The Enigma of Kerala

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A small parade of development experts has passed through Kerala in recent years, mainly to see how its successes might be repeated in places like Vietnam and Mozambique. But Kerala may be as significant a schoolhouse for the rich world as for the poor. 'Kerala is the one large human population on earth that currently meets the sustainability criteria of simultaneous small families and low consumption,' says Will Alexander of the Food First Institute in San Francisco.

Kerala suggests a way out of two problems simultaneously--not only the classic development goal of more food in bellies and more shoes on feet, but also the emerging, equally essential task of living lightly on the earth, using fewer resources, creating less waste. Kerala demonstrates that a low-level economy can create a decent life, abundant in the things--health, education, community--that are most necessary for us all. Gross national product is often used as a synonym for achievement, but it is also an eloquent shorthand for gallons of gasoline burned, stacks of garbage tossed out, quantities of timber sawn into boards. One recent calculation showed that for every American dollar or its equivalent spent anywhere on earth, half a liter of oil was consumed in producing, packaging, and shipping the goods. One-seventieth the income means one-seventieth the damage to the planet. So, on balance, if Kerala and the United States manage to achieve the same physical quality of life, Kerala is the vastly more successful society.

Which is not to say that we could ever live on as little as they do--or, indeed, that they should. The right point is clearly somewhere in between. Logical as a middle way might be, though, we've not yet even begun to think about it in any real terms. We've clung to the belief that perhaps someday everyone on earth will be as rich as we are--a belief that seems utterly deluded in light of our growing environmental awareness. Kerala does not tell us precisely how to remake the world. But it does shake up our sense of what's obvious, and it offers a pair of messages to the First World. One is that sharing works. Redistribution has made Kerala a decent place to live, even without much economic growth. The second and even more important lesson is that some of our fears about simpler living are unjustified. It is not a choice between suburban America and dying at 35, between agribusiness and starvation, between 150 channels of television and ignorance.

It is a subversive reality, that stagnant/stable economy that serves its people well, and in some ways it is a scary one. Kerala implies that there is a point where rich and poor might meet and share a decent life, and surely it offers new data for a critical question of our age: How much is enough?

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