Is sustainable development sustainable?

By Alex Singleton | 26 January 2005

I'm leading a discussion next week at the LSE Hayek Society on the question: "Is 'sustainable development' sustainable?" The first problem is defining sustainable development. In its most common usage, the term is profoundly anti-development, leaving poor countries in poverty. This sort of 'sustainable development' is sustainable. After all, for most of human history, most people have lived in what we now would now term poverty.

But there is another type of sustainable development - real sustainable development. This is where countries adopt peace, private property rights, the rule of law, and free markets and free trade. That is what I will be advocating next week at the LSE.