Commonwealth Club Of California Podcast

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 his latest book, The Sustainable State, 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 demand ever-expanding consumption, need to be directed toward meeting societal needs or otherwise restrained, not unleashed. Development ne