Social and ecological destruction in the first class: a plausible social development scenario

In a previous issue of Sustainable Development (Kaivo-oja, 1999) some alternative scenarios of social development were presented. The following scenarios were discussed: (i) the deep ecology scenario, (ii) the strong sustainable development scenario, (iii) the weak sustainable development scenario, (iv) the boomsday scenario, (v) the doomsday scenario and (vi) the World Bank 'policy tunnel' scenario. In this article a plausible, seventh social development scenario is presented: 'social and ecological destruction in the first class'. The basic idea of this scenario is presented in this paper. The author argues that this scenario should also be taken into consideration in the strategic discussion of potential sustainable development paths. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. and ERP Environment.