TOWARD A SUSTAINING PRODUCTION THEORY

Production is commonly described as the root of wealth creation, growt h and progress. Mainline production theory ascribes this wealth genera ting ability to a limited number of inputs transformed into equally na rrowly defined goods and services. Output which is not part of the off icial economy's market exchange, or inputs not employed in their produ ction process remain external and unaccounted for. Many of these unacc ounted for goods and inputs are provided in households, gardens, subsi stence production, or ecological and biophysical systems through the ' free' services of women or nature. Thus an alternative view of product ion is suggested, one which views production itself as linked to the s ocial and bio-physical contexts within which it takes place. This cont ext first makes the generation of input streams, the receiving of outp ut streams and the processing of inputs by means of fund factors (Geor gescu-Roegen) possible. As production is contextualized it becomes evi dent that processes which sustain input generation, waste absorption a nd material transformation are critical to the production process. The se are referred to as sustaining services. A sustaining production pro cess is one which maintains sustaining services instead of destroying them. It is further argued that steps toward the implementation of a s ustaining production concept require a move from abstraction to materi al concreteness. Three areas of concreteness are discussed as moving f rom solely monetary to physical valuation criteria, moving from method ological homogeneity to diversity, and moving from a mystified and dis tanced decision making process about quantity and quality of productio n to one of informed, participatory discourse.