Anarchist Studies, Volume 2, 2003 No.2

"This paper will critically contrast two approaches in ethical and political thought that have taken into account the concept of Sustainable Development (SD). In particular, it will examine the major ethical implications of SD, intra- and inter-generational equity and biodiversity, through left and right-wing traditions in anarchist thought. While both these traditions are compatible with notions of self-determination and self-generated order, they employ very different assumptions about ethics, nature and human nature. The interpretation of SD within a right-wing tradition in anarchism and ethics stresses the primacy of individual freedom and individual rights within the spontaneous social order generated by the economic market place, while a left-wing interpretation gives stress to human freedom within the spontaneous social order created by the sociality of the species and by the self-generated organisation present in ecological systems. It will be argued that only a notion of ecologically sustainable community development based on left-anarchist thought offers the hope of a genuinely ecological and equitable society."