Charter of Sufficiency

The following ‘Charter of Sufficiency’ is a vision statement for a sufficiency economy, which is intended to provoke thought about the contours of a just and sustainable society. (It is adapted from the ‘Charter of the Deep Future’ found in Chapter Five of Entropia: Life beyond Industrial Civilisation).

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CHARTER OF SUFFICIENCY

Enough, for everyone, forever

We affirm that providing ‘enough, for everyone, forever’ is the defining objective of a just and sustainable economy, which we seek to achieve by working together in free association.

We affirm that everyone should be free to create the meaning of their own lives, while acknowledging that this freedom legitimately extends only so far as others can have the same freedom. Freedom thus implies restraint.

We affirm that an inclusive democracy must not discriminate on such grounds as race, ethnicity, gender, age, sexuality, politics, or faith.

We affirm that generations into the deep future are entitled to the same freedoms as present generations.

We affirm that respecting the deep future requires maintaining a healthy environment.

We affirm that technology can help to protect our environment only if it is governed by an ethics of sufficiency, not an ethics of growth. Efficiency without sufficiency is lost.

We affirm that maintaining a healthy environment requires creating a sufficiency economy that operates within environmental and energy limits.

We affirm that a sufficiency economy means stabilising consumption and population, transitioning to renewable sources of energy, and adapting to a very moderate energy supply.

We affirm that strict limits on material accumulation are required if a sufficiency economy is to maintain a just distribution of resources and avoid corrosive inequalities.

We affirm that property rights are justifiable only to the extent they serve the common good, including the overriding interests of humanitarian and ecological justice.

We affirm that a sufficiency economy depends on a culture that embraces lifestyles of material sufficiency and rejects lifestyles of material affluence.

We affirm that material sufficiency in a free society provides the conditions for an infinite variety of meaningful, happy, and fulfilling lives.