MAINTENANCE IS INTERGENERATIONAL JUSTICE This is paradigm shifting…thanks to #thelongnowfoundation and #mikkojarvenpaa Maintenance is taking responsibility for the future. In his 01971 book A Theory of Justice, the philosopher John Rawls introduces the concept of “just savings” for the context of intergenerational justice. In Rawls’s formulation, just savings apply across all kinds of real capital, from monetary and physical assets to social and cultural capital. For Rawls, forward-looking justice supplies subsequent generations with the readiness to thrive or, at minimum, to survive. It would be an injustice to pass on unavoidable burdens, such as leaking buildings, crumbling infrastructure, or undocumented knowledge. A good theory of intergenerational justice is not just one that appeals to our current generation. It also needs to be one that we would want our ancestors to have had, and one that we can believe future generations will prefer us to have employed, it considers both the past and the future. Maintenance is necessary for justice and responsibility over the long term. At #thelongnowfoundation we speak about preserving the options for future generations — ensuring that those who come after us are able to make their own choices about their experience and existence. If we neglect maintenance, we undermine that optionality by unduly burdening the future.
