development. This makes me less pessimistic than sociologist Harald Welzer, who
recently wrote:
For the time being, the transformation necessary today lacks guiding principles of the kind
that early industrialized societies had in terms of progress, freedom, prosperity and growth.
It will not be possible to establish new mental infrastructures without guiding ideas, yet if
they do not dovetail almost naturally into day-to-day lives and lifestyles, visions of the self
and frames of reference for the future, they will remain just that—ideas (ibid. 2011: 32).
For me it is not so much that we have to find an alternative to freedom and
prosperity, or even growth. We have to reclaim their meaning for a world with 9
billion instead of 1 billion people who have too little spiritual guidance rather than too
much, and a degree of commodification and homogenization in productive activities
and consumption that limits need-satisfying possibilities rather than expanding them.
In the midst of this, functioning as a great positive feedback for these trends, the next
technological revolution, digitalization, is unfolding. With it comes an overturning of
former standards of communication, speed, size, and reproducibility of goods and
services. At the same time, knowledge and evidence about the dimensions of human
impact on the pattern of oceans, greenery, and soils that make up the fragile ball of
Earth has led to the emergence of a new term: the Anthropocene.
The political, cultural and economic circumstances from which the
Enlightenment movement sought liberation simply no longer exist. A Second
Enlightenment in the twenty-first century would seek liberation from very different
types of totalitarianism and limitation to human potential. So which imaginary
could progress, freedom, prosperity, and growth, the principles mentioned by
Welzer, carry for the era of the Anthropocene? In my view both theory and practice
reviewed in this book offer the tenets of the guiding ideas a Second Enlightenment
could foster:
• Instead of being an output measured only by money, progress can mean the
equitable and balanced progress of the whole SETS as measured by differentiated social, environmental, and cultural indicators.
• Instead of freedom meaning the absence of obstacles to individual purchasing
desires, it can embody human security and sufficiency: freedom from the fear of
falling behind in the race for resource accumulation, and freedom from the
culturally created endless want that impedes well-being.
• Instead of prosperity embodying ever more consumption choices, it can stand
for a holistic and adaptive understanding of human needs and resilient access to
diversified need-satisfier strategies.
• Instead of economic growth being an end in itself, different types of economic
output and activity grow, stay steady, or also de-grow as means to the end of
securing well-being within Planetary Boundaries.
Many of the SDGs and their targets speak to these principles, albeit with the
exception of the dogmatic clinging to GDP growth and greater income for even the
rich. Many say they are not specific or binding enough. But in system innovation
strategies, it is more important to map where not to go (anymore) and then outline
5.3 Summarizing Outlook
167
recently wrote:
For the time being, the transformation necessary today lacks guiding principles of the kind
that early industrialized societies had in terms of progress, freedom, prosperity and growth.
It will not be possible to establish new mental infrastructures without guiding ideas, yet if
they do not dovetail almost naturally into day-to-day lives and lifestyles, visions of the self
and frames of reference for the future, they will remain just that—ideas (ibid. 2011: 32).
For me it is not so much that we have to find an alternative to freedom and
prosperity, or even growth. We have to reclaim their meaning for a world with 9
billion instead of 1 billion people who have too little spiritual guidance rather than too
much, and a degree of commodification and homogenization in productive activities
and consumption that limits need-satisfying possibilities rather than expanding them.
In the midst of this, functioning as a great positive feedback for these trends, the next
technological revolution, digitalization, is unfolding. With it comes an overturning of
former standards of communication, speed, size, and reproducibility of goods and
services. At the same time, knowledge and evidence about the dimensions of human
impact on the pattern of oceans, greenery, and soils that make up the fragile ball of
Earth has led to the emergence of a new term: the Anthropocene.
The political, cultural and economic circumstances from which the
Enlightenment movement sought liberation simply no longer exist. A Second
Enlightenment in the twenty-first century would seek liberation from very different
types of totalitarianism and limitation to human potential. So which imaginary
could progress, freedom, prosperity, and growth, the principles mentioned by
Welzer, carry for the era of the Anthropocene? In my view both theory and practice
reviewed in this book offer the tenets of the guiding ideas a Second Enlightenment
could foster:
• Instead of being an output measured only by money, progress can mean the
equitable and balanced progress of the whole SETS as measured by differentiated social, environmental, and cultural indicators.
• Instead of freedom meaning the absence of obstacles to individual purchasing
desires, it can embody human security and sufficiency: freedom from the fear of
falling behind in the race for resource accumulation, and freedom from the
culturally created endless want that impedes well-being.
• Instead of prosperity embodying ever more consumption choices, it can stand
for a holistic and adaptive understanding of human needs and resilient access to
diversified need-satisfier strategies.
• Instead of economic growth being an end in itself, different types of economic
output and activity grow, stay steady, or also de-grow as means to the end of
securing well-being within Planetary Boundaries.
Many of the SDGs and their targets speak to these principles, albeit with the
exception of the dogmatic clinging to GDP growth and greater income for even the
rich. Many say they are not specific or binding enough. But in system innovation
strategies, it is more important to map where not to go (anymore) and then outline
5.3 Summarizing Outlook
167