Two kinds of economy, two kinds of self—toward more manageable, hence more sustainable and just supply chains

Abstract

Contemporary systems of production, distribution, and retail provide many end-consumers, although certainly not all, with an unprecedentedly wide choice of cheap, high quality goods and services. Yet this bounty comes at ever higher, ultimately unsustainable environmental and social cost. Something must change but what and how? Simply how production, distribution and retail are organized? Simply patterns of consumption, that is, overconsumption on the part of some, who must be convinced to consume less? Or must the target be production, distribution, retail, and consumption in their totality, that is, economic life as a whole? This paper sketches a basis and general framework for answering these questions.