In co-operation with policymakers, business and society at large, the scientific community
is tasked with developing visions for a low-carbon society, exploring various development
pathways, and supporting sustainable technological and social innovations. Education
should help to create problem awareness and promote systemic thinking, thus empowering
people to participate in and shape the transformation process (WBGU 2012: 1).
When considering the redesign of energy systems, urbanization trends and land
use patterns, a study of the wider setting of correlations and side effects will enable
people to not only think about more efficient cars but also to explore how mobility
can be delivered in the most sustainable way (WBGU 2011a: 342–343).
Here of course we find a strong link with the emphasis on mind-sets in this book,
and my call to integrate political economy stems from what I find to be a slightly
naïve conception of the origin and roles that ideas and paradigms play in political
processes and their relation with power. While hardly anyone would explicitly
argue against values like the protection of future generations or our environment,
the devil lies instead in the detail—in this case the worldviews held. The same value
set might lead to very different proposed solutions, given differing worldviews and
their focuses. Mainstream economic mind-sets tend not to support the regulation of
markets precisely because this would hamper individual freedom, happiness, creativity and meritocracy—values to which most people would subscribe.
In one paragraph, the report mentions that Karl Polanyi’s interpretation of the
industrial revolution, The Great Transformation (1944), describes how “attitudes
and considerations inspired by personal benefit maximisation have established
themselves” and that with mass production, “the ‘good life’ has increasingly
become synonymous with material wealth” (WBGU 2011a: 67). The proposals for
change in the report, however, leave this deep cultural wiring and its mental path
dependencies unchallenged. Hence, it does not say how the observed value shifts
can be implemented if there is no discussion of the paradigm behind the evidence
and narratives used to argue which policies are suitable to embed the shift.
2.1.3 Socio-ecological-Technical Systems and Their
Repurposing
The discussion of paradigms and mind-sets is an important aspect of the 2002 report
Great Transition: The Promise and Lure of the Times Ahead, which primarily
explores the question: how do we best understand human choices and apply this
understanding in times of transformation? It is the result of seven years of collaborative efforts between the Stockholm Environment Institute and the Tellus
Institute in the United States. The goal was to describe and model scenarios for
potential future development paths, including one that would be a Great Transition
toward sustainable development.
Making reference to two former “sweeping macro-transformations” from the
Stone Age to early civilization about ten thousand years ago and from there to the
modern era in the last one thousand years, such transitions, says the report, were
32
2 What Political Economy Adds to Transformation Research
is tasked with developing visions for a low-carbon society, exploring various development
pathways, and supporting sustainable technological and social innovations. Education
should help to create problem awareness and promote systemic thinking, thus empowering
people to participate in and shape the transformation process (WBGU 2012: 1).
When considering the redesign of energy systems, urbanization trends and land
use patterns, a study of the wider setting of correlations and side effects will enable
people to not only think about more efficient cars but also to explore how mobility
can be delivered in the most sustainable way (WBGU 2011a: 342–343).
Here of course we find a strong link with the emphasis on mind-sets in this book,
and my call to integrate political economy stems from what I find to be a slightly
naïve conception of the origin and roles that ideas and paradigms play in political
processes and their relation with power. While hardly anyone would explicitly
argue against values like the protection of future generations or our environment,
the devil lies instead in the detail—in this case the worldviews held. The same value
set might lead to very different proposed solutions, given differing worldviews and
their focuses. Mainstream economic mind-sets tend not to support the regulation of
markets precisely because this would hamper individual freedom, happiness, creativity and meritocracy—values to which most people would subscribe.
In one paragraph, the report mentions that Karl Polanyi’s interpretation of the
industrial revolution, The Great Transformation (1944), describes how “attitudes
and considerations inspired by personal benefit maximisation have established
themselves” and that with mass production, “the ‘good life’ has increasingly
become synonymous with material wealth” (WBGU 2011a: 67). The proposals for
change in the report, however, leave this deep cultural wiring and its mental path
dependencies unchallenged. Hence, it does not say how the observed value shifts
can be implemented if there is no discussion of the paradigm behind the evidence
and narratives used to argue which policies are suitable to embed the shift.
2.1.3 Socio-ecological-Technical Systems and Their
Repurposing
The discussion of paradigms and mind-sets is an important aspect of the 2002 report
Great Transition: The Promise and Lure of the Times Ahead, which primarily
explores the question: how do we best understand human choices and apply this
understanding in times of transformation? It is the result of seven years of collaborative efforts between the Stockholm Environment Institute and the Tellus
Institute in the United States. The goal was to describe and model scenarios for
potential future development paths, including one that would be a Great Transition
toward sustainable development.
Making reference to two former “sweeping macro-transformations” from the
Stone Age to early civilization about ten thousand years ago and from there to the
modern era in the last one thousand years, such transitions, says the report, were
32
2 What Political Economy Adds to Transformation Research