by the solutions that ‘economic evidence’ supports. In order to achieve deliberative
processes of transformation toward sustainable economies and dignified lives, we
need to make transparent what has found recognition as cost and benefit, value,
utility, or capital, and so on.
The pioneers reviewed above hold assumptions and ideas about humans, their
needs and relationships as well as the natural settings in which they operate that are
very different from the Homo economicus and natural capital of mainstream economics. They see human behavior and needs as falling more in line with the
ontology of reflexive transformation research discussed in Chap. 2 and the criticism
of mainstream economics presented in Chap. 3.
None of the pioneering examples subscribe to the three-pillar icon for sustainable development but instead to one of embedded systems (see Fig. 3.4). It is not
about dividing the world into pieces and freely moving them around until the
balance sheets are optimized. Instead, each element will look and behave differently
according to the context in which it happens to sit, and this context will change if
parts are removed.
None of the movements accepts the quantifying and monetizing lens as having
universal applicability. Market prices are viewed as historically grown institutional
set ups with as many distortions, power relations and socializing effects as public
institutions. Understanding these is a prerequisite for the determination of which
productive relations, goods, and services are best governed by financialized
mind-sets and institutions, and which are not.
None of the initiatives subscribe to the idea that maximizing growth forever by
accumulating monetized value is a good or even feasible idea. Growth is one of
several possible means of securing human happiness and well-being. Its pursuit
through the creation of much disutility for many people and by overshooting
Planetary Boundaries does not deserve the label ‘successful development.’
None of the pioneers ascribe to the idea that comparing and ranking monetary
value expressions can provide suitable indications as to what is really happening.
All insist on qualitative and physical measures for what is going on in the real world
of resources and relations. Instead of pushing a cost–benefit lens onto everything,
they seek to understand and find governance and incentive solutions suitable to the
actual problem and the relationships in place.
Comparing these respective repurposing decisions for business, communities,
governments and civil society initiatives we see a lot of similarities with Sachs’ 4
D’s of sufficiency as introduced in Chap. 3: deglobalizing and decelerating processes that do not allow for sustainable, resilient and social ways of creating output
and solving dilemmas, decommodifying beings and relationships whose primary
reason for existence is not that they should be sold in a market, and decluttering the
narratives of the future by shedding the dogma that what is here today can never be
enough.
For me, such differentiated approaches qualify as trailblazing experiments on
how a new, properly integrated sustainability paradigm could be lived in practice.
All of them are continuously confronted with creating something new and different
while being surrounded and connected with the strong path dependencies of
146
4 Mapping an Emerging New Economic Paradigm in Practice
processes of transformation toward sustainable economies and dignified lives, we
need to make transparent what has found recognition as cost and benefit, value,
utility, or capital, and so on.
The pioneers reviewed above hold assumptions and ideas about humans, their
needs and relationships as well as the natural settings in which they operate that are
very different from the Homo economicus and natural capital of mainstream economics. They see human behavior and needs as falling more in line with the
ontology of reflexive transformation research discussed in Chap. 2 and the criticism
of mainstream economics presented in Chap. 3.
None of the pioneering examples subscribe to the three-pillar icon for sustainable development but instead to one of embedded systems (see Fig. 3.4). It is not
about dividing the world into pieces and freely moving them around until the
balance sheets are optimized. Instead, each element will look and behave differently
according to the context in which it happens to sit, and this context will change if
parts are removed.
None of the movements accepts the quantifying and monetizing lens as having
universal applicability. Market prices are viewed as historically grown institutional
set ups with as many distortions, power relations and socializing effects as public
institutions. Understanding these is a prerequisite for the determination of which
productive relations, goods, and services are best governed by financialized
mind-sets and institutions, and which are not.
None of the initiatives subscribe to the idea that maximizing growth forever by
accumulating monetized value is a good or even feasible idea. Growth is one of
several possible means of securing human happiness and well-being. Its pursuit
through the creation of much disutility for many people and by overshooting
Planetary Boundaries does not deserve the label ‘successful development.’
None of the pioneers ascribe to the idea that comparing and ranking monetary
value expressions can provide suitable indications as to what is really happening.
All insist on qualitative and physical measures for what is going on in the real world
of resources and relations. Instead of pushing a cost–benefit lens onto everything,
they seek to understand and find governance and incentive solutions suitable to the
actual problem and the relationships in place.
Comparing these respective repurposing decisions for business, communities,
governments and civil society initiatives we see a lot of similarities with Sachs’ 4
D’s of sufficiency as introduced in Chap. 3: deglobalizing and decelerating processes that do not allow for sustainable, resilient and social ways of creating output
and solving dilemmas, decommodifying beings and relationships whose primary
reason for existence is not that they should be sold in a market, and decluttering the
narratives of the future by shedding the dogma that what is here today can never be
enough.
For me, such differentiated approaches qualify as trailblazing experiments on
how a new, properly integrated sustainability paradigm could be lived in practice.
All of them are continuously confronted with creating something new and different
while being surrounded and connected with the strong path dependencies of
146
4 Mapping an Emerging New Economic Paradigm in Practice