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On Growth (1974)

On Growth

(1974)–Willem Oltmans–rechtenstatus Auteursrechtelijk beschermd

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69. Joseph E. Slater

Mr. Joseph E. Slater is president of the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies.
He was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1922. He studied at the University of California at Berkeley, where he taught economics in 1942-43. From 1949 to 1952 he worked in the office of the high commissioner in Bonn, Germany. In 1959 he was secretary to President Dwight D. Eisenhower's Commission on Foreign Assistance (Draper Committee). President John F. Kennedy appointed Mr. Slater deputy Assistant Secretary of State for education and cultural affairs. From 1968 to 1972, Mr. Slater was trustee of the Salk Institute at La Jolla, California. Mr. Slater also is a member of the Council of Foreign Relations in New York and member of the Institute of Strategic Studies in London.

I understand that at the Aspen Institute as a follow-up of the Club of Rome efforts, a study of the planet as a whole is being initiated.

 

Not quite, but it's certainly a related activity. The Aspen Institute was involved with a number of the people of the Club of Rome as they were working on their report. For example, we had Jay Forrester,1 Aurelio Peccei2 and other people to discuss the character of planning systems and analyses of resources. We are concerned with many of the same elements and objectives as they were. I personally felt what the Club of Rome was doing was really an introduction to the character of growth rather than an exclusive concern on certain finite limits to growth. Growth needs to be broken down in terms of qualitative and quantitative growth, with different mixtures in different places at different stages of development. We had certain differences, but I think the Club of Rome provided enormous impetus to a debate that is imperative in the world today. It began to present a global perspective that was missing. Specifically, what the Aspen Institute has done following the Club of Rome report is as follows:

We have established a working group primarily concerned with alternative choices in the United States. We are proposing to take approximately twenty-five or thirty professionals over a period of years to work in certain key areas concerned with different sectors of the society. These experts will, with very careful and deep analyses of choices, present the choices to the government and the public which may be available to this society. They would define the primary, secondary and tertiary implications of those choices. We're concerned with alternatives and choices

rather than just finite goals. We are trying to get this work done and presented so that the executive and legislative branches of government and the leadership elements in society will be forced to have more thoughtful and mindful debates about the choices that might otherwise be available to society. Most importantly we will study the implications of real choices, because we think that just stating a goal is too static and somewhat an empty exercise. To force a deeper debate and analyses of choices is a dynamic process which is essential in any state and particularly in a democratic state. We are trying to bring together those persons in diverse communities who are expert in systems analyses and disciplined scientific thinking. They will be forced to work with those leaders, politicians, communicators, sociologists, lawyers and judges and so forth, who are dealing in judgments, with intuitions, and frequently with nonrational processes. This is the area where most decisions are taken, and on this is where major things are not quantifiable and never will be.

What we are trying to do is build a closer bridge between those disciplined in scientific work and systems analyses and the community of decision makers who must know how to use and not abuse such materials. The principal problem is how to find an improvement in these materials and replace the present glaring over the fence in an adversary relationship between those people who have to make political and other decisions based on nonquantifiable insights and those dealing with quantifiable data. We need to build a national and world community of persons who can think through the implications of major decisions where more disciplined thinking is needed.

It seems to me the Club of Rome has provided a useful beginning in this area. Over the next years and decades there must be a greater perfection of systems analyses and of the disciplined scientific mind. Scientists have to be able to work more harmoniously with leaders concerned with social and human inputs. That is the first objective. The second objective is to put the results of the best analyses we can make, not in any single institution, but by orchestrating the efforts of many institutions, including leading individuals, consumer and other movements (and not just organized institutions like universities). Alternative systems should deal with major sectors such as energy, agriculture, population, education and communication, the economy and society. Alternate systems should put these analyses in a readily understood form, to enlighten public debate and force the executive and legislative branches of government to debate and examine all those aspects of choices which

must be made understandable. This is certainly essential in a democratic country. I think it is essential in any society which wants to make more mindful choices and which wants to know the implications of the alternate choices. We think it is impossible to carry out such work on a state or national basis without relating the data and insights to the global setting. One cannot deal with energy or any of these subjects unless it is in a global setting. That is where we come back to the Club of Rome and the kinds of things that Tinbergen3 and many others are pursuing. At Aspen we definitely hope to build bridges to those communities throughout the world and have their inputs available.

As I said earlier, we intend not only to involve the traditional institutions - for example, university and research institutions, government bureaucracy, and so on - but also we try to reach (not just for consultation but actual involvement) women, youth, consumers and individuals, including people like Ralph Nader4 and others, who are becoming institutions in themselves. Many have alternatives different from those of the fixed institutions.

That is, if one would take only those alternatives that came to mind of fixed, existing, traditional institutions, one would come up with one set of alternatives. If one were to go broadly into this society, it might offer quite different alternatives. For example, some persons might break up into regions or do away with certain kinds of schooling or combine communication and education into a learning process. We don't want to be captured by the alternatives that might now be in the minds of fixed or traditional institutions; we must get out into these new movements to explore the alternatives available.

Also, we have to avoid the trap of a statesman or an elected official putting up two or three phony alternatives and one real one as a way of making sure the real one that he wants is accepted. We must ensure a tremendous integrity in such debates and in the analyses of the hard data. Our intention is to create a free-standing institution that is free of government but working with it and getting data, insights, ideas, and so forth from it. (One that is financed outside of government so that it is not beholden to any particular system or party and which tries to orchestrate the best thinking from the different sectors of the society whether quantifiable or not.) Values, priorities and attitudes and even irrationalities play an enormous part in human affairs. They must be taken into account.

Do you believe that the material that the Aspen Institute will collect would be a variable to improve the Forrester model of MIT with?

 

We like the idea of a consortium with maybe twenty or thirty universities, with MIT and we hope with many others. Certainly we want to stay in touch with the people who did the Club of Rome report, as well as with some of the people who criticized it. Still, I think the debate started by the Club of Rome has many times payed off, irrespective of whether one agrees with one or another aspect of its particular findings.

 

In other words, the Club of Rome, Aurelio Peccei, is in contact with you on the subject of this new institution?

 

Yes, many of its members are involved, certainly Aurelio Peccei, Meadows and other people who have our paper. We have made it as widely available as we can, because in the process of deciding whether to set up such an institute, we have to get the best thinking of which people are capable.

The Aspen Institute is not beholden to any particular sector of society. The institute has internationalized its board, staff, mentality and programs. We have picked six areas of concern that are interrelated: communications and society; education in a changing society; science, technology and humanism; justice and the individual; environment and the quality of life; and international affairs. In these six areas we are arranging workshops leading to action. The Aspen Institute brings together people from different parts of society to try to think through more mindfully the implications of alternatives and make suggestions for specific actions and results.

 

The United Nations is piling up millions of words in reports and documents. In what way are you hopeful that the Aspen Institute, the Club of Rome or MIT won't be adding more and more paper to this tower of Babel?

 

I mentioned in my previous remarks that a few of us worked for several years on the creation of an institution which is now in existence. It is the International Federation of Institutes for Advanced Study, IFIAS. We have taken approximately twenty-four very high-quality institutions from around the world, such as the Pasteur Institute, the Nils Bohr Institute

of Physics, the Woods Hole Institute of Oceanography, the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, the Aspen Institute, the Japan Economic Research Center, and have combined them into a federation which has three main functions: The first is to conduct joint research on transnational, transdisciplinary problems; the second is to exchange faculty and postdoctoral students; the third is to plan each year five years ahead, so that the institutions' plans start to conform and in time form a de facto university or institution (without a campus to be sure). I think with this pattern at work IFIAS can deliver quality and operationally can be related to the problems of the UN. It can work with forceful leaders like Maurice Strong5 who is building bridges between institutions of quality (particulary existing ones of quality) which are willing to pioneer in transnational, transdisciplinary work. We can avoid a proliferation of structures within the UN and avoid many bureaucratic rigidities. IFIAS had its first meeting in Trieste in October, 1972, and its members agreed on the programs mentioned above.

 

No doubt the skill of Mr. Maurice Strong is due to his great managerial experience in private business. That is perhaps why we approach perhaps a more manageable world.

 

First, he is an effective manager. Also, he is a man who is open to ideas and new ways of doing things. He seeks out capable people, no matter where they are. He is not concerned whether a person comes from business, labor, the academic sect, the UN or wherever. He tries to orchestrate people of varied backgrounds into a team. I think his genius is his energy, devotion and willingness to have his pores open to ideas and to people. That way he gets the support of people who are loyal to what he is doing and wins their friendship and commitment to a better world order.


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