Summary of a presentation for the International System Dynamics Society conference
Cambridge, MA, 22-26 July, 1996. Prepared 15 April 1996
Efficiency in Sustainability - The Efficient Life Styles of Kerala
William M. Alexander
Emeritus Professor of World Food Politics
California Polytechnic State University
The Kerala phenomenon, high life quality, has been called “A Mystery Inside a
Riddle Inside an Enigma” [SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, March 1995]. More particularly,
Kerala is an unexplained economic phenomenon -- high life quality measures,
including first-world size families, at very low income levels. Within India, Kerala is a
small state (8% of 930 million). Yet in a size ranking of the 128 world nations, Kerala
is larger than the first 98. :
The low ranking of India on quality-of-life measures is consistent with the
common economic belief that income and quality of life are tightly linked. Viewed from
a western perspective there is little to distinguish Kerala from the rest of India on the
criteria of income or history and ethnic heritage. And yet on life-quality measurements,
Kerala stands near the first-world median and is very distant from the median of other
Indian states. Western academic disciplines following popular economic beliefs have
failed to explain this mystery; riddle, and enigma.
To the extent that system dynamics is not ultimately dependent on the western
economic paradigm, perhaps systems thinking (and some applications of ecological
economics) can unwrap the Kerala enigma. System dynamics has all the limits of a
proper science. On the other hand, system dynamics does not ignore the
“externalities” proscribed in standard economics. All phenomena should be
examined, and, whenever relevant, included. System dynamics as demonstrated by
Meadows, et.al., is applied to the whole Earth ecosystem, sometimes called Gaia.
Accordingly, this Kerala study has sought a systems solution to the Kerala puzzle. The
reality of the Kerala experience may add to our understanding of the human impact on
the whole Earth system through the 21st century.
The question we asked of Kerala was: How is the human demand for
throughput limited to the throughput available to humans? Throughput available to
humans is the sustainable taking of Earth resources and sustainable dumping of
human wastes.
In order to place this question into terms which may be estimated and
calculated in this study, two throughput benchmarks in human behavior were defined.
These benchmarks were designed to avoid the antagonistic relationships between
perceived human needs for throughput and human numbers in a finite ecosystem.
They may be properly applied to large human societies such as Kerala. Benchmark
One is an amount of per capita throughput which allows a society to delay death and
extend human life spans. Benchmark Two is a somewhat larger amount of per capita
throughput efficiently applied to inspire voluntary reproductive choices leading to zero
population growth (defined as a Total Fertility Rate of 2 or less) in any society.
In our next step we asked Kerala two more particular questions:
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1. How much is Benchmark Two in measurable throughput terms?
2. How is Benchmark Two applied to inspire voluntary reproductive choices
leading to zero population growth?
Benchmark Two is located by measuring the smallest per capita throughput of
any society which has achieved a Total Fertility Rate of 2 or less. Until a better
example (of a large society with both a Total Fertility Rate of 2 or less and a small per
capita throughput) is located, we will apply the throughput per capita of Kerala as
Benchmark Two.
Accepting Kerala as embodying Benchmark Two leads us to examine how this
small amount of throughput has been applied to inspire voluntary reproductive
choices. This system part may be viewed as a holistic efficiency process. That is, the
application of the least throughput per capita to produce the desired outcome -- inspire
voluntary. reproductive choices leading to zero population growth. The small amount
of throughput applied in Kerala equals Benchmark Two. Accordingly, Kerala scores
100% efficiency, and lower efficiency scores may be calculated for other societies
which also satisfy the criteria, Total Fertility Rate of 2 or less..
Given the forgoing preparation, we are prepared to put the actual question
basic to our Kerala studies: Why is Kerala more efficient than India? In common with
all efficiency questions, we should seek explanatory variables outside our ratio
statement, that is, the application of the least throughput per capita to produce the
desired outcome: voluntary reproductive choices leading to zero population growth. In
efficiency questions the explanatory variables are information -- that is, how to achieve
the desired outcome with the smallest amounts of throughput. In systems terms we
think of our desired outcome as the product or summation of throughput and
information. We might think of a 1 level throughput plus a 1-level information as
producing the Benchmark One we see in India as a whole. And we might think of a 1-
level throughput plus a 2 or 3-level information as producing the Earth resource-use
efficiency we see in Kerala.
Structures within societies control information flows. And in systems thinking,
changing structures means changing the information links and flows, that is,
increasing both the quality and the quantity of the information applied. The links in
information systems, control the content and timeliness of the data that-systems actors
may work with, that is, the goals, the incentives, the costs, and the feedbacks that
motivate or constrain behavior. The same combination of people, institutions, and
physical structures can behave differently when its actors see good reason for doing
so in conditions of freedom to negotiate change. Over time, a system with a new
information structure can socially and physically transform itself. It can develop new
institutions, new rules, and people trained for new functions. All of these things have
happened (in various degrees) in India during the past century. We find that such
events happened more frequently and more profoundly in Kerala than elsewhere in
India.
The most dramatic structural characteristics relevant to the information links and
flows in the India-versus-Kerala comparison are hierarchical and lateral
communications. Almost all observers of Indian society have noted the pervasive
structuring sanctified in Hindu religious tradition, and labeled “caste”. Caste is an
unusually rigid structural system based on birth, a layer upon layer of humans in
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hierarchical order. Information (which flows laterally within castes) has been strictly
regulated at the links between castes by hierarchical rules, promulgated and taught for
two millennia by the highest caste, the Brahman priests.
Describing information outside of the special case of Indian caste, systems
experts [D. Meadows, D. Meadows, and J. Randers, Beyond the Limits, 1992] explain,
"Pervasive changes unfold spontaneously from new information structures. No one
need engage in sacrifice or in strong arming, except perhaps to get some people to
stop deliberately confusing or distorting or ignoring information. Human history is full
of structural transformations, . . .
"The structural causes over which people have the most power . . . are the
social norms, goals, incentives, and costs that cause people to want more than a
replacement number of children. They are cultural expectations and practices that
maldistribute income and wealth, that make people see themselves primarily as
consumers and producers, that associate social status with material accumulation and
that define human goals in terms of getting more rather than having enough." [Ibid. p
192]
Returning to the Kerala phenomenon, the 19th century rigid caste structures
disintegrated more rapidly and completely within Kerala than in all India. Destroying
caste restrictions freed the flow of information; the open. system known within castes
was achieved throughout the whole of Kerala in the 20th century. Free flowing
information was the key to a positive social transformation in Kerala. Larger
information flows fostered knowledge about the life-sustaining needs and interests of
other humans near and far. Most important was the information quality -- "information
flowing in new ways, to new recipients, carrying new content, and suggesting new
rules and goals (rules and goals are themselves information)."[Ibid. p 222] The new
free-flowing information systems, crossing caste lines, created an open and dynamic
information system in Kerala. The information variable has expanded more in Kerala
compared to the rest of India.
Systems thinking has allowed us to locate a critical variable -- the free flow of
information released by the rapid demise of caste in Kerala -- a variable which can
explain why and how Kerala has been more efficient in the creation of high life quality
and sustainable family sizes. In addition, our holistic search has located a variable in
the cultural heritage of Kerala (not yet studied) with more potential significance than
the efficiency explanation.
In that bit of India which was to become Kerala, the census of 1881 revealed a
population with a first-world characteristic, more females than males (101 to 100). A
census in a much larger part of India (Punjab) in the same period displayed the typical
third-word pattern, less females than males (85 to 100). This first-world versus third-
world difference continues to be measured a century later -- Kerala 103 to 100 and
Punjab 89 to 100. A higher valuing of daughters in Kerala than in all India has
persisted for over a century. This hard evidence (connecting higher female status to
the high life-quality measures secured in Kerala during the 20th century) begs for
careful definition and in depth research.
Five years of field research in Kerala was undertaken by the Institute for Food
and Development Policy, supported by Earthwatch Expeditions, and directed by the
writer.
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