Climate, biodiversity, inequalities… how to steer the SDGs back on track
Introduction “If we were to look at a community coming into existence,
we might be able to see how justice and injustice originate in it… Society originates…because the individual is not self-sufficient,
but has many needs which he can’t supply himself…And when we have got hold of enough people to satisfy our many varied
needs, we have assembled quite a large number of partners and helpers together to live in one place; and we give the
resultant settlement the name of a community or state…So let us first consider how our citizens, so equipped, will live. They will
produce corn, wine, clothes, and shoes, and will build themselves houses…And fear of poverty and war will make them keep the
numbers of their families within their means…So they will lead a peaceful and healthy life, and probably die at a ripe old age, bequeathing a similar way of life to their children…For though
the society we have described seems to me to be the true one,
like a man in health, there’s nothing to prevent us, if you wish,
studying one in a fever. Such a society will not be satisfied with the standard of living we have described...And we must no
longer confine ourselves to the bare necessities of our earlier
description, houses, clothing, and shoes, but must add the fine arts of painting and embroidery, and introduce materials like
gold and ivory…We shall have to enlarge our state again. Our healthy state is no longer big enough; its size must be enlarged to make room for a multitude of occupations none of which
is concerned with necessaries...And the territory which was
formerly enough to support us will now be too small…If we are
to have enough for pasture and plough, we shall have to cut a slice off our neighbours’ territory. And if they too are no longer confining themselves to necessities and have embarked on the pursuit of unlimited material possessions, they will want a slice
of ours too…And that will lead to war, Glaucon, will it not? It will.” Plato, The Republic, Book II. (Trad. Desmond Lee)
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