feedback loops that are very difficult to change without risking collapses in wide
parts of the global economy.
Thus, a transformational 2030 sustainable development agenda needs new
‘software’ that opens up the imaginary and thus political space for radically different development solutions and systems. And I feel we might be at a turning
point: the first 40 years of sustainable development agenda left the economic
paradigm widely unchallenged. Instead of integrating economic, environmental and
social dimensions of development—as mandated by the Brundtland Report defining sustainable development—social and environmental concerns have been
inserted into an economic way of seeing and therefore governing the world. As a
result, quantification and marketization in the service of endless ‘growth’ has
become the dominant mode of organizing ever more areas of life. Diversified
governance solutions have been homogenized to fit in with this paradigm.
But since the consequences of accelerating natural exploitation and social
inequality have become more tangible in rich countries, an awareness of the pitfalls
of this shift is coming to the fore. Moreover, since the 2007 financial crisis hit the
‘developed world’ hard, even the deeply ‘economic’ institutions like the
Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), International
Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank have begun to question some of
Samuelson’s ideas and their own established models. The World Economic Forum
(WEF) has launched a sustainability-adjusted competitiveness index and lists global
inequality as well as job-loss in rich countries through digitalized industrialization
4.0 as top topics of conversation. Former Wall Street heroes linked to George Soros
put $200 million into the Institute for New Economic Thinking and the OECD
hosted a Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social
Progress chaired by Nobel laureate economists Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen,
which has just started its second round of work.
Of course this does not mean that the people in powerful positions now know
better than the thinkers who have been challenging the mainstream economic
paradigm for decades or centuries. Nor does it imply they do better than the
practitioners who have worked incredibly hard to achieve sustainable niche solutions within a system that’s pushing in the opposite direction. It does mean,
however, that the hegemony of the mainstream economic paradigm is broken. The
credibility of the trickle-down and green growth narratives that it informed is lost.
In the decades to come, the old and alternative paradigms will be struggling to fit
the shape taken by what could become the Second Enlightenment. Our task is to fill
the reservoir of social and cultural inventions with ideas, norms, principles and
values that support a de-commodified view of human needs, nature and money,
based on twenty-first century natural and social sciences that include many
non-quantifiable variables. They provide alternative meaning, legitimacy and
practice options for everyone engaging in the highly political struggles over
transformations for sustainable development. This is what The Great Mindshift
stands for.
1.1 It’s the Economy, Stupid!
5
parts of the global economy.
Thus, a transformational 2030 sustainable development agenda needs new
‘software’ that opens up the imaginary and thus political space for radically different development solutions and systems. And I feel we might be at a turning
point: the first 40 years of sustainable development agenda left the economic
paradigm widely unchallenged. Instead of integrating economic, environmental and
social dimensions of development—as mandated by the Brundtland Report defining sustainable development—social and environmental concerns have been
inserted into an economic way of seeing and therefore governing the world. As a
result, quantification and marketization in the service of endless ‘growth’ has
become the dominant mode of organizing ever more areas of life. Diversified
governance solutions have been homogenized to fit in with this paradigm.
But since the consequences of accelerating natural exploitation and social
inequality have become more tangible in rich countries, an awareness of the pitfalls
of this shift is coming to the fore. Moreover, since the 2007 financial crisis hit the
‘developed world’ hard, even the deeply ‘economic’ institutions like the
Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), International
Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank have begun to question some of
Samuelson’s ideas and their own established models. The World Economic Forum
(WEF) has launched a sustainability-adjusted competitiveness index and lists global
inequality as well as job-loss in rich countries through digitalized industrialization
4.0 as top topics of conversation. Former Wall Street heroes linked to George Soros
put $200 million into the Institute for New Economic Thinking and the OECD
hosted a Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social
Progress chaired by Nobel laureate economists Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen,
which has just started its second round of work.
Of course this does not mean that the people in powerful positions now know
better than the thinkers who have been challenging the mainstream economic
paradigm for decades or centuries. Nor does it imply they do better than the
practitioners who have worked incredibly hard to achieve sustainable niche solutions within a system that’s pushing in the opposite direction. It does mean,
however, that the hegemony of the mainstream economic paradigm is broken. The
credibility of the trickle-down and green growth narratives that it informed is lost.
In the decades to come, the old and alternative paradigms will be struggling to fit
the shape taken by what could become the Second Enlightenment. Our task is to fill
the reservoir of social and cultural inventions with ideas, norms, principles and
values that support a de-commodified view of human needs, nature and money,
based on twenty-first century natural and social sciences that include many
non-quantifiable variables. They provide alternative meaning, legitimacy and
practice options for everyone engaging in the highly political struggles over
transformations for sustainable development. This is what The Great Mindshift
stands for.
1.1 It’s the Economy, Stupid!
5