Caring for the Future: Minimizing Change or Maximizing Choice?
Author(s)
Paarlberg, Robert L.
Abstract
Good faith efforts to “care for the future” can take either of two quite different forms: minimizing change across generations or maximizing choice. In this essay, the author argues that thought about the future, until now, has erred by stressing the reduction of change rather than the expansion of choice. The author argues for more “pro-choice” thinking about the future and less “change-averse” thinking. This not only protects the choice privileges of future generations, it also avoids freezing into place the extreme inequalities that exist within current generations. Then the author examines some of the changes that must be undertaken now, especially in the developing countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America, if choice is to be expanded and extended to future generations.
