@JWGCox Does that collaboration among organized movements require a leader to get started? Or is it de-centralized somehow? I agree completely that your vision of coordinated progress is ideal, but like you referenced, analysis paralysis prevents it from happening and it all feels too remote for individuals, companies, and organizations to grasp. What’s the first action step?
WeAll has worked hard to get governments to support the Wellbeing Economy, but for political change to take hold, doesn’t the voice of the people need to be loud enough and unanimous enough that their representatives listen? I think cultural change precedes political change.
@judybackhouse mentioned the importance of messaging and conversation, @Oliver mentioned appealing to fundamental values, @VladBunea talked about strategic narratives, and I hope it’s safe to say in this forum we all agree that some form of coordinated, targeted communications that scale the conversation to a critical mass is what’s needed. How does the Wellbeing Economy enter mainstream conversation?
Basically, how does it go viral?
For that to happen it must be simplified - or maybe that’s not the right word… it must be concentrated. To the point that a single reference is emblematic of the entire movement. To achieve such representational significance, I think we need to look to the world of current cultural influencers in art, music, cinema, TV, books, to unite as artistic ambassadors. Could there be a symbol of WE? I don’t mean a logo. I mean a message, a word, a design, something that takes on a life of its own that can be easily shared with universal impact regardless of language.
Maybe we’ve been looking in the wrong places to start a campaign. Perhaps the next step is to reach the artists?
@MichaelB I resonate very much with your questions. I often think the same. I do have a natural inclinations against pyramidal governance with elected leaders. I prefer the decentralized approach that uses a combination of sortition and sociocracy. This being said, we are working on creating the Canadian hub of WeAll using sociocracy, with autonomous working circles that are still connected within a larger organisation. https://degrowth.net/ also uses sociocracy. Sortition comes into picture as organisations scale up. Sortition can also help to phase out democracies based on elections: Against Elections! Fix Democracy with Sortition and Sociocracy | DEGROWTHIFY #5
In terms of what to do and how to do it I think concerted narratives are crucial. e.g. all platforms of communications could be used to advocate for the phasing out of capitalism and the phasing in of wellbeing economics. Messages could include: references to reformist policies, coordinated attacks on the ruling class, positive illustration about how life would look like in a post-growth wellbeing-based economy, actionable demands for labor unions and other groups to spread the message, the promotion of crowd-based policy clouds The World Revolution Can Use a Crowd-Sourced Global Policy Cloud | by Post Growth Institute | Post Growth Perspectives | Oct, 2024 | Medium etc.
These campaigns can be done by autonomous small circles (aka working groups) within WeAll with dedicated members.
@MichaelB On a couple of WEALL meetings, both @Simon Ticehurst and @Stewart Wallis mentioned this is very much on their ‘to do’ list.
Before we can win the culture war, we must capture the people’s imagination. Once they buy into the vision, they will demand that politicians get their act together and deliver it.
As it will take more than one parliament sitting, beyond five years, politicians will have to think longer term.
Meanwhile, regenerative movements must collaborate to agree on a shared vision and purpose. They must consider changes to the financial system, education, democratic voice, and public agency, as well as regenerative best practices across multiple sectors and geographies.
They must establish a fractal pattern that can be scaled up and down from local to global. This pattern will consist of a shared vision, core principles, and exciting examples at every scale to create belief in the vision.
Between the movements, there must be thousands of exciting successes.
Political biases must be left outside the collaboration workshops - sorry @VladBunea your approach will just get people’s backs up.
Avoid negative language like degrowth. Articulate clearly, without political baggage or language, that we want to create a world that isn’t extractive and destructive but nurturing, loving and regenerative and that it is possible, not fantasy.
I see it as a cyclical process:
Collaborate on a shared vision backed up by compelling examples worldwide - local, national, regional, transnational.
Communicate consistently to get people excited and willing to participate, even if it is just crazy ideas.
Once a tipping point is reached, politicians must get the right things done or lose their seats.
I also recommend that Otto Sharmer’s team conduct the workshop(s) to create a shared vision using the Theory U process. It will prevent it being a cacophony and ensure egos are left outside.
@JWGCox I disagree. Everything is political. This cannot be avoided. We cannot advocate for a system transformation without naming the system itself. It is about capitalism, wherever we like it or not. The ruling class are at war with the 99%. degrowth is exactly what needs to happen, whether we use the word or not. I prefer to use it because I prefer straight talk. Narratives that do not include degrowth policies, whether they use the word or not, are failed narratives.
Also, the strategy is not wellbeing OR degrowth. Wellbeing OR ecosocialism. Wellbeing or donut economics or postgrowth or circular economy or steady-state. The strategy contains elements from all of the above. Degrowth is a necessary element, unavoidable.
I agree to disagree. However, degrowth is NOT a negative message. Quite the contrary. Here’s my definition of degrowth: Degrowth is the expansion of social agency and wellbeing for all humans, within the limits of Earth, by reducing production and consumption to lighten ecological footprint, planned democratically in the spirit of social justice. What is negative about this?
@VladBunea I can’t argue with that definition, although I’d change ’ by reducing production to ‘through regenerative production’.
In a world sadly driven by fear why be surprised Trump won?
Hence the need for positive vision.
Also why give a great idea such a crap negative label? Change the label, it doesn’t say what it does on the tin, other than suggests shrinking business. If you think that is a good thing to do, then who will fund the change? The defence industry? Good luck with that.
We need to humility to realise that no individual or movement has all the answers. It needs a collaborative dialogue, where entrenched positions are set aside in the honest search for answers and solutions that work. It is high time for greater collaboration among regenerative movements.
@JWGCox I’m afraid the reduction part is not negotiable. You may call it putting the economy on a diet, regenerative production, circular economy etc. etc. but the fact that the total output / throughput of the economy has to decrease is unavoidable. We are in the overshoot of the planetary boundaries and only a selective phase out of certain industries can bring us back. It’s regeneration+diet. You cannot do regeneration without the diet (degrowth) part. The Tipping Points of Climate Change — and Where We Stand | Johan Rockström | TED
@VladBunea Very powerful from Rockström as always. No mention of degrowth. After hitting us hard with the bad news, he states 2 reasons for his ‘realistic’ optimism:
People care ( although lack agency to my mind).
Solutions exist to create a healthier world/planet, but must be scaled rapidly and exponentially.
This is why I believe it is essential that all regenerative movements like WEALL, (only one of around probably 100), need to collaborate with a common vision with evidence that solutions exist, and regenerative industries will create jobs to replace fossil fuel industries = at scale.
We need to communicate to the people that as he says care. That’s most citizens. The diet part is eliminating Anthropocene habits - fossil fuel energy, processed foods, etc.
Language is critical, and divisive if wrongly chosen. To suggest that all businesses should shrink (the implication of the term degrowth) will not gain public support, its doomed before we start. So why use the term? It’s naive and smacks of the dreaded wokism.
My major concern is movements like WEALL are not doing enough to collaborate with other regenerative movements, to generate the communication air cover to create citizen demand on politicians to get off the pot and create the change we need.
Rockström needs our help! Now! We better get the language right and get on with the job rather than stroke our own egos in a siloed, yet as far as the public is concerned, silent echo-chamber.
In my opinion, progressive, and or values based communities neglect, or ignore the reality of our fragmented attention, and requirement to engage in the marketing game. On the other hand, local “pockets of coherence“ serve as methods of attraction to a new way of being instead of promotion Of the same.
@WayneMaceyka Ironically, market forces are extremely powerful, promoted through highly effective marketing strategies, and omnichannel targetted communications.
We need the same concentrated and well targetted communications to cut through to the people.
This requires the following:
-regenerative movements to pool resources and agree on a vision of what the world should be like,
-then communicate that , laced with positive examples to convince ordinary people that it is in their interest, and that of their families and future generations, and is achievable, with compelling examples to prove the point.
-consistent vision promoted and targetted through multiple channels to reach people where they are, not just on regenerative movement websites.
It means using the same promotional tools that businesses use successfully today, but for a visionary purpose.
Thanks for the links. I’ll certainly take a closer look.
WEALL’s leaders need to prioritise this and get cracking immediately.
…agree on a vision of what the world should be like… a vision that is so compelling that nobody could seriously argue against it. One that is so intuitive and easily understood that it just feels right, to everybody. One that can be communicated in simple language to any audience.
What are we (humanity) trying to achieve? Currently, the message is ‘accumulate personal resource by any means because you only have yourself to rely upon’.
What happens if the message is ‘Build a world/society/community around you that will provide for you if you are unable’?
Whenever a policy or governance action is proposed, which statement should we measure it against? Is it a good policy because it enables people to accumulate personal resource, or is it a good policy because it helps build a world that will provide for everyone?
@Oliver The value of community has been largely lost in the UK. I’m sure there are exceptions.
I’m not too fussed about metrics at this stage, although Bhutan seems to be ahead on this Bhutan Happiness Index
We need to get cracking on shared vision and communicating it in collaboration with other regenerative movements to ordinary people.
We need a shift in consciousness where reliance on things to approximate happiness, but never do, to happiness in robust relationships with each other and all life.
What Teilhard de Chardin expressed as the outcome of anthropogenesis to higher and higher consciousness levels, powered by love, which unlike other forces escapes the second law of thermodynamics, entropy. The more it’s used the more it grows.
@JWGCox I don’t think it’s Rockström’s business to opine on degrowth. I did not expect him to suggest degrowth. However, it is obvious from his research that shrinking, reduction, diet, degrowth (pick your word) needs to happen. I invite you to review the vast degrowth literature on our website here The Degrowth Database | International Degrowth Network
Moreover, no sane degrowther says that all businesses must degrow. That’s absurd. Degrowth is a selective reduction of certain industries that cause the environmental overshoot: advertising, agriculture, tourism, personal cars, luxury goods etc. etc., and an expansion of basic services: healthcare, education, public transit etc. etc. Degrowth is also phasing out the profit-motive and is putting maximum limits on wealth and income.
So, if we want to talk about regeneration or wellbeing, it must contain the phasing out of colonialism, which will mean a transformation of lifestyles in the rich countries. Regeneration without decolonialism and without degrowth is yet another version of greenwashing.
I am thrilled to see the questions raised on this thread.
I am new to WEAL, and I’m on the Executive Team for Stable Planet Alliance.
Stable Planet Alliance recently went through a three-month strategic reorientation Zoom conversation; we thought through these questions in some depth.
Here are some of the high points. See what you think.
• If we are to reduce ecological damage, including fossil fuel emissions, collectively we have to dramatically reduce industrial production globally.
• This involves dramatically slowing the economy. (In other words, a whole system change – a scale larger than local actions.)
• Generally nobody wants to slow the economy. My job, my mortgage, my superannuation!
• Therefore a precondition for public acceptance of policies that slow the economy in order to preserve our ecological life support systems is to develop adequate social safety nets. No one will vote to commit economic hara kiri.
In Leverage Points, Places to Intervene in a System Donella Meadows asserts the most influential leverage point in a system is the paradigm that organizes the system. In other words, ‘to change the system, change the thinking’.
Most adults have well-established habitual ways of thinking. Generally messages bounce off unprepared minds (although messages are important!). So the Stable Planet Alliance approach is to encourage people to be what we call ‘Evolutionary Communicators’. Evolutionary Communicators enable people they talk with (friends and business colleagues, influential people) to think more deeply about the disastrous reality of ecological trends, and about the economic-adjustable system that makes them worse.
Just a few conversations will make little difference. Our idea for taking the conversations to scale is to inspire the members of established groups to act as Evolutionary Communicators.
We provide innovative communication tools to make such conversations succinct and purposeful. One of them is called Kitchen Table Conversations.
The intention is to inspire background public will to support future political leaders who will say. ‘Folks, we need to slow our economy to preserve our life support systems.’
As you would know, our system is enormously complex with no simple solutions. We think it could be helpful to have a positive overarching goal. Ways of phrasing such a goal include an Ecological Civilization and a life-affirming culture. We use the phrase ‘creating a compassionate, just, ecologically sustainable world’ because it includes both the social and ecological aspects of ecosystem change that we need.
Compassion is a shorthand word for ‘partnership-respect relating’– in contrast to ‘domination control relating’. Like ‘ecological sustainability’ it operates fractally at every level from local to international relations.
There are millions of groups that care about social and ecological wellbeing. Logistically, it would be impossible for them to collaborate. But we can make common cause in our intention to involve a compassionate, sustainable world, and focusing on communicating to affect public mindsets. Groups can communicate to affect public consciousness in conjunction with passionately pursuing their primary missions. And of course, thought leaders come into this as well.
These two articles get the detail. I am the author, and I think the program is well thought through. See what you think.
Aligning to Co-Create a New Kind of Social Change Movement.
Becoming an Evolutionary Catalyst
Cutting to the chase: Our intention is to catalyze a new kind of social change movement based on helping people think better, with the intention to mobilize public engagement to change our destructive system.
The Stable Planet Alliance Executive Team has discussed these ideas in depth with Stewart Wallis and Simon Tricehurst, and Simon gave a brilliant presentation at one of our meetings. As part of a path forward, Stewart suggested that we make ourselves better known within the WEALL community.
Stable Planet Alliance has a robust framework for expansion. We are always on the lookout for potential colleagues. If you want to have a Zoom talk to get acquainted and consider possibilities, contact me at andrew@stableplanetalliance.com.
