Le développement durable est-il soluble dans le capitalisme ?

Abstract

What are the reasons for the limited success of sustainable development in practice? In this paper, we propose that the underlying economic reasoning of capitalism is, to a large extent, antagonistic with the logic of sustainable development. The contribution focuses on two aspects. First, whereas sustainable development puts the issue of needs at the centre of concerns and aims, capitalism is based on the search of valorisation of individual capitals. Secondly, the relation to time is not the same. Capitalism favours short term results – particularly with discounting – while sustainable development is concerned with the long term. Of course, there are possibilities for conciliation – i.e. win-win strategies – but these possibilities also have limitations.

Keywords

• sustainable development
• capitalism
• win-win