and lives of
communities seems a fundamental investigation to be undertaken, maybe utilised for
deciding whether to continue to undertake such a model or to shift to one which
might have less impact on the ecologic and social spheres. The difference between
the concepts of sustainable civilisation and sustainable development might prove an
interesting comparison under several aspects (philosophical, cultural, economic,
political).
When a civilisation takes a wrong decision, it is argued, the civilisations which
oppose it might at a certain phase be perceived as those which have instead adopted
the most appropriate stance. This is how degrowthists might be perceived nowadays,
when the dogma of growth seems to be the right rule for the majority of the people.
A growth of other parameters, namely intangible ones (e. g. arts, discussions, rest)
might prove the only growth which seems advisable. New and sophisticated
solutions and tools to develop a degrowth model might still be invented and found,
yielding a possible scenario of vivid productivity of ideas in the next years. Such
turmoil might be perceived as a positive rather than negative element for today’s
society.

177
For what man’s homeostasis within the ecosystem is concerned Dalla Casa, Illich
and Latouche were the main references. Latouche was the main source also for the
possible economic outcomes deriving from such a paradigm.

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15. LOCALISATION
Preface
As opposed to the main economic trend typical of our times (namely globalisation)
localisation might perhaps appear as an effective alternative. Localisation might be
first of all perceived as a paradigm of the mind, although it produces real economic
and political effects.
It is argued that the principle of subsidiarity, as well as being recognised at the
juridical level within different local and global institutions represents the pillar on
which localisation is based on. Different models (bioregionalism, eco-
communalism, green anarchism) of localisation are looked at.
Local markets as opposed to a market economy seem to be based on interpersonal
relations, transactions conducted in person, and might represent a fact of extension of
society (a relational one, where relations are perceived as more important that
economic factors).
In terms of justice and sustainability, localisation might seem to represent a more
appropriate model that globalisation does. The latter appears to be based on choices
of productivity and efficiency, namely for economic reasons, while the former might
provide answers also to other types of demands.

179
Work Phases
The phenomenon of localisations has been investigated in two phases:
The effects of a localisation-based paradigm
The differences between globalisation and localisation
How popular and local creativity might represent basic tools to implement a
localisation-based model of development? Which might be the main differences
deriving from such a model, especially in comparison with globalisation? It might
not always be worth paying a little less a foreign product if one of the outcomes from
such a choice could mean to having to pay huge sums to ensure the survival of a
fraction of the population which is no longer able to participate to the production of
the object. Indirect costs, such those deriving from transportation, and the absence of
modern environmental and working condition legislations, for instance, should
perhaps be made more clear to the public by economic and political authorities.
The main source for the analysis of the effects of a localisation-based paradigm was
Latouche. The main references for the examination of the differences between
globalisation and localisation were Latouche and Shiva.

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10. HOMO OECONOMICUS
Psychical forces have certainly nothing to do with consciousness;
in spite of the fact that we like to think
that consciousness and psyche are identical,
ours is nothing but a presumption of the intellect.
Carl Jung
Man’s Innate Motivations
Bartolini argues that the economic science, which seems today to be considered one
the most important of all, is based on some assumptions which seem at least
objectionable. One of these is that relative to the concept of homo oeconomicus. It
might not be difficult to sense how the behaviour of humans, in fact, is not
comparable to that of any other economic subject (state, firms, et cetera). A human
being does not take a decision only based on economic efficiency and profit. There
are some aspects, such as solidarity, ideals, feelings, emotions, moral, ethical and
religious principles, which often induce man to act in an opposite way to that which
would be forecasted by theoretical economic efficiency. These aspects might
however not be considered by scholars, who often, base their economic theories on
the homo oeconomicus model, perhaps trying to convince masses, as well as

182
governments, to adopt economic policies which might not take into account the non-
economic aspects of human behaviours1
.
The second important philosophical work of Swiss philosopher, writer, and
composer Jean-Jacques Russeau, the Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality
Among Men, composed for the 1754 prize of the Academy of Dijon, France, was
welcomed with a little lesser enthusiasm than the first one (the Discourse on Arts and
Sciences). In the preface, the author highlights the fact that the original state of a
natural man theorised by him (the état de nature, the state of nature), is conceived
more as a theoretical hypothesis rather than a historical phase which occurred in
reality in a more or less remote time. Russeau argues that it is “a state which does
not exist anymore, which has maybe never existed, and probably never will, and of
which however one should have correct information in order to properly judge our
present state”2
.
According to Russeau, in such state human needs were only the basic ones and
perfectly in accordance with man’s desires. Man did not possess the ability of
reflection or the skill of projecting himself in the future: for humanity it was a
dreadful period of time. Nature (conceived now as the original state of the natural
man, as deep, integral, uncorrupted interiority of the civilised man) always has in
Russeau a benign connotation, and life in direct contact with it is always considered
happy. On the other side, Russeau argues that “our woes are always in the majority
of cases our faults and could have almost every time been prevented by maintaining
a simple, uniform and solitary life style, as the one prescribed by nature”3
.
1
According to Bartolini, from these assumptions economics first and politics after, shaped (and are
still shaping) minds and laws which do not seem to take into consideration the sharing of humans with
each other and the biosphere anymore. Interdependence and mutual respect seem to have left space to
individualism and competition. Common heritage appears more and more substituted with private
one. What was once considered a right of everyone (a clean environment, food and water for
everyone, dwellings and clothing, communication and transport) seems increasingly accorded only to
those who can afford it. Refer to Bartolini, Stefano (2010) Manifesto Per la Felicità Donzelli, p.
149-152
2
Even though it seems in some parts of the essay that the author’s historical reconstruction tries to be
very realistic (based on the works of ethnographers and geographers, on voyagers’ reports and on the
Histoire Naturelle of French naturalist Georges Buffon), he overall wants to produce conjectures, “not
[...] historical truths, but only hypothetical and conditional reasoning, more adapt to clarify the nature
of things than to reveal their origin”. Refer to http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rousseau
3
Ibidem

183
Civil Economics
It seems that culture, economics and politics could perhaps be rethought in a more
human-shaped way. It may often seem that when man delegates too much to
overstructures the loss of humanity is the price to be paid in favour of efficiency.
Sometimes, even the efficiency aspect seems no longer better attained through too
complicated structures and models, more and more departing from environmental
and social paradigms.
Civil economics intended as an economic theory was born out of a tradition of
economic and philosophical thought which is rooted in civil humanism, as well as
the more remote thoughts of Greek Aristotle and Italian Cicero and Thomas of
Aquino as well as the Franciscan school. Its golden age was Italian Enlightenment,
Neapolitan in particular. While with Scottish philosophers Adam Smith and David
Hume at the same time the principles of political economy were set out, in Naples,
they developed with Italian statesmen, writers, philosophers, economists and lawyers
such as Antonio Genovesi, Gaetano Filangieri, Giacinto Dragonetti and others. Even
though many are the analogies between the Scottish and Neapolitan school, a
significant difference among the two was represented by the fact that the first one
does not consider sociability or non-instrumental relationality meaningful for the
functioning of markets. For Adam Smith and the official tradition of economic
science the market is civilisation but is not friendship, non-instrumental reciprocity4
.
The vision of the market/society relation typical of civil economics conceives the
experience of human sociability and reciprocity within a normal economic system,
starting from the assumption that different principles a part from profit and
instrumental exchange could exist. The challenge of civil economics is that of
making, within the same social system, all of the three regulatory principles coexist:
the principle of the equivalent value exchange, the redistribution one and the
reciprocity one. The principle of equivalent value exchange yields that relations are
based on a price, which is the equivalent in value of a good or service exchanged.
4
According to Genovesi, Filangieri, Dragonetti and in the 20th
century Italian politician and priest
Luigi Sturzo (and to some extent economist, politician and writer Luigi Einaudi), but also more
applied economists such as Ugo Rabbeno, Luigi Luzzatti and Gino Zappa, market, firms, the economy
are also places of friendship, reciprocity, gift, fraternity. The economy is civil, the market is life in
common, and they both share the same fundamental law: mutual assistance. In fact, the key
assumption of civil humanism is that “the private interest does not resolve spontaneously in public
happiness, being this the product of civil virtues”. Refer to
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economia_civile

184
The theory holds that the principle which allows the system to be efficient. The
principle of redistribution states that to be effective, the economic system must
redistribute wealth among all subjects which belong to it in order to give them the
possibility of participating to the same system. This principle guarantees the equity
of the system. Finally, the principle civil economics of reciprocity is the funding one
of and is characterised by the presence of three subjects, of which one (so called
homo reciprocans) undertakes an action toward another one moved not by a demand
for reward for that same action, but by an expectation, without which the relation
between the two is broken5
.
In the exchanges governed by this last principle a series of bidirectional transfers
come into succession. They are independent but at the same time interconnected.
The fact that the exchanges are independent implies the will, the freedom of each
transfer, so that none of these could be a prerequisite for a following one.
Bidirection in transfers, moreover, allows to differentiate reciprocity by mere
altruism, which is implemented through unidirectional transfers only, although both
types of transfers are based on a voluntary nature. The last characteristic of
exchanges regulated by the principle of reciprocity is transitivity: the answer of the
other subject (B) can also not be toward the person (A) which initiated the reaction of
reciprocity, but can be undertaken toward a third subject (C).
A B C
Figure 10. 1 Individuals’ Exchanging System Within Civil Economics – Individual A only
exchanges with individual B if he knows him very well and believes he will get a non-monetary return
and vice versa. Individual B could, as well as exchanging back with individual A also exchange with
a third individual C, if the same assumptions that were prerequisite of the first exchange occur6
.
It is argued that the homo reciprocans does not only act primarily highlighting the
importance of emotions (the so called emotional intelligence), but can actually make
rationality somehow reasonable, so to place more importance to feelings (in
5
Ibidem
6
Ibidem

185
comparison to pure and simple rationality), intended as the typical utility of the homo
oeconomicus7
.
Civil economics introduce a concept of goods produced in a particular setting: that
of relational goods. They are goods the utility of which for the subject consuming
them depends, as well as from their intrinsic and objective characteristics, from the
way the goods are consumed together with other subjects. Relational goods are a
type of good with peculiar characteristics. They in fact require some kind of
acquaintance with the identity of the other subject, meaning that the two subjects
must know each other well. Moreover a relational good is an anti-rival one, the
consumption of which stokes the same good and requires an investment on terms of
time, not only in monetary ones8
.
It therefore seems that the production of relational goods cannot be left to the
action of markets because it cannot occur according to the rules of production typical
of private goods, because in the case of relational goods both the problems of
efficiency and effectiveness arise. Nor can it take place according to the rules of
supply of public goods by the state, even if relational goods have common features
with public ones. For such reasons, our societies may need subjects that offer goods
who take reciprocity as a fundamental principle: the so called civil firms are those
typical of civil society and might be able to invent organisational structures able on
one side to free demand from the conditioning of demand and, on the other side, to
culturalise consumption, by inserting it in production. The goal function of a civil
firm is, then, to intentionally produce as high as possible social externalities, which
represent one of the most fundamental factors to accumulate social capital9
.
It may seem that such firms might perhaps take different organisational forms,
like for instance those of associations, foundations, cooperatives, consortiums,
7
The aim of reciprocity is the affirmation of fraternity, a principle which allows to equal subjects to
become different and to reach pluralism. Pluralism in turn enables society to have a future and not to
vanish, according to the concept of resilience. Ibidem
8
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beni_relazionali
9
In sociology, social capital is the expected collective or economic benefits derived from the
preferential treatment and cooperation between individuals and groups. Although different social
sciences emphasise different aspects of social capital, they tend to share the same idea that social
networks have value. Just as screwdriver (physical capital) or a university education (cultural or
human capital) can increase productivity (both individual and collective), so do social contacts affect
the productivity of individuals and groups. Refer to
http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTSOCIALDEVELOPMENT/EXTTSO
CIALCAPITAL/0,,contentMDK:20185164~menuPK:418217~pagePK:148956~piPK:216618~theSite
PK:401015,00.html

186
committees, movements and assemblies, as well as traditional types formed by
relatives and friends.
Figure 10. 2 Civil Firms – The type of form civil firms may assume is, as well as the traditional
groups represented by family and friends that of associations, foundations, cooperatives, consortiums,
committees, movements and assemblies.
CIVIL
FIRMS
ASSOCIATIONS,
FOUNDATIONS
COMMETTEES MOVEMENTS,
ASSEMBLIES
CONSORTIUMSCOOPERATIVES
FAMILY FRIENDS

187
A Human-Based Paradigm
Russeau’s distrust toward delegated power as well as any form of authority of
government which is not direct emanation of the people10
seem to follow this
reasoning and represents one of the pillars of the political reforms proposals by
subjects which advocate more direct democracy through the creation of direct
democracy institutes which are already existing in some countries but are not very
much used. Within these, it is often suggested to mandate discussion in parliament
of any popular initiative law (today it is mostly up to the competent parliamentary
commission to evaluate the acceptability and importance of such proposals). Many
would like to add in their constitution a tool of direct democracy known as
propositive referendum, namely a referendum, without the need of a set quorum,
which could propose new laws as well as abrogate old ones (abrogative referendum,
already existing in many countries) or to confirm constitutional level ones (so called
constitutional referendum). Finally, mandatory (if a certain amount of signatures is
gathered) petitions, namely, a request of investigating and proposing some laws on a
particular topic signalled by the people.
10
Refer to http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rousseau

188
Figure 10. 3 Institutes of Direct Democracy – The three juridical tools that may be used by the
public to directly produce laws are the popular initiative law, propositive referendum and popular
petition.
It may finally seem important to underline the need to perhaps transfer some powers,
especially legislative ones, from parliaments to communities and the population. The
latter are often more exposed and at the same time aware and in possess of a better
knowledge of real effects and problems which might be direct or indirect
consequence of the approval of a new provision. Direct democracy represented by
parliaments, European institutions in Europe and the United Nations as well as other
organisations often might perhaps have taken decisions with a real consultation or
approval by the involved populations.
Popular
Initiative
Law
Propositive
Referendum
Popular
Petition
DIRECT
DEMOCRACY

189
In the second part of the Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among
Men Russeau describes the historical process which saw the degeneration of man
from pureness and happiness of the state of nature (condition which the author has
defined in the first part of the essay) to the moral discouragement and degrade of
corrupt society (condition which the author had already described in the Discourse
on Arts and Sciences). According to his reconstruction, notwithstanding the
simplicity and ease of life in the state of nature, everyday-needs and the passions
which they created generated must have stimulated human intellect to some extent.
Difficulties in particular represented by extraordinary and catastrophic natural events
brought men to get close to each other, and this “must have naturally generated in
man’s spirit the perception of some kind of relations”; such types of mental relations
brought him to develop ideas11
.
According to Russeau men thus began to live together and collaborate,
gradually refining the language they used to communicate among themselves and
developing the habit of experiencing the first sentimental relations such as conjugal
love and affection between parents and sons. “It was an epoch of a first revolution
from which the funding and distinction of families was born and which introduced a
type of property; maybe already from this”, Russeau claims. At this stage, with the
refining of intelligence and availability of increasing resources resulting from putting
in common everyone’s force, men began to indulge in some comforts; this is one of
the first steps toward corruption, since all comforts, according to Russeau, are from
the beginning inevitably destined to degenerate in dependencies, thus producing new
needs restricting the freedom and independence of man12
.
However, Russeau argues, the increasing inclination to compare each other
brought men to give more and more value to the opinion everyone has in regard to
11
Thus man begins, according to Russeau, to undertake the journey toward awareness and intelligence
and, acquiring the ability to compare himself to others, immediately feeling pride as well as gloating.
He begins to compare himself with his fellowmen and, noticing that everyone else behaves like he did,
sensing a series of mutual difficulties, develops a kind of empathy and respectful code of conduct
which, enforcing the feeling of pity, goes toward the increase of safety and peace for everyone. Refer
to http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rousseau
12
Russeau argues that “in this new condition, with a simple and solitary life, very limited needs and
the means which they invented to provide for such needs, men, having much more spare time, used it
to get hold of many comforts not known to their fathers; this was, according to Russeau, the first yoke
which without perceiving it they placed on themselves, and the first source of all the woes which they
prepared for their heirs”. Notwithstanding, “this period of development of human faculties”, Russeau
argues, “and the impetuous activity of the ego, must have been the happiest and most durable epoch
for human beings; more one reflects on it, more one finds that such condition was the one less subject
to revolutions, the best for man”. Ibidem

190
everyone else and, while all wanted to be thought highly of, the fact of appearing
begins to become more important than that of being; this generated the first kind of
vanity, which is in turn the assumption of inequality and vice versa. According to
Russeau, men, which had been independent “up to when they dedicated themselves
to works that everyone could have done alone” became dependent from one another
“in the very moment in which a man experienced the need of another man’s help”; if
initially they were free and happy, “when they realised that it was useful to only one
person to have supplies for two, equality vanished”13
.
The Importance of Women
According to the historiographic conception of Swiss jurist and anthropologist
Johann Bachofen, the beginning of history was characterised by a sequence of phases
in which at first the maternal element prevailed (and with it the symbolisms of earth
and water, natural law, promiscuity, property community), followed by the paternal
one (and with it celestial symbolisms, positive law, monogamy, private property).
The passage between these phases probably occurred in moments of violent power
by women (amazonism), firstly as a rebellion to the physical supremacy of men in
the beginnings of history and then as a degeneration of the classic phase of
matriarchy defined as Demetrian, believed by Bachofen to represent the “poetry of
history”, organised as it would have been, the scholar claims, according to the
peaceful and just laws of mother nature14
.
13
The development of arts such as agriculture and metallurgy, which require that property not only of
the fruits of everyone’s work but of the same means of production and land, as acknowledged by
workers, seem to bring to a fast increase of inequality: Russeau argues that for the first time, in fact,
from a conventional agreement, not only the fruit of work is considered property of who earned it, but
also the possession of the means of production is legitimated regardless of the need who utilises them
may have of their products. This, according to Russeau, represents a historical turn: “The first one
who fenced a piece of land, thought of claiming it was his, and found people so naive to believe him,
was the real founder of civilisation. How many crimes, wars, killings, woes and horrors one would
have spared to the human specie had he taken away the fence and yelled to its fellowmen that the man
was an imposter, and that had everyone forgotten that the fruits belonged to everybody as well and the
land, humanity would be lost”. Ibidem
14
These theories have inspired a great number of the most valid modern researches on such themes:
their appreciation has been shared both by scholars who tended to the right (German philosopher
Ludwig Klages, German philosopher and pedagogue Alfred Baeumler, Italian philosopher, artist,

191
Since then the degeneration of masculine psychical energy and of all institutions
linked to it seem to have supervened in many the regions of the planet.
Russeau claims that the creation of money increases the distance between the
goods and work of who possesses them. Furthermore the creation of succession
rights totally disconnects the notion of need and work from that of property from
which they are inseparable. The ego, according to Russeau, definitively degenerates
and becomes thus an active egoism, (not passive anymore), in which one enjoys not
his good but the fact that he is better than others. The yearning of always possessing
more than one’s neighbours seems to seize everyone. “From here began, according
to different characteristics of each one, domination and slavery, or violence and
robberies”, Russeau concludes. In this phase clearly already very far from the state
of nature, according to Russeau, one gets to that state of war in which everyone is
against everyone else and which English philosopher Thomas Hobbes, conceiving
his homo homini lupus, placed at the origin of the history of man15
.
Following the Russeaunian theories relative to the concepts of use of goods and
resources, one could try and propose a parallelism with the same conceptions in use
by traditional civilisations, in which basically nothing is considered private according
to the institute of property, but everything is public in the sense that nobody owns
anything. Instead, everyone can often possess, especially for what goods of primal
need are concerned, something, unless he abuses or utilise them more than what he
needs.
It seems today that international corporations and countries tend to deviate more
and more from such paradigm. In some regions of the world water has been
privatised. The basic primal good for life. One could argue that in these cases it is
life itself to be privatised. The problem, according to Mattei, is that the life of a
person has a limited duration, while that of countries and corporations is through
legal personality indefinite. By valuing this it could seem suitable to change
writer and esoterist Julius Evola) which were definitely in line with the conservative ideology of
Bachofen and to the left (first of all German philosopher and writer Walter Benjamin, as well as
German philosophers and economists Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels). Significant has also been the
appreciation in the psychoanalytical world, from Freud to Jung, but above all with the studies of Erich
Neumann, Austrian physician and psychologist Wilhelm Reich and German psychoanalyst and
sociologist Erich Fromm. The matriarchal issue has been also resumed by recent gender studies,
which attempted to revaluate the historical consistency of the Bachofenian hypotheses, acknowledging
them as a valid tool to found an alternative socio-political projectuality, centred on typically feminine
values and characteristics which the Swiss scholar managed to highlight with incredible pioneer spirit.
Refer to http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/47947/Johann-Jakob-Bachofen
15
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rousseau

192
direction in all fields (cultural, political, juridical) in favour of people instead of
property rights and the sacredness of markets and countries, the author claims16
.
A system based above all on the non economic aspects of man might be a useful
model to perhaps overcome some of the current global problems. A model which is
based on feelings rather than on technique and on the principle of community which
man could share with nature (rather than that of domination). A shift from a
civilisation based on well having to one based on well being, means basically, to give
more importance to interior aspects of life instead then to material ones.
Bartolini claims that for the Western trend it seems instead that to feel good one
has to have, possess more and more goods and services, regardless of his emotional
condition toward himself, others and the biosphere. Being man part of the biosphere
much before the beginning of Western civilisation, it might result evident that to
measure the well being of a person in terms of his purchases could prove trivial. The
same concept of purchase appears by the way unknown in traditional civilisation, in
which what one needs for sustaining oneself in a way or another is always available.
All the rest seems unnecessary and is often nothing but an advertisement or media-
induced (thus artificial) need17
.
Gimbutas deeply analysed prehistoric cults (Mesolithic and Neolithic) related to
the earth and based on pre-Indo-European lunar and terrestrial feminine divinities.
The scholar claims that in Europe and Lesser Asia (the ancient Anatolia) between
7000 and 3000 b.C. a civilisation characterised by equality of the two genders
prevailed, in which women had a dominant role as priestesses or clan leaders, and
where life was governed by a great goddess symbol of birth, death and renewal. This
civilisation would have then been displaced by a different one, the so called kurgan,
which had probably prevailed between 4300 and 2800 B.C., transforming the ancient
also known as proto-Indo-European into a patriarchal one. According to
archaeological excavations in the superior Palaeolithic Euro-Asiatic period, a series
of elements which recall the concept of feminine divinity, mainly consisting by small
statuettes and numerous vases were found18
.
These conceptual and iconographic elaborations have been realized by primitive
people to express their religiousness, their concept of divine. The vase is in fact what
16
Refer to Mattei, Ugo (2012) Beni Comuni – Un Manifesto Laterza, p. 12
17
Refer to Bartolini, Stefano (2010) Manifesto Per la Felicità Donzelli, p. 28
18
http://www.britannica.com/bps/user-profile/1082/marija-gimbutas

193
better represents the feminine function, which is that of containing and maintaining
life (water), to protect and nourish (food). The vase anyway hides and encloses
within itself something invisible and thus mysterious. Even According to Neumann,
myths, rituals, religions of primitive mankind based their principles on a clear
symbolic formula:
Woman = Body = Vase = World
Figure 10. 4 Neumann’s Primitive Myths’, Rituals’ and Religions’ Symbolic Formula – The vase
represents the feminine function, which is that of containing life (water), to protect and nourish
(food)19
.
From which derives the superiority that for a long time accompanied the feminine
figure, generating a series of religious practices aimed at the adoration of a unique
goddess, Great Mother20
.
Man, the masculine principle, seems to have been completely excluded by
primitive symbolism, probably because the mechanism of fecundation was not
known and, according to Neumann, on this the concept of the virgin linked to the
Great Mother was based. The author claims: “The basic matriarchal conception does
not place sexual intercourse in relation with the child’s birth. The continuity of
sexual personal life is interrupted in an unexpected way by the beginning and end of
menstruation, and at the same way by pregnancy. Both phenomena take place within
the intimacy of the matriarchal-feminine sphere [...]. For such reason the woman
gets pregnant always by an extra-human, not personal power”21
.
19
Ibidem
20
Ibidem
21
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_Neumann_%28psychologist%29

194
References:
- Bachofen, Johann
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/47947/Johann-Jakob-Bachofen
- Bartolini, Stefano (2010) Manifesto Per la Felicità Donzelli
- Civil Economics
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economia_civile
- Gimbutas, Marija
http://www.britannica.com/bps/user-profile/1082/marija-gimbutas
- Mattei, Ugo (2012) Beni Comuni – Un Manifesto Laterza
- Neumann, Erich
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_Neumann_%28psychologist%29
- Relational Goods
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goods_goods
- Russeau, Jean-Jacques
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rousseau
- Social Capital
http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTSOCIALDE
VELOPMENT/EXTTSOCIALCAPITAL/0,,contentMDK:20185164~menuP
K:418217~pagePK:148956~piPK:216618~theSitePK:401015,00.html

195
11. EXPONENTIAL GROWTH
Perpetual growth is the belief of the cancerous cell
Edward Abbey
Economic Growth as Cause of Less Social and Economic Rights
At the end of the 1970s a group of intellectuals, politicians and scientists, gathered
on an initiative of the Club of Rome, produced the first documented alarm concerning
global environmental issues: The Limits to Growth. They warned that an economic
growth, based on the continuous use of natural resources (increasing extractions of
oil, minerals and forests, with the ever growing exploitation of agricultural land) and
the consequent production of waste and pollution, under the pressure of the
exponential increase of population, could not have continued for long and would
have provoked the progressive degrade of the quality of life and, eventually,
endangered the very survival of the human species1
.
Within a few decades, the Club of Rome argued, humanity would have clashed
with the physical limits of the planet. Such warning, instead of inducing everyone to
reflect and investigate the issues and problems highlighted, was hailed with
1
http://www.clubofrome.org/?p=375

196
indifference. Most of the attitudes shown toward ecological movements perceived as
catastrophists as well as many scientists who have warned about different risks of
continuing to follow the never ending growth model seemed often sceptical to say
the least. Only in relatively recent times some agreement among governments seems
to have been achieved for what the fight against pollution and protection of the
environment are concerned, agreements which however, seem usually quite partial
and often completely inadequate if compared to the level of criticality of the current
situation2
.
The classic example of a microorganism growing in a lake might be useful to
explain how the exponential trend of the problems related to the Western
civilisation’s model of development cannot be so evident today, but could
nevertheless become huge in a very short time span. This reasoning might be applied
to any form of pollution or type of extinction of animal or plant in the biosphere, or
simply, to any type of event which appears latent today but that could explode much
more rapidly than what is perceived.
Let us suppose that a microorganism in exponential growth with a daily doubling
is covering the surface of a lake and will take 60 days to cover it entirely. If one
would go to that lake on the 56th
day, that is four days before the total death of the
lake, one would only notice a sixteenth part of the lake covered and all the rest free
and healthy3
.
By supposing that the microorganism has a surface of a square micron (one
thousandth of millimetre), and the lake’s total surface is one square kilometre, one
would notice that after 20 days the microorganism would have infected a squared
millimetre of surface. Basically, after a third of total time the phenomenon would
not be detectable. After 40 days, that is two thirds of total time, the surface covered
would be of one square metre. After 56 days, namely only four days before the total
death of the lake, the phenomenon even if detectable would correspond to only one
sixteenth of total surface. In the light of such exponential trend applied to Western
civilisation one could appreciate the risk of being maybe already in the 56th
day. In
other words, a phenomenon which seems today of a certain entity even if it has
2
Ibidem
3
Refer to Dalla Casa, Guido (2011) Ecologia Profonda – Lineamenti Per una Nuova Visione del
Mondo Mimesis, p. 19-20

197
developed in hundreds of years could degenerate in an exponential way in a few
years4
.
In the countries of the South of the world, according to Shiva, the depletion and
commodification of natural resources almost always seems to occur thanks to the
mediation and complicity of governments. With the excuse of favouring the interests
of communities, the state often turns into a powerful tool of privatisation of
resources. The woods once property of indigenous villages often become reserves to
regularly supply cheap raw materials. In the same way dams built with public
funding supply the water and energy demand of private firms or are used to irrigate
intensive cultivations reserved to export. The investments destined to the public
sector are often used to finance private wells or main firms’ trawlers. Finally the
conflicts which arise for the control of natural resources are therefore to be
considered, according to the author, even in terms of battles for the control of rights5
.
Economic Growth As Cause of Less Environmental and Landscape Rights
There seem to be are many people and groups which believe that water, biodiversity
and natural resources are a common heritage belonging to everyone, in the same way
as landscape, skills, traditional knowledge and know how.
4
Ibidem
5
Shiva argues that economic globalisation is imposed as an inevitable model of development, as an
ocean in which everyone must swim into. Many restrict themselves to consider it only as an
international trade form, the author continues, deluding themselves with the idea of not being
involved. But globalisation seems not concerned only with goods which cross national borders.
International trade has been existing for millennia, and much before colonialism. Colonialism derived
instead from the desire of dominating the markets. Spices, for instance, had been exported for
centuries before the European colonialists managed to control their trade. And the current economic
globalisation goes beyond national borders, with consequences for the planet and humanity which
appear even more devastating compared to those of previous times, Shiva argues. But the
controversies relative to international trade appear not so significant if compared to the violation of
ethical boundaries, the scholar argues. Along the centuries, societies, religions and cultures delimited
the ethical limits of human trade, distinguishing what could be commodificated and what belonged to
another system of values and could not be subdued to the laws of the market. “Globalisation”,
according to Shiva, “is the ultimate and definitive enclosure, that of our minds, hearts, creativity and
resources”. As long as global capitalism did not decide to transform the planet’s resources (especially
water and biodiversity) into marketable goods, the scholar argues, it was a common and undisputable
belief that water could not belong to anyone. Refer to Shiva, Vandana (2011) Earth Democracy:
Justice, Sustainability and Peace Zed Books / Il Bene Comune della Terra Feltrinelli, p. 38-41

198
Italian architect and urban planner Pietro Laureano is a consultant for the United
Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation for arid regions, Islamic
civilisation and endangered ecosystems. He lived for eight years in the Sahara
working to the study and restoration of oases in Algeria. With several essays and
books published from the 1980s he showed how oases are a product of human
intelligence, heritage of technique and knowledge to fight aridity as well as a model
of sustainable management for the whole planet. He coordinated and manages
projects based on the recovery of ancient techniques of water collection with several
international bodies throughout the Mediterranean, Yemen, Mauritania and Ethiopia.
He promotes the recovery of the troglodyte village of Matera’s Sassi in Southern
Italy, which had been completely abandoned in the 1960s, and is author of reports
which brought to the enrolment of Matera’s Sassi and the Italian natural reserve of
Cilento in the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation
World Heritage list, in relation to the recovery of urban ecosystems and the
protection of landscape. He is founder and coordinator of IPOGEA, a centre of
studies on traditional knowledge, a non profitable organisation based in Italy (in
Matera and Florence) which accomplishes projects of safeguard of landscape through
ancient practices like the use of dry stone terraces, cisterns for the collection of water
and draining galleries6
.
The Permanent European Conference For the Study of the Rural Landscape is an
international network of landscape researchers whose interest focuses on the past,
present and future of European landscapes. It is an international platform for new
initiatives, meetings and publications about European rural landscapes and meets
every two years in a different European country for lectures, discussions, working
groups and landscape excursions. The conference has several working groups that
focus on actual problems in European landscape management and landscape
6
Laureano also belongs to the group of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organisation experts which is composing a new Convention on Landscape. In quality if Italian
representative of the technical-scientific committee of the United Nations Convention to Combat
Desertification, and president of the panel for traditional knowledge, he promoted the accomplishment
of a World Bank on Traditional Knowledge and Its Innovative Use. Such initiative has been
undertaken together with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation
through the creation of the International Traditional Knowledge Institute based in Florence, Italy,
which will have a significant role in the new Convention on Landscape. Refer to
http://www.laureano.it/web/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/cv-italiano-short.pdf, p. 1

199
research. It is one of the most stable European networks of landscape researchers. It
was established in 1957 at an inaugural conference held in Nancy, France7
.
The main objectives of the Permanent European Conference For the Study of the
Rural Landscape are to facilitate personal contacts and information exchange
between European landscape researchers, improve interdisciplinary cooperation
between landscape researchers from various scientific and human landscape
disciplines, improve cooperation between landscape researchers and landscape
managers and function as a platform for new initiatives in European landscape
research and landscape management8
.
A concept in between the sphere of ecology and that of landscape, environment
and culture seems that of ecomuseum.
It seems significant that such institution which is only (officially) 60 years old
could be promoted by governments and managed with the direct participation of
local communities, which might represent the subjects most entitled for what social
and environmental rights are concerned. An ecomuseum is a territory characterised
by traditional living environments, naturalistic and historical-artistic heritage
particularly significant and worthy of protection, recovery and valorisation.
Ecomuseums involve the territory of a community, its historical aspect, by proposing
as objects of the museum not only everyday life objects, but also landscapes,
architecture, know how, oral testimony of tradition and so on. The innovative reach
of the concept seems to have inevitably determined its popularity well beyond the
museum sphere. Ecomuseums also involve the promotion of didactic and research
activities thanks to the direct participation of local population and institutions. An
ecomuseum might be a territory characterised by uncertain boundaries and belongs to
7
Initially, it consisted mainly of historical geographers, but during the last few decades its
membership has diversified to include ecologists, social scientists, rural planners, landscape architects,
human and physical geographers, historians, archaeologists, landscape managers as well as other
scholars and practitioners interested in European landscapes. Members undertake both fundamental
and applied research on all aspects of the rural landscape or have a position in landscape management
or heritage management. The Permanent European Conference For the Study of the Rural Landscape
covers Pan-Europe which means that it connects researchers from Northern, Eastern, Southern,
Central and Western Europe. All together more than 30 European countries take part in the
Permanent European Conference For the Study of the Rural Landscape. Refer to
http://www.pecsrl.org/aimsobjectives.html
8
Besides paper sessions, workshops and general meetings there is always a large field excursion to
provide The Permanent European Conference For the Study of the Rural Landscape-participants with
a detailed knowledge of the rural landscapes in the host country. Experience shows that the
Permanent European Conference For the Study of the Rural Landscape conferences offer ample
facilities for meeting colleagues from all parts of Europe, getting informed about various aspects of
European landscape research and initiating new projects on European landscape research. Ibidem

200
the community which lives in it. It does not subtract cultural goods to the places
where they have been created but is a possible tool for reappropriation of local
cultural heritage by communities9
.
In 2005 a definition shared by many scholars on the concept of ecomuseum was
born: a pact with which the community that takes care of a territory”. The term
ecomuseum was thought of by Hugues De Varine during a meeting with Georges
Rivière, at the time respectively director and former director and permanent
consultant of the International Council of Museums, and Serge Antoine, consultant
of the then French environment minister Robert Poujade, who utilised it to qualify
the work of a ministry then at the beginning of its development. Initially
ecomuseums, realised much before they officially took such definition, were thought
of as tools to protect the traces of rural civilisations in a moment in which
urbanisation, new technological acquisitions and the consequent social changes
represented a real risk of complete oblivion for a millenary cultural heritage10
.
The most classical example of an ecomuseum which incorporates both the
ecological and cultural aspect as testimony of a man-made landscape which at the
same time is dependent and respectful of the natural environment in which it is
located might perhaps be the Jasnaja Polijana (literally “Bright Glade”) property,
museum-house and before that home, where 19th
century Russian writer, playwright,
philosopher, pedagogue, commentator and social activist Lev Tolstoj lived, worked
and has been buried11
.
In 1856, after he finished his military service, Tolstoj moved into a house, which
had been one wing of the previous mansion, and brought his wife there in 1862. At
the time Tolstoj lived there, the Jasnaja Poljana estate had about four thousand acres
(16 square kilometres), on a gently sloping hillside with dense original forest (the
forest of the Old Order) at the upper end, and a series of four ponds at different
levels. There were four clusters of peasant houses, with about 350 peasants living
9
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/178292/ecomuseum
10
Ibidem
11
It is located 12 kilometres from Tula, city of European Russia, and was originally owned by the
Kartsev family. At the end of the 18th
century it was purchased by Prince Nikolai Volkonskij, the
grandfather of the writer, who created a formal French garden and an English landscape one, as well
as long alleys of birch and oak trees. The house passed from Nikolai Volkonskij to his only daughter,
Maria Nikolajevna, the mother of Lev Tolstoj. Her husband, Nikolai Tolstoj, a veteran of the war
against Napoleon in 1812, built a 32-room house and an ensemble of work buildings, and enlarged the
park. Lev Tolstoy was born on 9th
September 1828 in a house (since demolished) at Jasnaja Poljana.
His parents died when he was very young, and he was raised there by relatives. Refer to
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/652165/Yasnaya-Polyana

201
and working on the estate. Tolstoj wrote War and Peace at Jasnaja Poljana
between 1862 and 1869, and Anna Karenina between 1873 and 1877. He wrote the
novels in his study by hand in very small handwriting, with many additions and
deletions and notes, and gave the draft to his wife, who made a clean copy at night,
which Tolstoj then rewrote the next day. Each chapter went through five or six
drafts, and she recopied War and Peace seven times before it was finished. All the
drafts were saved by his wife and are now in the Rumyantsev Museum in Moscow.
Tolstoj's 13 children, of whom four died in childhood, were all born at Jasnaja
Poljana. They were born on the same leather couch where Tolstoj himself was born,
which was kept in his study next to his writing desk, and is still there today12
.
Long before he died Tolstoj announced the place where he wanted to be buried; in
a small clearing called the place of the green wand, next to a long ravine in a part of
the old forest called the forest of the Old Order (Starij Zakaz) because cutting trees
there had been forbidden since the time of his grandfather, and many trees there were
over a hundred years old. The name place of the green wand had been given by
Tolstoj's older brother Nikolai, who said that the person who found the magic wand
there would never die or be ill. He and his brother frequently sat in the darkness in
the clearing and talked13
.
12
When he was living and working at Jasnaja Poljana, Tolstoj awakened at seven in the morning, did
physical exercises, and walked in the park, before starting his writing. During the harvest season he
often worked in the fields with the peasants, both for physical exercise and to make his writing about
peasant life more realistic. He also visited the school for peasant children which he had created in one
building, where he told stories to the children. Tolstoj entertained almost all the important Russian
cultural and artistic Russian figures of his time at Jasnaja Poljana; his guests included physician,
playwright and author Anton Chekhov, novelist, writer and playwright Ivan Turgenev, writer and
political activist Maxim Gorkij, painters Valentin Serov, Ilja Repin, and many others. Ibidem
13
Ibidem

202
References:
- Club of Rome
http://www.clubofrome.org/?p=375
- Dalla Casa, Guido (2011) Ecologia Profonda –
Lineamenti Per una Nuova Visione del Mondo Mimesis
- Ecomuseum
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/178292/eco
museum
- Laureano, Pietro
http://www.laureano.it/web/wp-
content/uploads/2011/05/cv-italiano-short.pdf
- Permanent European Conference For the Study of the
Rural Landscape
http://www.pecsrl.org/aimsobjectives.html
- Shiva, Vandana (2011) Earth Democracy: Justice,
Sustainability and Peace Zed Books / Il Bene Comune
della Terra Feltrinelli
- Yasnaya Polyana
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/652165/Ya
snaya-Polyana

203
12. THE IMPORTANCE OF THE EARTH
The forest is an organism of unlimited generosity,
that does not demand anything to man;
it protects all living beings
and offers its shadow to man who in turn destroys it
Gautama Siddharta, also known as the Buddha
Land and Food
It seems that the belief which holds that private property of land could be treated in
the same way as private property in general, without taking into account that land is
not an inanimate object like any other one but the mother which hosts and nourishes
us all might be deconstructed. It seems that perhaps the earth is no factor of
production nor a patrimonial asset, but a common good essential for survival as
water and air.
Among others, a crucial aspect seems to be represented by the antithesis between
the intensive agricultural model and the subsistence agricultural one. The latter is a
model which is more ecological and social, as well as more profitable, in the long
run, even in economic terms. One could perhaps not be aware of the fact that
intensive agriculture in the long run could cause collateral effects in several aspects if

204
compared to the subsistence agricultural model. Loss of fertility of land, depletion of
water stocks, pollution of water, increase in desertification, alteration of food chains,
climate change, loss of biodiversity and hydro-geological instability. Another aspect
which might be underlined concerns the access of land to small peasants. It is in fact
argued that 80 per cent of the agricultural labour force is made up by small peasants
who still adopt a subsistence type agriculture. The fact that access to land is
decreasing might be the reason why millions of people starve. The abundance of
food was in fact the rule before the phenomenon of enclosures began, Bocci and
Ricoveri argue. Many health and ecological problems appear related to the
implementation of intensive agriculture models. A system which is, according to the
authors, very complex in terms of energy, water, machinery, yields higher costs than
one which requires exclusively people and natural resources. Even the transportation
of agricultural and farm products from one continent to another together with the
costs of distribution seem to be factors against the intensive model. Even here a
change of mentality in favour of local and organic production rather than that coming
from far away and cultivated with intensive methods might seem advisable1
.
The concept of food has been distorted and we have been able, according to
Petrini, to turn it into a mere consumerist product depriving it of its main values.
The scholar argues that we have done so much so that we currently consider it a good
like any other one, highly unsustainable in all its phases, from cultivation to the act
of eating. Slow Food is a sort of manifesto the mission of which is to exit from a
crisis which is not exclusively financial but also moral. The citizens of the world are
real wasters, according to Petrini. The food produced for seven billions of people is
about double of total needs, and at the same time about a billion of people is starving.
It seems that in the West have moved from a situation in which food was a little
scarce, especially after the 1950s, to a society based on wasting. An appropriate
value of food does not perhaps exist anymore and it seems that we increasingly
giving value only to the price of it. Petrini argues that paradoxically we pay food too
little and thus we waste, fill up our trolleys too much and turn our fridges into
cemeteries for our food, which is often not consumed but thrown away. A demand
of wealth and progress made us slaves of a unilateral system which is called
consumerism and, according to Petrini, “in the world of global and industrial food
1
Refer to Bocci, Riccardo e Ricoveri Giovanna (2006) Agri-Cultura, Terre, Lavoro, Ecosistemi
EMI, p. 9-10

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