living with metacrisis and collapse
Here’s a clip of an interview I did at the World Economic Forum when accepting being made a 2012 Young Global Leader. I was asked about characteristics or attributes of needed leaders today.
For my views on the dimensions of leadership, i.e. the skills, processes and relationships of good leadership, rather than the leaders, see my blog from last year: “Leadership beyond Leaders”
Information on why Im a YGL and what it means is in Lifeworth’s announcement on the subject.
Dear Economists
It has come to my attention that you’ve taken a battering in the last few years. Apart from a handful of you, the massive failure to predict the financial crisis, and the peddling of tried-and-failed theories of how to get out of said crisis, seems to have diminished your profession’s standing. Some politicians are even listening to sociologists, who say you have have nothing useful to offer on systems for achieving greater well-being, rather than mere economic growth. Perhaps rather unkindly, some now wonder whether your assumptions about self-interest have been a severe case of projection.
I don’t like to see anyone in such a bind. Especially when I sense there is major opportunity for a turn around in your fortunes. Although I’m one of your poor-cousins (i.e. a sociologist), for the past couple of years I’ve been reading some economics, mostly on monetary systems, and mostly by those I think you call “heterodox economists.” As an active reader, I jotted down some questions that I wanted answering. As I read on, it seemed that these questions were not yet answered! I looked everywhere (well, at least not just on wikipedia) and could not find data on them. So if you work on the following questions, not only could your answers become seminal, secure yourself tenure, you might even gain a spot in the next ‘Inside Job’ movie! I hope you read on and come back with peer-reviewed articles in the coming years.
1) How much money is there is in the world, and how much debt? If the amount of debt is much higher than actual money, what mathematical models can you offer for how this will be resolved, and with what implications for overall utility?
2) Which governments do not issue bonds to private banks, or to (semi-)privately owned central banks, but issue their own money (or issue bonds to government-owned central banks that do not then sell those bonds on to private banks – the same as issuing their own money)?
3) Which governments used to issue their own money, but no longer do, and when did these changes take place?
4) How do the non-GDP aspects of the Human Development Index correlate with the periods and places of governments issuing their own money? (Just take out the “income” component from the HDI and if you have got the information on monetary policy and central bank ownership, then bingo).
I realise some of you may have a more neo-institutional approach (dare I say sociological?!), and are interested in how economics is discussed in the media, or used in public policy. So for you, I also have a couple of research questions to suggest:
5) Of the news coverage since 2008, what % of the coverage on “financial crisis” also mentions “monetary reform”? I ask, as when searching on Google, only 3% of websites mentioning “financial crisis” also mention “monetary reform”. If you find similar statistics from trawling databases of news coverage, could you create follow up questions to reveal why there is this lack of analysis?
6) How are countries receiving advice, assistance and training on monetary issues, and what interests and evidence are involved in that advice?
7) How many economists does it take to change a light bulb?
“As many as need the light.”
Ok, so I knew the answer to that one. But could the answer instead be “as many as know the light is needed?”
I’m asking these questions as they relate to my own interests in sustainable enterprise, exchange and development, and I’m not about to retrain in your wonderful arts (sorry, “science”). If you want to know why more non-economists would like you to research these issues, you can view my TEDx talk on the “money myth.” For some output from economists already engaged in related matters, I recommend “Where does Money Come from” by Professor Werner and colleagues. Other, fairly elementary, resources Ive listed on my blog.
So, dear economists, please throw new light on money. I’m waiting for illumination. Posting links to peer-reviewed work in the comments section below would be great.
Sincerely,
Professor Jem Bendell
Adjunct Professor at Griffith Business School
Distinguished Visiting Professor at IE Business School
In 2012 Ill be in the following cities, so if you could organise a talk or seminar, please get in touch (more info on Lifeworth website)
Abu Dhabi, Bangkok, Beijing, Brisbane, Dubai, Hong Kong, London, Istanbul, Madrid, Paris, Singapore, Stockholm, Sydney, or Zurich.
How ready are you
to accept
what you think
is stupid?
It’s a packed agenda at Davos. So what does this elite multistakeholder gathering tell us of what leaders are thinking about? Its impossible to go to everything on the schedule, so I put the agenda through Wordle to get a sense of the topics. Unfortunately the word “Occupy” only appeared once, so didnt make it to the word cloud.
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What do you think? Something important missing from the agenda?
The content doesnt indicate the level of interest in the topics; and some sessions are so full I missed the sign up. A session on the art and science of happiness filled up super fast, yet the mental health session still languishes with single figure sign ups. Yet might our collective insanity be the one unifying thing we can start working on to create a better world? Or are we just too busy getting on getting on? I rest my case.
Later on I’ll do another word cloud, excluding the procedural words, to reveal some key themes. But now, time to run madly to the next session…
Everywhere we turn, we hear people asking “how long can it go on?” Whether it is financial crisis in the West, environmental pollution in the East, or increasing prices and natural disasters everywhere, there’s a growing sense of dystopia, and of the need for more fundamental reform of our economic and political systems. Mass protests can remove leaders, but what creates a lasting positive shift in society? And what are YOU doing about it? Rather than ask “how long can it go on”, it’s time to ask “how can we move on with essential changes?”
As I read leading commentators on business responsibility and sustainability sharing their insights on trends for 2012, I saw a new boldness. People are recognising the need for ambitious goals that address root causes, including economic governance failures. At Lifeworth we have been seeking to contribute to a sustainable economic transformation and published a variety of works on that theme over the past ten years. In that time I’ve seen the more critical analyses initially ignored by leaders in favour of less challenging narratives. Yet this year I think we will see more opportunity for ‘radical’ suggestions for change to be discussed and trialled. In that sense, despite the fears, it’s the year we have been waiting for. But rather than adding to the many predictions, I’ll summarise Lifeworth’s efforts that could be of relevance if you seek to team up to strive for far greater positive change than you might have before.
The first area for transformative action in which we are engaged is policy innovations for scaling responsible enterprise and finance. Rightly or wrongly, government budgets cuts are happening in many countries. The implications for them to regulate businesses for social and environmental objectives are beginning to be felt. How then can we promote and reward better business practice, without increasing the costs to government? Leveraging private standards of social or environmental performance is one option. In work for the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), we looked at public policy innovations to scale the number of firms adhering to voluntary standards like the Forest Stewardship Council. This appeared in the World Investment Report, with the full academic study published elsewhere. The idea that these forms of ‘collaborative economic governance’ are a pragmatic response to the twin challenges of sustainable development and government efficiencies, was fed into the policy discussions leading to Rio+20, happening this June. The need now is to create systems for collecting innovative public policies for scaling responsible business, analysing which work well in what contents, and disseminating this to government officials worldwide. If you can help on this project, do get in touch.
Yet we must go further than coping mechanisms in a world of irresponsible enterprise and governance failures. The second area for transformative action, therefore, is redesigning financial systems for more fair and sustainable outcomes. Although commitments to responsible investment have existed for some years, the translation into investment practice and the realities of corporate leaders has far to go. The limitations of current environmental, social and governance (ESG) practice in empowering investors to act is one of the stumbling blocks which we analysed in 2011, sparking lively debate. Our interest in ESG is because of the potential for progressive investor influence, which is a historically novel situation. In 2012 I hope we see the emergence of a progressive voice from investors on matters of public concern. Aside from investor-business relations, the public voice of the progressive investor has been slow to emerge. The Carbon Disclosure Project has shown that on climate change investors can sound a new tune on public policy. In 2012 and beyond, we could see other forums, particularly the UN-backed Principles for Responsible Investment (UNPRI), providing opportunities for progressive investors to promote policy debates that better include social and environmental priorities. Whether they will be able to counter-balance the more regressive investor resistance to financial re-regulation will be interesting to watch.
In 2012 we will continue to participate in fora that discuss the need for transformation of economic systems for sustainable development, including the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, The Finance Innovation Lab in the UK, and the Griffith University conference on transition, in Australia. As I explained in an interview for Griffith, the key stumbling block to progress on tough issues is our limiting assumptions and oversights about the real causes of our crises. During the next months I’ll be asking world leaders what they think are the key activities to drive massive positive change that weren’t possible before now, and who they need to work with to make that happen. Identifying such pressure points for massive positive change will inform our philanthropy advisory during 2012, and beyond.
One area where I think there is currently a woefully lack of attention, funding and action is in “sustainable currencies”. Current monetary systems are incompatible with the goal of a fair and sustainable economy, and thus we need greater efforts at reform, as well as at developing secure, scalable and community-owned alternative currencies and barter systems. It is, no doubt, a difficult area for many to grasp; as I experienced myself. Yet in 2011 there were strides towards greater understanding by sustainable development professionals, through the work of New Economics foundation (nef), among others. My TEDx talk on the topic reached over 12,000 views in a couple of months. As austerity bites and unemployment persists, new ways of getting people working for each other without putting governments further into debt will inevitably rise up political agendas. In 2012 we will help through collaboration with Community Forge and The Finance Innovation Lab, amongst others, and promote the uptake of ‘sustainable currencies’ as an innovative social development mechanism, through fora such as the Geneva Forum on Social Change.
What does this renewed emphasis on systemic change mean for specific industry sectors? I think the main implication is to be more ambitious in attempting to mainstream change for sustainable development. That is a third area for seeking transformative action. That has been our approach in the work we do in the luxury and mining sectors. With the organisation Fair Jewelry Action we researched and published “Uplifting the Earth: the ethical performance of high jewellery brands.” In this report we mapped out a transformative agenda for responsible jewellery, where the industry can contribute to sustainable development. From this basis, we aided De Beers’ stakeholder consultations, and worked with the UN Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) on their training for the jewellery industry, which will be rolled out from Antwerp this year. The Spanish version of the report was launched at the world’s first Sustainable Luxury Awards, in Buenos Aires, co-organised with CSSL and the Authentic Luxury Network. The aim of these awards is to encourage sustainable innovation in the luxury sector; this year’s awards are scheduled for November. The insights from our work on transformative corporate responsibility in the luxury sector were refined for the launch of the world’s first MBA module on ‘Sustainable Luxury and Design’, which I teach at IE Business School, in Madrid. Students learn how sustainability is the smartest and most elegant paradigm within which to design anything. At the other end of the value chain, in 2012 we are working with Channel Research and the German development agency Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) to encourage disclosure on the social, environmental and economic impacts and contributions of mining companies in the Congo. There are few more challenging locations for mining to align better with the goals of peace, human rights and development.
A fourth area for transformative action in 2012 is enhancing the way UN agencies and civil society organisations engage companies. There are now many cross-sectoral partnerships, and the relationships they established hold the potential for greater changes. Largescale change goals need to be connected back to practical steps that can deliver benefits in the near term for various partner organisations. That’s the thinking behind a spate of new resources on more transformative partnering that were released in 2011, including reports from the UN Global Compact, and my own book, “Evolving Partnerships: engaging business for greater social change.” During 2011 we applied our approach to developing transformative alliances in our support for the International Labour Organisation’s fight against forced labour. In 2012 we aim to help the development of their Global Business Alliance against Forced Labour.
Despite the shocking persistence of slavery today, and the general dystopian tone we hear from thoughtful people in international fora, or indeed, because of such darkness, we need a bright vision for life on Earth. That is why we are helping the Future Perfect Festival in Sweden in August. It will celebrate the brilliance and fun of sustainable lifestyles, sustainable businesses and sustainable communities. It will shine rays of light on a better way of life, beyond the dark mountains of outmoded and destructive ways of thinking, working and living. Our ability to understand values, and articulate them in professional contexts, is important when working towards a positive vision. My colleague Ian Doyle has therefore been teaching ‘voicing your values’ class at Grenoble Graduate School of Business, and we will be integrating this into various lines of work in 2012. In our forthcoming book, Healing Capitalism, Ian and I will seek to integrate both the personal and systemic levels of analysis, to aid transformative action.
In summary, we hope our 2012 will involve the following arenas of transformative action:
1) Policy innovations for scaling responsible enterprise and finance;
2) Redesigning financial and monetary systems for more fair and sustainable outcomes;
3) Mainstreaming contributions to sustainable development within specific industry sectors (including luxury, mining etc);
4) More ambitious collaborations between UN agencies, civil society organisations and companies;
5) Visions of sustainable ways of living, pathways to achieve them, and values competence to walk that path.
To better develop our work, this year we become a Swiss non-profit association. We will remain a network of independent associates, and will continue to deliver in partnership with other service providers, for a limited number of clients who seek to create meaningful change. If you can help us have an impact in these areas, I’d love to hear from you.
Professor Jem Bendell
Founder and Director, Lifeworth.com and Lifeworth Consulting
Adjunct Professor, Asia Pacific Centre for Sustainable Enterprise, Griffith Business School
Distinguished Visiting Professor, IE Business School
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 8,600 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 3 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
As we take some time to contemplate the year, the most important things in life, and lessons from religious teachings, we could well reflect on what we’ve been told about the charging of interest. A super little article from my friend Wayne Visser, summarises the warnings against charging interest from the great religions: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism. Those warnings are so striking now, as sovereign debt crises shake our hopes of a joyful year ahead. As usury is so routinely regarded as a problem by the great teachers of the ages, why have we let contemporary money be created as debt with interest, by private banks? Today, over 97% of our money is created that way. This doesnt mean usury by a lender using existing money they earned, but usury on the very birth of money. Commercial bank money is born as debt with interest, and this is its original sin, because the perpetual indebtedness it creates means ecological destruction and social inequality. It means that we have to pay the usurers for our ability to trade anything amongst ourselves. It creates a state of universal usury.
The world’s religions have relaxed their prohibitions on usury, apart from Islam, although even then, other tricks are used to achieve the same effect of making money from money without sharing effort or risk. There are some good arguments for allowing, while limiting, the charging of interest on loans. But charging interest on the very creation of money, the very unit of value, the very mechanism of exchange? Thats a disaster. And it crept up on us, with religious leaders and followers mostly silent on the situation.
The solutions are many, and we can start working on them now, as I described in my TEDx talk.
But the first step is to open our minds to this critique, to decide to explore it, rather than hide behind a comforting and mistaken assumption that “its too complicated” or “it just sounds too radical” or “this is something for monetary experts”. That takes courage. Yet without courage, what does any spiritual message, belief, or experience really mean?
So if you want a change from the usual TV, check out some of the videos, check out some of the links on my money resources page.
Merry Christmas!
Readers of my blog will note that at the beginning of the year I reflected on the coming Rio2012 Earth Summit, and what it could be useful for. Since then the preparatory committees have got somewhat lost in definitional issues about what the “green economy” really is… oh, the farce of humanity’s efforts to do something together for our common future.
Dark grumblings aside, during the year Ive been doing some work on the economic governance needs for more sustainable development. Some of the results of that are out, with the UNCTAD World Investment Report discussing public policies for scaling CSR (I helped with the research that went in to it), and a new journal article just out where we go into some depth on a new paradigm of collaborative economic governance for sustainable development.
The UN Non Governmental Liaison Service published my opinion piece about the need to focus on economic governance, in their “Road to Rio 2012” publication. But it was in a publication from Singapore, for the region’s enthusiasts in social enterprise, corporate responsibility and voluntary sector, where I let summed up some basic points…
“If Rio 1992 was about governments calling non-state actors to act, Rio 2012 may be about non-state actors calling on governments to join them in creating greater change.”
“…the continued lack of major global progress towards sustainable development, towards true integration of environmental and developmental priorities, should make us question [the] lack of attention to economic systems and
government roles.”
“Twenty years after Rio, with the old debates and fears of the Cold War well gone, we should be able to show more maturity in exploring how systemic flaws in our economic systems could be changed to improve social or environmental outcomes.”
“…it will take effort and courage, rather than mere intellect, to articulate and implement a global policy agenda that tackles some of the economic causes of social and environmental problems.”
The pdf of “Towards Rio 2012 And Collaborative Governance For Sustainable Development” is available from Singapore Management University at http://bit.ly/ukwagD
Radical problems call for radical solutions. Incrementalism is no longer pragmatic, moral or even professional.
So I’m looking for associations with academic and other institutions where I may be a less-tempered radical. I want to work with people asking core questions including:
If you know where I can do that, it would be great to hear from you.
If not, but you are exploring the same kind of questions, or applying solutions in the same spirit, Id be happy to hear from you IF you have a specific proposal to discuss.
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