The radical repurposing agenda could be summarized as recoupling economic
processes with human well-being and nature’s laws by making the economic
dimension the one that needs changing. Given the structural reality of today’s path
dependencies, the foremost strategy for successive change in this direction—the
incremental strategies that can achieve it—is double-decoupling:
1. Decouple the production of goods and services from unsustainable, wasteful or
uncaring treatment of humans, nature and animals (do better).
2. Decouple the satisfaction of human needs from the imperative to deliver ever
more economic output (do well).
The latter has been given much less attention because the worldview informed
by the mainstream economic paradigm cannot even countenance it.
This last argument lies at the core of the fifth and final Chap. 5, which explores
how a shift in a paradigm and the mind-sets it informs can be the mediating element
between the radical imaginary and the incremental steps toward repurposing systems. It uses the findings of the transformation research discussions to present a
framework that helps individuals hack the system they work in, identify and argue
for change strategies that work both aspects of decoupling. This framework is thus
an updating contribution to transformative literacy: “the ability to read and utilize
information about societal transformation processes, to accordingly interpret and
get actively involved in these processes” (Schneidewind 2013: 83).
Impactful repurposing strategies need to reflect on the paradigm that informed
the system’s goals and purpose. There always exist several paradigms in parallel,
but one becomes dominant. It frames the issues at stake and thus the selection of
relevant information, the legitimacy of arguments, the normative judgments of
proposed solutions, the acceptance of rules and institutions and the beliefs that
something is worth pursuing. Paradigms are the sources of systems. They function
as a reference framework for individuals wanting to do something and so shape the
mindsets of the people involved in the system.
Of course, structural path dependencies are not overcome merely by changing
the way the world is viewed. For structural path dependencies to be overcome
requires a lot of engagement, effort, persistence and struggle. It also requires
mindfulness and challenging one’s own belief systems, habits and convictions in
the search for different solutions. The SDGs capture a transformational agenda for
the entire world precisely because there is no sustainable role model to copy. The
search is on and the more freely ideas behind unsustainable solutions are reassessed,
the more creative and transformational the agenda can be. Declaring that the current
situation has no alternative or that we are simply at the end of history would be bad
news.
10
1 Introduction
processes with human well-being and nature’s laws by making the economic
dimension the one that needs changing. Given the structural reality of today’s path
dependencies, the foremost strategy for successive change in this direction—the
incremental strategies that can achieve it—is double-decoupling:
1. Decouple the production of goods and services from unsustainable, wasteful or
uncaring treatment of humans, nature and animals (do better).
2. Decouple the satisfaction of human needs from the imperative to deliver ever
more economic output (do well).
The latter has been given much less attention because the worldview informed
by the mainstream economic paradigm cannot even countenance it.
This last argument lies at the core of the fifth and final Chap. 5, which explores
how a shift in a paradigm and the mind-sets it informs can be the mediating element
between the radical imaginary and the incremental steps toward repurposing systems. It uses the findings of the transformation research discussions to present a
framework that helps individuals hack the system they work in, identify and argue
for change strategies that work both aspects of decoupling. This framework is thus
an updating contribution to transformative literacy: “the ability to read and utilize
information about societal transformation processes, to accordingly interpret and
get actively involved in these processes” (Schneidewind 2013: 83).
Impactful repurposing strategies need to reflect on the paradigm that informed
the system’s goals and purpose. There always exist several paradigms in parallel,
but one becomes dominant. It frames the issues at stake and thus the selection of
relevant information, the legitimacy of arguments, the normative judgments of
proposed solutions, the acceptance of rules and institutions and the beliefs that
something is worth pursuing. Paradigms are the sources of systems. They function
as a reference framework for individuals wanting to do something and so shape the
mindsets of the people involved in the system.
Of course, structural path dependencies are not overcome merely by changing
the way the world is viewed. For structural path dependencies to be overcome
requires a lot of engagement, effort, persistence and struggle. It also requires
mindfulness and challenging one’s own belief systems, habits and convictions in
the search for different solutions. The SDGs capture a transformational agenda for
the entire world precisely because there is no sustainable role model to copy. The
search is on and the more freely ideas behind unsustainable solutions are reassessed,
the more creative and transformational the agenda can be. Declaring that the current
situation has no alternative or that we are simply at the end of history would be bad
news.
10
1 Introduction