The Sustainable State: The Future of Government, Economy, and Society

by Chandran Nair

The free-market, limited-government development model has been an ecological and social disaster for the developing world. Sustainable and equitable development is possible only with the active involvement of a strong central state that can guide the economy, protect the environment, and prioritize meeting its people's basic needs.

In this sure-to-be-controversial book, Chandran Nair shows that the market-dominated model followed by the industrialized West is simply not scalable. The United States alone, with less than 5 percent of the world's population, consumes nearly a quarter of its resources. If countries in Asia, where 60 percent of the world's population lives, try to follow the Western lead, the results will be calamitous.

Instead, Nair argues that development must be directed by a state that is willing and able to intervene in the economy. Corporations, which by design demand ever-expanding consumption, need to be directed toward meeting societal needs or otherwise restrained, not unleashed. Development has to be oriented toward the greatest good--clean drinking water for the many has to take precedence over swimming pools for the few. Nair provides three compelling case studies demonstrating the benefits of such strong state governance and the failings of weak state governance.

This will mean rethinking the meaning of concepts like "prosperity," "freedom," and "rights" and whether democracy is always the best way to ensure responsive government--as Nair writes, "A democracy that cannot work to improve the life of its citizens is not better than a nondemocracy that can actually improve quality of life." Many people will find these to be challenging ideas, but what Nair offers is a model suited to the realities of the developing world, not the assumptions of the dominant culture.

Genres: Politics, Sustainability, Economics, Audiobook, Political Science

272 pages, Paperback

Published October 9, 2018

Reviews

[Nick Meynen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Here's a reading tip for those who are interested in the big question of how best to give future generations a fair chance of living well: “The Sustainable State. The Future of Government, Economy, and Society” (Chandran Nair). Early warning: this is not a slick book review with a perfect balance of pro's and con's in eloquent reframing written to impress you, dear reader. It is rather a burst of enthusiasm for a book boiling over, with some personal experiences and reflections thrown into the mix.

It all started at a rather strange semi-public event. Magazine editor-in-chief Gie Goris interviewed Nair but decided to let some dozen people join him, up to the point of inviting some of us on stage and letting us ask a question. (Here's a mental note for you to make on the side: if you support the independent journalism of MO* with a proMO* membership you get a whole range of rather exclusive benefits like this one). We were served with a distinctly non-Western intellectual who confidently presented a rather controversial story that happened to be in line with my world view.

But without further a-due, let's briefly dive into his book. Chandran Nair actually wanted to call it “The Indispensable State” and the rhetorical question 'why?' could be: who's got the best shot at getting humanity through the increasingly hot, crowded and resource constrained 21st century? The invisible hand of the market or some silver bullet invention are poor contenders. My “Frontlines. Stories of Global Environmental Justice”-book and his book have a dismantling of those ill-founded hopes in common. Long story short: technology is merely a tool and any hope that businesses will lead us to sustainability is what Nair calls “foolhardy”. That's just none of their business.

The UN is not our saviour

What about the UN? Could all hail come from the Sustainable Development Goals or SDGs – the most complete global plan to end poverty and save the planet ever? All countries signed up to this agreement. It has goals, targets and indicators all the way to 2030. Well, I was in the room when they were born. Literally, back in 2012, in Brazil. The core text of the SDGs was written by some Brazilian diplomats who worked in secret and parallel to the official negotiations. The rest of the world just had to take or leave it (see "Frontlines. Stories of Global Environmental Justice" for the inside eyewitness story of that). The Brazilians were great in forging compromise, but not in coming up with a viable plan. As the eminent professor Joan Martinez-Alier and I just wrote about: the SDGs are deeply flawed because of their focus on economic growth. Nair adds an interesting fact to this argument: the countries that score high on SDG implementation are the same countries that take a very unfair share of resources from other countries. Until we mine Mars, not every country on earth can do that (not to say we should mine Mars!). Oh and by the way: the SDGs are all voluntary. Sanctions for underachievers? Nada, niente, nul. As a result, countries who come to the annual review in New York can say whatever the **** they want. Like thanking and naming an airline company that raises awareness of its passengers about the SDGs. That really happened, in the official meeting. It probably pocketed an upgrade for the flight home of the unapologetic Chinese delegate. But hey, I'm getting off track, let's get back to Nair's book and his overview of possible 'solutions'. He basically says we shouldn't bet our children on the UN or the SDGs and after being in both the birth chamber and an anniversary event 7 years later, I tend to agree with him.

Cities can only do that much

Could cities save us? Nowadays, I often hear about 'municipalism' as the new holy grail. I've been inspired by some city governments as well. Many of us environmentalists in search for a beacon of hope look at some liberal coastal US cities in the age of Trump and say they are faster and more efficient to get things done and they will make up for what the federal level doesn't do. Nair argues convincingly how some rich cities go far in becoming more environmentally friendly but even they still extract an excessive amount of resources from elsewhere, thus making the plight of people in rural areas even worse. Plus: even the best cities have huge externalities around the world. Besides, their leverage to turn the tide globally is 1) partly depending on the federal level to allow them to move forward and 2) mostly limited to rich world bubbles. Municipalism can be a force for the good, Nair and I agree on that, but there's a Dutch saying that translates to calling a cat a cat. Municipalism in its own right is nice but let's just agree that this is just not going to cut it.

Nair makes the case that whether you like it or not, there's just no way around a strong sustainable state. It's a pre-condition for everything else and it's probably the most underestimated leverage point, where the most positive difference can now be made. He says that the state is the social body with the best combination of authority, accountability, and legitimacy. For Nair, authority means the ability to get things done without coercion or bribery, accountability is about assuming responsibility and legitimacy refers to being seen as the true representative of the popular will. To be clear: strong states are not big in army-terms, but big in this holy trinity. Examples: China after Mao. Vietnam after the war. Rwanda after the genocide. The Roosevelt US with its New Deal after the Great Depression. These were / are popular strong states who lifted / lift people out of poverty in jaw-dropping numbers. Vietnam has done this while keeping the footprint per capita very low. The present day examples are all stable states that don't need to be in permanent campaign modus and can actually think and act long-term.

Nair's narrative around stable and strong states is very tempting to embrace – even if it does leave me doubting and wondering a little. How long will it be before there are enough strong and sustainable states? How many of these stable states will also be visionary in environmental terms, not just in poverty terms? Bhutan, the first carbon neutral country in the world, is a good example of an environmentally friendly strong state, but how replicable is their model of Gross National Happiness? Most puzzling for me: how on earth will a country like Belgium, or any country in Western Europe, ever get there? Nair writes his book to inspire leaders in the developing world to take a different path than we did – but where does that leave us, Westerners?

We're living in times of ever stronger misinformation, white supremacy and dirty money driving politics. Together, they are devouring our democracy as if it were a big cheese ball left in a rat-plagued attic, bite by bite. The misinformation is now so widespread that ever more people believe that the earth is flat and that people like Trump or the new Dude at Downing street are strong statesmen who work in the interest of the general public. Why would things be different at the next so-called “free and fair” election?

Of course, I do see a lot of positive things happening. Our community farm is still going strong, despite two droughts in a row. In my home city Leuven we elected the green party into power. In Western Europe we're seeing the meteoric rise of the best climate movement in years thanks to a Swedish teenager going on strike. Hell, even the new President of the European Commission said some fairly promising things on combating climate breakdown. But where in the West are Nair's strong sustainable states and more crucially: how, through which precise process, could they ever see the light of day in Western Europe / US? You tell me.

Nick Meynen
Frontlines: Stories of Global Environmental Justice

[John Knowles]

C handran Nair’s new book, The Sustainable State, is a response to runaway consumption by a rapidly expanding world populace. He explains how the rise in living standards, especially in the developing world, is soaring an unsustainable demand for everything from meat, cars, and modern housing, and then gives possible solutions.

Nair reminds me of economist Ha-Joon Chang in both his premise and the evidence he uses to defend it. Both scholars are highly critical of the current economic ecosystem and the multinational corporations that run it. Nair points out that the major industries of today are what’s causing the unprecedented environmental crises that we’re experiencing today. Not only are corporations polluting the environment and depleting natural resources, but are also covering it up and blocking possible legislative antidotes.

Thus, Nair endorses Ha-Joon Chang’s solution: East Asian-style state regulation of the economy. Since corporations will never voluntarily do anything that will hurt their profits, a strong federal government must force them to do so through laws that have the planet’s future in mind. The book points out that the manufacturing and sales costs of consumer products don’t reflect their full cost. For instance, a roll of toilet paper costs the forest it came from a tree; deforestation has existentially high long-term costs to the Earth’s inhabitants. Anything produced for or shipped to market costs the world through energy consumption, if nothing else. Thus, Nair supports making producers pay for the full cost of their merchandise through programs such as cap-and-trade and reforestation taxes.

The book gives several examples of (generally East Asian) countries and cities trying to regulate their way to higher sustainability, with varying degrees of success. For instance, China has arguably become the world leader in terms of environmental initiatives through tough laws governing pollution and a long-term environmental strategy. In China’s Youyu County, they went from having under 1% of land forested in 1949 to over half today. Singapore has largely staved off the kind of affordable-housing crisis seen in major cities and city-states by instituting a comprehensive public housing system. Jakarta, on the other hand, has struggled in their efforts to reduce their crippling traffic congestion. For instance, when they created 3-person minimum carpool lanes, car owners simply hired pairs of people to meet the requirement. When Jakarta changed to an odd-even license-number congestion scheme, people simply bought extra license plates.


‘The Sustainable State’ by Chandran Nair. 288 pp. Berrett-Koehler Publishers
This book fits in nicely in the post-Trump, post-Brexit era in its skepticism of Western democracy. Example after example is given of Western government ineptitude towards environmental management, from oil lobbyists’ consistent ability to kill or water down regulations, to general short sidedness. India’s democracy is also criticized for its failure to clean up the Ganges, among other things. Nair has a lot of praise for single-party governments in China, Vietnam and Singapore in their recent environmental policy records.

He stresses that he isn’t anti-democratic per se, but rather, he can’t ignore the trends. Most Western democracies are currently neutered by partisan deadlock, lobbyist money and a myopic obsession with the short term, due to the nature of the election cycle. Single-party states, by definition, have no partisan deadlock, aren’t reliant upon lobbyist money for re-election and can implement policies that may piss off their constituents in the short term, but are critical for the future. The recommendation is thus given that democracies stick up to corporate interests and institute long-term policies that will meaningfully address the environmental issues of the future.

The Sustainable State is sobering in its assessment of our current state of resource depletion and global warming, but also cautiously optimistic in its faith that government, when acting in good faith, can curb the excesses of industry and regenerate the planet. There are diagnoses for specific problems, such as the wildfire haze that emanates from Borneo every year and for pollution. The main omission of the book is in regards to the water crisis. Nair mentions high-efficiency circular farming and water pollution, but otherwise largely ignores the disturbingly low supply of water for drinking and farming. This deficit has already sparked conflicts in countries such as Syria and will only snowball as the population continues to explode. Desert countries and landlocked countries will eventually succumb to civil war over access to water, creating a refugee crisis that the world has never seen, if radical and affordable solutions aren’t found for supplying water for consumption and irrigation.

Chandran Nair gives plenty of real-life examples of good policies that are mitigating issues and explains why they are successful. Oftentimes, the solution lies in the checkbook. Governments can spend money on decades-long programs, corporations can pay through sustainability taxes and individuals can pay through gas taxes and car ownership caps. In democratic and nondemocratic nations alike, we the people must push our leaders to do more, for the future of the human species.

[Lena Khalid · Rating 3 out of 5]

I probably wasn’t the target audience for this book. It could be an interesting read for policy makers and executives, but for those familiar with critiques of capitalism as the leading cause of climate collapse, and who approach it through a more radical lens, it can feel underwhelming.

This book isn’t bad per se – there are plenty of interesting facts and insights, making it a good counterbalance to all the other capitalist-worshipping nonsense. I do hope some people in power read it and take notes (trying to be realistic here). That being said, it could have been a long article (followed by a conference presentation for the elites). Some points are repeated, others not explored deeply enough for a book of this length.

But if I hear the phrase „the strong state” once more I’m going to start screaming. Nair doesn’t suggest it or even insist on it – he hammers it over and over as the absolute truth and ultimate solution to everything from pollution and inequality to climate collapse. What he’s saying is that our collective survival depends on centralized authority – on someone planning, rationing and enforcing limits. It sounds fine in theory but he’s essentially calling for a government powerful enough to overrule markets and limit consumption yet benevolent enough not to slide into authoritarianism. Wishful thinking, given that states by design monopolize violence. Nair underplays this completely: his „sustainable state” is led by incorruptible people guided by science and the public interest. He mixes leftist analysis and demands with right-wing tools as solutions.

On a side note – having read This Is What Inequality Looks Like by You Yenn Teo I find it deeply problematic to use Singapore as any kind of example of societal wellbeing.

3 stars – because I do recognize the value of this book in certain contexts even if I disagree with its proposed framework. I also acknowledge Nair’s point about the Western perception of freedom and being a Westerner myself I’m aware that this might make some of his arguments uncomfortable to me.

[nadia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Disclaimer: skimmed the last few chapters on the practical implementations & manifestations of the "Sustainable State"... will update this review once I've read them, but bear in mind that some of the qualms I present here about this book do not consider those latter sections

While I was reading this book, I was also studying authoritarian states in my IB history class and reading Acemoglu & Robinson's Why Nations Fail. It certainly made for interesting context (contrast(?)), because while Nair critiqued the existing, prevalent neoliberal paradigm, A&R were laying out a compelling argument for "inclusive" free-market economic institutions. And while Nair advocated for his strong, sustainable state—the best power to integrate systemic sustainability—I was reading about "strong" (read: authoritarian) states that had brought about great "development"—at the cost of human rights and socio-economic liberties.

Particularly interesting was how both Nair and A&R utilized China in their respective books. To A&R, prosperous China and its arguably exclusive economic and political institutions proved an "exception" to the theory (though indeed, they argue its model is doomed to collapse in the future); to Nair, China (and Singapore) is an "exemplification" of his theory that a strong state—one that is capable, coherent, and perhaps more centralized than the Western liberal model often allows—can foster development. For Nair, different institutional configurations can work effectively under certain conditions. Unlike A&R, he does not prioritize political freedoms and inclusive governance as ends in themselves but is more interested in the effectiveness of governance and the actual delivery of economic/sustainable outcomes.

As such, I find Nair's model, along with his recognition that states, as complex institutions, can be strong and developmental without necessarily being democratic in the Western sense, particularly convincing (from the Asian ground on which I stand...). Nair’s model sees the strength, vision, and capacity of the state apparatus for a nobler motive: sustainability, as opposed to economic growth, as an end.

But while Nair presents his argument in a very compelling, eye-opening and highly accessible way, I only wish he expounded further on the practical mechanisms of the formation of such a strong state. The state is what can alter the system and its economic incentives to promote widespread sustainability—but who (and what) will alter the incentives of the state to organically desire to promote such a vision? He parallels Thomas Hobbes' a bit in that he refers to the state as one entity, one body working in tandem like Hobbes' "sovereign", though the sobering reality is clearly that governments, especially in Southeast Asian, developing countries, are too fragmented and self-interested to unite for such a vision. And if they did, what checks-and-balances could be put in place to ensure its completion (especially if, as Nair argues, global institutions are not enough)?

I do believe that we desperately need Nair's model. Too long have we fed into Western liberal, economic frameworks (and at great cost, as Nair outlines in his preceding book, Consumptionomics); the Global South needs contextualized, Global South's solutions. Only, it begs the question of how this can be achieved.

[Todd Cheng · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading The Sustainable State felt, at first, like hiking through a densely annotated forest trail in a winter drizzle—each chapter meticulously previewed before letting the journey begin. I admit: I nearly staged a quiet rebellion against the structure. But I pressed on, and I’m grateful I did.

Nair has gathered a compelling set of global examples that challenge Western assumptions about governance, growth, and what a “successful” state looks like. His central argument—that strong state intervention is not only necessary but often more equitable and environmentally sustainable—is provocative in a world still intoxicated by laissez-faire ideals. It is a competing concept.

What stands out most is the author’s effort to reframe governance—not as a monolithic bureaucracy to be feared, but as a potentially dynamic force that, when attuned to its humans and grounded in ethical leadership, can navigate the complexities of modern life. Nair recognizes that every system carries trade-offs. No government is perfect. But the failure to evolve alongside technology, environment, and social norms can lead to catastrophic stasis.

This book is not light reading, but it is heathy reading. For those of us who care about how public institutions can guide—not just survive—the coming decades of climate stress, inequality, and disruption, The Sustainable State offers both cautionary tales and aspirational models. A collection of nursery rhymes.

If you’re willing to endure a few repetitive passages, you’ll find within its pages a valuable contribution to the global conversation on governance. It doesn’t offer all the answers, but it does offer the right questions—and a strong nudge to reimagine what statehood can mean in a century that demands courage and collective will.

[Jerrilyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

A heavy lift for me but enlightening. Mostly comparing governments worldwide as to how they meet their people's basic needs and will when food/water/energy resources are scarcer. Democracies not especially winning, especially where corporations control government. This is available on audio CDs at TG Co library.

[April Dickinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gives me hope that there are some people in positions of influence who understand the destructive nature of a perpetual growth model. This book made me very critical of any state figurehead who talked about both sustainability and “economic growth.”

[Omkar]

an eye opener perspective