thinking, feeling, and acting. SETS’s are created, ordered and stabilized through
human decision-making and (often) conscious creation of regime structures.
Searching for more efficient technologies and more effective economic incentives is not enough when looking for sustainability solutions. It is the institutional
setups and sociocultural frameworks that define the purpose for which technologies
and economic instruments are used. Here is where we find the root causes of trends.
Incentives and technologies mostly function as accelerating or balancing feedback,
but not in themselves as game changers. This is why the multi-phase concept as I
posit it here gives the sociocultural anchoring of alternative proposals and
pioneering solutions a crucial role in all phases of transformation.
In the amended MLP it is the purple and blue arrows that make the link. They
indicate how mind-sets mediate between agents and structures and how the dominant paradigm functions as a reference framework for justifications and narratives
of change. The big arrow on the right hand side of the graph also shows, however,
that each individual is constantly involved in shaping the future paradigm. By
providing reason, opinions, arguments and experiences as well as non-verbal
reactions and behavior we can all participate in paradigm shifts and thus in
changing reality.
Polanyi demonstrated this link in his account of the Great Transformation. The
classical economic paradigm played a crucial role in making today’s default
solution the growth-fixated development path. This paradigm survived over two
centuries of criticism by amending itself into a neoclassical version. But today its
basic assumptions are challenged from so many angles and the institutional solutions and processes based on it deliver so many crises that the time is ripe to shift
from diversified irritation to unifying consolidation: which insights on human needs
and natural resource reproduction in today’s scientific debates could become the
foundational ideas of a new development paradigm?
Open Access This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, duplication, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give
appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons
license and indicate if changes were made.
The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the work’s Creative
Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if such material is not included in
the work’s Creative Commons license and the respective action is not permitted by statutory
regulation, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to duplicate, adapt or
reproduce the material.
2.2 Summary: Paradigm Shifts and Large System Change …
51
human decision-making and (often) conscious creation of regime structures.
Searching for more efficient technologies and more effective economic incentives is not enough when looking for sustainability solutions. It is the institutional
setups and sociocultural frameworks that define the purpose for which technologies
and economic instruments are used. Here is where we find the root causes of trends.
Incentives and technologies mostly function as accelerating or balancing feedback,
but not in themselves as game changers. This is why the multi-phase concept as I
posit it here gives the sociocultural anchoring of alternative proposals and
pioneering solutions a crucial role in all phases of transformation.
In the amended MLP it is the purple and blue arrows that make the link. They
indicate how mind-sets mediate between agents and structures and how the dominant paradigm functions as a reference framework for justifications and narratives
of change. The big arrow on the right hand side of the graph also shows, however,
that each individual is constantly involved in shaping the future paradigm. By
providing reason, opinions, arguments and experiences as well as non-verbal
reactions and behavior we can all participate in paradigm shifts and thus in
changing reality.
Polanyi demonstrated this link in his account of the Great Transformation. The
classical economic paradigm played a crucial role in making today’s default
solution the growth-fixated development path. This paradigm survived over two
centuries of criticism by amending itself into a neoclassical version. But today its
basic assumptions are challenged from so many angles and the institutional solutions and processes based on it deliver so many crises that the time is ripe to shift
from diversified irritation to unifying consolidation: which insights on human needs
and natural resource reproduction in today’s scientific debates could become the
foundational ideas of a new development paradigm?
Open Access This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, duplication, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give
appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons
license and indicate if changes were made.
The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the work’s Creative
Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if such material is not included in
the work’s Creative Commons license and the respective action is not permitted by statutory
regulation, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to duplicate, adapt or
reproduce the material.
2.2 Summary: Paradigm Shifts and Large System Change …
51