Sustaining the One-Dimensional : An Ideology Critique of Agenda 2030 and the SDGs

Sammanfattning: The project of sustainable development, as reflected in the Agenda 2030 and the UN 17 Sustainable Development Goals, plays a central role in the story of crisis and transformation today. Yet, this project has rarely been the object of ideology critique. This paper formulates an ideology critique as a form of immanent critique of the project of sustainable development with a basis in Herbert Marcuse’s one-dimensionality thesis. The analysis of the ideology of sustainable development is structured around the three-pillar conception of sustainability which is applied in the Agenda 2030. The transformative potential of the project of sustainable development is assessed on the background of the analysis. The transformative potential in each of the three pillars is found to be inhibited by the project of sustainable development and the paper identifies and explains the ideological mechanisms through which this inhibition takes place. The research suggests that the project of sustainable development cannot be seen as a transformative project.