Fuji Declaration - Ervin Laszlo

THE FUJI DECLARATION

About the Fuji Declaration THE FUJI DECLARATION AWAKENING THE DIVINE SPARK IN THE SPIRIT OF HUMANITY For a Civilization of Oneness with Diversity on Planet Earth A new phase in the evolution of human civilization is on the horizon. With deepening states of crisis bringing unrest to all parts of the world, there is a growing need for change in our ways of thinking and acting. We now have the choice of either spiraling into deepening peril, or breaking through to a world of dignity and wellbeing for all.

Throughout its history, humanity has been guided primarily by a material consciousness. Fearing scarcity, we have continued to pursue material gain beyond necessity, taking from others and depleting the Earth’s natural resources. If our aspirations continue to focus only on what is material and finite, our world will face inevitable destruction.

What is our true nature?

In order to make more enlightened choices and change the course of our history, we need to return to the basic question concerning human life. Each and every one of us must ask, “What is our true nature?” and seek a meaningful and responsible answer.

The great spiritual traditions of the world have always been telling us that, at its root, human life is inextricably linked to its universal source. Today, the latest advances in the physical and life sciences reaffirm this perennial insight. When we rediscover our connections to nature and the cosmos, we can re-align our life with the universal movement toward oneness and harmony in and through diversity. We can restore the divine spark in the human spirit and bring forth our innate love, compassion, wisdom,

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and joy to live a flourishing life. The time has come for every one of us to awaken the divine spark that resides in our heart.

What is the purpose of our existence?

We have been born at a critical juncture in history, in a world in transition, where it is possible to guide the advancement of humankind toward peace on Earth. Living peace and enabling peace to prevail on Earth is the ultimate purpose for all of us. We can and must embrace it in every sphere of our existence.

By living consciously and responsibly, we can draw upon our inherent freedom and power to shape our destiny and the destiny of humankind. Our task is to collaboratively create a world of dignity and compassion that unfolds the full potential of the human spirit—a world in which every individual gives expression to his or her highest self, in service to the human family and the whole web of life on the planet.

Toward a new civilization It is imperative to bring together individuals from diverse fields—scientists, artists, politicians, business leaders, and others—to create a solid multidimensional foundation for catalyzing a timely shift in the course of history. The time has come for all people to become courageous pioneers—to venture beyond their personal, cultural, and national interests and beyond the boundaries of their discipline, and to come together in wisdom, spirit and intention for the benefit of all people in the human family. By so doing, we can overcome the hold of obsolete ideas and outdated behaviors in today’s unsustainable world and design a more harmonious and flourishing civilization for the coming generations.

The paradigm of the new civilization The paradigm of the new civilization is a culture of oneness with respect for diversity.

Just as the myriad cells and diverse organs of our body are interconnected by their oneness and work together in harmony for the purpose of sustaining our life, so each and every living thing is an intrinsic part of the larger symphony of life on this planet.

With the conscious recognition that we are all a part of a living universe consisting of great diversity yet embracing unity, we will co-evolve with one another and with nature through a network of constructive and coherent relationships.

We, as individuals responsible for our and our children’s future, hereby declare that: —We affirm the divine spark in the heart and mind of every human being and intend to live by its light in every sphere of our existence.

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—We commit ourselves to fulfilling our shared mission of creating lasting peace on Earth through our ways of living and acting.

—We intend to live and act so as to enhance the quality of life and the well-being of all forms of life on the planet, recognizing that all living things in all their diversity are interconnected and are one.

—We continually and consistently strive to free the human spirit for deep creativity, and to nurture the necessary transformation to forge a new paradigm in all spheres of human activity, including economics, science, medicine, politics, business, education, communications and the media.

—We shall make it our mission to design, communicate and implement a more spiritual and harmonious civilization—a civilization that enables humankind to realize its inherent potential and advance to the next stage of its material, spiritual, and cultural evolution.

List of Endorsers as of 2015 THE FUJI DECLARATION LIST OF ENDORSERS As of January 26, 2015

Yasushi Akashi (Japan) Former Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations Oscar Arias Sánchez (Costa Rica) Former President of Costa Rica, Nobel Peace Laureate, Goi Peace Award 2004 Recipient Muhammad Abdul Khabir Azad (Pakistan) Grand Imam and Khateeb, Badshahe Mosque Lahore, Chairman of Interfaith Council for Peace and Harmony - Pakistan Anna Bacchia (Swiss) Cognitive Researcher on 'ÌNIN Holographic Intuitive Intelligence' Constantin von Barloewen (Argentina)Professor of Anthropology and Comparative Cultural Studies Michael Beckwith (USA)Founder, The Agape International Spiritual Center, Minister Linda Bender (USA) Doctor of Veterinary Medicine, Author, Animal Advocate, Co-founder of From the Heart Nonprofit Michael Ben-Eli (USA) Founder, The Sustainability Laboratory Mohammad Bhuiyan (USA) Entrepreneurship Professor, CEO World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates Atlanta 2015 Joan Borysenko (USA) Medical Scientist, Psychologist, Spokesperson for Integrative Medicine Gregg Braden (USA) Author of New Age Literature, Science/Spirituality

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Sesto Castagnoli (Swiss) Evolutant and Entrepreneur, Founding President of WSF World Spirit Forum Raffi Cavoukian (Canada) Musician, Founder of the Centre for Child Honouring Matteo Ceccarini (Italy) Artist, Figurative Painter James Channan (Pakistan) URI-Pakistan Regional Coordinator, Catholic Priest Robert Chase (USA) Founding Director, Intersections International Deepak Chopra (USA) Holistic Medicine, Goi Peace Award 2010 Recipient Anwarul K. Chowdhury (Bangladesh) Former UN Under Secretary-General and High Representative Tracy Cochran (USA) Editor, Parabola Magazine Patricia Cota-Robles (USA) President, New Age Study of Humanity’s Purpose Jude Currivan (UK) Cosmologist, Author Stephen Dinan (USA) CEO, The Shift Network Larry Dossey (USA) Physician of Internal Medicine, Writer of "Healing Words" Gordon Dveirin (USA) Organization and Human Development Consultant Riane Eisler (Austria/USA) Author, President of the Center for Partnership Studies Duane Elgin (USA) Author, Futurist, Goi Peace Award 2006 Recipient Barbara Fields (USA) Executive Director, The Association for Global New Thought Linda Francis (USA) Co-founder, Seat of Soul Institute Hideaki Fujio (Japan) President, Chichi Publishing Company Marc Gafni (USA) Founder, Center for Integral Wisdom Jagdish Gandhi (India) Founder of City Montessori School, UNESCO Prize for Peace Education Jim Garrison (USA) Author, Theologian, Founder and President of Ubiquity University Charlie Stuart Gay (Mexico) Entrepreneur and Social Enterprise Humanitarian Maximilian Gege (Germany) Co-founder and Chairman, The Board of the German Environmental Management Association (B.A.U.M. e.V.) Charles Gibbs (USA) URI's Founding Executive Director Jane Goodall (UK) Primatologist, Former UN Messenger of Peace Jonathan Granoff (USA) President, Global Security Institute Nicole & Alexander Gratovsky (Russia) Founders, The Dolphin Embassy Stanislav Grof (USA) Psychiatrist, Founding President of the International Transpersonal Association Rod Hackney (UK) Former President, The Royal Institute of British Architects and International Union of Architects Mussie Hailu (Ethiopia) Regional Director of URI to Africa and Representative of URI to the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, African Union Commission, UNEP and UN-HABITAT Hazel Henderson (USA) Economist, Top 100 Thought Leaders in Trustworthy Business Behavior 2010 Helena Norberg Hodge (Sweden) Pioneer of the Localization Movement, The Economics of Happiness, Goi Peace Award 2012 Recipient Jean Houston (USA) Author, Advisor to UNICEF in Human and Cultural Development

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Barbara Marx Hubbard (USA) Futurist, President of the Foundation for Conscious Evolution Takashi Imazato (Japan) Architect H. H. Swami Isa (India) Founder of the Global Energy Parliament, the Charitable Isa Viswa Prajnana Trust, the Isa Viswa Vidyalayam School, and the Isalayam Ashram Masato Ishikawa (Japan) Shinto Chief Priest, Morooka Kumano Shrine David T. Ives (USA) Executive Director, Albert Scheitzer Institute Hildur Jackson (Denmark) Co-founder of Gaia Trust, Denmark; GEN - The Global Ecovillage Network and Gaia Education.

Ross Jackson (Denmark) Founder and Chairman, Gaia Trust, Denmark, Author of “Kali Yuga Odyssey�

Bawa P. Jain (USA) Secretary General, World Council of Religious Leaders Ernesto Kahan (Israel/Argentina) Physician & Writer, Academician of Honor-International Academy of Sciences, Technology, Education and Humanities, Former Vice President of IPPNW (International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War - Association awarded the Nobel Peace Prize) Mikinosuke Kakisaka (Japan) Shinto Chief Priest, Ohmine Hongu Tenkawa Daibenzaitensha Shrine Noriyoshi Kashima (Japan) Shinto Chief Priest, Kashima Shrine Fumihiko Katayama (Japan) Shinto Chief Priest, Hanazono Shrine Bibi Guru Inder Kaur & Singh Sahib Bhai Sahib Hari Singh Khalsa (Italy) Co-founders and Directors, Yoga Dharma Community, Rome, Italy Tim Kelley (USA) Global Change Agent Sada Anand Singh Khalsa (Japan) Master of Kundalini Yoga & Meditation, Leader of the Sikhs in the West Ashok Khosla (India) Chairman of Development Alternatives, Co-chair of International Resource Panel WindEagle Kinney-Linton (USA) Co-founder and Director, Ehama Institute Jayanti Kirpalani (UK) Director for Europe and Middle East of Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University and their NGO Representative to the United Nations, Geneva Audrey Kitagawa (USA) Attorney, Head of Light of Awareness International Spiritual Family Takashi "Tachi" Kiuchi (Japan) Chairman, E-Square and the Future 500, Former Chairman, Mitsubishi Electric America Eve Konstantine (USA) Leadership Coach and Trainer Philip Kotler (USA) S. C. Johnson & Son Distinguished Professor of International Marketing Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University David Krieger (USA) Founder, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation Ietaka Kuki (Japan) Shinto Chief Priest, Kumano Hongu Taisha Shrine Chung Ohun Lee (USA) Executive Director of UN Affairs and Interreligious Work at Won Buddhism International Joaquin F. Leguia (Peru) President and Founder, Association for Children and the Environment - ANIA Princess Irene van Lippe-Biesterfeld (Netherlands) Princess of Netherlands, Social Reformer

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Bruce Lipton (USA) Cell Biologist (Epigenetics), Goi Peace Award 2009 Recipient David Lorimer (UK) Executive Vice-President of Wrekin Trust, Spiritual Educationalist Lilou Mace (France) Journalist, Host of the Juicy Living Tour Donald Mackenzie (USA) Former Minister, The United Church of Christ Joanna Macy (USA) Environmental Activist, Author, Scholar of Buddhism, General Systems Theory, Ecophilosophy Datin Paduka Mother A Mangalam (Malaysia) President, Pure Life Society Chinta Mani Yogi (Nepal) Founding Principal - Hindu VidyaPeeth-Nepal (HVP), Founding Chairperson Shanti Sewa Ashram (SSA) Marianne Marstrand (Denmark/USA) Executive Director, The Global Peace Initiative of Women Howard Martin (USA) Co-author of "The HeartMath Solution" Koichiro Matsuura (Japan) Former Director-General of UNESCO Shunkai Matsuura (Japan) Chief Priest, Mibu Temple, The 85th Senior Priest of Toshodaiji Temple Avon Mattison (USA) Peace Building, Peace Messenger of UN Dorothy J. Maver (USA) Project Director, Kosmos Associates Patrick McCollum (USA) Spiritual Leader, Founder of Patrick McCollum Foundation Lynne McTaggart (USA / UK) Science-based Programs for Health and Growth, Media Nipun Mehta (USA) Founder of Service Space, Jefferson Award for Public Service, the President's Volunteer Service Award and Wavy Gravy's Humanitarian Award, Project Incubator Dena Merriam (USA) Founder and Convener, The Global Peace Initiative of Women Nina Meyerhof (USA) President and Founder of Children of the Earth, Evolutionary Leaders Edgar Mitchell (USA) NASA Astronaut, Lunar Module Pilot of Apollo 14 Takahiro Miwa (Japan) Shinto Chief Priest, Hiyoshi Shrine Kamran Mofid (UK) Founder, Globalisation for the Common Good Initiative (GCGI) Lady Fiona Montagu (UK) Philanthropist, International Advisor to Nobel Peace Laureate Betty Williams's World Centres of Compassion for Children Humayun A. Mughal (Japan) Islamic Sufi Faith Leader Tolegen Mukhamejanov (Kazakhstan) Co-chairman of the World Forum of Spiritual Culture Organizing Committee, Senator of the Parliament of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Composer, Poet Kazuo Murakami (Japan) Geneticist, Emeritus Professor of Tsukuba University Hiroshi Nakahigashi (Japan) Shinto Chief Priest, Hiraoka Shrine Honnen Nakamura (Japan) Professor, Koyasan University Norihiko Nakamura (Japan) Shinto Chief Priest, Fujisan Hongu Sengentaisha Shrine WĹ‚odzimierz Nast (Poland) Bishop, The Holy Trinity Evangelic Augsburg Protestant Church (Warsaw), Protestant Priest Roger Nelson (USA) Director of IONS, Coordinator of Research at the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research, Collective Consciousness

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Ryoko Nishioka (Japan) Chief Priest, Anzenin Enmanji Temple Claes Nobel (USA) Author of “Global Declaration of Earth Ethics,” Founder of United Earth Tomoyo Nonaka (Japan) Chairman,NPO Gaia Initiative Shunyu Noto (Japan) Chief Priest, Keirinji Temple, Representative of Maizuru Religious Association James O'Dea (Ireland / USA) Former President, The Institute of Noetic Sciences Mitsuo Ohashi (Japan) Senior Advisor, Showa Denko K.K. Gunter Pauli (Belgium) Founder of ZERI (Zero Emissions), Author of “The Blue Economy” Franz Josef Radermacher (Germany) Mathematician, Economist, Co-founder of the Global Marshall Plan Initiative Jamal Rahman (USA) Muslim Sufi Minister, Co-founder of Interfaith Community Church in Seattle Ocean Robbins (USA) CEO and Co-host of the Food Revolution Network, Founder of YES!-"Young Leaders Connect, Inspire and Collaborate" Nancy Roof (USA) Founder, The Kosmos Journal Peter Russell (UK) Physicist, Futurist, Study of Consciousness and Contemporary Spirituality Shodo Sakai (Japan) Chief Priest, Nanto Fukuchiin Temple Elisabet Sahtouris (USA) Evolution Biologist, Futurist, UN Consultant on Indigenous People Kocho Sasaki (Japan) Permanent Director, Principal of Enryakuji Academy, Highest Priest of Hieizan Enryakuji Temple Teiichi Sato (Japan) Honorary Executive Director, Tokyo National Museum, Former Ambassador and Permanent Delegate of Japan to UNESCO Hans-Martin Schempp (Germany) Founder of the One World Family, Social Reformer Marilyn Schlitz (USA) Founder and CEO of Worldview Enterprises, President Emeritus and a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Noetic Sciences Walter Schwimmer (Austria) Former Secretary General of the Council of Europe, Chairman of the International Coordination Committee of the World Public Forum - Dialogue of Civilizations Genshitsu Sen (Japan) Former Grand Tea Master Master Sha (Canada) Spiritual Master, Author of "Soul Healing Miracle Series", Founder of World Love Peace Harmony Movement Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (India) Spiritual Master, Founder of the Art of Living Foundation Jagdish N. Sheth (USA) Charles H. Kellstadt Professor of Marketing at Emory University Goizueta Business School Mitsuhiro Shibata (Japan) Consultant, Ambassador of the Club of Budapest International Katsuyuki Shimamoto (Japan) The 15th Chief Priest, Ryukozan Shosenji Temple Hiroko Sho (Japan) Member of the Board of Governors and Councilors, Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology School Corporation, Former Vice-governor of Okinawa Prefecture Karan Singh (India) Politician, Member of India's Upper House of Parliament Franco Sottocornola (Italy) Founder, The Shinmeizan Center for Interreligious Dialogue

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John Steiner (USA) Networker, Creative Consultant, Occasional Philanthropist Bob Stilger (USA) Co-president, New Stories Bill Strickland (USA) President and CEO of Manchester Bidwell Corporation, Goi Peace Award 2011 Recipient Edward Suzuki (Japan) Architect William E. Swing (USA) Founder and President of the United Religions Initiative, Retired Bishop of California Ryukei Takizawa (Japan) Chief Priest, Byakkosan Monjyuji Temple Riten Tanaka (Japan) Secretary General of Kimpusen Shugenhonshu, Kimpusenji Temple Tsunekiyo Tanaka (Japan) Shinto Chief Priest, Iwashimizu Hachimangu Shrine Hiroshi Tasaka (Japan) Professor at Tama University, Founder and President of Think Tank SophiaBank, President of the Club of Budapest Japan Tenpa Tashi (India) Professor of Religion and Culture of the Tibetan Medical and Astrological Institute Jin Tatsumura (Japan) Film Director Katie Teague (USA) Documentary Film Maker, Thoughtful Monetary Pioneer, "Money & Life" Michael Tobias (USA) Author, Filmmaker, Parabola Magazine Focus Award Lynne Twist (USA) Global Visionary, Founder of the Soul of Money Institute Moriteru Ueshiba (Japan) Aikido Doshu Takeshi Umehara (Japan) Philosopher Steve Valk (Germany) Director, Institute of Social Choreography Jeff Vander Clute (USA) Co-founder, Sourcing the Way Neale Donald Walsch (USA) Author of "Conversations with God" Jean Watson (USA) Nurse Theorist and Nursing Professor, Theory of Human Caring Ken Wilber (USA) Integral Theory, Mysticism, Philosophy, Ecology, and Developmental Psychology, Writer Diane Williams (USA) Founder and President, The Source of Synergy Foundation Girma Woldegiorgis (Ethiopia) Former President of Ethiopia David Woolfson (Canada) World Wisdom Alliance (WWA), Business Keizo Yamada (Japan) Jesuit Priest, Professor Emeritus of Economics at Sophia University Lily Yeh (USA) Artist, Founder of Barefoot Artists Muhammad Yunus (Bangladesh) Social Entrepreneur, Nobel Peace Laureate, Grameen Bank, Economist Gary Zukav (USA) Author, Co-founder of Seat of Soul Institute Frederick Tsao (Shanghai) Chief Executive, IMC Group

Fred Matser (Netherlands) Humanitarian and founder of Fred Foundation a.o.

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Article on the Fuji Declaration in Kosmos Journal Awakening the Divine Spark in the Spirit of Humanity

By Masami Saionji and Hiroo Saionji The Fuji Declaration Almost a decade ago, the Goi Peace Foundation, together with our partners including the Kosmos Journal, launched an initiative for ‘Creating a New Civilization,’ envisioning a peaceful planetary civilization based on four pillars: Sustainability, Systems, Science and Spirituality. So, how far have we come in attaining our goals? While environmental, social and economic crises continue to bring unrest to all parts of the world, many of us are sensing that a new phase in the evolution of human civilization is on the horizon. We are connecting with one another with accelerated speed, and more and more people are awakening to what we may call a ‘divine spark’ that resides in us all.

We have arrived at a critical point in time when each and every one of us must rediscover the sacred spirit—our innate goodness, love, compassion and wisdom—and express it in our being and in all spheres of human activity. With this aim, the two of us, along with systems philosopher Dr. Ervin Laszlo, are inviting all people to endorse and embrace a new document called the Fuji Declaration (printed on back cover).

The Fuji Declaration calls attention to the infinite potential that dwells within every human being, and reminds us that we are part of a living universe that exhibits boundless diversity yet embraces oneness. It calls on us to co-evolve with one another and with nature in a constructive and coherent relationship.

There are an increasing number of people working in various fields—authors, activists, scientists, spiritual leaders, politicians, business leaders, and others—who share the kind of consciousness the Declaration calls for. They have deep insight into the nature of humanity and the world, and are dedicated to contributing to a better future for the whole planet.

Encouragingly, almost a hundred such globally-minded leaders in all fields—including Oscar Arias Sánchez, Deepak Chopra, Duane Elgin, Jane Goodall, and Muhammad Yunus—have joined this initiative as Founding Signatories, contributing their words of wisdom to the Declaration.

In addition, Ervin Laszlo will direct and coordinate in-depth research studies in key areas, including the economy, business, politics and media, to report on practical measures for reaching the goals and objectives that the Declaration articulates.

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Events in Tokyo, Copenhagen and Mount Fuji The official launch of the Fuji Declaration will take place in the framework of a historic EastWest celebration in May 2015.

In Tokyo, on May 15th, a public forum will be organized bringing together leaders and experts from various fields to build upon the aforementioned research studies and explore how we can nurture the necessary transformation to forge a new paradigm in the various spheres of human activity.

In Copenhagen, on May 16th, a live event featuring world-class artists and visionaries will take place at the Danish Radio Concert Hall. Under the theme “Connecting the World,� we will explore the basic nature of the interconnectedness and unity of all things, and offer a glimpse into the miracle and magic of who we really are. As we embark on a journey through time, we will trace our evolutionary history and perceive that, for the first time in history, we have the ability to connect with each other across continents and cultures, share information and become actively engaged in shaping the future.

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Danish Radio Concert Hall in Copenhagen, one the greatest concert halls of the new millennium designed by the French architect Jean Nouvel

The evening event in Copenhagen will overlap with the sunrise on May 17th at the Sanctuary at the foot of Mount Fuji in Japan, where peace-loving people have been gathering for decades to pray for world peace. Here, thousands of people will gather for the annual Symphony of Peace Prayers event, to celebrate the launch of the Declaration with a day of intense prayer and meditation led by representatives of various faith traditions. Transcending all differences of religion and culture, we will pray with one voice for peace on earth, creating a positive energy field filled with vibrations of love and healing. This high-dimensional energy will be anchored in the Fuji Declaration to awaken the divine spark in all people touched by its message.

Connecting the world in oneness with diversity, these events will be broadcast through the Internet and other media. Similar events of varying scales will also be organized by volunteers in many locations worldwide.

Our vision is to create a world that gives expression to the highest potential of the human spirit—a world in which every individual manifests the very best in themselves in service of the human family. The time has come for all of us to become courageous pioneers—to venture beyond our personal, cultural, and national interests and come together in wisdom, spirit and intention for the benefit of all. We sincerely hope you will join us. (For more information or to get involved, please visit fujideclaration.org beginning in January 2015.)

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THE FUJI DECLARATION AWAKENING THE DIVINE SPARK IN THE SPIRIT OF HUMANITY For a Civilization of Oneness with Diversity on Planet Earth A report on practical steps for achieving the goal stated in the Declaration

by Ervin Laszlo This Report is based on the finding of research teams headed by: Sandor Kerekes: research on practical steps in the economy Ferencz Miszlivetz: research on practical steps in politics Chris Laszlo: research on practical steps in business Bente Milton: research on practical steps in the media1

1. The goal stated in the Fuji Declaration The context A new phase in the evolution of human civilization is on the horizon. There is a growing need for change. If we continue to focus only on what is material and finite, our world faces inevitable destruction. We either spiral into deepening peril, or break through to a world of dignity and wellbeing for all.

The basis for reaching the goal The spiritual traditions of the world have been telling us that human life is inextricably linked to its universal source. Today the latest advances in the physical and life sciences reaffirm this insight. When we rediscover our connections to nature and the cosmos, we can re-align our life with the universal movement toward oneness and harmony in and through diversity and can bring forth our innate love, compassion, wisdom, and joy to live a flourishing life.

The goal “To collaboratively create a civilization that unfolds the full potential of the human spirit in service to the human family and the web of life by co-evolving with one another and with nature through a network of constructive and coherent relationships.�

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The author of the Report takes full responsibility for the assessment and interpretation of the findings.

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2. Problems and opportunities connected with taking practical steps to achieve the goal stated in the Fuji Declaration in politics, in the economy, in business, and in the media.

2.1 Problems and possibilities for taking practical steps in politics 2.1.1 Obstacles We do not know what the new world political system and its structure will look like. But it is probable that major impact will be exercised by individuals and collectives in civil society, since they are interconnected not only through political systems but through flows of money, trade and goods, and are not directly constrained by the present system. The outcome of a major shift cannot be predicted because it will be shaped by the input of many diverse actors. The world political-economic system is exposed to multiple forms of intervention and initiative.

The dominant players and stakeholders—national and regional political leaders including prominent social scientists acting through institutions of knowledge-creation and distribution—exhibit a serious lack of responsibility. This institutionalized irresponsibility and indifference, supported by a tacit consensus about separations and divisions as unchangeable features of the contemporary world, endanger the future of human life on the planet. The recent return of the nation-state and the accompanying nationalistic slogans and prejudices within Europe and around its borders brought the rise of rightwing and religious extremism and populism, and an increasing rejection of multiculturalism. Xenophobia, racism and anti-semitism have been growing not only in the peripheries but also in the core countries of industrialized societies. Common to these movements is insistence on historic divisions and cultural differences, as well as a complete lack and rejection of a holistic approach to current social, political, and ecological problems. Threatened in their existence and legitimacy, obsolete institutions, interest groups and powerful global, regional and national stakeholders entrench themselves and fight to secure their interests and their survival.

2.1.2 The challenge There are as many as 114,000 international NGOs and roughly 65,000 international organizations operating at the global level. In the private sector there are an estimated 43,000 globally operating transnational corporations. These entities represent an enormous scope and potential for driving and implementing change. A new stage in history, the transformational stage, is dawning. In this phase new conflicts are arising, but also solidarity/cohesion/onenness is increasing on local as well as global levels. Old ideologies, systems and structures are contested and partially replaced with a new worldview. The process of replacement, however, could take decades to achieve. An awareness of increasing interdependence in the various spheres of economic existence is a slow process; it has to be speeded up. A revolution is needed to enable new economic, technological and social models to replace the macro-economic “machine model” with a model of organic-regenerative-holistic development based on the recognition of the interdependence of the major actors and processes.

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It will not be easy to bring down the mental, political, and physical walls of division and separation and replace them with a holistic view and the corresponding behaviors. In our deeply divided world the ideology and practice of ’absolute sovereignty’ and the security of states (not of societies) dominates the realm of politics. Democracy is restricted to some spheres of existence and activity within the geographical domain of nation-states. Democracy does not exist in institutionalized forms on global, regional and transnational levels. In the world of politics, the idea of nation-states as actors possessing equal rights is overwritten by a system created by the biggest and most powerful actors. The political system is unbalanced and has reached the point of a bifurcation.

In order to unseat the existing power holders, marginalized groups and communities, women’s movements, racial-ethnic and religious minorities, gender and age-based groups and indigenous populations need to be consolidated into alliances at the grass-roots level. A movement in this direction has been under way for the past forty years, but it has not developed far enough. The current crisis requires a fundamental paradigm shift to move the human community toward a new international political system with a new mind-set.

2.1.3 Developments There are significant signs of change in the functioning of the world system. From the late 1970s onward, the world has witnessed the emergence of new social movements, civil society networks, and protest and resistance movements against dictatorships and authoritarian systems. Since the outbreak of the global crisis in 2007, there has been a new set of social and political movements, protests, networks, and individual initiatives and these may form the core of a new, democratic global civil society. The new way of thinking and strategy in civil society is based on nonviolence and open, rational, and continuous dialogue with the representatives of the dominant powers. The emerging family of anti-systemic players is not yet crystallized but is gaining a higher level of self-awareness and self-confidence. The new paradigm of a more democratic and just world order can already be perceived in the thinking, behavior, networking, and associations of the new actors.

Dissenting groups mobilize and form, submerge, and re-emerge in new, diverse and innovative morphologies. The new social formations include environmental and social justice movements and movements of indigenous peoples and cultures. Something profound and pervasive is happening in regard to social organization at the local, national, regional and international levels. This is not a “movement” in the traditional sense, because it does not coalesce around a particular ideology, or even have a topical focus. The world has become too complex for these developments. But the breadth, scope and scale of protest is unprecedented in history. Elements of this form of activism extend to all parts of the globe. It cannot be divided because it is already diverse at the grass-roots level. Despite its diversity, it shares basic values and ideas regarding how the world functions and what people’s role is in it.

The values of organized structures are changing, especially in regard to a participatory form of democracy. The assertion “Nothing about us without us” heralds the effective voice of previously marginalized or excluded groups. On the basis of the new thinking, global strategies could be built for creating a new social contract on local, regional and global levels. The spread of protest the world over signals a new impetus for civil society, a new demand for a fair and functional social contract between citizens and power holders. This could be the path toward achieving inclusion and mutual tolerance based on respect for the diversity of individual cultures and the integrity of the natural environment.

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2.1.3 Preconditions for taking practical steps Although the number of alternatives to the neoliberal paradigm is limited, the movements that seek and wish to adopt the alternatives are growing, and growing fast. They are seldom connected to a hierarchical structure and are not necessarily articulated as anti-capitalism or anti-globalization. They are attempts to create feasible alternatives that transcend the current system of relations and create parallel micro-systems.

The emerging systems could be the seeds of a transnational democracy. If their activities become coordinated, they could become effective controllers of today’s uncontrolled and nontransparent decision makers, holding them accountable for decisions that define the human destiny.

New frameworks and strategies need to be developed to guide and order the confrontation and management of complex and interdependent crises with a coalition of stakeholders that includes government, business, as well as civil society. These conditions must be attained before practical steps could be implemented toward a civilization that could unfold the potential of the human spirit for service to the human family and the web of life.

2.2 Problems and possibilities for taking practical steps in the economy 2.2.1 Obstacles Between 2000 and 2030 the world population will grow by 2.5 billion; the demand for food will nearly double, industrial production and energy consumption will triple, and demand in developing countries will quintuple. The gaps will keep growing. There are countries with a GDP per capita over $100.000 (Qatar, Luxemburg), and there are very poor countries with a GDP around $1.000 (Bangladesh, SubSaharan Africa). In 1970, the income of the richest 20 percent of the world’s people was thirty times more than that of the poorest 20 percent. By 2005 this gap had grown to seventy-five percent and it keeps growing. At the same time the global population is increasing. Demographic growth is an endemic characteristic of the poor regions.

The concept of sustainable development had an important impact in the economy, for example, by spreading environmentally friendly consumption habits, clean technologies, the valuation of renewable resources, and in defining development in qualitative rather than quantitative terms. But renewable and non-finite resources, the natural capital of the economy, still keep decreasing because there are hardly any efforts to replace what has been used up.

Sustainable development means ensuring the continuous existence of the necessary resources. This calls for radically new thinking. Development does not necessarily bring about the growth of wealth, and even less the increase of wellbeing. Wellbeing calls for the development of education, increases in levels of health and in life expectancy, the improvement of social security and growth in the level of personal freedom. Environment-conscious consumers are ready for some “self-limitation” (selective waste collection, turning off the tap, disconnecting the telephone recharger, etc.) but these have only marginal effects on their ecological footprint. While one would expect that the footprint of environment-conscious people will be smaller than those of non-environment-conscious individuals, empirical studies show that the ecological and carbon footprint of so-called brown (least environment4 15

conscious) and green (most environment-conscious) consumers does not differ significantly. The ecological footprint correlates with income, but its correlation with environmental awareness is not demonstrated.

Taking feedback delays into consideration, without timely and radical change, the current economic system faces global disaster.

2.2.2 Alternative conceptions Optimism in the belief in the power of economic growth to overcome environmental problems has been overshadowed by the fact that, even by 2030, most of the world will not reach the per capita GDP where the quality of environment could be expected to start improving. It is clear that in the case of easily externalizable pollution with little chances to establish the polluter’s liability (greenhouse gases, waste), or contamination that produces irreversible degradation (e.g. the accumulation of heavy metals and stable organic contaminants with their collateral effects), economic growth remains incapable of overcoming environmental pollution. The data show that without a radical change in the conditions of distribution, squalor will remain an obstacle to creating the necessary demographic and environmental changes.

There are economic models where economic growth serves sustainable development: these are models of structural economic growth. Eco-efficiency can be increased in ways that contribute to the increase of employment in society. Supported by the increase in labor, the consumption of services in the economy can develop while material consumption decreases. This would signify the gradual replacement of a stock economy with a flow economy.

In order to foster and encourage the implementation of the alternative models, the concept of ecological footprint may have to be replaced by the concept of “celestial” footprint. One of the great dangers of using GDP is that, as it is now widely recognized, it is not connected to wellbeing, which is a different and more complex concept. This can be avoided if we measure subjective wellbeing, which is a more important indicator than GDP, given that humans need more than material resources to achieve a state of wellbeing.

The resources that enter into the calculation of the size of the celestial footprint are not necessarily purely spiritual, although spirituality could be an important element. The celestial footprint measures the non-material content of wellbeing in a person or community. The higher the celestial footprint, the smaller is material consumption at the given level of wellbeing. The challenge is to be happier with the same ecological load; or decrease the ecological load without diminishing happiness. Of course, in these equations the numerator and denominator may change singly or simultaneously.

The measure of the celestial footprint is important in a materially limited unsustainable world, for the celestial resource pool is not limited. Using celestial resources does not depend on their availability, only on the skills and creativity of the users as shaped and promoted by their culture and their values.

2.2.3 Conditions for taking practical steps There are thousands of ways to increase or maintain happiness but they all have common elements: (1) they use either earthly or “celestial” resources; and (2) these resources are used either via markets (price tagged resources) or their use is outside the monetary system. There are three basic approaches to creating a long-term sustainable economy.

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The first approach: using non-material (“celestial”) and non-price-tagged resources such as a warm family atmosphere, a high level of social capital, the enjoyment of natural beauty, and conditions for personal and community peace and empathy.

The second approach: using nonmaterial resources via the market mechanism. Eco-efficiency as a nonmaterial source of GDP is an example of this, and so is economic development without material growth as well as livelihood gained through licenses, and legal or other cultural artifacts.

The third approach: using material resources not mediated by market mechanisms, that is, resources that are free in monetary terms. Breathing fresh air and drinking free and clean water are examples of such use.

(A fourth approach would correspond to the classical understanding of the economy. Material resources are used via market mechanisms for acquiring foods, clothes, etc. The critics of economic growth assume that (1) this way of pursuing happiness is the most typical and yet it is unsustainable in a materially limited world, and that (2) dollars in GDP (or any other category of indicators of economic performance) correlate with the ecological load of humanity. This approach is dominant, but it is not sustainable.)

The above approaches can be combined in a large variety of ways, offering many alternative development paths. There are, of ourse, both monetary and nonmonetary trade-offs in the various approaches, but market- and GDP-friendly economic scenarios can be delineated. According to these scenarios, the focus of the economy should be creating employment rather than profit, fulfilling needs rather than owning things, and producing durable and safe products and services rather than products of planned obsolescence. Implementing such scenarios can help to maintain and increase human wellbeing and the quality of life, and at the same time preserve the integrity of the natural environment.

However, in the last count only a fundamental change in the values that govern economic behavior could create an economy that is sustainable in the long term, and this is a new paradigm in the economy. The ative advancement of this paradigm remains a precondition of the realism of practical steps toward achieving the goal stated in the Fuji Declaration.

2.3 Problems and possibilities for taking practical steps in business 2.3.1 Obstacles For most of the 20th century the role of business in society centered on (1) the individual as the unit of analysis; (2) utility and rational choice theory; (3) transaction costs as an efficiency-driven set of relationships between agents; and (4) the acceptance of hierarchy as a control mechanism to produce output in the most efficient ways possible through centralized management and decision-taking. The social responsibility of business was, as Milton Friedman wrote in his influential 1970 article in the New York Times, “to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits—so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud.” The assumption was that business is a utilitarian system in which individuals and companies do the right thing because market forces create the necessary opportunities for doing so. As Lord Keynes said, this presupposes an invisible hand that harmonizes the interests of the individual and of society.

Operating on the above assumptions has resulted in an unrestrained drive by companies to increase their profits and market share. The outcome has been a historically unparalleled concentration of 6 17

wealth in the hands of a few entities owned and controlled by an elite group of managers and investors.

This has occurred at the expense of benefits to the great majority of actors in business and in society and has permitted the use of technology without regard for its societal and ecological consequences.

Continuation by business in its classical role would create critical problems in the economy as well as in society.

2.3.2 Supporting trends There is a new trend in the world of business that can be described as “the arc of interconnectedness.”

The trend indicates evolution in the purpose and the organizing principles of business, shifting business from a worldview of tribalism, scarcity and mindlessness to one of interconnectedness and respect for all forms of life. This indicates a transformation in the underlying logic of business from a selfconcerned search for profit and growth toward concern with wider social and ecological benefit.

Leading companies are no longer primarily focused on maximizing shareholder returns and/or reducing harm, but on creating prosperity and wellbeing in the system in which they operate. A key feature of the trend is the commitment to reconcile the profit motive with creating positive impact in the world.

New organizational forms are emerging in business that compete not only in regard to the quality of goods and services offered by the companies, but also in regard to their ability to induce positive social and environmental change. The type of organizations known as “hybrid organizations” and “benefit corporations” are examples of such “sustainability-driven” companies. They demonstrate the capacity of for-profit organizations to develop mutually enriching connections between business, community, and the environment. At the leading edge business leaders manifest concern even with the level of consciousness round them, as they seek to enhance the sense of connectedness of people in their organization with others and the world at large. They understand sustainability as not just the safeguarding of resources for future generations—the original meaning of the term proposed by the Brundland Commission in its 1987 Report—but as leading to the flourishing of business in a flourishing business environment: the goal identified as “sustainability as flourishing” (SAF).

The logics underlying business strategies can be classified as instrumental (profit logic), normative (social logic), and integrative (combination of social and profit logics). The instrumental or profit logic assumes that companies are instruments for wealth creation and that this is their paramount responsibility. In light of this logic, strategies aiming at sustainability-as-flourishing (SAF) are means to the end of generating profit—companies adopt SAF strategies because they believe it is good business. On the other hand the normative or social logic assumes that the relationship between business and society is embedded with ethical values. Under this logic companies put their ethical obligation above any other consideration, even if it damages their financial returns. Companies that follow this approach subscribe to the SAF strategy because they hold it to be the right thing to do.

The integrative logic, in turn, reconciles the profit and the social logic. Businesses are to do good for society, but their financial health is equally important. Those that follow this approach maintain that wealth creation is the mechanism by which companies, operating within the constraints of the current economic system, create societal welfare. Both internal forces (moral responsibility and the values of the decision-takers) as well as external forces (pressures from civil society, legal regulations and industry standards) impact on and condition the implementation of SAF strategies.

Finally, so-called stage models focus specifically on how companies integrate SAF in a dynamic and long-term perspective. They assume that organizations demonstrate different levels of acceptance, 7 18

understanding and integration of SAF principles at different points in time, and emphasize the dynamic and evolutionary nature of development toward SAF. Stage models generally concentrate on the elements that help companies institutionalize SAF, including organizational structure, organizational culture, stakeholder relationships, and leadership logic or style.

Companies transform themselves to become agents of human welfare by evolving their business purpose and organizing principles. Business purpose is the objective underlying the existence of the company. One can distinguish four stages in its evolution. In the first stage the traditional purpose dominates: to maximize shareholder value by creating wealth. The second stage includes stakeholders as major elements in the business. At this stage companies seek to create value for shareholders without tradeoffs (create sustainable or shared value), and engage in activities of social and/or environmental value (such as energy efficiency, waste management, community engagement, etc.). Successful second stage companies create value for society and the environment in ways that create even more value for customers and shareholders.

In the third stage companies move from sustainable value creation to the commitment to do good as a way to succeed, creating human, environment, and social benefit. The mantra of companies at this stage is “becoming a force for good” and/or “being the best company for the world” (rather than “best company in the world).. Some companies dedicated to this purpose are created specifically to address a given environmental or social issue.

At the fourth stage the purpose of companies centers on raising the collective consciousness of the human community. This stage represents the highest and noblest purpose of business: it embraces the principles of oneness and wholeness as the basis of a flourishing world. A growing number of stagefour copnies are now being identified by researchers such as Laloux, Laszlo & Brown, and others.

The evolution of current business models takes off from shareholder value (the dominant paradigm), shifts to sustainable value (creating value simultaneously for shareholders and stakeholders), then embraces the organizing principles and purpose of the sustainable/social enterprise (business as a force for good), to reach the highest stage where the company becomes a flourishing organization. At this stage the company is a platform for implementing the kind of goals stated in the Fuji Declaration.

2.4 Problems and possibilities for taking practical steps in the media 2.4.1 Obstacles As we have seen, obstacles in the way of taking practical steps to achieve the goal stated in the Fuji Declaration are created by the still old-paradigm orientation of the principal actors in the economy and in politics. These obstacles are addressed and partially overcome in the evolution of the purposes and operative principles of leading-edge business companies. The obstacles are nearly removed in the world of the media, where classical top-down models are not only challenged but are rendered obsolete by the latest developments.

2.4.2 Evolution in the media New developments in the media offer participation for the great majority of people on the planet.

Internet access in 2012 was estimated at 33 percent of the world population or 2.3 billion people, and is 8 19

forecast to grow to 66 percent by 2030, encompassing 5.1 billion people. The practical significance of this trend is that two-thirds of the people on the planet will have the opportunity to communicate their ideas and concerns on the Internet, constituting a global platform for discussing what is wrong with the world and what could be done to remedy it.

Optimistic assessments of the potential of the current “communication revolution” foresee that Internet access by the of the majority of the world’s peoples will bring about a crystallization of ideas and values that lead to the creation of a new civilization, possibly even a civilization “that unfolds the full potential of the human spirit in service to the human family and the web of life.” For this, however, it is necessary first, that the majority of the new communicators ( “prosumers” rather than “consumers) be exposed to the relevant goals and ideas, and second, that they embrace those goals and ideas with sufficient dedication to undertake practical steps toward their realization.

This is not an automatic and self-evident outcome; it depends in large measure on the nature of the goals and ideas circulating in the channels of information, and on the effectiveness of their presentation. Goals and ideas that hold out the promise of a better civilization are likely to appeal to many of the new users, as they are predominantly young people with the majority stemming from the hitherto excluded or underrepresented poor countries. However, the chaos of rapid transformation in the world—a revolution not just in the media but in nearly all spheres of society—means that a great many messages are circulating at the same time, and it is probable that many if not most of them do not involve practicable ideas for a new civilization and are not likely to win the active adherence of a significant mass of the “prosumers.”

There is a need to introduce ideas into the stream of messages in the world that have both a real potential for inspiring the creation of a new civilization, and are attractive enough to empower practical steps to create that civilization. Introducing such ideas does not call for formal classrooms, nor for formal presentations. They can be embedded in documentaries of wide appeal, such as “docu-dramas,” in fables for children and for grown-ups, in sci-fi adventures and in visionary explorations of the future.

They can be conveyed by computer games and can be placed at the center of debate in social networks.

The notion of a living universe is one such idea, and so is the interconnection of all things with all other things and the quasi-miralous coherence of nature and of our own body. These are very different ideas, and they point to a very different world, than the idea of the universe and the human being as a soulless machine, functioning or breaking down independently of the fate of the other machines around it.

Marshall McLuhan’s theory that “the media is the message” does not hold. The same media can convey a vast array of messages, of which the great majority is not likely to lead to positive civilizationcreating outcomes nor does it inspire practical steps in that direction. As our research study on the new media states, “having the technical ability to communicate with ourselves does not mean we will automatically do so. The question remains open as to whether we have the collective maturity to consciously seize this precious opportunity.” The opportunity to have our voice heard on global channels of communication is now given and it is precious, but making use of it is not only a question of collective maturity, but of the nature of the goals and the ideas that are communicated, and of the effectiveness of their communication.

3. An assessment of the problems and possibilities connected with taking practical steps to achieve the goal stated in the Fuji Declaration 9 20

Problems and possibilities in politics and in the economy In the sphere of politics and the economy it is too early to envisage taking concrete steps toward realizing the goals defined in the Fuji Declaration: first the ground needs to be prepared for taking the steps. This means loosening the hold of the currently dominant paradigm in the thinking of the dominant actors, allowing the rise of a new paradigm.

The first step here is to empower the cultures that are already emerging at the creative periphory.

These cultures are not sufficiently united and hence not sufficiently powerful to displace the old paradigm. When the new cultures develop mutual ties and shared projects, they could affect the centers of power with their values and aspirations. A paradigm shift would then get under way. Then, but very likely only then, will there be an opening in the political and economic systems of the planet to implement concrete steps toward the achievement of the kind of goals stated in the Fuji Declaration.

Problems and possibilities in business A new paradigm is needed not only in politics and the economy, but also in the world of business.

However, in the business world the new paradigm is already shaping up: it is informing the thinking and the values of humanistic and forward-looking business leaders. It is transforming the functioning of leading-edge business companies, shifting them from the traditional self-concerned and socially and ecologically problematic mode to the mode where they become effective agents of human, social and environmental benefit.

If the trend toward human, social and environmental care and responsibiity continues to unfold, first the culture, and then the structure and operating principles of leading-edge companies will evolve, and conditions will be created for taking practical steps for creating a new civilization of sustainability and flourishing.

Problems and possibilities in the media The media is in the midst of a full-scale revolution, the third since the mid-18th century and by far the most rapid and powerful. It is a revolution that creates networks of communication across the globe.

The global potential of the communication revolution is matched by the global challenge of finding ways to live on the planet without destroying essential balances in the environment and pressing a significant segment of the world population below the level of physical subsistence.

The new media possesses the means for responding to this challenge. But the time is short, and the danger of reaching a threshold of irreversible change that forecloses positive responses is real. A new paradigm for sustainable and flourishing on Earth needs to in-form channels of communication across the globe. The conditions for taking practical steps in this regard are already given, but the steps themselves are yet to be taken. It is urgent to create the messages—“stories”—that take hold of the imagination of a critical mass of the people and inspire them to adopt modes of thought and modalities of action that would pave the way toward a sustainable and flourishing civilization.

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CONCLUSIONS The here reviewed research studies—on the economy, on politics, on business and on the media—shed light on critical needs and opportunities in today’s world. It is a world at the crossroads: at a point of chaos and bifurcation, of unprecedented danger but also of unmatched opportunity. To move forward at such a point calls for new thinking, since the thinking that has brought us to this bifurcation cannot take us beyond it.. The new thinking we need is new from the ground up. It is a new paradigm for aspiration and action in every sphere of human life on the planet.

A new paradigm is already perceived in the twin spheres of the economy and politics, but there the hold of the old-paradigm is still too strong to permit practical steps to act on it. There are signs, however, that a paradigm-shift is on the horizon. The task is to speed up its coming. The alternative paradigms envisaged in the economy and in politics are the “hopeful monsters” biologists speak about in regard to the mutants that appear on the periphery before the time would have come for them to penetrate to the center.

In the world of business a new paradigm is taking shape in the thinking of a growing number of managers. Nourishing the forces that empower the new paradigm in business and enable the spread of its salutary effects to the civil and the civic spheres of society is the next step. When the new paradigm reaches a critical mass in society, it will create massive change. Society is changing, and anticipating and acting in line with that change harbors the key to success not only in the world of business, but in all spheres of life.

The media world is the furthest along the path to the implementation of the paradigm we need in the world. Our world needs a paradigm of interconnection and of coherence brought about through interconnection, and in the human realm interconnection is built on communication. In complex systems structure follows function. In today’s world the function is the creation and exchange of messages, and the structure is the network of communication that carries those messages. Messages are now exchanged all over the world, and channels of communication are emerging on all the continents.

Now these messages need to rekindle the human spirit to inspire effective steps toward the creation of a civilization that would unfold the potentials of that spirit.

It has been said that there is nothing as powerful as an idea whose time has come. Let it be said that there is nothing as powerful as the idea of rekindling the divine spark in the spirit of humanity. It is the idea that could shift humankind from the road to disaster to the path of a civilization of sustainability and flourishing, bringing peace and a high quality of life to all the women, men and children who live on this planet.

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The Business Sector Path Towards a Civilization of Oneness with Diversity Research Study for the Goi Peace Foundation in conjunction with the Fowler Center for Sustainable Value at the Weatherhead School of Management

Lori D. Kendall, USA Ignacio Pavez, Chile Lili Bao, China Advisor: Chris Laszlo, Ph.D.

CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY Cleveland, Ohio: United States of America

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Study Overview In the Spring of 2014, The Goi Peace Foundation sought background studies in four spheres (the economy, politics, media, and business) to show the achievability of its goals for humanity as expressed in the Fuji Declaration, provisionally titled at the time, “AWAKENING THE DIVINE SPARK IN THE SPIRIT OF HUMANITY: For a Civilization of Oneness with Diversity on Planet Earth.” The Declaration points to the possibility of a worldwide shift in consciousness from materialism-centered sustainability to full-spectrum flourishing.

This report presents the background study in the sphere of business. It outlines the path toward a Civilization of Oneness with Diversity as it is being shaped and advanced by business. It offers clear evidence that the purpose and organizing principles of business are evolving from a worldview of tribalism, scarcity and mindlessness to one of interconnectedness, respect for all living things, and the divine spirit of Oneness.

In this study, we show: 

The role of what we term positive institutions to awaken the divine spark in the spirit of business



Generative organizing to awaken the divine spark in the spirit of organizational citizens



Benevolent leadership to awaken the divine spark in the spirit of business leaders



Business as a force for good: why and how companies engage in positively contributing to society and earth.

Our findings are built on a theory construct developed in earlier research by the authors: the arc of interconnectedness that highlights the evolution of business towards oneness. The study identifies a profound shift in the evolutionary process of business. We call this shift the ontological threshold because it embraces a deep transformational change in the underlying logic of business to one that contributes to awakening the divine spark of humanity.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS How business has contributed to the problem .......................................................................... 1 The theory behind an awakened business ................................................................................. 2 The stages of business evolution towards oneness ................................................................... 7 How companies follow the arc of interconnectedness ............................................................ 10 Crossing the ontological threshold.......................................................................................... 22 Conclusion .............................................................................................................................. 24 Bibliography ........................................................................................................................... 25

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THE BUSINESS SECTOR PATH TOWARDS A CIVILIZATION OF ONENESS WITH DIVERSITY HOW BUSINESS HAS CONTRIBUTED TO THE PROBLEM “There is one and only one social responsibility of business—to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits—so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud” — Milton Friedman, American Economist and Nobel Laureate.

When Friedman wrote these words in a 1970 article for the New York Times, neoclassicists in the liberal tradition were shaping a coherent set of economic theories that shaped financial activity, government policies, business paradigms, and public debate for the next forty years. These theories centered primarily on: (1) the individual as the unit of analysis; (2) utility and rational choice theory; (3) transaction costs as an efficiency-driven set of relationships between agents; and (4) an acceptance of hierarchy as a control mechanism to produce output in the most efficient means possible through centralizing management and decision-making (Moe, 1984).

The Goi Peace Foundation business sector study suggests that the heart of the problem is ontological. It proposes a construct that we call the “arc of interconnectedness” in which there is a clear divide separating two paradigms of organizational thinking. The first paradigm holds that business in the larger role of society is a utilitarian system with the assumption that individuals and companies will do the right thing because market forces will create the necessary opportunities for doing so. The second paradigm is grounded in connections and bonds between individuals and community, echoing what Martin Buber distinguished in I-Thou (1923), for not just close ties between individuals within a small familiar network (Putnam, 1995) but a connection and an awareness of the various expressions of life at a deep physical, emotional, and spiritual level.

We argue that there is a significant divide between these paradigms to explain the anticipated evolution of business. Understanding this divide is critical to our ability to shift ourselves as well as the role of business from utility maximizing to that which fosters: (1) our deep sense of interdependence and interconnectedness with each other; (2) the intersecting stakeholder relationships between the various actors, institutions, and organizations where businesses operate; and (3) the natural and social environments that support the functions of the business and in turn are supported and are regenerated by the businesses themselves (Ehrenfeld & Hoffman, 2013; Laloux, 2014; Laszlo & Brown et al., 2014).

The study is organized as follows. First, a theoretical framework of the study is introduced that establishes the basis for understanding emergent business models of human flourishing. Next, we walk through what we learned in our investigation, and we conclude our study with a final reflection on why we have reasons to be hopeful for the future of business as an agent of world benefit.

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THE THEORY BEHIND AN AWAKENED BUSINESS New perspectives in business are challenging the paradigms of the industrial era (Ehrenfeld, 2008; Senge, Smith, Schley, Laur, & Kruschwitz, 2008) to see sustainability as “the possibility that humans and other life will flourish on the Earth forever” (Ehrenfeld, 2008: 49). This new understanding of sustainability —called “sustainability-as-flourishing” (SAF)— has allowed the emergence of new types of business, which are created and organized to have a positive impact in the world (Cooperrider & Godwin, 2011; Ehrenfeld & Hoffman, 2013; Haigh & Hoffman, 2012; Laszlo & Brown et al., 2014).

Positive institutions: awakening the divine spark in the spirit of business Business as the most powerful and dominant institution in society (Bakan, 2004; Gladwin, Kennelly, & Krause, 1995), is a good starting point to understand (and change) the multilevel dynamics that are in play when thinking about a flourishing world (Hawken, 1993). New approaches have been developed to craft business as positive institutions (Thatchenkery, Cooperrider, & Avital, 2010). According to these approaches, businesses are not primarily focused on maximizing shareholder returns or reducing harm, but on creating prosperity and well-being in the whole system in which they operate. Those positive institutions assume a greater purpose and responsibility for the whole, embracing a greater sense of connectedness and care (Ehrenfeld, 2008; Eisler, 2007; Laszlo & Brown et al., 2014).

A key feature of positive institutions (in the business context) is the commitment to reconcile the profit motive with making a positive impact in the world (doing well by doing good), an idea which has been captured by the concept of sustainable value: “a dynamic state that occurs when a company creates ongoing value for its shareholders and stakeholders” (Laszlo & Zhexembayeva, 2011: 42). Paradoxically, companies that embed sustainable value (adopting the seemingly opposite goals of profit and care) at the core of their business strategy are likely to perform better than the average in the industry (Laszlo & Zhexembayeva, 2011; Mackey & Sisodia, 2013; Porter & Kramer, 2011; Sisodia, Wolfe, & Sheth, 2007) because the changing context of the business environment (declining resources, transparency and rising expectations) has created new business risks and opportunities in every sector of the economy (Laszlo & Zhexembayeva, 2011).

Furthermore, the evolution of business —as an embedded system within society— has allowed us to witness the emergence of new organizational forms which have come to compete not only on the quality of goods and services, but also on the ability to produce positive social and environmental change. Those types of organizations, usually referred as “hybrid organizations” or “benefit corporations” (Battilana & Dorado, 2010; Haigh & Hoffman, 2012; Honeyman, 2014), are considered examples of positive institutions and are called “sustainabilitydriven”, because they have demonstrated the capacity of for-profit companies to develop generative and mutually enriching connections between business, communities and the natural environment” (Haigh & Hoffman, 2012).

Recently, the conceptualization of the hybrid organization has been expanded to not only create benefit to society, but to raise the level of consciousness in all of humanity. In doing so, these companies have been devoted to enhancing our sense of connectedness —to one’s own life purpose, to others, and to the natural world— in order to truly embrace SAF.

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These types of companies, referred to as “flourishing organizations”, highlight the importance of intentionally elevating our individual and collective consciousness in order to reflect these elevated states of the mind to the world (Laloux, 2014; Laszlo & Brown et al., 2014; Senge et al., 2008).

Generative organizing: awakening the divine spark in the spirit of organizational citizens Traditional business practices have been focused on performance and effectiveness (Cameron & Quinn, 2006; Denison, 1997; Kotter & Heskett, 1992) with the purpose of maximizing financial returns. Positive institutions however, are conceived not just as performative entities (focused on effectiveness), but also as transformative ones (focused on positive impact). Consequently, these types of companies show different patterns of individual and collective behaviors, which are focused on making our world a better place to live in.

Positive Organizational Scholarship (POS) has been a major stream of knowledge and practice devoted to understanding those organizational dynamics. POS research “focuses explicitly on the positive states and processes that arise from, and result in, life-giving dynamics, optimal functioning, or enhanced capabilities or strengths” (Dutton & Glynn, 2008: 693). Hence, the three core aspects of a POS perspective, as described by Dutton & Glynn (2008), are closely related to the SAF perspective. Those three elements are: (1) concern with flourishing; (2) focus on the development of strengths or capabilities; and (3) emphasis on the generative, life-giving dynamics of organizing.

Within the field of POS, an important concept for understanding organizational dynamics from a strength-based perspective is positive deviance (Spreitzer & Sonenshein, 2003, 2004) which is defined as “intentional behaviors that significantly depart from the norms of a referent group in honorable ways” (Spreitzer & Sonenshein, 2004: 841). The concept of positive deviance is helpful to re-think the organizing processes towards SAF because it offers a more precise way to understand what a positive institution is. Accordingly, a positive institution can be defined as an organization that carries out an intentional strategy (i.e. voluntary by nature) that moves the company beyond the traditional way of doing business (i.e. beyond legislation compliance, efficiency, and shareholder value creation), in order to produce a positive impact (i.e. honorable behavior, focused in creating good rather than avoiding harm) in the system that supports —and is impacted by—the company’s operations.

In alignment with this definition (Cooperrider & Godwin, 2011), positive institutions are centers that “elevate our human strengths, connect and magnify those strengths, and then ultimately, serve to refract more wisdom, courage, love and other human strengths onto the world stage.” Thus, they develop a generative process of organizing, and give a purpose to organizational members that help people to experience the wholeness of the systems of which they are a part, which in turn helps them to embody more conscious decision-making processes that enhance the positive impact of the company in the world.

The organizing processes for building a culture of oneness, characterized by a network of nurturing relationships, is essential to understanding the internal dynamics of the organization that allow the creation of common good. In this regard, David Cooperrider and

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colleagues have been pioneering the creation of a theory of change based on elevating human virtues and/or strengths (Cooperrider & Godwin, 2011; Cooperrider & Srivastva, 1987; Cooperrider & Whitney, 2005; Cooperrider, Whitney, & Stavros, 2008). The organizing processes under this approach for change are described as “the cooperative co-evolutionary search for the best in people, their organizations, and the world around them. It involves the discovery of what gives ‘life’ to a living system when it is most effective, alive, and constructively capable in economic, ecological, and human terms [...] It involves the art and practice of asking questions that strengthen a system’s capacity to apprehend, anticipate, and heighten positive potential” (Cooperrider et al., 2008: 3).

In alignment with the Fuji Declaration, this theory of change is helpful to understand the organizing processes that sustain the harmony of the whole, because it is based on affirming the divine spark of every human being to create flourishing organizations. This approach assumes that organizations are centers of human connectedness that nourish the human spirit. Thus, the conceptualization of organizational life is based on a renewed understanding of the nature of the human being (compared to traditional approaches) and authenticity, purpose, and interconnectedness to others and to the natural environment (Ehrenfeld, 2008; Laszlo & Brown et al., 2014).

Finally, organizational theory has evolved to increasingly consider spirituality as a human experience that can be cultivated and enhanced as part of the organizational life (Duchon & Plowman, 2005). Recent research in this area has shown that spirituality in the workplace has several benefits, like the enhancement of employee well-being (individual health perspective), the elevation of the sense of interconnectedness and community (interpersonal perspective), and the cultivation of purpose and meaning at work (philosophical/transcendent perspective) (Karakas, 2010). As such, workplace spirituality provides a clear path to enhance the capacity of an organization to embrace a holistic development of employees, which will in turn, help cultivating a generative process of organizing that continually —and consistently— frees the human spirit towards oneness.

Visionary alchemists: awakening the divine spark in the spirit of business leaders Central to the development of positive institutions is the role of organizational leaders, because they are called to initiate —and sustain— the necessary transformations in business to create a thriving and prosperous world. For addressing that ideal, organizational leaders (at any level) have had to depart from traditional ways of conducting business (i.e. mechanistic and hierarchical relationships), in order to capture the essence of the human being (i.e. our divine spirit) as a way to enact the organizing principles towards SAF. In doing so, they had to learn a new set of leadership skills, which are closely related to personal development practices. Some of those skills are: to continually renew themselves at work, to engage people from the heart, to elevate the strengths of a person for harnessing his/her highest potential, and to create an elevated purpose for every organizational member (Boyatzis & McKee, 2005; Boyatzis, Smith, & Blaize, 2006; Cameron, 2013; Covey, 2005; Dutton, Spreitzer, & Achor, 2014; Fry, 2003; Laszlo & Brown et al., 2014; Whitney, Trosten-Bloom, & Rader, 2010).

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In alignment with the business challenges of the 21st century, new leadership models have been developed with the aim of sparking the generative interactions that will allow business to become a positive institution. One of those leadership models is called spiritual leadership, which was created to specifically address the spiritual component of human interaction in organizations. This model entails two main components: “1) creating a vision wherein organization members experience a sense of calling in that their life has meaning and makes a difference; and 2) establishing a social/organizational culture based on altruistic love whereby leaders and followers have genuine care, concern, and appreciation for both self and others, thereby producing a sense of membership and feel understood and appreciated” (Fry, 2003: 695).

Another important model is called benevolent leadership, which was created with the purpose to offer a theoretically sound basis to create common good in organizations.

Benevolent leadership is defined as “the process of creating a virtuous cycle of encouraging, initiating, and implementing positive change in organizations through: a) ethical decision making and moral actions, b) developing spiritual awareness and creating a sense of meaning, c) inspiring hope and fostering courage for positive action, and d) leaving a legacy and positive impact for the larger community” (Karakas & Sarigollu, 2012: 537). This leadership model is unique because of the way in which it defines —and integrates— the patterns of behavior that characterizes leadership practices aimed to create common good.

The benevolent leadership model constitutes a solid basis for the creation of societal welfare.

Business as a force for good: why companies engage in positively contributing to society The historical evolution of the field of business in society has shown that, despite the differences among the several streams of research that constitute the field (e.g. corporate social responsibility, corporate citizenship, corporate sustainability, social issues in management, and corporate environmentalism, among others), there are some common elements that would help an understanding of why —and how— business organizations positively contribute to society. In particular, there are three elements that are closely interlocked and act interdependently when configuring business as a force for good (Pavez & Beveridge, 2013): 1) value generation logic, 2) forces or drivers of business practices, and 3) stages/levels. The first two elements (i.e. value generation logic and forces) have been used by scholars to explain why companies engage in using business as a force for good, whereas the third element (i.e. stages/levels) represent how business implement and accomplish the creation of common good (Pavez & Beveridge, 2013).

The value generation logic refers to the underlying assumptions that people hold behind the motivation to be involved in SAF strategies. Those logics have been classified as instrumental (profit logic), normative (social logic), and integrative (combination of social and profit logics). The instrumental or profit logic assumes that companies are instrument for wealth creation and that is their crucial responsibility. Thus, SAF strategies are considered means to the end of profits. Companies that follow this approach are involved in SAF strategies because they believe it is good business (Laszlo & Zhexembayeva, 2011; McWilliams, Siegel, & Wright, 2006; Wallich & McGowan, 1970). The normative or social logic assumes that the relationship between business and society is embedded with ethical

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values. Under this logic companies should put their ethical obligation above any other consideration, even if it damages their financial returns. Consequently, companies that follow this approach decide to implement SAF practices because they believe it is the right thing to do (Garriga & MelĂŠ, 2004). Finally, the integrative logic reconciles the two dialectical logics previously mentioned (social and profit). Under this approach people feel a deep desire to do good for society, but the financial health of the company is equally important. Companies that follow this approach support the idea that wealth creation is the mechanism by which companies, under the forces of the current economic system, should use to create societal welfare (Gladwin, Krause, & Kennelly, 1995; Haigh & Hoffman, 2012; Honeyman, 2014).

The forces represent the drivers of business practices towards SAF. Those drivers could be internal or external, and are helpful to understand why companies engage in SAF strategies (Swanson, 1995; Wood, 1991). Internal forces represent the individual and organizational motivations towards SAF strategies (e.g. the moral responsibility and personal values of decision-makers, the social values of the company, the organizational identity, and the internal capabilities of the firm, among others) (Clarkson, 1995; Hart & Milstein, 2003; McWilliams et al., 2006; Sharma & Henriques, 2005; Sharma & Vredenburg, 1998; Waddock, 2008). External forces, on the other hand, are the factors that trigger the implementation of SAF strategies, which are beyond the boundaries of the company (e.g. pressure from civil society, legal regulations and industry standards, among others). They typically represent what is expected of business in terms of normative legitimacy (Suchman, 1995; Wood, 1991), as well as the mechanisms —coercive, mimetic and normative isomorphism— that produce similar practices and structures across other organizations (Campbell, 2007; Delmas & Toffel, 2004; DiMaggio & Powell, 1983).

Finally, the stage models specifically focus on how companies integrate SAF from a dynamic and long-term perspective. These models assume that organizations demonstrate different levels of acceptance, understanding and integration of SAF principles at different points in time. They emphasize the dynamic and evolutionary nature of the developmental process towards SAF, during which sustainability-related initiatives become more integrative, sophisticated and demanding. Stage models are generally composed by the elements that help companies to institutionalize SAF, which includes the organizational structure, the organizational culture, stakeholder relationships and the leadership logic/style (Maon, Lindgreen, & Swaen, 2010a; Mirvis & Googins, 2006; van Marrewijk & Werre, 2003).

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THE STAGES OF BUSINESS EVOLUTION TOWARDS ONENESS One of the purposes of the Goi Peace Foundation research was to uncover the evolutionary process that business follows for contributing to the creation of a flourishing world. Our findings suggest that firms that are the furthest along on this evolutionary journey are creating engagement models within their companies that have the potential to awaken the divine spark of humanity across stakeholders; much like stones thrown into the pond create a ripple effect, or the beat of a butterfly’s wings creates a hurricane thousands of miles away.

This is the nature of interconnected, breathing, and organic systems. We cannot understand these models from Western reductionism, or the study of systems in isolation, but can only glimpse the profoundness of their effects from an interdisciplinary system lens. The divine spark is indeed like a ripple in the pond, but in this case, a small force that creates a much larger impact through the sheer force of the multiplier effect.

The Arc of Interconnectedness Based on a combination of the data of our research inquiry as well as our syncretic theoretical understanding, previous research provided a starting point to represent the stages of business evolution for becoming a force for good (Maon, Lindgreen, & Swaen, 2010b).

Our analysis reveals that businesses transform themselves to become agents of societal welfare along two complementary dimensions: business purpose and organizing principles (Pavez, Kendall, & Bao, 2014). Business purpose represents the object toward the company exist and/or the intention of founders when the company. Along this dimension it is possible to observe four stages that describe the evolution of business purpose.

At the beginning is the traditional purpose of business (as stated in the law), which is maximizing shareholder value or creating economic wealth. This stage represents the ideas of capitalism in its pure state. The second stage represents an important shift, because it includes stakeholders as an important part the business model. At this stage companies seek to create ongoing value for shareholders and stakeholders without making tradeoffs (i.e. create sustainable or shared value), and they engage in activities oriented to social and/or environmental value (e.g. energy efficiency, waste management, community engagement, etc.) because it is good business.

The third stage represents another important shift in terms of the business purpose because it moves companies from sustainable value creation (Laszlo, 2008; Porter & Kramer, 2011) to the deep desire of doing good in the world as a way to succeed (i.e. creating benefit to human, environment, and social endeavors as a way for the organization to thrive). The mantra for companies at this stage is “becoming a force for good” and/or “being the best company for the world” (Haigh & Hoffman, 2012; Honeyman, 2014). This higher purpose is reflected in business practices such as creating higher quality jobs and improving the quality of life throughout the communities where the firm operates. Companies that are born with this purpose are created to explicitly address some environmental or social issues.

Finally, the purpose of companies at the fourth stage is to awaken the divine spark of businesses to raise the collective consciousness of humanity. This stage represented the highest and noblest business purpose, because it aligns with the principles of oneness and wholeness that constitutes the basis of an interconnected and flourishing world. This highest

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purpose is manifested in business practices that strive for wholeness and community, supporting people’s longing to be fully themselves at work, and to be deeply involved in nourishing relationships (Pavez et al., 2014). For example, Laloux notes an increase desire of people “to affiliate only with organizations that have a clear and noble purpose of their own.

We can expect that purpose, more than profitability, growth, or market share, will be the guiding principle for organizational decision-making” (2014: 50).

The set of organizing principles represents the underlying assumptions behind the social processes that shape interactions among organizational members. Those modes of organizing also followed an evolutionary path, which revolves around the nature of human interactions that pervade the organizational design.

The first stage is characterized by an organizing style in which power and hierarchy are salient. Interactions are design to be predictable, efficient and rigid, so they follow a cascade of formal communication/reporting lines from bosses to subordinates. The mental models of production are based on efficiency, so employees are treated as resources to serve the instrumental purpose of the organization of generating profit (Daft, 2012; Lee, 2008).

The second stage is characterized by an organizing style with the underlying assumption that effectiveness and success replace morals as a yardstick for decision-making: “the better I understand the way the world operates, the more I can achieve; the best decision is the one that begets the highest outcome.” For these companies, the goal as human beings is to get ahead, to succeed in socially acceptable ways, and to best play out the cards we are dealt.

The third stage is characterized by an organizing style with the underlying assumption that employees are part of the same human family in pursuit of doing good for society itself.

The organization endeavors to increase each member’s wellbeing while becoming a force for good in a broader context (i.e. the principle of caring in action) (Haigh & Hoffman, 2012; Honeyman, 2014). Personal values and beliefs of top management and all intersecting stakeholders hold that doing good for oneself and for others (environment included) is integral to how the firm is organized to act.

Finally, the fourth stage is characterized by an organizing style that transcends caring to yearn for wholeness (Laloux, 2014). Here, companies strive to bring together the ego and the deeper parts of the self; integrating mind, body, and soul; cultivating both the feminine and masculine parts within; being whole in relation to others; and nurturing our relationship with life and nature (Kofman, 2013). Oftentimes, the shift to wholeness comes with an opening to a transcendent spiritual realm and a profound sense that at some level, we are all connected and part of one big whole (Laszlo & Brown et al., 2014; Scharmer & Kaufer, 2013; Senge, Scharmer, Jaworski, & Flowers, 2005).

The organizing principles previously described are closely intertwined with the business purpose that characterizes each stage. This suggests that they represent two evolutionary axes through which companies evolve to become positive institutions; one representing the contribution of the company to society (purpose) and the other one the principles behind the social processes that shape organizational practices (organizing).

Consequently, we argue that we should look at the evolution of business toward wholeness through the framework, “The arc of interconnectedness” (Pavez et al., 2014).

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This evolutionary path begins with shareholder value (the dominant paradigm), evolving to sustainable value (creating value for shareholders and stakeholders simultaneously), then the organizing principle and purpose of the sustainable/social enterprise (business as a force for good), to ultimately transcend and become a flourishing organization (business that spark the divine spark of humanity).

Notably we found a profound gap in terms of the worldview that dominates the first two levels (shareholder and sustainable value) and the last two (sustainable/social enterprise and flourishing organization). We called that gap “The Ontological Threshold”, because it embraces a deep transformational movement that completely changes the underlying logic of business. That movement is based on a totally different conception of the nature and relations of being, which goes from a mechanistic and fragmented worldview based on seeing humans as separate and selfish to a holistic and interconnected one in which we are part of the Oneness of the world and in which caring for others and for future generations is an essential quality of being human (Pavez et al., 2014). We will discuss the implication of that gap after we present our findings.

The institutionalization processes towards Oneness The two axes that frame the model of business evolution illuminate the way (how) in which business embodies each evolutionary stage of “the arc of interconnectedness.” In other words, each shift in purpose and organizing results in a different set of frames around the institutionalization processes that a company follows to become a positive institution. We divided the institutionalizing processes into four categories, as shown in Table 1.

Table 1. Institutionalization processes towards wholeness. Adapted (Pavez et al., 2014) Stages / Levels

Institutionalization Purpose

Organizing Structure

Stakeholders

Leadership

Culture

Shareholder

Maximizing shareholder value

Bureaucracy/ efficiency

Hierarchical

Contractual

Competent manager

Complianceseeking

Sustainable value

Deliver sustainable value

Effectiveness

Delegated authority

Interactive

Strategic achiever

Strategizing

Sustainable enterprise

Becoming a force for good

Caring

Distributed authority

Partnership

Social innovator

Caring/ transforming

Flourishing organization

Awakening divine spark

Wholeness

Fully autonomous

Integrative

Visionary alchemist

Flourishing

Structure refers to how activities such as distribution of power, task allocation, coordination, supervision, and measurement and reward systems are directed towards the achievement of organizational aims. A company can be structured in many different ways

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depending of its objectives (purpose) and on the assumptions about the nature of people and relationships within the organization (organizing). Stakeholders refers to “any group or individual that can affect or is affected by the achievement of a corporation’s purpose” (Freeman, 2010: 46). Leadership refers to “the ability of influence a group of a vision toward the achievement of a vision or set of goals” (Robbins & Judge, 2013: 178). Culture refers to the pattern of shared —and taken-for-granted— assumptions about sustainability that was learned by organizational members as the company solved its problems of external adaptation and internal integration. To be considered a cultural trait, that form of understanding sustainability should has worked well enough to be considered valid and, consequently, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel about sustainability (Schein, 2004: 17).

The process of institutionalization is described in the following section, with examples of real business practices that represent each element at all levels. We will illustrate the tension between the two dialectical worldviews that represent the ontological threshold, and how companies are moving from the fragmented and disconnected worldview to the holistic and interconnected one.

HOW COMPANIES FOLLOW THE ARC OF INTERCONNECTEDNESS “The way we think about our purpose and approach to the environment can be expressed in the following way: (1) we lead an examined life; (2) we clean up our own act; (3) we do our penance; (4) we support civil democracy [by supporting environmental campaigns and groups]; (5) we influence other companies, including our competitors to engage with us on this” — prominent U.S. clothing manufacturer executive and environmental steward.

What we find in the companies we researched are key institutionalization factors that allow us to see more deeply how businesses evolve from utility-driven purpose and the organizing principles of maximizing shareholder value or driving social and environmental change only as a means of gaining comparative advantage to a paradigm with an entirely different set of organizing principles and business purpose, to be truly interconnected.

What we find with this understanding is that each shift in purpose and organizing results in a different set of frames around the institutionalization processes that companies follow to become positive institutions. We divided the institutionalizing processes into the following categories: structure, stakeholder, leadership, and culture.

Structure “How to improve the vitality of people's lives transcends everything we do from our strategic planning process to setting our goals and objectives; to turning those goals and objectives into division strategies rolled into department strategies, and then rolling these into individual goals and objectives. This is how we can integrate it through all of our efforts and assure that we’re truly aligned to that particular vision” — CEO, U.S. Products manufacturing firm.

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Institutionalization in terms of structure is the process by which a business creates an organizational structure to define and direct activities of the firm to achieve organizational objectives. From Weber’s definition of bureaucracy forming the basis of the modern corporation as an organizational pyramid concentrating power and control at the top (Child, 1972) to scholars that describe companies that are fully autonomous structures with power and control in the hands of each employee (Laloux, 2014; Robertson, 2007), structure has a great deal to say about how work is done. Table 2 illustrates how the paradigmatic worldviews of utilitarian and interconnectedness implement structures that serve their organizing principles.

Table 2. Institutionalization: Structure (adapted from Pavez et al., 2014).

Paradigm 

Fragmented: “Me”

Stages 

Shareholder

Structure 

Hierarchical

Decisionmaking

Interconnected: “We” Flourishing organization

Delegated authority

Distributed authority

Fully 1 autonomous

Decisions require correct authority and are driven topdown into organization

Decisions have increasing complexity; top management establish overall direction and delegate downwards

Goes outside pyramidal model to focus on culture, decentralization, and empowerment.

Structure evolves to align with being a force for good

Organizations are peer-relationship based on perceiving what’s needed versus predefined roles, structures, & activities

Work definition

Procedures established a priori for efficiency; deviation not tolerated well

Staff given control and latitude to reach objectives

Employees work in teams to exercise responsibility and authority to define objectives

Employees work independently to define roles, function, and performance

Information flow

Communication flows rigidly from top to bottom

Input flows from bottom up while decisions flow downward

Emphasizes informal communication channels

Communication is a function of one’s whole and authentic self

Measuring performance

Financially measured: past performance used to describe future expectations in purely monetary terms

Performance described in terms combining financial data and social / environmental costs to be the best in the world

Performance is reflected in social justice and environmental terms: to be a force for good by being best for the world

Performance is evaluated on the whole person’s growth and org’s fulfillment of evolutionary purpose and benefit to the world

Exercise of power

Power is exercised depending on location in hierarchy; amassed

Employees have significant power over task execution

Employees have significant control over role definition and power over task

Employees create role definition and task execution

Ontological threshold

Sustainable enterprise

1

Sustainable value

This has also been defined as a Teal or Holacratic organization (Laloux, 2014).

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at the top

execution

Locus of control

Bureaucracy as controlling function through command and control

Matrix management and project teams are the hallmark of this level of structural evolution

Virtual and selfdirected work teams replace pyramidal structures with leaders providing facilitation and guidance

Autonomy exists at the individual level without managers exerting control over

Role of departments

Functions are fiefdoms and difficult to evolve without creating defensiveness moves

Staff functions and overlay organizations have significant control over traditional line functions

Department functions are more fluid and evolve as the business evolves

Departments/ functions serve the nature of the work and come and go by agreement

“We try to keep it small... We try to have as little middle management as possible.

The founders intent from the beginning was to create a flexible organization with small teams pursuing hundreds of projects simultaneously as the key to our ability to be innovative” — VP, global technology firm.

The executive from the global technology firm just quoted echoes a theme we heard over and over again in our interviews with firms who focus on organizational structures from the perspective of an interconnected ontology. Employees can be trusted, and do not need the layers of management or elaborate processes many firms put into place to control the activities of their employees. For example Zappos, known for its fully autonomous organizational structure and legendary customer service, doesn’t implement any of the typical call center metrics that measure dozens of efficiency and effectiveness key performance indicators like the amount of time an agent spends on a single call, or the amount of time it takes for an agent to pick a ringing phone (Hsieh, 2010).

Another example: “I encountered huge amounts of jealousy from people at the corporate level because they owned the global sustainability team and they weren't really doing anything except to produce a sustainability GRI report that nobody in the company even knew was being produced. When our business unit started to win the major awards and recognition, it became very difficult as there were a lot of people who did not like it because it wasn’t being driven from the central office” — Sustainability VP, European chemical company.

Compare our example of organizations that structure their operations with distributed authority or are fully autonomous this with the voices of a firm that depends on hierarchical structure squarely from a utilitarian ontological perspective. Here, we see what happens when a sustainability officer from a multi-national chemical company spoke leads a complete revamping of his business unit’s sustainability strategy and portfolio, resulting in highly defensive but predictable reactions by department leaders at the corporate level. Our sustainability officer, operating under empowerment that comes from distributed authority is met with fierce resistance. It makes perfect sense when we understand that from the ground of being corresponding to a hierarchical structure, such an encroachment on the span of control of the corporate office has challenged the very definition of power, locus of control, and strategic decision-making.

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“Anyone can initiate a project to make a positive impact in a community, like our local Korean community, or something to impact the larger world in a positive way just by posting it internally for everyone to see. Anyone from the company can join the project, or sign up to volunteer for a specific activity. The company doesn’t drive this from the top down.

It’s self-organized because if someone forces you to do something, it’s not going to be regenerative, because that has to come from within” — HR executive, global technology firm.

For leaders contemplating changing their organizational structure to empower their employees and increase employee engagement, sometimes crossing the ontological threshold is a matter of just letting go, so that employees can connect with each other on what they care the most about.

Another example:“For the business leaders in our company who only care about the numbers, they need to be able to take sustainability one step at a time. However, external pressures sometimes accelerate the whole thing very nicely for us. We have one particular business that was a steel manufacturing plant. Steel is very water-intensive and they were drawing water from the municipality that was meant for the farming community. After direction came from the government and a pretty big protest was organized in the village about another business running afoul of the community, the head of steel manufacturing asked us to help wean them off of municipality water altogether. A year later, we have a plant that has it own rainwater harvesting and a ground water recharge system that allows them to be water self-sufficient for about half the year.” — EVP, Sustainability officer for Indian multinational conglomerate Businesses do evolve, and we find that large corporations have institutionalized their structures to evolve at different rates for any given point of time. The Indian multinational firm in this case, a $30 billion (in USD) company with 150,000 employees recently launched a reinvention of the company to become a sustainable enterprise, following Gandhian principles of economic and social justice combined with the chairman’s desire to unleash the innovation potential of 150,000 employees to solve the biggest problems confronting Indian and global society. To do so, this firm recognized that the institutionalization structures that were largely hierarchical were holding the company back. The reinvention targets leapfrogging over delegated authority to distributed authority. The senior leader reported that empowerment was an easier change to talk about when they focused on innovation as a institutional force compelling to rethink the role of structure. Managers at the ground level talked about how hard it was to let employees have more freedom to make mistakes, to experiment, and to change how they worked. This is a powerful ontological shift, especially for a structure that is deeply imbued with hierarchy as a means of achieving firm objectives.

Additional analysis of the primary and secondary data reveals stories about how businesses are influenced by the diversity of people and their changing expectations, especially millennials seeking purpose and meaning, as well as expecting autonomy.

Businesses are changing in no small ways with the influence of the Internet and social media demanding transparency, with the inclusion of women into positions of leadership and entrepreneurship, even in cultures where women as entrepreneurs would have been unheard of ten years ago. A review of how these companies talk about themselves in social media

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reflects purpose and vision in increasingly holistic and spiritual terms. As we continue this line of inquiry in our broader research themes, we believe that we will see increasing numbers of companies redefining their structural organization in ways that reflect this interconnected worldview.

Stakeholders “A sustainability strategy should not only guide the activities development and skills, is also a form of business relationship with customers, vendors, suppliers, shareholders, politicians and stakeholders. Environmental sustainability is the single biggest challenge facing our industry and society this century, because the response affects not only products but every aspect of our business and every person in it.” — Chief Environmental Officer & Chief Executive Officer of a leading Japanese multinational automaker.

Institutionalization in terms of stakeholders is the process by which a business views relationships with those outside the firm in either a limited morality context (e.g. moral stewardship or corporate egoist and instrumentalist) or an elevated state of consciousness (e.g. caring and holistic) (Jones, Felps, & Bigley, 2007). Table 3 illustrates how the paradigmatic worldviews of utilitarian and interconnectedness view relationships that serve their business purposes.

Table 3. Institutionalization: Stakeholders.

Paradigm 

Fragmented: “Me”

Stages 

Shareholder

Stakeholders 

Contractual

Concern for others

Interconnected: “We” Sustainable enterprise

Flourishing organization

Interactive

Partnership

Integrative

Moral stewardship concern for others is limited to concern on behalf of shareholders

Interests of relevant stakeholders integrated into business strategy

Purpose built around satisfying stakeholder needs and to benefit society by impacting whole organization system

Company built around developing a greater sense of interconnectedness between company and all living systems, with aim of leading creation of a flourishing world

Stakeholder Engagement

When doing so benefits shareholders in an instrumental way

By engaging with those who directly impact business performance, company creates sustainable/shared value in a systematic fashion.

Close relationships with most stakeholders to act as partners of societal betterment

Broad definition of stakeholders (not just ones directly impacted by business), and embraces deep collaboration

Viewing impact upon stakeholder

Interpreted and treated as an externality

Satisfying stakeholders’ needs is considered good business

Understood as central element to enhance positive impact of the company upon society

Stakeholders are highly synergistic and collaborative, which means that they are actively involved in cocreating/improvin

Ontological threshold

Sustainable value

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g the business practices of company to create societal welfare

Relationship type

Purely contractual

Reciprocal (win-win) relationships to assure success in implementation of business strategy

Close and based on mutual trust, goes beyond an instrumental strategy to improve performance

Stakeholder relationships are transformative in nature. In other words, they help to increase the meaning/purpose of business actors and enhance their sense of interconnectedness

“We believe that sustainable logistics, in our production processes must include environment, economics and social costs and resources. This concept includes the supply chain management, production process, and all stakeholders. We have been able to reduce absolute CO2 emissions across our logistics network for a number of years running, despite having higher distribution volumes” — VP, Logistics for Japanese automaker.

For the automotive maker, stakeholders have been conceptualized as all living things, in this case, planet earth. Reducing emissions is an outcome of viewing impact upon an indirect stakeholder (the environment) and understanding that this is a central element in order to produce a positive impact upon society.

What is different in this example, in comparison to what we may find in a typical CSR report? Let’s consider some language about value creation in a 2012-2013 report from agricultural giant Smithfield Foods, Inc., whose CSP score at 1070 makes them one of worst corporate social performers worldwide, according to a 2010 study published by the UCLA Institute of the Environment (Chen & Delmas, 2011).

Under the banner of Corporate Social Responsibility, the language of the company is one of moral stewardship combined with instrumentalism. Stakeholder value is only aimed at generating benefit to the shareholder. We observe this through how each CSR metric is tied to a financial benefit. Furthermore, note that even the language tied to raising awareness about hunger is tied to “connecting more consumers with our brands,” ostensibly to generate opportunities to see more product (Smithfield Foods, 2013). Smithfield may talk about being a socially responsible company, but both empirical evidence and the use of language suggests a utilitarian paradigm of separateness, and not one of interconnectedness and motivation to benefit society, or one to lead in the creation of a flourishing world.

Another example: “For the independent recycler (also known as trash pickers), the firm offers a partnership that finances half of their entry costs for the recycling technology, and allows them to have 100% of the income derived from its operations... Because of this partnership, the independent recyclers can emerge from extreme poverty and learn how to achieve higher levels of income from an occupation that used to be part of the informal economy in Chile” — CEO, South American recycling company.

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Many of the firms we studied were focused on partnership in the way they viewed stakeholder relationship as partners in societal betterment. In these cases stakeholders are an opportunity to understand the whole organizational system, going beyond instrumentalism or egoism to the ontological view of wholeness. In some cases, these firms are evolving into integrative stakeholder relationships, as is the case of the South American recycling company because they are transformative in nature. The recyclers, most of whom come out of desperate poverty situations, give the business meaning and purpose, and in turn, the business provides the same back to the recyclers, along with dignity and a sense of hope.

Another example: “Because of our relationships working with farmers, we were able to fundamentally change our entire business model from farm tech manufacturing to farm tech prosperity. We don’t look at just selling tractors and other farming equipment to the farmer anymore, but give them end-to-end support from seeding to new technology in farming for efficient use of water, conservation of soil moisture, interaction with a local university’s horticulture program, and access to a 24/7 local/rural television programs. This shift to being in the farm tech prosperity business is huge for us. We create ergonomically tractors that women can use. Farmers taught us to modify the design so that the tractor can be used for applications beyond the limited four to five month growing season, to use it for other applications that could also mean transporting some heavy equipment or timber or something from one place to the other” — SVP, Indian multinational conglomerate.

Here again are stakeholder relationships that allow the firm to focus on transformative activities that could significantly change the lives of a population in India that is deeply mired in the type of poverty and hardship associated with the fickle monsoon seasons that make farming in India very difficult. We note that this isn’t a business case aimed at selling more tractors, nor is it an ontological perspective about utility, although utility is certainly implied by extending the use of a piece of equipment beyond traditional farming activities.

What we find the most remarkable is that the firm’s relationship and business purpose with the farmer has been completely transformed, to one of seeing the farmer’s situation as their own. This suggests that an ontological threshold has been crossed, with an associated paradigmatic shift towards interconnectedness and oneness.

Leadership “I care deeply about people sustaining their life, about people having life and vitality. Of people being able to enjoy and live a life and feel great while they're living it.

Being in this particular role not only allows me to do that personally, but allows me to inspire an entire workforce around the world to help others achieve the same thing” —Chief Executive Officer, U.S. appliance maker.

Institutionalization in terms of leadership is how the businesses structure, design, and view the role of leadership and the top management team to manage the activities of the firm.

Table 5 illustrates the paradigmatic worldviews of utilitarian and interconnectedness from a leadership perspective.

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Table 4. Institutionalization: Leadership.

Paradigm 

Fragmented: “Me”

Stages 

Shareholder

Leadership 

Competent manager

Role of leader

Interconnected: “We” Sustainable enterprise

Flourishing organization

Strategic achiever

Social innovator

Visionary alchemist

Establish standards, procedures, and output statistics to regulate activities.

Strong strategic orientation focused on getting results; satisfy stakeholder needs in order to improve business performance.

Challenge assumptions to reach higher performance (social, economic, and environmental).

Generate social transformations that reinvent organizations in historically significant ways

Purpose of leadership

Organize people and resources towards effective and efficient pursuit of predetermined objectives.

Get tangible deliverables by empowering and motivating team members.

Generate effective organizational and personal change

View the world as a web of interconnectedness full of possibilities for societal flourishing.

Modus operandi

Driven by power and logic; aware of power dynamics, expect people to follow instructions; focused on maintaining power structures over affective relations.

Creates positive work environment and provide challenges that help employees grow and develop; set strategic objectives that take into accounts the stakeholders’ needs.

Develops highly collaborative environments, and weaves meaningful visions with pragmatic, timely initiatives.

Consider the whole system and the long-term consequences; integrates all stakeholders, embracing that which supports the positive evolution of humanity.

Typical leadership style

Authoritative, relies on top-down approach; distinguishes between executives as knowledge and workers (source of physical transformation of inputs to outputs).

Promote teamwork to effectively deal with managerial duties; work with reciprocal influences between the company and its stakeholders.

Empower employees to grow and develop personally and professionally by giving them responsible freedom.

Sought out in organization for wisdom and compassion; Builds framework of elevated human values that guide team members in their daily activities.

Primary objectives

Focus on financial returns and shareholders’ interest; impacts to society are externalities; stakeholders relevant when specific issue affects financial returns.

Reliably lead a team to implement new strategies over a one to three-year period, balancing immediate and long-term objectives.

Cooperate across institutional boundaries (wide range of stakeholders) for the mutual benefit of the organization and society (& triple bottom-line results).

Transcend the boundaries of their company to become influential leaders of a flourishing world.

Ontological threshold

Sustainable value

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“We saw a change in leadership at the overall business level with the total focus on the short-term, and we saw my CEO who was really quite visionary replaced by somebody with a sales focus who really did not have that vision. Sustainability didn’t necessarily mesh with his management objectives, so everything we were working related to the sustainability portfolio on became a non-priority” — VP, European chemical company.

Leaders who have a worldview aligned with the shareholder stage are competent managers with a clear focus on financial returns and shareholder’s interests. The purpose of leadership is to organize people and resources towards effective and efficient pursuit of predetermined objectives. For our R&D leader above, it was a personal and professional shock to go from reporting to a social innovator with an entirely different focus on stakeholder and societal / economic / and environmental impacts to a leader who told him in the first five minutes, “I don’t care about what you do, and I don’t care about sustainability.” We observe that executive hiring committees who are not oriented to the stages of institutionalization may end up hiring or promoting leaders into roles that are a mismatch for the organization; often in hidden ways that aren’t exposed until talented staff and well-respected leaders like our interview subject leave the company altogether.

Another example: “One of the most the most important thing our leaders do is to get on the stage every week, every single week no matter what, share their own vision, share how our business is going, and then take a lot of questions with straight answers. I think that's really an amazing thing to do as a leader, because it’s not an easy thing to do” — VP, HR global technology company.

We heard a lot of descriptions about leaders who are strategic achievers, and excel at empowering and motivating their teams. Some of the world’s top companies with charismatic leaders like Cisco System’s John Chambers, or Li Ka-shing of Hutchison Whampoa-Cheung Kong (Hong Kong) are legendary achievers who are well-liked by the rank and file employees for their personal generosity. However, the goals are ultimately about business performance, and do not enter into transformational change beyond the bottom-line.

Another example: “I remember when a CEO from a certified B-corporation that had been acquired by a major conglomerate was invited to present in front of the entire 600person sales team. The person who was coaching him about the presentation warned him not to waste his time talking about being a benefit corporation, but to focus on why his products were great and how the sales team could make a lot of money. The CEO’s response was ‘You don't get it. Our products are great and our people are great, but the reason why we’re growing faster than anyone else in our business is because we're a B-Corporation.’ And his sponsor told him that it was his funeral, but it was his choice. So he takes the stage, gives his fifteen minute talk, at the end of which the six hundred sales team stood unified with a standing ovation” — CEO, non-profit.

Social innovator leaders challenge us to think about company performance in terms of social, economic, and environment. We wouldn’t expect a typical sales team to respond to a pitch about a company legal structure, but it isn’t about a governance model, it’s about what this acquired company stood for. The leader who can operate from a commitment to do good for the world, while pragmatically combining meaningful visions with practical

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initiatives for the purposes of creating mutual benefit for the company and society will stand out, and in some cases, receive standing applause. Why do these leaders instill this type of reaction?

Unlike the leader who is a strategic achiever and may be very charismatic, we believe that people instinctively respond to the authenticity of a leader who speaks from both their head and their heart with actions that are congruent with the words being spoken. Being a benefit corporation is a significant statement because it requires changing the articles of the corporation and declaring to the shareholders that the firm is legally obligated to pursue objectives that are a benefit to society at the same level of priority as financial ones. Instead of being measured by shareholder performance, the firm is declaring that it will be measured externally by stakeholder performance, against criteria that is objective and challenging.

When we find this type of leadership, we also find other factors of institutionalization that map to the corresponding stage of business evolution.

Culture “Imagine coming to work for a company and in the interviewing process you're being interviewed to find out whether you passionately believe in making the world a better place.

Because if you don’t passionately believe in that, we don’t really want you to work for our company.” — Chief Executive Officer, multinational healthcare products.

Institutionalization in terms of culture is how the business functions by implicit and explicit rules that are understood as “this is how we do things around here.” Table 6 illustrates the paradigmatic worldviews of utilitarian and interconnectedness from a Culture perspective.

Table 5. Institutionalization: Culture.

Fragmented: “Me”

Stages 

Shareholder

Culture 

Complianceseeking

Sustainability definition

Mission and objectives

Interconnected: “We”

Sustainable value

Sustainable enterprise

Flourishing organization

Strategizing

Caring / transforming

Flourishing

Sustainability is a cost without clear business value.

Sustainability is seen as source of strategic advantage.

Sustainability is deeply woven into the firm’s raison d'être.

Culture of company supports a societal transformation for creating a thriving & flourishing world.

Company mission descriptive and built around business objectives and shareholder value.

Mission includes idea of contributing to society but is centered on “being the best company in the world” and uses sustainability to achieve those goals.

Mission built around positively contributing to society, which permeates organizational practices.

The mission built around enhancing oneness and interconnectedness among all living systems is lived by every employee; creates a new stage of development for

Ontological threshold

Paradigm 

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business as an interconnected entity into the whole.

Impact of vision

Vision does not inspire employees passion for work.

Includes contributing to society but employees don’t buy-in because integration of sustainability into operations are fragmented.

Employees are attracted to the company by the strong sense of vision and purpose that the company embraces; deep source of inner motivation at work

Employees are attracted to the company because they perceive a strong sense of meaning and calling at work which transforms their lives.

Transmittal of values

Values largely unknown by employees; used for PR image.

Values reflect contributing to society but are not totally shared by employees.

Organizational values deeply reflect the idea of contributing to society and/or being good corporate citizens; shared by employees.

Organizational values deeply reflect elevated principles of relating and acting, which impact the lives of employees even beyond the job.

Dominant relationship mode

Interactions and relationships are transactional with high level of control and power plays.

Interactions and relationships among employees include caring for emotional wellbeing, but behind that is a utilitarian purpose of improving business performance.

Interactions and relationships among employees are strongly based on caring and compassion, and the work environment is highly collaborative.

Interactions and relationships among employees are transformative; enables employees to thrive/flourish personally and professionally.

“We were dealing with organizations like Wal-Mart that were asking lots of questions, and we knew that if we were working to reduce the impact of our products, that would give us a major business advantage. At one point, we had over 200 major corporations sitting at the same table having the same discussion. Some were there because they really wanted to make a difference, and some were there because they just wanted to make sure they could continue to do business with Wal-Mart.” — SVP, European consumer products firm.

Most of the firms we studied were aspirational in wanting to be caring/transforming, but ended up displaying most of the characteristics of a strategizing culture. With our European consumer products firm, sustainability viewed as a source of strategic advantage, although this SVP and other employees wanted the impact of the vision to be around positively contributing to society and a good corporate citizen as a caring/transforming culture. This firm suffered from not having sustainability completely integrated into business operations, and with the mission statement clearly articulating wanting to be the best in the world, with sustainability as a means to an end. The challenge with being on the left side as a utilitarian worldview is several-fold: (1) employees don’t buy into the vision or values because they are self-serving; (2) A change in leadership that is hostile to sustainable value makes it easier for the company to retreat back to being a shareholder stage company as discussed previously; and (3) when interactions and relationships are really a means to an end

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(a utilitarian or instrumentalist purpose of improving performance), people know inauthenticity when they see it, which creates distrust and disengagement. In many ways, sustainable value as a phase for the company makes sense intellectually, but falls short at a human connection and relationship level.

Another example: “To me, culture should be that you care deeply about your employee. You care deeply about your planet. You care deeply about the impact that you’re having on this world. You have to have an aspirational vision of how to make the world a better place. The more companies that believe that and practice it, the easier it will be on us when we hire new employees because we won’t be so different.” — CEO, multinational consumer products company.

When CEOs focus on creating a caring/transforming culture, the vision, mission, and values of the company are transmitted more authentically and clearly through the organization and the various stakeholders. Mission permeates organizational processes like hiring, sales, and customer service. Bill George, the former Medtronics CEO developed and practiced caring/transforming principles during his twenty-year tenure (George, 2010), and emphasized the leaders’ role in facilitating an interconnected culture. He argued that leaders have to pursue with passion, openly express values, engage with heart and mind, and develop connected relationships (George, 2010).

Another example: “Our partners and our employees told us what our five guiding principles are: (1) We passionately believe in making the world a better place; (2) We passionately believe that every person matters and we can make a difference; (3) Our future depends on learning and innovation; (4) We passionately believe in creating our future and embracing our past; and (5) We passionately believe in treating people with dignity and respect.” — CEO, American appliances firm.

We got chills when we heard the CEO describe her company’s flourishing culture in the words above, for there was no denying the forcefulness and passion in her own voice describing the strong sense of meaning and calling of what work meant to her employees.

You can’t fake a company’s purpose to lead societal transformation to create a thriving and flourishing world. She spoke of employees, customers, and stakeholders co-creating a future by paying attention to what they’ve done together in the past and using that shared experience to write the next chapter. She spoke of how their relationships and interactions were transformative beginning with values of treating people without exception with dignity and respect.

Another CEO we spoke with talked about how much communication played a part in developing a flourishing culture, requiring large amounts of collaboration and humility, especially from the entire management team, along with demonstrated willingness to admit and take ownership for mistakes and embracing uncertainty. All of this to create an ethos of empowered employees who can take ownership for their work and their contribution to the vision and mission.

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CROSSING THE ONTOLOGICAL THRESHOLD According the Merriam Webster dictionary, the word threshold has two important meanings, both of them related to transition or change: 1) “the place or point of entering or beginning (e.g. the threshold of a new age)”, and 2) “the point at which a physiological or psychological effect begins to be produced” (e.g. the threshold of consciousness)2. The word threshold comes from the age-old process of threshing, which separates the grains or seeds from the straw. Thus, threshold literally means “sitting on the gold” (Scharmer, 2009: 113).

In our model of business evolution we defined the ontological threshold as the transition that companies follow to begin to function as a vehicle for something even more precious that gold or light: “the enlightenment of business to the creation of a flourishing world” (Pavez et al., 2014). This transition occurs at the very deep level of mental models and/or worldviews (Beck & Cowan, 1996; Senge, 1993), where the traditional conception of being (fragmented, mechanistic, and utilitarian) is essentially questioned, challenged and changed. Therefore, companies that cross the threshold realize that their habitual way of seeing and acting is not connected to the true nature of being (holistic, sacred and interconnected), which move them to re-design and re-frame business practices from a higher level of consciousness (Barrett, 1998; Mackey & Sisodia, 2013; Pavez et al., 2014).

Central to the movement of crossing the threshold is the notion that the failure of business to contribute to a healthy world is due primarily to a mechanistic and fractured worldview (Scharmer & Kaufer, 2013; Senge et al., 2008). This worldview “drastically separates mind and body, subject and object, culture and nature, thoughts and things, values and facts, spirit and matter, human and nonhuman; a worldview that is dualistic, mechanistic, atomistic, anthropocentric, and pathologically hierarchical… A broken worldview that alienates men and women from the intricate web of patterns and relationships that constitute the very nature of life and Earth and cosmos” (Wilber, 1995: 14–15). This worldview, heavily grounded with the rise of modern science and philosophy —particularly associated with the names of Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Bacon, Newton, Kelvin, and Descartes— (Capra, Steindl-Rast, & Matus, 1993; Gergen, 1999; Wilber, 1995), puts rationality as the dominant element of our existence. Hence, it fosters the development of a utilitarian and anthropocentric ethics, which sees people and nature as resources to be exploited, and the soul/spirit as something separated to the everyday life of a normal citizen (Gladwin, Kennelly, et al., 1995).

Fortunately, the last twenty years has been witnessing a growing awareness of the problems related to this traditional —and taken-for-granted— worldview by leaders and thinkers of different background and sectors. The Western lens on this matter owes much to epistemological criticism of liberalism and its exclusive focus on the individual, from theorists such as Martin Buber, Charles Taylor, and Robert Putnam among others (Cates, 2012). Much also comes from Asian tradition and teachings from both a philosophical and political tradition, and draws upon various forms of communitarianism that balances intimate

2

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/threshold

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connections, honor, and purpose as defined between the individual actor and the community (Liu, 1955; Odin, 1992).

Interestingly, this collective process of awareness has allowed the re-birth of ancient wisdom coming from different cultural and spiritual traditions, which constitutes a totally different mindset for understanding —and relating to— ourselves, others and the natural environment. This mindset, which has been called holistic and/or ecological worldview (Capra, 1997; Capra et al., 1993), sees the world as an integrated whole, where matter, life and minds “are part of a vast network of mutually interlocking orders subsisting in Spirit, with each node in the continuum of being, each link in the chain, being absolutely necessary and intrinsically valuable” (Wilber, 1995: 20). It is a worldview that acknowledges the inherent value of human and nonhuman life, because it recognizes that all living beings are members of ecological communities bound together in a network of interconnectedness and interdependencies (Capra, 1997).

Besides, it has demonstrated the power of creating a radically different system of ethics, when this perception becomes part of the daily awareness of the beholder (Capra, 1997). This has produced important advances in different scientific disciplines —such as physics, biology, cognition, psychology, sociology, anthropology, and medicine— which have tested the hypothesis of interconnectedness and holistic awareness. Those studies have come to the same conclusion that ancient spiritual traditions has told us for a long time: we are deeply interconnected not only to each other and all life but also to the universe and to the spirit of humanity (Capra, 1997, 2013; Dispenza, 2010; Goswami, 1995; Maturana & Varela, 1987; Radin, Hayssen, Emoto, & Kizu, 2006; Varela, Thompson, & Rosch, 1992; Wilber, 1995; Laszlo E., 2014).

This ontological way of being is causally related to the evolving nature of humanity and the role that businesses play in expressing that humanity as a set of values, expectations, and cultural norms. Hence, this worldview has pervaded the generation of scientific knowledge —and practice— in the field business as well. Under this new paradigm, business are seen as entities that should look for individual and societal wellbeing (Haigh & Hoffman, 2012; Honeyman, 2014; Mackey & Sisodia, 2013; Senge et al., 2008; Waddock, 2008), encouraging the possibility that “human being and other life forms will flourish on the Earth forever” (Ehrenfeld, 2008; Ehrenfeld & Hoffman, 2013; Laszlo & Brown et al., 2014).

This new logic of conducting business is based on the affirmation of human divinity but is not anthropocentric, because it connects that divinity with the divinity of the whole.

The only way business can act as a force for create a flourishing planet, and a flourishing human being, is by replacing the taken-for-granted fractured worldview with a “worldview that is more holistic, more relational, more integrative, more Earth-honoring, and less arrogantly human-centered. A worldview, in short, that honors the entire web of life, a web that has intrinsic value in and of itself, but a web that, not incidentally, is the bone and marrow of our own existence as well” (Wilber, 1995: 15).

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CONCLUSION More than anything, we are hopeful with the exemplars we have encountered in this research. We see leaders who made the leap of faith, in all of the countries we researched, including Latin America, Europe, India, the United States, and in Japan. We also encountered examples on the utility side of the ontological threshold in terms of Sustainable Value, or for the most part, in the Shareholder stage, particularly in the West.

The organizing principles our research previously uncovered are demonstrated in our study for the Goi Peace Foundation that show two evolutionary axes through which companies evolve to become positive institutions; one representing the contribution of the company to society (purpose) and the other one the principles behind the social processes that shape organizational practices (organizing). We find that evolution of business toward wholeness does indeed go through this framework called the “The arc of interconnectedness” (Pavez et al., 2014). This evolutionary path represents a practical manifestation of the march toward a consciousness of oneness.

In this study we show how “The Ontological Threshold” transforms the underlying logic of business. This is based on a totally different conception of the nature and relations of being, and in our study, shows how business goes from a mechanistic and fragmented worldview based on seeing humans as separate and selfish to a holistic and interconnected one in which we are part of the Oneness of the world and in which caring for others and for future generations is an essential quality of being human (Pavez et al., 2014).

The key institutionalization processes we illuminated in this study show how the two axes that frame the model of business evolution explain how a business evolves to become a positive institution. What we find with this understanding is that each shift in purpose and organizing results in a different set of frames around the institutionalization processes that companies follow to become positive institutions. We divided the institutionalizing processes into: structure, stakeholder, leadership, and culture.

Our work with the Goi Peace Foundation closes with our thoughts on the Fuji Declaration itself. As business leaders and scholars, we are called to catalyze a shift in the course of human history. It is time for leaders from diverse fields—scientists, artists, politicians, business leaders, and others—to travel “The Ontological Threshold” in our personal and business evolution journey towards a stage of interconnectedness, one that demonstrates humility, wisdom, and intention to benefit of all living things.

“By so doing, we can overcome the hold of obsolete ideas and outdated behaviors in today’s unsustainable world and design a more harmonious and flourishing civilization for the coming generations” —The Fuji Declaration.

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The Goi Peace Foundation, Japan Kaposvár University, Hungary

PATHS TOWARD A CIVILIZATION OF ONENESS WITH DIVERSITY IN THE SPHERE OF THE ECONOMY Authors: Sándor Kerekes, Kaposvár University, Hungary Tamás Kocsis, Corvinus University of Budapest, Hungary

Study overview In the Spring of 2014, The Goi Peace Foundation sought background studies in four spheres (the economy, politics, media, and business) to show how its goals for humanity, as expressed in the Fuji Declaration, at that time provisionally entitled, “AWAKENING THE DIVINE SPARK IN THE SPIRIT OF HUMANITY: For a Civilization of Oneness with Diversity on Planet Earth” can be achieved. The Declaration points to the possibility of a worldwide shift in consciousness, from materialism-centered sustainability to full-spectrum flourishing.

This report presents a background study about the economy. It outlines the path toward a Civilization of Oneness with Diversity as it is being shaped and advanced by the economy.

In this study, we describe: 

The economic theory behind (un)sustainability;



The shift towards an economy of flow (a GDP-friendly path);



The concept of the’ celestial footprint’ (the increase of which is always advantageous, in contrast to increases in the ecological footprint);



The shift towards voluntary simplicity (a GDP-reducing path)

We conclude by commenting on the interdependencies between our economic and ecological system which highlights the importance of Oneness and the need for a paradigm shift as expressed in the Fuji Declaration.

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Table of Contents 1 Introduction: The world economy is growing faster than the population .............................. 2 The economic theory of (un)sustainability............................................................................. 4 „Imagine no possessions I wonder if you can” (John Lennon) .............................................. 8 „Imagine all the people Sharing all the world..” (John Lennon).......................................... 11 The need for ecological and social resilience ....................................................................... 14 Introducing the Celestial Footprint ...................................................................................... 16 Paths of Gaining Happiness ................................................................................................. 18 (Non)material and (non)monetary trade-offs ....................................................................... 21 IPAT and the logic of Celestial Footprint ............................................................................ 22 Voluntary Simplicity: a radical, non-market strategy for increasing Celestial Footprint .... 23 Conclusions: Sustainability and interdependencies ............................................................. 26 References ............................................................................................................................ 28

Introduction: The world economy is growing faster than the population Between 2000 and 2030 the world’s population will grow by 2.5 billion, the demand for food will nearly double and industrial production and energy consumption will triple, but the corresponding rate of increase in developing countries is expected to quintuple. This growth carries with it the risk of environmental disaster, but also the opportunity to create a better environment and the conditions for providing mankind with basic goods, clean air and healthy water. Which of the alternatives will happen basically depends on political decisions. Some predictions indicate that the average GDP per capita in Europe will exceed $40.000 by 2050.

By 2100, China will catch up with the United States in terms of GDP per capita, while India will become a superpower by 2030 because its population growth exceeds the global average.

Dividing the annual gross domestic product evenly among the peoples of the world would provide every individual with $5-10.000. This “economy” could theoretically provide people with healthy drinking water and organized health care and could reduce the number of births and eliminate illiteracy too. Unfortunately, this trend is not developing yet; differences just keep growing. There exist countries with a GDP per capita of over $100 000 (Qatar, Luxemburg), and there are very poor countries with a GDP of around $1 000 (Bangladesh, Sub-Saharan Africa). In 1970, the income of the richest 20% of the world’s inhabitants was

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only thirty times as much as that of the poorest 20%. By 2005 the income of the rich had grown to seventy-five times as much, and the difference keeps growing. In the meantime, the global population is exponentially increasing. In 1800 only one billion people lived on the Earth and 130 years passed before this number doubled. Another doubling occurred in 47 years, another in 12 and then one more in only 9 years – in total another 4 billion had been added. The rate of increase is slowing a little, but the growth in Asia and Africa seems unstoppable. Population growth is characteristic of poor regions.

Data concerning the increase in the productivity of agricultural work are available to the public. In the past 100 years, while the amount of cereal grown per hectare has increased 6-10 fold, the number of working hours and thus the number of employees required per hectare has dropped to a fraction of this (it has decreased by about 95%). It is common knowledge that in developed countries 2-5% of the entire workforce are capable of providing the whole of the society with food, and before long the proportion of workers employed in the industrial sector will also drop below 5-7%. According to optimistic analysts, demands for employment will be absorbed by the service or tertiary sector. Others predict that there will be more free time for individuals because the same amount of work will be distributed among more people, which will result in a double benefit – more free time favors the development of the service sector and creates demand for services.

The situation seems more complex in reflection of the statistical data. In certain regions – e.g.

South America – a third generation is growing up with no-one in the family ever having had a permanent job; this generates huge social tension, and there is not much hope that children socialized in such families will become employed as adults.

The other no less surprising fact is that employees’ free time is not increasing even in developed countries; what is rather typical is that people work more than 8 hours a day and cannot even take their vacations. When we examine the labor market, it is only with difficulty that we can find jobs which offer 4-6 hours’ employment, although such working hours would be critical for the healthy functioning of families. That is to say, changes in the labor market do not support the more optimistic predictions; a developed economy can only manage with well-qualified labor force that is prepared for competition, and those who want nothing ‘but’ to make a living are of no value to the current economy. Social supply systems attempt to handle these issues using welfare states, and such problems are in theory usually easily manageable in the economic sense. A productive economy is capable of taking care of the physical needs of the unemployed. Ensuring the quality of life of the millions that are

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excluded from economy, however, is a more complex problem than simply satisfying their physical needs.

The economic theory of (un)sustainability The concept of sustainable development has undoubtedly made a major influence on the economy – e.g. by supporting the uptake of environmentally friendly consumption habits, clean technologies and increasing appreciation of the significance of renewable resources and defining development as qualitative rather than quantitative growth.

The roots of sustainability (Hicks, 1946) are found in Hicks’ writings that claim that “a man’s income is the maximum value which he can consume during a week and still expect to be as well off at the end of the week as he was at the beginning”. In 1970, when the outlines of the environmental crisis were already visible, the same John Hicks claimed that a few grains of sand in the wheels of international finance would do the job of slowing down development.

This so-called Tobin tax is just now being re-invented by the EU bureaucracy and domestic politics. It may seem strange that what then was expected to slow down development is now hopefully going to intensify economic growth.

Ecological economics partly builds its conceptions about sustainable development on Hicks’ Theory of Wages (Marshall, 2004). The need for equality between generations that appears in Brundtland’s definition is also rooted in the history of theory and can be discovered in the Solow-Hartwick sustainability rule (Marshall, 2004). This rule states that consumption is sustainable and may even grow even if the proportion of non-renewable resources drops, provided that the benefits generated by the use of these resources is invested into reproducible capital. In 1920, Marshall wrote: “When capital ceases to increase, income likewise will stop growing. Hence seeking to keep capital intact should be seen as fundamental to income generation.” (Marshall, 2004). When referring to natural capital, environmental economists keep repeating this mantra, but their words fall on deaf ears. Natural capital is decreasing because there is hardly any effort being made to replace what has been used.

In ecology, the carrying capacity of a given territory is considered to be the land area required to support the largest possible population (over the long term) that does not damage the given territory. We may now ask the theoretical question: how many people can the Earth accommodate at an acceptable or preferable standard of living?

Simon Kuznets (1971), considered to be the pope of growth theory, was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1971. It may be natural that Kuznets viewed growth in an optimistic way. In the

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speech he made at the Nobel award ceremony, though acknowledging the negative effects of growth, he affirms quite clearly that “two points are relevant here. First, the negative effects of growth have never been viewed as so far outweighing its positive contribution as to lead to its renunciation - no matter how crude the underlying calculus may have been. Second, one may assume that once an unexpected negative result of growth emerges, the potential of material and social technology is aimed at its reduction or removal. In many cases these negative results were allowed to accumulate and to become serious technological or social problems because it was so difficult to foresee them early enough in the process to take effective preventive or ameliorative action. Even when such action was initiated, there may have been delay in the effective technological or policy solution. Still, one may justifiably argue, in the light of the history of economic growth, in which a succession of such unexpected negative results has been overcome, that any specific problem so generated will be temporary - although we shall never be free of them, no matter what economic development is attained.�

Back in 1971 Kuznets claimed that no-one had ever questioned the idea that growth results in more good than bad, and that growth offers solutions that will offset negative effects (through the deployment of technology). With circumspection, Kuznets presents six basic characteristics of modern economic growth: 1. Significantly faster growth of national product per capita and population in developed countries compared to earlier periods, 2. Significantly faster increase in work productivity as compared to earlier periods, 3. High speed structural changes in the economy, agriculture taking a back seat and the developing dominance of industry first and the service sector later. Companies take the lead from private enterprises, which changes employment circumstances, 4. Rapid change in social structure and associated ideologies, 5. Transport and telecommunication technologies enable developed countries to easily access the rest of the world, which leads to the convergence of the world, 6. Despite economic growth, three quarters of the world’s population have a much lower standard of living than that it would be possible to provide them with through the application of modern technology.

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Kuznets’s ideas were presented far earlier than the emergence of the theory of sustainable development. While Kuznets was being awarded the Nobel Prize, the writing of first report of the Club of Rome, entitled “The Limits of Growth”, was already underway. The Meadows’ book was published in 1972 and expressed doubts about the long term sustainability of growth and stated that the effects of growth are rather positive than negative (Meadows, 1972).

The authors of the Club of Rome certainly did not argue with Kuznets. If we take a close view of Kuznets’s statements, above, it is obvious that the growth theory of this economist – still considered a classic today – mostly encompasses all that researchers have presented as criticisms of growth theory in the past thirty-five years. Kuznets views technological and social innovations as being the basis of development, but also deems natural, social and cultural dimensions to be important by saying “thus, modern technology with its emphasis on labor-saving inventions may not be suited to countries with a plethora of labor but a scarcity of other factors, such as land and water; and modern institutions, with their emphasis on personal responsibility and pursuit of economic interest, may not be suited to the more traditional life patterns of the agricultural communities that predominate in many less developed countries.”

Kuznets certainly does not interpret GDP as a welfare indicator; moreover, in his aforementioned paper he clearly states that “the conventional measures of national product and its components do not reflect many costs of adjustment in the economic and social structures to the channeling of major technological innovations; and, indeed, also omit some positive returns”. This shortcoming of this theory in confrontation with new findings has led to a lively discussion in the field in recent years, and to attempts to expand the national accounting framework to encompass the so far hidden but clearly important costs, for example, in education as capital investment, in the shift to urban life, or in the pollution and other negative results of mass production. These efforts will also uncover some so far unmeasured positive returns – in terms of better health and longevity, greater mobility, more leisure, less income inequality, and the like.

Professionals have made estimates and found that the peak of the inverted parabola, the socalled turning point, is situated at very different per capita GDPs for various pollutants. For carbon monoxide, as is mentioned above, this happens at only $35-57 thousand, and the GDP per capita of the USA is still far below this level. For sulfur dioxide the level is $9400-11300; this is where an improvement becomes demand.

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The situation is even more complex with water pollutants, though there is a correlation that is clearly supportable with data concerning the change in biological and chemical oxygen shortage or the potable water supply and sewerage of homes.

Using an understanding of economics based on the concepts of the environmental Kuznets curves, politicians frequently think that economic growth will also solve environmental problems. However, it has become clear by now that economic growth will not solve the problems that exist with easily externalizable pollution for which there is little chance of establishing the liability of the polluter (as is the case with greenhouse gases and some other wastes), or with contamination that causes irreversible degradation or damage (e.g. the accumulation of heavy metals, stable organic contaminants, etc. due to the shade effect), The political optimism about the omnipotence of economic growth is overshadowed by yet another contradiction with development. Based on several forecasts, most of the world will not, even by 2030, reach a per capita GDP at which the quality of the environment should start improving. According to prognoses, the most developed countries in the world will reach and exceed a per capita GDP of $50000, while the world average may produce only $12000 and Asia28 around $8000. Even if the future deepening of the North-South crisis were socially and politically tolerable (although obviously it is not), this situation is certainly intolerable in the ecological-environmental sense. The figures show that without a radical change in the conditions of distribution, squalor will remain permanent in the developing countries to such an extent that it will pose an obstacle to positive demographic and environmental change. Taking the delay inherent in feedback into consideration, should this prediction come true we would most probably have to expect disaster.

The assessment is made more complex because we have no knowledge about the resources future generations will use, or about the course of development the countries of the third world will take. The best possible outcome and the worst possible outcome are probably very different. Historical experience proves that there is room for optimism: this perspective reminds us that discoveries come from people, and if there are enough people trying to solve a given problem, they will manage to do it (Simon, 1998). The recent change in the dimension of change, however, counters the optimistic point of view. So far the economy has been dwarfed by the size of the biosphere, but it is now becoming dominant.

The supporters of the optimistic approach take heart in the idea that today’s generation may leave less natural resources for generations to come, but our successors will have a higher standard of technology and greater capital.

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Regarding prognoses about the future of the Earth, it is crucial how limited we consider the planet’s carrying capacity to be, and how resistant carrying capacity is to erosion.

”Imagine no possessions, I wonder if you can” (John Lennon) The ‘second shift’ now occurring refers to a potential source of economy that is now used for accumulation, even by the middle class. If, instead of accumulating the income saved by doing a ‘second shift’, we paid employees to do most of the housework we now do (i.e. through employing quality services), the amount of free time we have would increase and the quality of our lives would improve. Social differences would be reduced with very beneficial social-environmental effects. Finally, we would live in a world more capable of staying in harmony with Earth’s limited carrying capacity. The Economy would finally use the resource that is available almost without limit: the human labor force. One of the main obstacles to this occurring is man’s tendency to possessiveness. If man did not desire to possess, but rather to satisfy needs, he would not strive to accumulate assets but to maximize happiness.

Disregarding housework when calculating GDP is a frequently-cited error. Provided such activity was turned into paid service, this would result in the growth of GDP with reduced environmental impact. A better division of labor would have a number of beneficial effects.

How prepared the world is to make this change is questionable, but it is interesting that there are positive examples from two areas. Going back in time, it is obvious that the huntergatherer society was a world in which opportunities were exploited and profits were ‘hidden’ through common activity and ownership, but this mode of being has been left behind for the society of individuals, which has an exaggerated emphasis on private property and prestige based on consumption. Now we have arrived at a point where some members of developed societies are no longer so tolerant about the proliferation of private property or the type of capitalism they have created. There are a growing number of those who, in the name of “back to basics” (Kocsis, 2002), are trying to question the traditional values of the welfare society.

The limit to Earth’s resources, pollution issues, the growing population in the third world and the reduction in the size of the population in the developed countries of the world are all wellknown, commonplace-sounding issues. The demand for consumption, however, is not only increasing in developed countries, but in the emerging new middle class in developing countries – mainly India and China. This may lead to serious sustainability problems not only in the long run but also in the short term.

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In a study published in 2000 (Mont, 2000), the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency identified the following three potential paths to promoting urgently needed sustainability: 

reduce the population



reduce the level of consumption



make consumption sustainable.

The first option is obviously impracticable in the short run since all the indications are that, even if the growth rate of the population does not accelerate but stays stable, the global population could reach 8-10 billion by 2100. (Walker, 2014) Sustaining such a huge population clearly makes the second option, cutting down on consumption, impossible. The situation is made even graver by the fact that most of the population growth will happen in developing regions where living standards lag far behind those seen in the developed part of the world. Improving economic performance, however, will mean that even the citizens of poor regions will want to consume in a similar way to inhabitants of the ‘developed’ world. Moreover, inhabitants of countries that are emerging from poverty will much less be sensitive to conservation approaches and will rather be inclined to exploit environmental resources disproportionately to enjoy marginal improvements in their living standards. Efforts to reduce consumption would be liable to evoke major public dissent in countries where inhabitants already consume much more than is required to meet their basic needs. No national government would be ready to support such programs.

Today, improvements in eco-efficiency are partly the result of price competition. Everybody is trying to sell products more cheaply. This creates demand for new branches and services and, in this sense, has an important part in stimulating economic growth. In some sense, this is also a paradox because due to improvements in eco-efficiency, the rate of increase in GDP should be slowing down, but it seems to be gaining speed. In environmental studies, the rebound effect is a well-known phenomenon that describes how eco-efficiency leads to increases in consumption because any money saved by using more efficient goods and services is recycled and invested into purchases in other areas. However, an increase in ecoefficiency could be used to favorably affect GDP growth if the economies gained from increases in eco-efficiency were ploughed back into structural development.

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In his study into the Steady State Economy, Herman Daly (Daly, 1977) points out that unlimited economic growth is impossible on a limited Earth. Grossman and Krueger (1994) state that economic growth affects the quality of environment in three ways. The first is the so-called scale effect, which refers to when large scale economic activity causes large scale environmental degradation through the increased demand for inputs, including natural resources, and the correspondingly higher output rate, which is indicated by the production of waste. The second is the so-called structural effect, which may yet be environmentally favorable in the future. The first structural changes that affected economic activity – urbanization, the shift from agricultural production to industrial production, etc. – had a negative environmental impact. Current structural changes, such as the tendency to increases in energy efficiency, sectors with greater added value and the expansion of services indicate a favorable change in that they reduce environmental impact per unit of GDP. The third significant factor also brings favorable effects since wealthier countries are spending more on research and development, which enables the replacement of polluting technologies with cleaner ones, thus reducing environment impact. This is usually called the technicaltechnological component of growth.

In the past century, economic growth has taken a trajectory, which, regarding Earth’s limited resources, cannot be maintained. There might be, however, another course to take, which offers the economic growth necessary to create opportunities for those currently excluded from income generation (the unemployed) to make a living, and to appear on the market with purchasing power. There remains the possibility for structural economic growth. This proposal is in close harmony with Grossmann’s ideas, and what Weizsäcker and Lovins (Hawken, Lovins & Lovins, 2013) call a shift from a ”stock” economy to a “flow” economy.

Countries with low raw material consumption per capita have significantly reduced in number over the past two decades. These countries also include some fairly opulent ones. When observing the history of countries with rapid economic growth, like Finland or Singapore, we may note that their sudden economic growth went hand in hand with the large scale consumption of raw materials and resources. There are, however, developed countries, which have also managed to create significant wealth with relatively low per capita resource consumption. The so-called eminence of Finland’s environmental position may be called into question if we note that average per capita resource consumption in Finland is over double that of Italy’s, which is considered to be a laggard in terms of environmental matters.

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”Imagine all the people sharing all the world...” (John Lennon) The idea that the main goal of man’s life is “self-fulfillment” has become a major factor in appraising quality of life, although there is only a thin line between self-fulfillment and selfishness, which may be useful for boosting the economy but has little to do with human happiness. Quality of life does not seem to be related to wealth or sustainable development; however, in reality, cultural perceptions and messages about one’s quality of life fundamentally influence sustainability. The differentiation between wealth and ‘well-being’ is important, because if an average shopping cart contained more (and here the term is broadly interpreted) ‘culture’, increases in wealth would require less consumption of material and energy and thus environmental impact would be lower.

According to estimates, the population of Earth is bound to reach between 7 and 10 billion in the following 30 years. It is also public knowledge that, at present, 800 million people are living (or starving) on less than $1 per day, and nearly 3 billion are living on less than $2 a day: the poverty level. That can still mean that economies remain viable because people who work 12-14 hours a day are fairly productive and can “finance” well-developed social support systems.

The frequently-mentioned notion of competition generates the illusion that every “game” in life is zero-sum. If tax revenues are spent on environment protection, there will be no resources left for building motorways. If pensions are subsidized, there will be nothing left to support small enterprises. These suppositions that suggest that only one goal can be realized – to the detriment of another – are all too familiar.

Sustainable development needs a radically different way of thinking. “Sustainability” means the development of multiple dimensions. In this respect, the word “or” should be erased from our dictionaries since the simultaneous development of different dimensions can only be expressed by the words “and/both”. There are always favorable compromises that can be made, and it is never true that there are only two options to pick from: inevitably, innumerable potential options exist. The sin of dominant paradigms is that in certain periods certain approaches are prioritized, and society is ‘made’ to face a choice. This is where government intervention comes in; a government is a system of institutions operated by society without which there would be no environmental safety, or even a moderately tolerable environment.

Csikszentmihályi (1997) states that, in a welfare economy, consumers care little about “existence” itself but their attention turns towards “experiential” needs instead. That is, they need activities to satisfy their need for practical experience. Interestingly enough, the consumer’s main interest changes from merchandise to the experience of shopping itself. This

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may have positive and negative consequences from the perspective of sustainable development.

Sustainability means ensuring the continuous existence of “something”. Growth in GDP does not necessarily mean growth in wealth, and even less that of well-being. Growth in well-being requires the development of education, increases in healthy life expectancy, the improvement of life and social security and even the improvement of factors like personal freedom, which are all components of the quality of life.

According to the Easterlin (1974) paradox, the satisfaction or happiness of people is not linearly correlated to wealth (Stevenson & Wolfers, 2008). Those who do not become preoccupied with statistical averages but pay attention to individuals claim that over half of the active population suffer from depression, and note that the disease tends to also attack those who live in a state of “wealth”. Perhaps the illness does not only affect wealthier nations, but they certainly constitute the basis for the diagnosis of depression as the endemic disease of the modern age. Earth’s carrying capacity is limited and seems to be failing under the environmental impact of mankind: the needless and mindless consumer habits of the rich or the misery of the poor, since both overload the global ecosystem. Maria Csutora and her colleagues at the Institute of Environmental Science at Corvinus University, Budapest describe an interesting phenomenon concerning people’s environmental awareness and ecological footprints. While one would expect environmentally-conscious people’s ecological footprints to be smaller than those of non-environmentally-conscious people, the research found no such correlation. In her research, which has major international resonance, Csutora calls the phenomenon – which we might label the Csutora-paradox – the “Behaviour–Impact Gap”. The main point of the paradox is that the ecological footprints or the carbon footprints of so-called ‘brown’ (the least environmentally-conscious) and green (the most environmentally-conscious) consumers do not significantly differ from each other. Ecological footprints are correlated to income, but the beneficial effect of environmental awareness cannot be demonstrated (Csutora, 2012).

Environmentally-conscious consumers are ready to undertake some ‘self-limiting’ activities (selective waste collection, turning off the tap, disconnecting the telephone recharger, etc.) that only have marginal effects on the ecological footprint, while they typically reject making radical changes. They do not give up flying, become vegetarians or move into smaller homes.

This certainly does not mean that environmentally-conscious consumption does not have positive long-term effects, but rather that these long-term effects are structural in nature and are difficult to numerically express.

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Regarding this observation, and accepting the premise of macro-economics that says that economic growth is a necessary condition for the growth of wealth, a major dilemma arises as to what type of economic growth causes the least damage to the natural environment, or rather which type best serves the goals of sustainable development. Ecological economists and scientists deny the existence of such types of economic growth. However, there is a concept of economic growth that serves sustainable development that we may call structural economic growth. Eco-efficiency may be increased in a way that it simultaneously results in an increase in the division of labor within society. Supported by an increase in the division of labor, the consumption of services in the economy would also significantly increase at the expense of material consumption, which would mean the replacement of the stock economy by a flow economy. Instead of buying washing machines, refrigerators and kitchen equipment, we would buy clean clothes from the laundry and we would eat out in restaurants. We would hire specialists, rather than do things ourselves at home. Specialists equipped with professional tools would clean our homes. This would promote economic growth because, due to the division of labor, we would pay for these services: however, instead of spending our money on buying washing machines we would only need to settle the laundry bill. These days, television sets that offer a movie experience are available to buy: in a flow economy we would just go to a movie theatre where 400 of us could watch the program on one ’set’. Highincome people can afford home movie equipment because the necessary technology has become cheap enough. A television set meeting nearly all the user’s needs, providing 3D quality images, ‘only’ cost three hundred thousand forints (approx. $1000) in 2014. The cost of cinema tickets is typically a multiple of hiring a film on DVD. Technology is growing cheaper, while services are becoming more expensive, largely due to increases in wages. But this up-to-date home movie equipment, however, is consuming 150W of energy in the background. According to careful estimates, this means that while we are watching our movie at home, at least two strapping “energy-slaves” are required to power the equipment (MacKay, 2008). Each is capable of keeping a 75W light bulb on. If we leave a 75W bulb on and go to sleep in front of the TV, two slaves will be doing unnecessary work (Grossman & Krueger, 1994). It is easy to realize what a change in environment impact the change in our entertainment-related behavior has caused just over the past five years. The energy consumption of a single commercial movie projector (per head) is nothing in comparison to the energy consumption of hundreds of individuals watching TV. The development of the economy in the past one hundred years indicates that it is capable of more efficient development if not hindered by government or other regulations. It has also

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been proven that the market itself is unable to successfully deal with problems such as poverty or social inequalities. The market creates an irresolvable contradiction by attempting to minimize the use of labor as a production factor while high employment rates are more desirable for society as a whole. The size of an economy and rates of consumption are defined by the size of the human population, the complexity of ecosystems, and how much, what and in what way an individual consumes.

The need for ecological and social resilience What does ‘resilience’ mean when applied to social science and ecology? Obviously, something different than it does to a mechanical engineer. Walker, Holling, Carpenter and Kinzig (Walker et al., 2004) discuss the three concepts: "Resilience, adaptability and transformability", the interaction of which they think determine the resistance and stability of systems against external shock. “While the technological flexibility approach focuses on the steady state and defines the amount of disturbances needed to move the system from one stability domain to another, ‘ecological flexibility’ is characterized by the amount of changing circumstances which the system is able to absorb before its structure transforms due to the modification of variables, processes and the nature of management” (Walker et al., 2004). The sustainable relationship between nature and man requires attention to ecological flexibility because its central concern is the space between stabilization and destabilization: present day development, global environmental change, decreases in biodiversity, degradation of ecosystems and sustainable development. The term ‘technological flexibility’, however, gives the dangerous impression that natural systems may be efficiently managed, that consequences are predictable and the goals of sustainability are achievable (Walker et al., 2004).

A flexible, adaptable and thus sustainable social-ecological system is characterized by having the following characteristics: 

it maintains diversity and supports the preservation of biological, landscape, economic and social components,



“human control” of ecological diversity is limited,



it respects modularity (combined systems are better able to withstand shock),



it recognizes and emphasizes the importance of education, social networks and locally developed rules.

To sustain the operability of a flexible and adaptable social-ecological system it is necessary to.

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

give prompt feedback: e.g. in the case of drought, immediate irrigation is needed with no time spent waiting for EU support policy to change. If there is no demand for selectively collected waste paper, its energy content must be exploited through incineration before it degrades in a backyard. There may be no time for prolonged discussion about the best course of action;



direct the attention of politics to better managing slow variables and processes of accumulation, despite the fact that politicians are disinterested in these kinds of issues: they are not newsworthy. When a river floods or a fire breaks out there always are funds available for repairing the damage, while nobody really cares about the slow degradation of dams or fire stations. The slow increase of nitrogen, or the accumulation of heavy metals in the soil is a graver problem than the occasional foaming of the River. The latter phenomenon, luckily, attracts attention, while the previous one does not;



ensure an appropriate balance between private and public property and overlapping rights of access. Seemingly, the state is a bad proprietor, which is why the liberal economy wants to privatize everything. The state may be a bad proprietor in the economic sense, but it is good in the ecological sense – for example, in the case of public assets such as drinking water; moreover, also with non-public assets (e.g. energy supplies, where a private owner may be able to cut prices but is unable to ensure security of supply);



create a strict system of sanctioning and a culture of honesty. The health of the environment and society can only be ensured if an appropriate system of moral values exists;



create a harmonized, overlapping institutional system that functions on different levels of decision-making. The principle of subsidiarity does not only mean that decisions should be made on the level at which information is available, but also that upper levels should support lower levels in handling problems. Expertise, material resources and perhaps coercive measures are desirable if, for example, a local government, driven by economic interests, harms the living standards of local inhabitants. Some inhabitants of metropolitan agglomerations have fallen victim to such conduct;



recognize and incorporate non-priced ecosystem services into development proposals.

The construction of a motorway, a wind farm, a landfill or a sewage system involves

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environmental destruction, the rate of which may be decreased only if suitable impact assessments are prepared and alternative proposals are also examined; 

be open to change: create an atmosphere supportive of innovation and experimentation – this presupposes the existence of trust in institutional systems. It is worth testing everything out on small scale before mass rollout. Smaller shocks can be met through the flexible responses of ecosystems and society;



be strongly committed to avoiding major shocks and to responding quickly (e.g. providing feedback about) large scale events.

Introducing the Celestial Footprint1 One of the greatest dangers of using GDP is that it is often associated, more or less, with wellbeing which is a different and more complex concept. Such misleading use is easy to avoid. We now also introduce an analysis of a measure of subjective wellbeing (or happiness,2 see Diener, 1984, 2002) which seems to be a better candidate for an index of general wellbeing than GDP. For specific purposes, of course, GDP may be regarded as a somewhat good proxy for the objective conditions of wellbeing, while happiness may be its subjective side (cf. Vemuri and Costanza, 2006). As a limiting factor we use ecological footprint data (Wackernagel and Rees, 1996).

Now, using this happiness and ecological footprint data, the concept of celestial footprint can be introduced. The name ’footprint’ refers to the concept of the ecological footprint which is designed to quantify human material demand relative to a sustainable basis. The name ’celestial’ refers to features of human existence complementary to the ecological footprint because human beings need far more than just material resources to reach a state of wellbeing and a good quality of life. To highlight the contrast with the earthly emphasis on the ecological footprint it seems suitable to name this concept ’celestial’, which clearly points to the spiritual and/or non-material parameters of human existence (cf. Clark and Lelkes, 2009) without any demand for the subject to be familiar with any specific religious tradition. Of course, the important question of the type of spirituality needs additional consideration.

Moreover, it must be recognized that sources of celestial footprint might not be solely spiritual, although spirituality is an important element.

1 2

This section of the paper is part is mostly based on Kocsis (2012).

We use subjective wellbeing and happiness as synonyms.

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As a theoretical concept, celestial footprint is not directly measurable. But as a good proxy it is worth estimating it as a ratio of perceived subjective wellbeing and calculated ecological footprint (happiness/gHa) over some time period.3 This concept is not sensitive to the size of population, as by using per capita measures we produce the same ratio mentioned above [(happiness/capita) / (gHa/capita)]. Celestial footprint is therefore a general characteristic of a community regardless of population (ceteris paribus, changes in population do not affect celestial footprint). As the ecological footprint usually measures privately consumable material resources it naturally depends of the size of the population. As ‘consumption’ of celestial/non-material resources measured by celestial footprint has a communitarian (nonprivate, common good) characteristic it is the same size either for one person or a million.

Celestial footprint relates to the non-material content of the happiness of a specific community or of a person. The higher the celestial footprint is, the less the material content of a specific happiness level. The dynamic face of pursuing a bigger celestial footprint is easy to recognize: this is the question of “how to be happier with the same ecological load”; or of “how to decrease our ecological load without being unhappier”. Of course, the numerator and denominator may change simultaneously. The question of the celestial footprint is crucial in a materially limited and by now unsustainable world because our celestial resource pool of happiness is by its nature unlimited. But the potential to utilize this resource is not given by nature – it is rather a question of ability, influenced by culture, attitudes, and values of individuals (cf. Elgin, 1993; Soper, 2008).

While the concept of celestial footprint in itself seems to be clear, it is worth analyzing its relationship to the economy and to monetary issues too. This leads us to two other important ratios which may be identified as components (or factors) of celestial footprint in the monetary world of economics. We now introduce the Kuznets factor (eco-efficiency)4 and the Easterlin factor5 into our analysis.

3

We may think of this ratio as an environmentally efficient measure of wellbeing. This concept was introduced by Dietz et al. (2009), though their method is different.

4 As the Environmental Kuznets Curve conception analyses the connection between affluence (A) (usually measured in dollars of GDP/capita) and specific environmental loads it seems reasonable to call the $/gHa ratio a Kuznets-factor. An increase may indicate greater monetary affluence from the same environmental load or less environmental loading with the same monetary affluence. Of course the numerator and denominator may change simultaneously, leading to many special cases.

5 As Ronald Easterlin (1974, 1995) first analyzed the connection between monetary affluence and happiness in a country over time, it seems reasonable to name the happiness/$ ratio the Easterlinfactor. It measures the de-monetization of happiness. An increase in the ratio may indicate higher levels of happiness from the same level of monetary affluence or less monetary affluence paired with the same level of happiness. Of course, the numerator and denominator may change simultaneously leading to many special cases.

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It is worth noticing here that both Kuznets and Easterlin factors are indifferent to changes in size of population (as is true for the product, celestial footprint). As increases or decreases in the economy should rarely be ends in themselves, it is hard to say that higher or lower Kuznets or Easterlin factors are good or bad in themselves. For example, sustainability experts usually praise higher eco-efficiency (higher Kuznets factors) but the origins of these increases are too manifold to be positively evaluated without additional information. Despite these issues it is true that both the Kuznets and the Easterlin factors are factors of the celestial footprint whose growth is always beneficial. The upper part of Table 1 summarizes all the information regarding celestial footprint, Kuznets factor, and the Easterlin factor.

Table 1 The Celestial Footprint, the Kuznets Factor, and the Easterlin Factor; Paths of increasing Happiness and Trade-offs between paths of Gaining Happiness

Measure Essence IPATa

Kuznets factor $/gHa non-material dollars (eco-efficiency) 1/Tenv

X X X

X

Easterlin factor Happ/$ Nonmonetized happiness Thapp

= = =

celestial footprint Happ/gHa Non-material happiness

=

Thapp/Tenv (Ihapp/Ienv)

Channel-1b Channel-2 Channel-3 Channel-4

–  – 

 – – 

  – –

mat. trade-off non-mat. trade-off monet. trade-off non-mon. trade-off

   

– –  

  – –

a

For the connection with the IPAT formula

b

Upward pointing arrows indicate an increasing tendency for the measure in question; downward pointing arrows show the opposite.

Paths of Gaining Happiness Too aid in understanding basic happiness-gaining scenarios, a simple model was developed (see Fig. 1). There are thousands of ways to increase/maintain happiness but all these seem to have commonalities as: (1) they either use earthly or celestial resources; and, (2) these resources are either achieved via markets (price tagged resources) or they are not (i.e. they are

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free in monetary terms).6 These possibilities indicate that there are four basic channels for gaining human happiness.

Channel-1: Here we directly use non-material (celestial) and non-price-tagged resources which have nothing to do with market mechanisms or the economy and which may be regarded as ‘storing up treasures in heaven’. Warm family atmospheres, a high level of social capital (Leung et al., 2011), the enjoyment of natural beauty or silence, or having the benefits of a clear world-view may all have this characteristic, as does receiving an English lesson in kind, too. This way of gaining happiness corresponds to the later-described strategy of voluntary simplicity and increases celestial footprint through increasing the Easterlin factor (see the middle section of Table 1).

6

Causality is a constant issue for happiness studies. As our model is a resource-based one we suppose that resource use is the cause, and happiness is the effect.

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Fig. 1 Channels of Gaining Happiness (Note: Increasing celestial footprint and decreasing ecological footprint is always beneficial in our materially limited world.)

Channel-2: This channel uses the same non-material resource pool as Channel-1 while resources are used via market mechanisms. In modern societies, every marketed and monetized value added to material resources falls into this category. Eco-efficiency (or the Kuznets factor) as a non-material source of GDP reflects this phenomenon. Economic development – without material growth – also falls into this category. The monetary values of licenses, marketed logos or cultural relics all are examples of this category, as well as the whole strategy described earlier based on more intensive use of services and greater division of labor (the flow economy). This way of gaining happiness increases the celestial footprint through an improved Kuznets factor (see the middle section of Table 1).

Channel-3:”repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar” (Mt 22,21)/. This channel corresponds to our main understanding of economy. Here we use material resources via market mechanisms for buying all types of material resources, foods, clothes, etc. Critics of economic growth – familiar with the stock economy – assume that: (1) this way of pursuing happiness is the most typical and yet is unsustainable in a materially limited world, and that; (2) dollars of GDP (or any other category of indicators of economic performance) correlate to the ecological load of humanity.7 While this connection clearly exists, it would be misleading to forget about the other three channels of pursuing happiness. This method of gaining happiness does not increase celestial footprint at all, as we get happier through increasing the ecological footprint here (see the middle section of Table 1).

Channel-4:”Look at the birds in the sky; they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them” (Mt 6,26). This channel indicates our direct use of material resources which are not mediated via market mechanisms - these resources are free in monetary terms. Breathing fresh air and drinking free clean water are all examples of this. What is more, in a system of reciprocity (see Polanyi, 1944), material resources are usually exploited via the reciprocal help of a wider family net without any money transfers.

While this mode of activity may have less weight in a modern market system, it can still be significant (housework, etc.). The importance of this way of gaining happiness may differ considerably between countries/communities. This method of gaining happiness does not 7

For example, the sustainable ‘de-growth’ movement is strongly based on this assumption (see e.g.

Martínez-Alier et al., 2010).

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increase celestial footprint at all, as we get happier by increasing the ecological footprint, but it restructures the relation between the Easterlin and the Kuznets factors (see the middle section of Table 1). What the Easterlin factor gains, the Kuznets factor loses, nullifying all effects on celestial footprint. (This way of gaining happiness – along with Channel 1 – corresponds to the later described strategy of voluntary simplicity.)

Of course, these channels may be the ‘sources’ of different kinds of ’bads’ as well, which act to lessen our happiness (leaking happiness). Identifying these is easy, as we only need to reverse all the above-discussed developments (cf. Fig. 1). Analyzing these bads opens a new way of discussing negative externalities too, which may be the subject of another paper. In sum, these channels may be combined in almost endless variations, offering myriads of attractive or avoidable development paths for any country/community.

(Non)material and (non)monetary trade-offs Using our 4-channel happiness model it is possible to identify two basic trade-offs; namely, the (non)material trade-off and the (non)monetary trade-off.

Clean cases of material trade-offs occur if reducing Channel-1 will be compensated by increased use of Channel-4; or if reducing Channel-2 will be compensated by increased use of Channel-3 (Fig. 1). In these cases the ecological footprint and material content of happiness increase while the level of happiness is unchanged. Celestial footprint decreases here through a mitigated Kuznets factor (eco-efficiency worsens; see the bottom section of Table 1). The reverse of this development is the non-material trade-off. As this latter reduces ecological footprint without any happiness loss through better eco-efficiency and a bigger celestial footprint, it is always a blissful scenario.

Clean cases of monetary trade-offs occur if reducing Channel-1 will be compensated for by increased use of Channel-2; or if reducing Channel-4 will be compensated for by increased use of Channel-3 (Fig. 1). In these cases dollars of GDP and the monetary content of happiness increase while the level of happiness is unchanged. Celestial footprint is untouched while Kuznets factor is increased (eco-efficiency is improved) and the Easterlin factor decreases (see bottom section of Table 1). This is the classic version of Easterlin-paradox.

The reverse of this development is the non-monetary trade-off. As this reduces dollars of GDP (indicates a shrinking economy) without any loss of happiness through an improved Easterlin factor, it does not seem to be a socially harmful scenario, while its impact on the environment, in its clean form, is completely indifferent.

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Naturally, these types of monetary or non-monetary trade-offs still raise the important question of which absolute level of economy (or with which economic considerations) a society should live, or what level of connectedness between economy and society should be regarded as sound and desirable. The strategy of a flow economy says that more dollars of GDP and greater division of labor in a society is advantageous, while proponents of voluntary simplicity would argue the opposite (see later). These two basic, alternative economic strategies demonstrate the diversity of viable sustainability paths, while their commonality relates to the human oneness declared in the Fuji declaration: we need happiness and wellbeing in a sustainable form.

IPAT and the logic of Celestial Footprint At the macro level one of the best possible analytical tools for analyzing environmental load is the IPAT formula developed by Ehrlich and Holdren (1971, 1972) and Commoner (1972) for more details on this topic see McNicoll (2002).

Ienvironment = P · A · Tenvironment Here, mankind’s load on the environment (I − Impact) is viewed as three factors acting together: population (P), affluence (A), and technology (T). Accurate measurement of these factors is crucial. P will be dealt in its natural dimension (capita). A will be measured by GDP/capita (where GDP is measured in US$, using purchasing power parity). One of the most comprehensive measurements of I uses the ecological footprint (Wackernagel and Rees, 1996) which is measured in global hectares. Thus for T, the most obscure factor in IPAT, we get gHa/$, which is a measure of material intensity. So our equation, written in units of measurement, looks like this: gHa = (capita) · ($/capita) · (gHa/$) But it is worth developing a second, hedonic IPAT formula too. Here, our main question is “what is the use and aim of economic activity?” To answer this we rely on the subjective wellbeing (SWB) conception using data from the most comprehensive worldwide database (Veenhoven, 2006). This is usually measured using an eleven (0−10) grade scale – or is transformed to this scale – wherein the highest value refers to the highest subjective wellbeing or happiness. To collect this data, the surveyor should phrase a question similar to this: “Taking all things together, would you say you are very happy/quite happy/not very happy/not at all happy” (this question is taken from World Values Surveys, organized by Inglehart).

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This measurement helps us to view not just the material resource-based side of economic activity but its positive side too. Now we are able to reformulate the classical IPAT formula with a modified focus: Ihappiness = P · A · Thappiness It is clear that economic activity (P · A) − as a starting point − contributes not just to environmental load but to human subjective wellbeing as well, because increasing human wellbeing is usually the main motive for transforming and exploiting our natural environment through economic activity. Of course, subjective wellbeing does not exactly originate from economic activity: lots of other subjective factors are involved and combined together (psychological, cultural, and behavioral; see Diener et al., 2003; cf. Fig. 1); these can be summed up in the factor Thappiness. This factor opens up a way to extend the IPAT analysis through involving important human characteristics (cf. IPBAT: Diesendorf, 2002; IPANT: Daniels, 2010; etc.) without sacrificing the mathematical rigor of the original IPAT formula.

Using units of measurement our equation can now be written as: aggregate happiness = (capita) · ($/capita) · (aggregate happiness/$) The Tenvironment and Thappiness concepts were combined to make the concept of celestial footprint.

Voluntary Simplicity: a radical, non-market strategy for increasing Celestial Footprint The concept of voluntary simplicity, as well as the movement associated with, it is considered to be an institutionalized form of resistance to consumer society. The essence of voluntary simplicity is a way of life which is outwardly simple but inwardly (spiritually) rich. It has its roots in the legendary frugality and self-reliance of the Puritans, Thoreau’s naturalistic vision at Walden Pond, Emerson’s practical and spiritual espousal of simple living and high thinking as well as the teachings and social philosophy of spiritual leaders—with different levels of authority—such as Jesus and Gandhi. According to the advocates of voluntary simplicity, the current social and environmental crisis is placing special emphasis on these ideas, urging people to live a socially and environmentally responsible way of life.

It is easier to understand the current implications of voluntary simplicity if we compare its value set to that the material worldview. In this way we can highlight what the theoreticians and conscious followers of the voluntary simplicity movement do not accept about the

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prevalent social-economic system (Elgin, 1993) and how they define themselves in opposition to it.

Voluntary simplifiers strongly criticize consumer society, which is based on materialism. The material nature of consumer society is proved by the fact that its goal is material progress and one’s identity is defined by the material goods possessed one possesses, as well as the social position one can achieve based on these goods. According to this view, man is nothing more than a group of molecules which exists alone and separately, other human beings are considered to be rivals, while the living or inorganic environment is regarded as a resource to be exploited. Voluntary simplifiers do not deny the importance of material goods but—as opposed to materialists—they also emphasize the importance of spiritual concerns. They think the goal of life is to co-evolve both in a material and spiritual way. A person is an inseparable part of the universe around him/her: this view results in co-operation with other human beings and other living beings, as well as showing respect for them. The mass media have an especially important role in the forming of values. Voluntary simplifiers think they are dominated by commercial interests which promote material values, although they should emphasize a balanced diet of values and the importance of taking an ecological approach to living. Voluntary simplifiers stress the role of personal responsibility in relation to global problems (the importance of the aggregate effect of a lot of minor actions) and reject the idea of shifting responsibility to the free market or government bureaucracies (that is, they oppose extreme libertarian capitalism and communism).

There are five values which lie at the heart of voluntary simplicity: material simplicity, human scale, self-determination, ecological awareness and personal growth (Elgin–Mitchell, 1977, 5–8.).

The extent of one’s material simplicity can be examined by answering the following questions (after The American Friends Committee): (1) Does what I own or buy promote activity, selfreliance and involvement or does it induce passivity and dependence? (2) Are my consumption patterns basically satisfying or do I buy a lot of things which serve no real needs? (3) How much is my present job and life style influenced by installment payments, maintenance and repair costs and the expectations of others? (4) Do I consider the impact of my consumption patterns on others and on the Earth?

Answering these questions can help one to establish a life of creative simplicity and to free oneself from excessive attachment to material goods, aids with national sharing of wealth with those who cannot fulfil their basic needs (the poor), helps individuals to become less

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dependent on large and complex public or private institutions and restores the balance between the material and non-material components of life.

Adherents of voluntary simplicity regard human-scale living and working conditions as important because they think that operating on a massive scale results in anonymity, incomprehensibility and artificiality. As stated by Ernst F. Schumacher in his book entitled Small is Beautiful (1980), living and working environments as well as supportive institutions should be decentralized as much as possible in order to create more comprehensible and manageable entities. Each person should be aware of what he or she is contributing to the whole and how much his or her responsibility (as well as share of the reward) should be.

The notion of self-determination in voluntary simplicity refers to a form of consumption which results in greater control over one’s desires and suggests that one should be free one from paying installments, maintenance costs and the expectations of others. The key principles of this process are “grow your own”, “make your own” and “do without”, all of which help to reduce (both psychological and physical) dependency on consumption. The principles also act against the excessive division of labor.8 The aim of human labor will be again be to produce the whole of a product, not only a small part of it, in this way making the sense of contribution more evident. Self-determination also includes aversion to the unnecessary intrusion of distant bureaucracies and a wish for greater local self-determination and grass roots political action.9 Ecological awareness is the recognition of the mutual connections and interdependence of people and natural resources. It acknowledges that the resources of the Earth are limited, which should encourage us to conserve physical resources and reduce environmental pollution, as well as to maintain the beauty and integrity of the natural environment.

Ecological awareness often extends beyond the issue of scarce resources and includes social responsibility: it makes us aware of those who are less fortunate than us. The philosophy— espoused by Gandhi—means that one should avoid wanting what the least fortunate inhabitant of the Earth cannot afford. In this way the philosophy of voluntary simplicity extends beyond the boundaries of a nation, making it less isolated and self-centered than it otherwise could be.

8

This strategy is clearly different from that of the flow economy which was described earlier. By following the principles of voluntary simplicity, GDP would be reduced, but humans may nonetheless be fulfilled, and nature preserved.

9 This effort, termed subsidiarity, has been part of the social teaching of the Roman Catholic Church since the 1930s.

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For a lot of people, taking up a materially simple way of life means personal growth; it can help one with clearing up external chaos and exploring one’s ‘inner life’. The abovementioned basic values of voluntary simplicity encourage one to grow both psychologically and spiritually. If all you do is maintain yourself physically and forget about personal growth, then life becomes merely about “not dying”. Numerous advocates of voluntary simplicity think that American society (in the 1970s) became occupied with sustenance and forgot about the non-material aspects of life (cf. Scitovsky, 1976). Though personal growth often includes a spiritual component, it should not be associated with any particular philosophy or religion— it can embrace views ranging from humanistic psychology, transpersonal psychology, Eastern meditative traditions and feminism, as well as fundamental Christianity. This tolerant approach clearly points to support for human diversity and to “the divine spark in the heart and mind of every human being” that is highlighted in the Fuji Declaration.

Conclusions: Sustainability and interdependencies The Stockholm Resilience Centre examined ten dimensions with regard to the limits of the Earth. These dimensions are climate change, biodiversity, the nitrogen and phosphorus cycles, ocean acidification, stratospheric ozone depletion, freshwater use, land use, atmospheric aerosol loading and chemical pollution. By examining these dimensions it becomes obvious that if we transcend what constitutes "the Earth's boundaries" in any one of these dimensions, it will have an effect on several other dimensions. Many researchers emphasize the importance of systems theory and the necessity of holistic thinking, but we rarely find scientific findings that are multi-disciplinary in their approach and aimed at exploring interdependencies. With regard to sustainable development, the problem is further complicated by the dimension of time. In the case of economic research and forecasting, a 2030-year time horizon is already considered to be ‘long-term’, whereas in the case of sustainability research, even a few centuries count as an unduly short period of time.

Modelling is being used more and more extensively in order to predict economic and social processes. One often finds forecasts that contain different scenarios. Models are suitable for implementing sensitivity tests as well. It is interesting that predictions that have been based on models frequently contain outcomes that could not occur, in reality. For instance, fossil fuels may run out, in theory; in practice, however, this cannot occur because we would "cook" the Earth before we got to that point. In other words, significant portions of the Earth’s continents would become unsuitable for human life before the potentially-available fossil fuel was

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consumed – it would not be possible for 9 billion or even more people to live on the Earth. If there were fewer than nine billion people, the demand for energy would be less – and this train of thought can be continued in a similar way. One can make predictions about the development of air travel or tourism but data-based estimates are unrealistic as it is impossible that as many passenger air kilometers will be travelled or guests accommodated as is shown by such predictions. Thus the problem is that investigations and models are narrowed down to examining independent problems and the fact that the phenomena under investigation mutually affect each other, and there is a connection between almost everything, is generally left unexamined. Politicians and economic experts are concerned to a great extent with ageing and collapses of the welfare system but if we take into account tendencies in the migration of the world’s population, it becomes clear that Europe will not get older but will rather become more multicultural due to its young, non-Christian immigrants; what may become an issue is whether we will be able to create an institutional system that is able to maintain the level of social solidarity that we are used to in Europe. The issue is not so much the ageing of the population, but rather the question whether immigrant youth from Africa, China and India will be willing to work in Europe in order to provide for an older generation which did not have ‘enough’ offspring to support itself.

This group of problems that stems from cultural diversity is probably unresolvable without the paradigm change defined by the ‘Civilization of Oneness’ principle of the Fuji Declaration.

At the same time, it is obvious that an equally radical paradigm change is necessary in the area of the economy. On the one hand, for those who are radically opposed to the current market-based civilization, the voluntary simplicity movement seems viable. On the other hand – complementing, rather than contrasting with this trend – more market- and GDP-friendly economic scenarios can be delineated for less radical citizens. According to these, what should be made the focus of the economy is employment rather than profit; the fulfillment of needs rather than ownership; and the creation of durable and safe products and services rather than products and services that are subject to planned obsolescence. These changes will help to maintain and increase human wellbeing and quality of life, while at the same time preserving our finite natural environment for future generations, fulfilling, as it were, the principles laid down in the Fuji Declarations and completing the necessary economic paradigm change.

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New Media for a New Future: The Emerging Digital Landscape for a Planetary Society A Research Study on Behalf of the Goi Peace Foundation By Bente Milton, Coordinator - Denmark Kingsley L. Dennis – Spain/UK Duane Elgin – USA

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

p.3

Media in Transition

p.4

A New Superpower — Creative Transformation through New Media

p.6

Social Media as a Powerful Tool

p.10

New Media Empowering a New Generation

p.12

Transforming Education in the New Media Environment

p.14

The Transforming Power of Computer Games

p.15

The Hazard of an Always-On Lifestyle

p.17

New Stories for our Future

p.19

New Media and the Politics of Conscious Citizenship

p.21

Conclusion

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Introduction

Since the beginning of the 21st Century especially the media landscape has undergone a profound transformation. The growth and spread of global communication technologies has helped to foster a new terrain - a new playing field - that supports a whole wealth of new actors and players who are participating in changing the face of our media landscape.

One of the most significant aspects is the transition from a top-down media landscape, dominated by major global media conglomerates, to a horizontal, distributed, and decentralized model. This new model encourages the participation of individuals from across the globe who would otherwise be excluded from the old model of media production and distribution. What is now emerging is a new superpower - one that is arising from the combined voice and conscience of the world’s citizens mo≤nbilized through the revolution in global networks of communication.

In this report we aim to: 1) map the emerging media landscape 2) offer a longer-term view of how we see the influence and potential for transformational impact by the new media 3) reflect upon the obstacles in the merging of digital and physical lives 4) consider how this profound transition will re-write the narratives and stories that frame our own understanding as an emerging global species. Also, how the new emerging superpower of citizen-centered media is destined to re-write the script of the human story.

It is crucial we understand now this epochal transformation in order to co-participate and assist in the shift toward a more peaceful, equitable and interconnected planetary society. We begin by examining the systemic change of a media landscape in transition.

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Media in Transition It was our ability to communicate that enabled us to evolve from awakening huntergatherers to the edge of a planetary, species-civilization, and it will be our ability to communicate that will enable us to make it through this time of challenging transition.

To place this process in perspective, it is useful to step back and review the great revolutions that have brought us to this turning point in human history.

The First Industrial Revolution that began in Great Britain (1750-1850) revolutionized social, cultural, and economic conditions by shifting from the energy resource of wood to coal. The scope of communication was expanded with the invention of the first practical steam engines, roads and canals for travel. It was also the period when the telegraph was invented and brought into use.

The Second Industrial Revolution (1850-1920) marked the emergence of a significant shift in the way humans communicated on a more extensive scale. The early technologies of communication -- expanded telegraph, telephones, radio, and then the television -- brought the world even closer together. These new technologies of connectivity also triggered a reorientation in human perspective. A new perception of the dimensions of space and time gave birth to a consciousness that could now begin to look, reach out, and connect beyond the borders and horizons of the physical frontier.

From these technological innovations arose an expanding commercial media landscape that blanketed much of the Earth. Understandably, it was not long before consolidation and centralization produced a close-knit handful of media empires.

The main players in this new late twentieth-century western media landscape were: Disney, News Corp, Time-Warner, Viacom, Vivendi Universal, and Bertelsmann.

The mainstream news media that is disseminated via the above media conglomerates is largely fed by two global news services; Reuters (now Thomson Reuters) and Associated Press. This constitutes a centralization of news gathering and dissemination.

Now, we are in the midst of a Third Revolution—a Communications Revolution—where a new form of participatory consciousness is arising among people that perceive a way of connecting that is more egalitarian and engaged. The earlier technologies of radio and television produced a passive audience through a one-way model whereby people were consumers of information. However, the new model of media is based upon people engaging as prosumers -- as producers of their own content that is then published and disseminated through the distributed networks of our global communications.

YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, blogging, podcasts, etc, are the platforms and channels of the new media landscape. These burgeoning media networks have matured tremendously over the past decade, spreading locally-produced content through the electronic nervous system of the planet . A more mature form of collective social intelligence is beginning to manifest around the world as the shift increases from the consumption of information to the creation, production and participation in a more 4 88

fluid, dynamic, and interactive mode of media. This game-change in how media is produced and published is already having a marked effect upon traditional media platforms. As Buckminster Fuller so aptly described - “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

It is an error to think the communications revolution is primarily serving only developed nations. In many cases the reverse is in progress. This technological revolution has had some of its most startling impacts in empowering the poorer regions and peoples. 

In 2012 the planetary population was around 7 billion and the number of registered Internet users was 33% or approximately 2.3 billion people.



By 2020 world population is estimated to be 7.8 billion and Internet users worldwide are estimated to be 66% or approximately 5.1 billion people -- that’s a strong majority of the world’s population with the potential for nearly 3 billion new people plugging in to the global conversation. This is the foundation for an emerging superpower where planetary citizens have an unprecedented, collective voice—an “Earth Voice.”

Looking ahead only five years, nearly 3 billion new minds will be tapping in to the information flows—and that’s billions of new creative problem solvers, innovators, and visionaries! What is more, the majority of these new minds will be coming online from Asia, the Middle East, and developing countries. These will be mostly young minds; and minds with necessities, with the urge for social betterment. A tribesman in Africa with a mobile phone now has access to better communications than did President Reagan 25 years ago. Furthermore, if they have a smart phone with Internet connections, they have better communications access than did President Clinton 15 years ago. This shows the power of exponential change.

What is more, it is the consciousness of the creative, young minds behind these technologies of communication that are the true source of power. Can we imagine the collective potential of these creative minds entering the new media landscape, many of them thinking outside of the old patterns and paradigms? Imagine living in a world where a few humans can touch the lives of millions. This world has already arrived!

Citizens living in poorer countries will be able to leapfrog over the previous industrial revolutions and jump directly into the digital age. As billions of people from developing countries become increasingly connected they will join with others through a vastly expanding array of citizen-centered media. In many ways, the established social order is little prepared for what lies ahead. They were already taken aback when the networked protests of the Arab Spring erupted in 2011. In today’s digitally-connected world a single individual can connect with and catalyze thousands, if not millions, of people around the world within this new landscape.

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One example of digital empowerment involves Oscar Morales, a resident of Columbia, who one day felt so much anger against the FARC rebels (The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) of his native country that he decided to express himself. Late in the evening of January 4th, 2008 he created a Facebook page and named it “One million voices against FARC” (Un Millon de Voces Contra Las FARC). By 9 a.m. the next morning, he found that fifteen hundred people had already joined his group. By the late afternoon the group had grown to four thousand members. By the second day, the group not only had eight thousand members, but people were actively posting on the discussion board and seeking to connect with him physically and publically. As a result of his catalytic posting, on February 4th 2008 – a mere four weeks after the group was begun – millions of Colombians marched throughout the country, and in major cities worldwide, to express their anger at FARC. In the space of a single month, one individual had catalyzed millions of people to come together in 27 cities in Colombia and 104 other cities around the world to march in empathy and solidarity.

As this example illustrates, a new superpower is emerging on the Earth. This new superpower is the combined voice and conscience of the world’s citizens mobilized through the global communications revolution. Although often chaotic, fragmented, and confusing, the emergence of social movements such as ‘Arab Spring’ and ‘Occupy’ demonstrate to ordinary citizens that an individual voice can have a powerful collective impact, particularly when expressed with the maturity and dignity of non-violence.

A New Superpower — Creative Transformation through New Media When the people of the Earth are not simply on the receiving end of media as a collective witness to climate disruption, intense poverty, genocide, etc., but also capable of offering a collective voice for change, then a new and powerful force for creative transformation is unleashed in the world We are witnessing a metamorphosis which could be compared to the story of how a caterpillar transforms into a butterfly: The caterpillars new cells are called 'imaginal cells.' They resonate at a different frequency and they are so different from the caterpillar cells that his immune system thinks they are enemies. But these new imaginal cells continue to appear. More and more of them, and pretty soon, the caterpillar's immune system cannot destroy them fast enough.

The imaginal cells start to clump together, into friendly little groups.

They all resonate together at the same frequency, passing information from one to another. After awhile, clumps of imaginal cells start to cluster together. Then an amazing thing happens! A long string of clumping and clustering imaginal cells, all resonating at the same frequency, and all passing information from one to another there inside the chrysalis, starts to create the wings of the butterfly.

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Thanks to communication capacities that are intensely interactive, highly intelligent, and virtually instantaneous, the citizens of the Earth now have the power to communicate together and express a shared vision for the future.

For the first time in human history, people from all over the world are acquiring a way to listen to and talk with one another as members of one family. As we start to connect with each other across continents, we begin to see that humanity has the potential for an evolutionary leap forward. However, having the technical ability to communicate with ourselves does not mean we will automatically do so. The question remains open as to whether we have the collective maturity to consciously seize this precious opportunity.

It is imperative that we learn, and share, how to become conscious and responsible citizens of the planet.

The mass media are a primary window through which we see the world. If the mass media present diminished images of ourselves as isolated consumers who only want to be entertained, then we will tend to fulfill that self-image. However, if we see portrayals of ourselves as citizens of the Earth who are actively engaged in a heroic journey of transition, we will tend to fulfill that self-image. Because the mass media are so powerful in presenting and reinforcing our story and self-image as a species, it is critically important to use the dominant story telling machine of mass culture to tell ourselves bigger stories about where we are, who we are, and where we are going.

Learning to see ourselves in the collective mirror of the mass media is as important as learning to see ourselves in the mirror of our personal consciousness. Once there is inclusive and sustained social reflection, we can build a working consensus regarding appropriate actions for a promising future. We are a visual species; we cannot consciously build a positive future that we have not first collectively imagined. When we can see a sustainable and promising future, we can build it. Actions can then come quickly and voluntarily. Self-organizing actions will be vital to success, as hundreds of millions of people are being challenged to act in cooperation with one another. With local to global communication, we can mobilize ourselves purposefully, and each can contribute their unique talents to the creation of a life-affirming future.

At the very time that humanity requires a dramatic, new level of communication, the emerging media are making the world more transparent to itself. Particularly with the Internet, the world is bursting with conversations from the grass roots and bringing an entirely new layer of conversation and connection into global culture. Through the eyes of these new media, we can see climate disruption producing crop failures and famine in Africa, the destruction of rain forests in Brazil, coastlines eroding from hurricanes in the United States, violent conflict fueled by religious differences in the Middle East, and the impact of fluctuating energy prices around the world. This new distributed media makes every person a global witness—a knowing and feeling participant in world affairs.

Although we now have access to the world more than ever before, we must be mindful of the weakness inherent in the very strength of the Internet. The vast outpouring of

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views and voices from the grass roots is flooding the Internet with an overwhelming and confusing avalanche of messages. Without a way to aggregate hundreds of millions of voices and views and discover an ongoing, working consensus, we will be paralyzed. Therefore, to combine our collective sentiments, we require regular opportunities for mass communication where millions and even billions of persons can gather to explore our common future. The scope and quality of our collective attention is the most precious resource we have as a human community. If we don’t pay attention while decisions of monumental importance are being made, then we effectively forfeit our future. The bottom line is this: if we are to take practical steps to awaken our society, then citizens must make their voices heard by creating a more reflective and responsive media environment.

Many people feel profoundly disempowered when it comes to current media institutions. It is now time to move beyond disempowerment: As the media goes, so goes the future. The media are the most visible representation of our collective mind. As our collective mind goes, so goes our collective future. Currently, our collective mind is being programmed for commercial success and evolutionary failure.

Building cultures of sustainability will require as much creativity, energy, and enthusiasm as we have invested in building cultures of consumption. It is vital we begin conversations about sustainability at a scale that matches the actual scope of the challenges we face—and often these are of regional, national, and global scale. The world has become intensely interdependent. Our consciousness and conversations need to match the scale of the world in which we live. This is a time for rapid learning and experimentation locally, while being mindful of how we connect and evolve globally.

The business-as-usual focus of global media on commerce and entertainment needs to be replaced by planetary-scale truth telling where we humans work to heal the wounds of history and then, together, forge a workable vision of a sustainable and meaningful future. It was communication that enabled humans to evolve from early hunter-gatherers to the verge of a planetary civilization, and it will be communication that enables us to become a bonded human family committed to the well-being of all.

At the very time that we need an unprecedented capacity for local-to-global communication, we find we have the necessary tools in abundance. New media networks are blossoming from the local to national to global scale and making the sentiments of the body politic highly visible. When everyone knows the ‘whole world is watching’—when economic, ethnic, ideological, and religious violence is brought before the court of world public opinion through the Internet and citizen media—it will bring a powerful corrective influence into human relations. As groups and nations see their actions scrutinized and judged by the rest of the world community, we will become more inclined to search for ethical and nonviolent approaches.

Because communication is fundamental to our common future, it is critical that the human community work to consciously bridge the digital divide, extend the communications culture to all corners of the globe, and build an effective ‘social mirror’

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for the human family—one that authentically reflects back both the adversities and the opportunities of our times. All cultures will be naked—their history forever exposed in a world made transparent by decentralized and accessible media—and confronted with the need to make amends for wrongs committed in the past if there is to be release into a promising future. A supreme challenge will be to hold a steady and undistorted social mirror as we struggle for collective understanding, respect, and reconciliation. Societies without a tradition of freedom of speech will find this both liberating and extremely demanding as new skills of inclusion and reconciliation are required to participate effectively.

One of the most helpful and powerful actions we can take as we move through this transition as a species is to increase opportunities for conscious reflection from the personal to the planetary scale. Personal reflection refers to seeing ourselves in the mirror of consciousness as individuals and to observe the unfolding of our lives. By analogy, social reflection refers to seeing ourselves in the mirror of collective consciousness by using the tools of a new media landscape.

The more widely and accurately our time of initiation is witnessed by the people of the Earth through global media networks, the more powerfully the lessons of this time will be grounded in our collective lives and memory. In turn, the less likely it is that we will have to relearn these lessons in the future. As societies, we can learn through our collective imagination by showing ourselves visions of the future we would not want to enact in our actual experience—such as a world in a whole-systems crisis that descends into the meanest form of survival mentality and utterly devastates the biosphere, leaving a mutilated and crippled planet for generations to inhabit for the indefinite future. If we can see the outlines and dimensions of disaster in our social imagination, we may not need to manifest it in our direct experience.

Ultimately, with social reflection we can explore core questions such as ‘Who are we as a species?’, and ‘What kind of journey are we on?’ As our capacity for social reflection grows in scope and depth, we can choose our social conversations more wisely and look for promising pathways ahead. Actions can come quickly and voluntarily as we develop a shared understanding and a working consensus for a promising future.

With a shared vision, each person can contribute his or her unique talents in creating that future. Voluntary, self-organizing action will be vital to our success. Our swiftly developing world situation is far too complex for any one individual, group, or nation to understand the remedies that will work for everyone. While being mindful of the conditions and needs at the global scale, we can work creatively at the local scale to adapt to changing conditions. This is a time for diverse, local experimentation undertaken in a context of rich communication from the local to the global levels and involving the participation of many young new minds.

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Social Media as a Powerful Tool In a world of immensely difficult challenges, social movements can help to identify the source of problems, the groups and individuals that stand in the way of solutions, and the way in which resolving those issues will lift up our best and highest selves.

The use of social media as a powerful tool for building social movements is unquestionable. In recent years, social movement groups have been using the Internet to accomplish an extraordinary range of tasks resulting in successful and innovative local and global projects. The Internet helps to increase the speed, reach and effectiveness of social movement-related communication as well as mobilization efforts. Crowd sourcing, flash mobs, and other social innovation can spark movements in today’s digital world that can gain incredible momentum within hours whereas previously the slow speed of telephones and letters took weeks to realize similar goals. If power in a democracy is the power to communicate, then citizen empowerment has grown tremendously in the past few years alone and will continue to escalate, wiring together our global nervous system.

We can witness the power of the social media by noting how in recent years it has become an ever more powerful and critical force in the awakening of citizen empowerment and coordinated action. For example, recently we have seen the explosive growth of major and impactful movements such as Occupy Wall Street and the Arab Spring. The 2009–2010 Iranian election protests demonstrated how social networking sites could mobilize large numbers of people quicker and easier than ever seen before. Iranians were able to speak out against the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and reach a broad audience, by using popular sites such as Twitter and Facebook. This in turn prompted widespread government censorship of the web and social networking sites. If we are in a race between citizen communication and catastrophe, then the conscious use of social media has the potential to tip the world toward a more promising future.

In a recent survey the Committee to Protect Journalists listed the top 10 countries where the Internet is most controlled: 1. North Korea. All websites are under government control. About 4% of the population has Internet 2. Burma. Authorities filter e-mails and block access to sites of groups that expose human rights violations or disagree with the government.

3. Cuba. Internet available only at government controlled "access points." Activity online is monitored through IP blocking, keyword filtering and browsing history checking. Only pro-government users may upload content.

4. Saudi Arabia. Around 400,000 sites have been blocked, including any that discuss political, social or religious topics incompatible with the Islamic beliefs of the monarchy.

5. Iran. Bloggers must register at the Ministry of Art and Culture. Those that express opposition to the mullahs who run the country are harassed and jailed

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6. China. China has the most rigid censorship program in the world. The government filters searches, block sites and erases "inconvenient" content, rerouting search terms on Taiwan independence or the Tiananmen Square massacre to items favorable to the Communist Party.

7. Syria. Bloggers who "jeopardize national unity" are arrested. Cyber cafes must ask all customers for identification, record time of use and report the information to authorities.

8. Tunisia. Tunisian Internet service providers must report to the government the IP addresses and personal information of all bloggers. All traffic goes through a central network. The government filters all content uploaded and monitors emails.

9. Vietnam. The Communist Party requires Yahoo, Google and Microsoft to divulge data on all bloggers who use their platforms. It blocks websites critical of the government, as well as those that advocate for democracy, human rights and religious freedom.

10. Turkmenistan. The only Internet service provider is the government. It blocks access to many sites and monitors all e-mail accounts in Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail.

In countries with unrestricted access to the Internet, any individual or organization can launch a campaign on social media. However, starting a successful movement is not that simple. A campaign that appears to be self-serving won't resonate with others and is unlikely to have a significant impact. The greater the authenticity and flexibility the greater the chance of virality and, ultimately, success.

Jean Dobey – founder and CEO of Hibe - has listed five elements as key aspects when it comes to creating a social media campaign that engages with people on a human level: 1) Pick a cause you believe in The obvious first step is to pick a specific cause – such as raising awareness of a political concern, fundraising for a charity or highlighting an environmental issue.

The important thing is that it's something you genuinely believe in.

2) Define the goal of the campaign The aim of the social media campaign must be clearly defined. This objective will influence everything from the language used, the platforms that are leveraged to how people engage with the campaign. Determining the ultimate goal will also help to create a compelling call to action. By giving people something they can respond to and rally behind, you greatly increase the chances of the campaign going viral.

3) Show what the cause means to you

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The virality of a movement on social media is determined by whether people can empathize on a human level. You need to show why people should care about a particular cause and what impact it could have on them or someone around them.

By providing your personal reasons for supporting this cause, you can lend credibility and increase the likelihood that it will strike a chord with people in your network.

4) Let others share their story The most effective campaigns have a human touch that people can connect with and that prompts them to share their experiences. A campaign must provide a platform for contributors to express what a particular cause means to them. It should also give people the flexibility to share in a manner that suits them best – the It Gets Better Project enables contributors to share both video and written submissions of their stories. A social media movement that fails to allow people to add their own experiences is less likely to take off. In fact, it is the emotion that others express in response to the cause that enables a campaign to gain traction.

5) Select the right social media tools The tools you use will depend on your objective. If it's to raise awareness, effective messaging and a social presence may be all that's needed. Idle No More was initially viewed as a local campaign before it used Facebook and Twitter to gain international recognition. A petition platform – such as Change.org – can be combined with social networks to urge policymakers to address a political or societal issue.

Looking at the condition of our world, a revolution in social media is vital for awakening our collective imagination and for building a collective consensus— affirming that it is important for us to connect and communicate. As diverse citizens of our communities, countries, and cultures we have a larger responsibility to step forward in sincere dialogue about our concern for our common future. We now have the public reach and the tools -- in abundance -- to do just that. In 2014, Internet is accessible to more than 3 billion people . Within five more years, it will be accessible to more than 5 billion people—a majority of citizens on the planet. The tools for giving the people of the Earth a voice that transcends the gridlock of nation-state politics are now available—and it seems vital for our collective future to develop them consciously.

Using the Internet and digital tools for choosing our pathway together into a more promising future is a now core challenge of our times and our species. We are being asked to reveal and then to heal age-old differences - and then to vote, together, on choices that are genuinely pivotal to the lives of countless generations to come and to the future of the Earth.

New Media Empowering a New Generation

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The youth of the world are entering an evolutionary phase of immense responsibility -and opportunity. Today’s youth represent the first generation who have grown up with digital technology and spent their entire lives using computers, videogames, mobile phones, and all the other toys and tools of the digital age. Combined with social media platforms, these technologies are rapidly wiring the global brain and supporting the awakening of a new level and quality of collective consciousness. Children coming of age in this new media context will show marked differences in their consumption – and production – of media. They will be active prosumers of media content, not only consumers. The following are a number of key changes that we foresee in the media landscape over the coming years: 1) Young minds will tire of a fear mongering, fear-sponsoring media. The programming that dominated mainstream media in past decades often presented crudely commercial content that delighted in high-tension and stressful drama: in conflicts, murder, and sexual exploitation. Such mind manipulating programming will cease to inspire a new younger generation.

2) There will be a shift in media programming toward what elevates a person rather than what promotes fear and greedy materialism. The minds and hearts of the new generation will increasingly reject negative news and stories, and naturally shift away from such primitive programming. The mainstream media will be forced – through declining viewership and advertising revenues – to broadcast more inspiring and uplifting programs.

3) The age of top-down, corporate-controlled media will no longer be the dominant force as self-produced content becomes increasingly the norm. Megamedia corporations will continue to merge and consolidate as they find it difficult to perpetuate their old style of broadcasting in a media environment that is increasingly people-centered, locally produced, globally distributed, and with a positive orientation.

4) Young people will become their own journalists - creating, producing, and out-sourcing their services. Individuals will not only contribute stories and news items to the mainstream media, but will also create their own media platforms.

Many new voices will become recognized as credible sources of information and understanding. Young media activists from around the world will supply information faster than mainstream journalists. Also, they will report from areas that mainstream media either cannot, or will not, go to – such as local violent conflict zones or selective communities. Peer-to-peer programming will become more popular as people prefer to produce and share their own news, stories, and events.

5) Transparency will become the new watchword as mainstream media and governments make closer ties. As online content becomes increasingly monitored by governments, and doctored by media conglomerates, transparency and integrity will become a central issue. Younger generations of people will

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turn their back on attempts to control and manage the flow of information. The media landscape will never be the same again as the power of the image is taken from the hands of the few into the digital fingertips of the many.

Transforming Education in the New Media Environment Education as well as news information is being transformed by the new media. The structure, content, and connectivity for this new educational platform is already emerging – and it is opening a new phase in collaborative learning at a global scale.

Traditional educational systems are becoming antiquated and are being forced to radically re-think and re-envision their roles in response to student’s changing needs and attitudes. We are moving into a new world that requires a new kind of learning to provide students with new skills—academic, collaborative, and inner development. Here is what we envision: 1) Classrooms will no longer be contained within the confines of physical rooms; instead, learning spaces will be diverse environments wired to connect with students and teachers around the world. In a virtual world of learning, connections, collaborations, and experiences will span the planet. Without the need to create the brick and mortar physical spaces for learning, the cost of education will plummet, bringing millions of students into classrooms that would have otherwise been completely unaffordable.

2) In a world of virtual learning, entirely new approaches to education will be developed: Collaborative learning spaces will connect students with one another around the planet, fostering a new level of global consciousness and concern.

Multi-media presentations will replace the traditional text-book with voice, music, photographs, films, and more. Interactive learning will accelerate with gaming technologies that teach with hands-on student engagement in areas ranging from society, to ecology, business, biology, and far more. These new learning environments will foster social innovation, entrepreneurship, leadership skills, collaboration skills, creativity, and whole-systems design adapted to a rapidly changing world.

3) Not only will students have virtual access to the world’s finest teachers across diverse disciplines, they will also have the opportunity to learn from peers around the world. Teaching will be transformed as it engages other students in collaborative learning but also older persons, retired persons, and uniquely skilled volunteers from around the world. Guests from varied occupations – business leaders, creative artists, biologists, cosmologists, etc – will regularly join online learning forums to interact with students and to pass on their own learning and knowledge. These mixed learning environments – no longer called classrooms – will be able to place students of varying ages and abilities together.

In this way older, more learned students, can also assist in the learning process of younger and newer students. We can build a new world if we can collectively imagine what a world of sustainable prosperity looks like and how it works. We 14 98

are building a new future for the Earth in our collective and collaborative imagination.

4) The Internet combined with new technologies and software is opening the online world to three-dimensional platforms where students can have immersive learning experiences. Imagine putting on a headset and being offered an immersive experience of traveling to places around the world, seeing important events through history, and exploring the universe, including the realms of the very small and the very large. The learning process will be a lot more fun as well as more connecting and collaborative. Students will use an array of virtual games and online problem solving activities to exercise creativity. Multiple player platforms will also allow many students to work together and collaborate to solve challenges and quests -- similar to video gaming yet with constructive goals and outcomes.

5) The development of realistic “virtual worlds” will transform the relationships among students throughout the Earth. Imagine a “pod” of 10 to 20 students, who physically live all around the world, coming together in virtual space with “avatars” that represent who they are. Beyond making friends with students in radically different cultural, social, and physical environments, these virtual worlds will make it possible for students to collaborate in co-creating a future world that reflects their collective preferences. In cyber-space, students can create a distinctive “eco-village” with a unique architecture, set of economic activities, ways of growing food and providing energy, expressing their artistic sensibilities, and much more.

6) Learning will become more individually oriented and customized. Students will have more choice in directing their learning process according to their needs, wishes, and motivations. A new world confronts students with challenges ranging from climate change and species extinction to energy transition. New skills will require new ways of establishing competencies. The older examination system will be replaced by a variety of comprehension measures and capacity assessments from both teachers and fellow peers. Understanding will be increasingly measured by one’s comprehension and individualized capability – and less by standardized grades. Stress and self-doubt will be replaced by enjoyment and self-confidence.

These media-based, educational platforms will support a new generation of learners in creating radically different competencies and capacities that fit the changing world in which we live.

The Transforming Power of Computer Games Over the past few years hundreds of millions of people around the world have become immersed in virtual worlds and online games. While the economist Edward Castronova calls it a mass exodus to the game spaces, the world-renowned creator of ARG’s 15 99

(Alternate Reality Games) Jane McGonical points to the fact that games and virtual worlds can be designed to improve real lives and solve real problems.

Game developers know better than anyone else how to inspire extreme effort and reward hard work McGonical says. They know how to facilitate cooperation and collaboration at previously unimaginable scales. And they are continuously innovating new ways to motivate players to stick with harder challenges for longer and in much bigger groups. These crucial skills can help all of us find new ways to make a deep and lasting impact on the world around us and inspire us to work together to accomplish real change.

When the ecologist and internet pioneer Steward Brand launched the Whole Earth Catalog of “tools and ideas to shape the environment” he wrote: “We are as Gods and might as well get good at it” In 1996 he co-founded The Long Now Foundation. A San Francisco-based foundation dedicated to long-term thinking and responsibility – for the earth and for the survival of the human species. Co-founder of The Long Now Foundation Danny Hillis, who developed the “massive parallel” architecture of the current generation of supercomputers, is now building the Clock of the Long Now - a monumental size mechanical clock designed to keep time for the next 10000 years. If we want to stay on this planet for anywhere near that long Brand says, we have to become better at strategically affecting our ecosystem. We are forced to learn “planet craft”.

Jane McGonical claims that gamers have a head start on this mission, because they have been mastering the art of planet craft for years. There’s actually a genre of computer games known as “God games” she explains, which is world and population simulations that give a single player the ability to shape the course of events on earth in dramatic ways, over lifetimes. What all of these god games have in common, is that they encourage the players to practice the three skills that are critical for real planet craft: 1. Taking a long view. In God games players are operating at scales far larger than we would ordinarily encounter on our day-to-day lives. They have to consider their moment-by-moment actions in the context of a very long future: an entire simulated human life, the rise and fall of civilizations, or even the entire course of human history.

2. Ecosystems thinking. In God games you get to understand the world as a complex web of interconnected interdependent parts. A skilled player will study and learn how to anticipate the ways in which changes to one part of the system will impact other parts – often in surprising and far-reaching ways.

3. Pilot experimentation. In God games you learn the process of designing and running many small tests of different strategies and solutions in order to discover the best course of action to take. When you have successfully tested a strategy, you can scale up your efforts to make a bigger impact.

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As we try to develop systems for engaging huge numbers of people in world-changing efforts we can take an important cue from the most successful God games.

The universe simulation “SPORE” which was developed by the American game designer Will Wright is explicitly linked to the notion of planet craft – and intentionally focus on getting players to think of themselves as capable of changing the real world.

In SPORE players control the development of a unique species through five stages of evolution: From single-cell origins into social land dwelling creatures - who form tribes, build technologically advanced civilizations and ultimately ventures off into intergalactic space exploration. Each stage gives the player control over a more complex system. The game is meant to spark a sense of creative capability among players and to inspire them to adopt the kind of long term planetary outlook that can save the real world.

For players who complete all five stages of the game successfully, SPORE has a super goal that represents the ultimate achievement in the game. The primary win is to develop your single-cell creature into a successful intergalactic space-faring civilization, which eventually reaches a super massive “black hole” at the center of the galaxy.

Players who reach this stage receive a “staff of life” which allows them to transform any planet in the Spore galaxy into a vibrant diverse eco-system teeming with plants and creatures of all kinds, with breathable , sustainable food webs and plentiful water supply. Along with the staff of life players receive a special message and a mission: “You have traveled very far and overcome many obstacles. Your creative powers have not gone unnoticed. Your heroic efforts have proven you deserving the advancement to the next level of your existence. You are now to be given the power. Yes, that’s right THE POWER. The power to create and spread life intelligence and understanding throughout the Cosmos. Use this power wisely. There is a wonderful opportunity to start on one particular planet. Look for the third rock from SOL” (Sol is Latin for “sun”, and so this final message from the game is a playful imperative to become a real creator and protector of life on Earth).

As game designer Will Wright says: “The human imagination is this amazing thing.

We’re able to build models of the world around us, test out hypothetical scenarios, and in some sense, simulate the world. I think this ability is probably one of the most important characteristics of humanity…”

However, at the same time there is a counterbalance to the stimulation provided by the digital world – and that is the hazards of digital addiction, anxiety, and mental and emotional imbalance.

The Hazard of an Always-On Lifestyle

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The complexity of our rapidly expanding digital infrastructures and connected lives also reveal a less positive and more menacing side. The growing deluge of information and the tyranny of schedules, for example, demand that we stay connected to an ‘always-on’ lifestyle, which has proven to cause stress and anxiety.

It is said that today there are more young children who play computer games and browse the web than there are young children who swim or ride a bike. There are also a number of cases where children and adults alike are suffering from what is referred to as “nature-deficit disorder”— reduced awareness and a diminished ability to find meaning in the life around us. Those people who live in big cities especially and thus who don’t have the opportunity to play freely in nature are finding recompense by retreating into the digital world. When we observe the frantic lives of those around us, we see just how many distractions there are and how addictive our on-line behavior has become. The problem is that as we spend more time in the digital realms we are spending less time in the natural one – and this can lead to an unhealthy imbalance.

Yet a further imbalance can also occur when our exposure to the digital realms interferes with our grasp on reality. A number of extreme cases have already made the headlines. These include the case of a 22-year-old South Korean man who, in February 2010, was charged with murdering his mother after she nagged him for spending too much time playing online games. After murdering his mother the young killer then went to a nearby Internet café to continue playing his games. Another extreme event is that of a young couple, again in South Korea, who in September 2009 returned home from an all-night 12-hour gaming binge to find their three-month-old daughter dead. The couple were later arrested and charged for starving their daughter to death after it emerged the couple were more interested in raising an online baby (called Anima) in a popular roleplaying game called Prius Online. Research published in the UK in February 2010 also showed evidence of a link between excessive Internet use and depression.1 Whilst it is recognized that online gaming material can stimulate children’s brains through complex puzzle-solving and strategy-based games, it must also be recognized that more menacing aspects lie close by. It is imperative that in our vision for an empowering digital media landscape we remain aware and mindful of the potential hazards associated with emerging technologies.

Gopi Kalayl, chief evangelist at Google Social for Brands, presents an antidote in the form of daily rituals that focus on personal well-being and inner-balance, such as yoga and meditation, as a way of counteracting the influence of the Internet by connecting to one’s own “inner-net.” This is just one perspective in how we can re-calibrate our lives to successfully merge the digital and physical realms. In order to cope and engage with the accelerating change thrust upon us, it is essential that we develop the tools we need to integrate our inner and outer worlds with the new information technology in a 1

Published by Leeds University (UK). For journal abstract see http://content.karger.com/produktedb/produkte.asp?doi=277001

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balanced way. Essential for this positive balance and calibration is the need for new stories and narratives.

New Stories for our Future At this pivotal time in human evolution, it is vitally important that messages in the mass media serve our psychological and spiritual health and not distort our collective intelligence, imagination and evolution. We face big challenges and it will take an equally big vision to transform conflict into cooperation and draw us into a promising future. The most difficult challenge facing humanity is not devising solutions to the energy crisis or climate crisis or population crisis; rather, it is bringing stories of the human journey into our collective awareness that empower us to look beyond a future of great adversity and to see a future of great opportunity.

Without stories to orient us, we are literally lost. When we are lost, it is easy to be frightened and to focus on security and survival, to look for threats, and to pull together into “safe” enclaves. Collective and powerful stories of the human journey can serve as the social glue to pull us together in common effort and take us in a regenerative direction. We do not seem to have those common stories now; however, the stories we seek are already present in biology, psychology, cosmology, mythology, technology, and more.

It is time to gather wisdom for the human journey from diverse sources so that we can better understand our time of profound transition and the promise that lies ahead. As the U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has stated recently, we are in a period of “Great Transition.” This is a rare moment in human history when we are beginning to develop, for the very first time, the "story of, by, and for all of us." There may be no more important task for humanity than to cultivate narratives in our collective imagination that can serve as beacons for guiding us into a promising future. Such new narratives may touch upon the following themes: 

A living universe paradigm: A self-consistent, pattern of thoughts, concepts, and assumptions about the nature of reality is rapidly emerging. Simply stated, we are seeing a profound shift from a non-living view of the universe to a view that regards the universe as uniquely alive. This is not a “new” perspective as, more than two thousand years ago, Plato said that, “the universe is a single living creature that encompasses all living creatures within it.” What is new is how a living systems perspective is drawing upon insights from science to validate this emerging paradigm that regards the universe as a unified system that is sustained continuously by the flow-through of phenomenal amounts of energy and whose essential nature includes consciousness or a self-reflective capacity that enables systems at every scale of existence to exercise some freedom of choice. A living universe perspective transforms our approach to economic activity: Consumerism makes sense in a dead universe. If matter is all there is, then where can I look for happiness? In material things. How do I know my life mattered? By how many material things I have accumulated. How should I 19 103

relate to the world around me? By exploiting that which is dead on behalf of those who are most alive (ourselves). Consumerism and exploitation of the Earth are direct and predictable outcomes from the perceptual paradigm of a non-living universe. Alternatively, if we regard the universe as a living system, then it is only natural that we look for our happiness in the juice of aliveness—in our relationships with others, with nature, and within ourselves. To live in a living universe, we are motivated to consciously reduce needless busyness, complexity, and clutter in the material areas of our lives so that we can have the gift of time and space to engage the non-material areas. As experiential sources of satisfaction become more engaging, consumerism loses its appeal. 

A bio-cosmic identity: The paradigm of a living universe reveals that we are much more than biological beings whose identity extends no further than our skin. Instead, we are “bio-cosmic” beings that participate in the aliveness of a living universe. The energy of divine aliveness pours through and sustains the entire universe. Awakening to our identity as both distinct and intimately interconnected within a living universe transforms the feelings of existential separation and species-arrogance that threaten our future. We are participants in a cosmic garden of life the universe has been patiently nurturing over billions of years. A living universe invites us to shift from feelings of indifference, fear, and cynicism to feelings of curiosity, love, awe, and participation.



A surpassing sense of purpose: A living universe is also a learning universe.

Living is more than “only not dying.” Our purpose in being here is to learn how to live sustainably and compassionately within a living universe. Our life is our gift from the universe and how we choose to live is our gift to the universe. We are on a journey of discovery. In freedom, we are discovering our identity as beings of both earthly and cosmic dimensions. After nearly 14 billion years of evolution, we stand upon the Earth as agents of self-reflective and creative action at a time of great transition for the entire Earth community.



A thriving planetary civilization: Through history, humanity’s capacity for self-reflective consciousness has developed progressively—from the magical world of the hunter-gatherer, to the nature-based world of the agrarian farmer, then into the dynamic world of the urban-industrial society, and now into a holistic perspective and collective consciousness rapidly awakening within our global brain. This new consciousness provides the basis for a new, global civilization. If our lives are nested within the larger aliveness of a living universe, then it is only fitting that we treat everything that exists as alive and worthy of respect. Every action has ethical consequences that reverberate throughout the ecosystem of the living cosmos. Our collective purpose shifts from seeking high-consumption lifestyles toward simpler ways of living that enable us to connect more directly with a living universe of which we are an integral part. Humanity’s journey of awakening has reached a critical turning point. We now confront the supreme test of living sustainably on the Earth, in harmony with one another, and in communion with the living universe.

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The new media landscape is not only about cultivating stories that resonate and engage with the outer world of the Internet but also narratives that inform and empower the landscape of the ‘inner-net’. Our sense of self-worth as human beings -- and as planetary citizens -- is crucial to the new media narrative.

New Media and the Politics of Conscious Citizenship We cannot create a new world in the cultural context of the old media programming.

The old media is selling a culture of consumption. The new media must serve a culture of conservation and compassion. As we think, so we will become. If we fill our social mind with old media, there is no room to imagine new possibilities. Communication is the lifeblood of democracy. To choose a sustainable future, citizens need to be able to communicate among themselves about the future they want to bring into existence. We require a “conscious democracy” that pays attention to what is going on and that uses the modern tools of local to global communication to enable citizens to engage in unprecedented levels of dialogue and consensus building about our future. A healthy democracy requires the active consent of the governed, not simply their passive acquiescence. Democracy has often been called the art of the possible. If we don’t know how our fellow citizens think and feel about policies to create a sustainable future, then we float powerless in a sea of ambiguity and are unable to mobilize ourselves into constructive action. The most powerful and direct way to revitalize democracy is by improving the ability of citizens to know their own minds—local, national, and global.

By combining televised dialogues on key issues with instantaneous Internet-based feedback from a scientific sample of citizens, the public can know its collective sentiments with a high degree of accuracy. With regular Electronic Town Meetings or ETMs, the perspectives and priorities of the citizenry could be rapidly brought into public view and the democratic process revitalized. When a working consensus emerges, it would presumably guide (but not compel) decision makers. The value of ETMs is not as a vehicle for citizens to attempt to micromanage government through direct democracy; rather, its value is as a vehicle for citizens to discover their widely shared priorities that can guide their representatives in government. Involving citizens in choosing the pathway into the future will not guarantee that the “right” choices will always be made, but it will guarantee that citizens will feel involved and invested in those choices. Rather than feeling cynical and powerless, citizens will feel engaged and responsible for our future.

A future of sustainable prosperity will emerge as citizens recognize the absolute necessity of using these new media tools to undertake an unprecedented level of dialogue about the most promising pathways ahead. With ongoing, local-to-global communication comes mutual understanding and gradual reconciliation around a shared vision of a sustainable future. With an emerging vision of workable living held in common and a commitment to realizing that vision, the human family could make dramatic reductions in military expenditures, begin to heal the global ecology, make

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development investments in poorer nations, build new energy systems, and in many other ways build a promising future.

With a witnessing consciousness or observer’s perspective offered by the new media, citizens can cultivate the detachment that enables us to stand back, look at the big picture, and make the hard choices and trade-offs that our circumstances demand. With a reflective consciousness we look at our situation objectively and see how imperative it is to begin the process of healing and reconciliation. The communications revolution plays a critical role in this global consciousness raising and consensus building. With the rapid development of sophisticated communication networks, the global consciousness of humanity can awaken decisively. The Earth has a new vehicle for its collective thinking and invention that transcends any nation or culture. From this communications revolution can come a trailblazing, new level of human creativity, daring, and action in response to the global ecological crisis.

Rather than feeling cynical or powerless, citizens feel engaged and responsible for society and its future. As citizens are empowered to cope with mounting crises and to participate in decision-making, democratic processes are revitalized. With a free and open exchange of information and visions, and with safeguards to prevent any one group or nation from dominating the conversation of democracy, a foundation for building a sustainable future is firmly established.

A revitalizing society is a decentralizing society, with grass-roots organizations that are numerous enough, have arisen soon enough, and are effective enough to provide a genuine alternative to more centralized bureaucracies. Eco-villages and smaller communities can take charge of activities ranging from education, housing, and crime prevention, to child care, health care, job training, and many more. The strength and resiliency of the social fabric can grow as local organizations promote self-help, selforganization, a community spirit, and neighborhood bonding. With control over many of life’s basic activities brought back to the local level, a strong foundation is established to compensate for faltering bureaucracies at the state, federal and global levels.

By breaking the cultural hypnosis of consumerism and using the new media as a potent tool for active social learning, a new cultural consensus could emerge rapidly.

Industrialized nations could move beyond the historic agenda of self-serving material progress to a new, life-serving agenda of promoting the well-being of the entire human family. Despite enormous economic, ecological, and social stresses, an overarching vision of a sustainable and satisfying future flourishing in a world of new media could provide sufficient social glue to hold humanity together while working through these trying times. A new sense of global community, human dignity, goodwill, and trust could be growing. Although problems may continue to abound, a new springtime for humanity could be emerging.

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Conclusion We are now participants in a profound cultural epoch of transition, change, and recalibration like never before in human history. What makes this moment so pivotal is that, as a global species, we are on the cusp of becoming a planetary society. As stated in the Fuji Declaration Awakening the Divine Spark in the Spirit of Humanity: For a Civilization of Oneness with Diversity on Planet Earth (provisional title), we have the possibility now to witness a worldwide shift in consciousness and collaboration .

The recent revolution in global communications is having a profound effect and impact upon human consciousness and the collective mind of our species. Increased physical, digital, and emotional connectivity through our global-social networks appears to be catalyzing the emergence of an empathic species mindset. The spectacular rise in a new global media landscape also reflects a new form of participatory consciousness, especially among younger people. This emerging landscape of connectivity, communication, collaboration, and consciousness reflects a distributed engagement and relational approach to living, rather than hierarchical. In this era the individual is no longer constrained to be merely a passive receiver of information but can now be both the user and the producer of knowledge: we have entered the era of the prosumers.

In this study we have drawn attention to a new media landscape in profound transition: social media as a powerful tool of collective awakening; the rise of an Earth Voice movement and a global citizen superpower; transformative approaches to global education; the creative potential of computer games; the politics of conscious citizenship; and the need for inclusive and transformative new stories for our collective future. We have also, as a counterbalance, pointed to the hazards of living in an ’always-on’ media environment. Overall, however, this study has mapped and highlighted the emerging terrain of a new media landscape that has incredible potential for nurturing and sustaining a diversified, yet unified, human planetary society.

Unlike any previous time in human history, an unprecedented opportunity for change and betterment is now present. The human community has a responsibility for rising to this time of opportunity as the many media factors described above may never be present again at exactly the right moment when they are so badly needed. The human species is a witness to and participant in a time of great transition at an individual, community, national, and planetary level. The new media landscape is critical for building a promising future based on new cultural narratives of hope and change. As a maturing species, we have a profound responsibility to actively engage in this time of great transition with an awakening consciousness that informs practical visions of a promising future.

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Castronova, Edward, Exodus to the Virtual World, Palgrave and MacMillian, 2007.

The Committee to Protect Journalists, USA Today, February 5, 2014. http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/02/05/top-ten-internetcensors/5222385/ Dennis, Kingsley L., New Consciousness for a New World. Rochester: VT: Inner Traditions, 2011.

Dennis, Kingsley L., The Struggle for Your Mind. Rochester: VT: Inner Traditions, 2012.

Dennis, Kingsley L., New Revolutions for a Small Planet. London: Watkins Books, 2012.

Dennis, Kingsley L., The Phoenix Generation: A New Era of Connection, Compassion & Consciousness. London: Watkins Books, 2014.

Diamandis, Peter & Kotler, Steven Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think. New York: Free Press, 2012.

Dobey, Jean “Five ways to turn a Social Media Campaign into a movement,” The Guardian, 25 June, 2014. http://www.theguardian.com/voluntary-sectornetwork/2014/jun/25/five-ways-to-turn-social-media-campaign-into-movement Elgin, Duane , "Is Communication Revitalization the Secret to Avoiding Collapse?,” posted November 19, 2013 on the Millennium Alliance for Humanity and the Biosphere: http://mahb.stanford.edu/topic/ethical-revitalization Elgin, Duane , "Great Transition Stories For Becoming A Global Eco-Civilization,” posted on www.GreatTransitionStories.org, May 1, 2013. Also see the section, “The Global Brain Awakens” on this website at: http://www.greattransitionstories.org/wiki/Story:Global_Brain Elgin, Duane , Voluntary Simplicity, New York: Harper Collins, 2nd revised edition, 2010, excerpt from Chapter Seven: "Living in a Green World.”

Elgin, Duane , "Mass Media, Consumerism, and the Consensus Trance,” posted June 30, 2013: http://www.terrypatten.com/blog/lighthearted-sobriety-in-our-interestingtimes#comment-1123

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Elgin, Duane , "A New Superpower—An ‘Earth Voice’ Movement,” posted July 16, 2012: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/duane-elgin/a-new-superpoweran-earth_b_1675081.html Elgin, Duane , "Integral Activism in the Social Commons,” posted March 27, 2012: http://www.integralrevolution.com/integral-activism-in-the-social-commons Elgin, Duane , "Change the Story to Change the World,” posted February 1, 2012: Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/duane-elgin/change-the-story-tochang_b_1247046.html Elgin, Duane and Peter Russell, “Take Back the Airwaves,” posted on YouTube November, 2011, part I: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOY-VqIrVPk and part II: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a53hL5Z1WHE Elgin, Duane , "The Power of a "Community Voice’ Movement,” posted November 18, 2011: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/duane-elgin/future-occupymovement_b_1100549.html Elgin, Duane , "Occupy the Airwaves!”, posted October 18, 2011: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/duane-elgin/occupy-theairwaves_b_1014433.html Elgin, Duane , "Take Back the Airwaves!”, posted July 29, 2011: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/duane-elgin/the-last-taboo-on-televis_b_870497.html Elgin, Duane , "Can Television Help Awaken a Healthy World?,” posted July 21, 2011: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/duane-elgin/mass-media-worldhealth_b_883616.html Elgin, Duane , "The Last Taboo on Television,” posted June 2, 2011: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/duane-elgin/the-last-taboo-ontelevis_b_870497.html Elgin, Duane , "Our Collective Awakening and the Politics of Consciousness,” in EnlightenNext Magazine, May-July 2004.

Elgin, Duane , “The Self-Guiding Evolution of Civilizations,” Systems Research and Behavioral Science Journal, April 2002, http://duaneelgin.com/wpcontent/uploads/2010/11/self_guiding_evolution.pdf Elgin, Duane , Promise Ahead, New York: Harper Collins, 2000, see Chapter Five: “Communicating Our Way Into a Promising Future."

Elgin, Duane , “Collective Consciousness and Cultural Healing,” a report for the Fetzer Institute, October 1997, http://duaneelgin.com/collective-consciousness-and-cultural25 109

healing/ Elgin, Duane , Awakening Earth, New York: William Morrow, 1993, See chapter 5: “Reflective Consciousness and the Era of Communication and Reconciliation."

Elgin, Duane , “Revitalizing Democracy Through Electronic Town Meetings,” in Spectrum: The Journal of State Governments, Spring 1993, http://duaneelgin.com/wpcontent/uploads/1993/12/ETMs-Spectrum-Journal.pdf Elgin, Duane , "Let's Put The Vision In Television!,” In Context Journal, Summer 1983, http://duaneelgin.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/vision_in_tv.pdf Hillis, Danny, Interviewed by Bente Milton.

Judith, Anodea, Awakening the Global Heart, Shift Books Second edition, 2013, p.35.

Laszlo, Ervin; Dennis, Kingsley, Dawn of the Akashic Age: New Consciousness, Quantum Resonance, and the Future of the World, Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions, 2013.

Mason, Paul, Why It’s STILL Kicking Off Everywhere: The New Global Revolutions. London: Verso, 2013.

McGonigal, Jane, Reality is Broken, Jonathan Cape, 2011, chapter 14.

Rifkin, Jeremy, The Third Industrial Revolution. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.

Rifkin, Jeremy. The Empathic Civilization: The Race to Global Consciousness in a World in Crisis. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2010.

Shirky, Clay Here Comes Everybody: The power of organizing without organizations.

Penguin Press HC, 2008.

Steele, Robert D., The Open-Source Everything Manifesto: Transparency,Truth & Trust.

Berkeley, CA: Evolver Editions, 2012.

Viewpoint, Interview with Will Right, September 17th. 2008.

Wu, Timothy., The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires. New York: Atlantic Books, 2010.

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GLOBAL TRANSFORMATION, FUNDAMENTAL POLITICAL AND SOCIAL CHANGE, CONSTRUCTIVE POLITICAL INNOVATION AND RESPONSIBLE SOCIAL SCIENCES A study on practical steps toward creating a new civilization

Ferenc Miszlivetz and Jody Jensen

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A New Norm for a New Age: New Terminologies

Scientists have recently begun to meet to discuss the possibility, or inevitability, of addressing the question as to whether it is time to call an end to the epoch we are presently living in, the Holocene, and announce the arrival of the Anthropocene. This new geologic epoch (as oppose to 'periods’ which are longer, and 'ages’ which are shorter) is meant to signify humanity’s imprint on the planet. This is highly controversial, especially since there is no common understanding of the meaning of term ’Anthropocene’.

The term ’Axial Age’ (Karl Jaspers) has also reappeared in attempts to denote that all over the world, people are struggling to find new meaning in the very new conditions of existence as a result of industrial, technical and communications revolutions. Existential needs for meaning and comfort now require, some believe, a new spiritual revolution (Karen Armstrong), or a global awakening (Michael Shacker) which envisions a paradigm shift from a mechanistic world view to a holistic world view.

In another vocabulary, we live in the time of structural crisis, a “macroshift” (László 2001, 2008, 2009), or a systemic “bifurcation” and transition from one world system to another (Immanuel Wallerstein). Although we do not know what the new world system or structure will look like, as individuals and collectives we can have more impact at this time, because we are not under the constraints of the old or emerging new world system. Therefore, the age we live in is more open to human intervention and creativity. As such a profound shift has no inevitable or predictable outcome, it will be shaped by the totality of collective action (Wallerstein 2008). The attempts to describe and analyse the morphology and the possible solutions to today’s global crises have been numerous regarding institutions (Szentes 2006), civil society (Miszlivetz and Jensen 2006 and 2013) and the construction of the supranational economic and political system (like the European Union, Miszlivetz 2012 and 2013, Miszlivetz and Jensen 2015). Calls for a “New Green Deal” are forthcoming at local, regional and global levels (Holland 2015).

Karl Polányi in The Great Transformation, presented a set of interrelated and intertwined phenomena. With extraordinary prescience, he warned that crisis would come. He rejected the idea that the market is "self-regulating" and can correct itself. There is no "invisible hand" such as the market fundamentalists maintain, so there is nothing inevitable or "natural" about the way markets work: they are always shaped by political decisions. These observations and propositions were for the most part rather neglected during the past decades

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and by the explicit or tacit consensus of both social scientists and political analysts. In most cases analysts deal with each crisis as separate, isolated phenomena. This negligence and restricted perception (based upon the paradigm of the sovereign nation state and doctrine of independent academic disciplines) is greatly responsible for the present global turmoil which is at its heart a civilizational crisis (Miszlivetz and Kaldor 1985, 2009).

The concern lately of nation states, the EU and global multilateral organizations, has been to minimize irrational panic in response to crises and it can be argued that this reveals a dysfunctional pattern of thinking. The real challenge is not the particular crisis of the financial system which everyone talks about, but lies in the pattern of derivitive thinking that has sustained the system and denied its problematic nature all along. Is the sovereign debt crisis and its consequences for financial and political systems and societies an indicator of a dysfunctional mode of thought in which we collectively participate today? Alternatively, can the crisis of confidence better be understood as a credibility crisis? A major danger is the current assumption that the only "confidence" that needs to be (re)built is defined by market terminology and not by democratic terminology. Why are "solutions" only being dreamt up after a crisis has struck? Does our way of thinking deny the existence of other systemic challenges and repress consideration of potential implications in other areas? Can a more vigilant analysis of the financial crisis as it evolves, and the language used in "saving the system" help to develop a framework to analyze emergent crises that have been subject to the same neglect through "derivative” and not "innovative” thinking.

It is important to identify the systemic role of actors (states), instruments (financial mechanisms and authorities), concepts and dynamics, as well as how long and short-term risk is managed in a context of fear, mistrust and a false notion of what has happened and why.

The question is whether more vigilant analysis of crises as they evolve, and the language used in "saving the system" can be used to develop a framework to analyze developing crises that have been subject to the same neglect through ‘derivative’ and not ‘innovative’ thinking.

One of the major negative results of this is the lack of responsibility taking for global or transnational disasters by the dominant players and stakeholders – from national and regional political leaders and institutions via institutions of knowledge creation and

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distribution including eminent social scientists.1 Alternative voices are emerging, but the question is whether it is too little, too late.

This institutionalised irresponsibility and indifference surrounded by a tacit concensus about dividedness as an unchangeable given is to a significant degree reponsible for undermining and emptying out democracies as well as for endangering the future of human existence on the planet. The recent return of the nation state and accompanying nationalistic cliches and prejudices within Europe and all around its borders resulted in the rise of rightwing and religious extremism, populism and an increasing rejection of multiculturalism.

Xenophobia, racism and anti-semitism has been growing not only in the peripehries but also in the core countries of established democracies of affluent societies.

One of the key challenges is the demand for new and innovative ways of thinking to resolve the threats to the sustainability of our social relations, environment and economies.

New knowledge is required by the social sciences to meet the demands of technological innovation, management and public policy. New knowledge accumulation, or informational capital, would include the important contribution of civil societies.

Paradigm Shift

Our whole world society appears to be following a distinct pattern that occurs very rarely in history, one that has led in the past to total reinventions of the world within very short periods of time. In short, we are in the midst of a classic paradigm shift and are fast approaching the tipping point of the whole process.

Shacker 2013: 31

All of the present crises are connected by a mechanistic world view that has dominated for the past 300 years and endangered the environment and quality of life, societies and individuals. In a mechanistic world view, we all become parts of the machine and mere objects. The fatal flaw of a mechanistic world view is eloquently elaborated by Michael Shacker (2013) in his work, Global Awakening, New Science and the 21st Century Enlightenment. Referring to William Barret’s (1979), Illusion of Technique, he explains that 1

E.g., the Euromemorandum group, The European Trade Union Confederation, the Manifesto of Appalled Economists in France, the Be Outraged Manifesto constructed by an international group of economists and social scientists, manifestations of the Occupy movements across Europe and the US, etc.

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the smooth operation of the machine becomes everything in the mind of the technician; and since there is no meaning that can be derived from a machine, life becomes meaningless.

Our whole mechanistic society now reflects this meaningless and purposeless world view. … The illusion of technique helps us understand this fatal flaw of mechanistic dogma and how it fails to confront reality. In short, the lure of the machine outweighs the mounds of scientific data showing the fragile interconnections of Earth and its biosphere. Social, environmental and health concerns are swept under the rug and ignored. The mechanistic paradigm is thus dysfunctional at its core – so we find ourselves in the mechanistic dilemma (Shacker 2013: 29-30).

He continues by addressing the necessity of “more-than-ordinary” thinking and action to transcend the mechanistic dilemma to extract the planet and humanity from its current precarious situation.

The crisis is further exacerbated by the collusion between big business and increasingly nationalistic governments who, in order to maintain their power positions and monopolistic control of market forces, will not willingly relinquish their power positions. This is clearly seen in the increasing incidents of state violence by state sanctioned police forces against populations that have arisen to protest against economic and social inequalities resulting from the crisis of the world system, as well as aspirations for a more democratic politics of participation.

What is common in these in many ways different old/new bubbling up movements and political worldviews is the strong insistence to historic dividedness and cultural differences as well as the complete lack or rejection of the holistic approach in dealing with grave social, political, and ecological problems. Threatened in their existence and legitimacy, old institutions, interest groups and other powerful global, regional and national stakeholders are keen to entrench themselves and fight one another to secure their interests and survival. The new wave of desintegration and self-isolation is a result of the failure of global and regional institutions such as the UN, the WTO, the World Bank, the IMF or the European Union.

Instead of contributing globally and regionally to more democracy, equality, peace and human security, these institutions themselves contribute to the survival of the old paradigm of unequal dividedness, onesided dependency and manifold insecurity. Therefore, the New Norm should establish the perception of oneness of the human race and with the planet on which we live. This means the acceptance and understanding of the inevitability of a holistic view of humankind, together with its self-created institutions, markets, nationstates and means

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of violence. The vision and practice of a wisdom based society (Falk 2013) that turns knowledge into organic and holistic practices has to replace gradually the old paradigm of a knowledge-based society that was established on the premise and special historical understanding of fragmentation and un-alterable dividedness. Awareness of increasing interdependence in various spheres of our common existence is a slow process that needs to speed up. The discussion of the dynamics of interdependence, of those in the center and those in the peripheries, needs to be translated into action, thus empowering communities through knowledge and legitimation. In order to challenge existing power structures, organizing those marginalized groups and communities that have been historically left out into solid alliances at the local level, such as women, racial-ethnic and religious minorities, gender and age-based groups and indigenous populations, has increased over the past forty years (Wallerstein 2008), but it has not been enough.

From a Medieval World View to a Mechanistic World View to an Organic World View Every world view needs to answer the fundamental questions of who we are, how we got where we are and where we are going that are delivered in a new story or narrative frame.

The current crisis of world view requires a paradigm shift which will move humanity into a new world system and mind-set. Paradigm shifts or “flips� have occured before, from the Medieval to the Mechanistic world view via the Enlightenment, towards a future Organic worldview according to Shacker (2013). The composite tables are provided here to review these paradignamic shifts: Table 1: Comparison of Medieval and Mechanistic World Views (Shacker 2013: 36) Medieval World View God is responsible for all events on earth.

God’s creation only 6000 years old.

Two sets of laws: one for Earth, one for heaven.

Geocentric universe: Earth does not move.

King and nobility have devine right to rule.

Medieval laws and value system designed to

Mechanistic World View God or nature merely sets universe in motion, natural law determines the rest; clockwork universe of Newton.

Universe very old, Earth millions to billions years old, formed by natural forces.

One set of natural laws governs Earth and the universe.

Helocentric solar system: Earth orbits the sun.

The right to govern derives from the people; kings are tyrants.

Laws and values designed to provide liberty

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protect the lands and power of kings, the aristocracy and the church.

and equality to all men, to protect the pursuit of happiness, and to derive power from the people in a democracy.

Table 2: Comparison of Mechanistic and Organic World Views (Shacker 2013: 41).

Mechanistic World View

Organic World View

Limited mechanistic models underlie traditional science and medicine and cannot explain living systems adequately; ecological, health and economic breakdowns.

Clockwork universe, no purpose assigned to humanity or universe; we live in a vast static cosmos.

Anthropocentric universe; planet Earth treated as a non-living thing to be exploited.

Newtonian physics limited to macroworld, non-living things only.

Encompassing organic/biological models underlie new-paradigm sciences from physics to agriculture, medicine, technology, economics, and psychology.

Complexity-centered universe and evolution means we are always evolving to the next level.

Complexity-centered universe: planet Earth shown to be a living system.

New physics studies sub-atomic realm; law od organics and other theories explain living systems.

Time and space quantified.

Life, evolution, consciousness quantified and given meaning.

Studies objects and things as separate parts.

Studies the relationship between objects and things Old paradigm culture based on oil, Counterculture based on transition from oil, ultranationalism and militarism; huge military world peace and sustainable development; budget, small foreign aid; top 1% owns 45% increase foreign aid to $50 billion to stop of wealth. terrorism; new economics to eliminate poverty.

Laws and values designed to protect the Laws and values designed to protect the rights of men, especially corporations and rights of all, from women to blacks, gays and men with property. all minorities, especially the poor and middle class.

Belief that war has always been a part of War has been invented and can be human nature. transcended in a future world of peace.

If we look at the four stages of social transformation as outlined by Kuhn (1962), we see that first of all, there is the emergence of an anomaly that contradicts the existing world view and new science and philosophical concepts shock the existing world with radically new ideas to account for the anomaly. A revolutionary period ensues that upsets the stability of the system. The 1960s have been represented as a precursor in terms of beliefs and behavior that underpins the movement from one system to another. Perhaps, the discussions and analysis related to global warming could be considered in the contemporary context as one of the focul points for the emergence of radically new ideas related to humankind’s place in the world.

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The new sciences and the study of micro-worlds (e.g., quantum physics, complexity and chaos theories, string theory) confront the scientific world view with a new view of humankind’s role in the universe.

Subsequently, the second phase can be described as the conservative backlash period that sets back the new paradigm with fundamentalist conservative and political counter-reactions.

There is a paradigm resistence from old scientists and bitter paradigm wars are fought between the new realities presented by the new world view, and the ideology and rhetoric of the old world view. In the contemporary sense, the rise of the new right and conservative governments in the 1970s in reaction to the movements of the 1960s can be viewed in this context. At the same time, anomalies and scandals related to the workings of the old world view mount and create pressure on existing structures (large bail outs starting in 1984 of the Savings and Loan industry, invasion of Lebanon, rise of Sadam Hussein, neglect of AIDS and women’s rights, increasing environmental catastrophes – Exxon Valdez, Chernobyl, Bhopal).

These incidents and the underlying neglect of addressing increasingly pressing social, political, economic and environmental issues, with adequate responses from institutons and authorities contibutes to undermining trust and belief in the system. They underscore that the mechanistic world view can never solve the problems of its own making.

What follows is an intensive phase that continues the polarized culture war between world views. Again, it can take the form of regressive and reactionary governments (as in the US in the 1990s-2000s), and the increasing evidence of corporate world domination both in the economic and increasingly in political spheres where the ramifications of coporate-state collusion have devastating consequences for democracy in both old and new democracies.

New thinkers begin to construct and popularize a new narrative for the new era that explains the emergent anomalies. The new narrative engages and activates societies that, once they reach a critical mass, provide the tipping point for transformation to the new world view. In fact, our contemporary period is also characterized by the greatest global mobilization of populations in opposition to perceived systemic injustice endemic to the old world system and institutionalized political and economic power relations. The Occupy movement and the breadth of its organization and impact is only one example. Other organizing principles are discussed later in this chapter. But besides new movements and new methods and forms of mobilization, new formulations are emerging and taking shape in the areas of global education, integrative/holistic healthcare and medicine, and in regenerative regional planning.

These new perspectives and strategies contribute to the formulation of the new narrative in

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science and societies and help to push the new paradigm further forward. This phase encompasses basically the contemporary period from the early 1990s until today.

The last stage is the transformational phase. This is what is beginning today. In this phase new conflicts may arise, but also increasing solidarity/cohesion/one-ness at the local and global levels. The old ideology, system and structure are replaced with the underlying precepts of the new world view with its correspondent scientific models and changed sets of rules. This can take decades to realize and could, in the present circumstances, as it is predicted, last up to 50 years. This is when a regenerative revolution proposes new, alternative economic models, and new technological and social models replace the macro-economic machine models with organic/regenerative/holistic development models based on the axiom of the interdependence of life processes.

Economic Consolidation and Disruption

Where there is great inequality, there is great injustice and where there is great injustice, there is the inevitability of instability.

Marshall (2013)

After 2007, when the financial crisis surfaced, and in its aftermath, it became increasingly clear that for a critical mass of world society existing economic and financial models were seriously limited, oversimplistic and overconfident and actually helped to create the crisis. This is a combination of opinions not from people who are skeptical of capitalism but who actually work at the heart of finance: a governor of the European Central Bank, and from the head of the U.K. Financial Services Authority.

What is implied in these opinions is that we do not understand the complexity or interdependence of, for example, our economic systems that drive our modern societies. In reality, we are surrounded by interconnected and complex systems. Complexity theory tells us that what looks like complex behavior from the outside is actually the result of a few simple rules of interaction. To begin, therefore, to understand a system you need to look at the interactions.

Complex systems have a unique characteristic that is called „emergence� which means that a system as a whole cannot be understood or predicted by examining the components of

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the system, because the system as a whole starts to reveal a particular behavior. Therefore, the whole is literally more than the sum of individual parts.

Networks also represent complex systems and the nodes in a network are its components and the links are the interactions. Applying this analysis to economic networks is new and reveals a surprising gap in the literature. The following analysis was originally presented in the work entitled The Network of Global Corporate Control in 2011 (Vitali, Glattfelder, Battiston 2011). Starting with a list of 43,060 TNCs identified according to the OECD definition,2 and taken from a sample of over 30 million economic actors contained in the Orbis 2007 database, they singled out, for the first time, the network of all the ownership pathways originating from and pointing to TNCs. The resulting TNC network included 600,508 nodes and 1,006,987 ownership ties.

The center contains about 75% of all players, and in the center there is a tiny but dominant core of highly interconnected companies. Although they only make up 36% of total TNCs, they make up 95% of the total operating revenue of all TNCs. After computing network control, they found that global corporate control has a dominant core of 147 firms radiating from the center. Each of these 147 firms own shares in one another and together they control 40% of the wealth in the TNC network. The top 737 shareholders have the potential to collectively control 80% of the TNC’s value. Keep in mind the value of the 600,000 nodes of interconnections, and that these 737 top players make up 0.123%. These are mostly financial institutions based in the US and UK and together they have the collective potential to control 40% of the TNC’s value.

Figure 1. Flow of Control (Vitali, Glattfelder, Battiston 2011: 4).

2

[TNCs] comprise companies and other entities established in more than one country and so linked that they may coordinate their operations in various ways, while one or more of these entities may be able to exercise a significant influence over the activities of others, their degree of autonomy within the enterprise may vary widely from one multinational enterprise to another. Ownership may be private, state or mixed (OECD 2000).

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This level of hyperconnection is dangerous because of the extremely high degree of control, and because the high degree of interconnectivity of the top players in the core could pose a significant systemic risk to the global economy. Any kind of disturbance felt in the core would expand exponentially like a virus to the other parts of the system.

The study concludes not with a global conspiracy but rather likens this development with such biological structures such as fungus and weeds. The study concludes that the network is probably the result of self-organization which is an emergent property and that the network depends on the rules of interaction in the system. By ‘emergent property’ what is meant is that the system as a whole reveals behavior that can not be understood or predicted by looking at the individual components of the system. In fact, the whole is literally to be understood as more than the sum of all parts. Beyond the potential for catastrophic instability, the system reveals an undeniable imbalance in terms of power and wealth. The study does not attempt to derive implications in terms of inequality and increased potential of social unrest, nor in terms of political instability and costs to democratic representation and practise. In what follows, we will endeavor to illustrate the consequences for politics, economies and societies of the anomalies that have been identified in the old world view that have been elaborated so far.

World of Resistance and Global Awakening

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The worldwide yearning for human dignity is the central challenge inherent in the phenomenon of global political awakening.

Brzezinski (2008) In 2014, Oxfam reported that the world’s 85 wealthiest individuals had a combined wealth equal to the collective wealth of the world’s 3.5 billion people, at USD 1.7 trillion. At the same time, the global top 1% owns about half the world’s wealth at USD 110 trillion.

Oxfam commented:

This massive concentration of economic resources in the hands of fewer people presents a significant threat to inclusive political and economic systems … inevitably heightening social tensions and increasing the risk of societal breakdown (Oxfam 2014).

In 2005, Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote about a global awakening that is potentially socially massive and politically radicalizing. He clearly articulated that populations in the developing world are awakening and stirring with unrest in response to a growing consciousness of social injustice and political indignity. He argues that since the breakdown of the bipolar system which pitted a Marxist/Communist ideological opposition to Western capitalist democracies, an ideological vacuum emerged in terms of ideas that oppose the current world order. He argues that a ‘community of shared perceptions’ is being created by old and new technologies that transcend national borders, challenge current nation state structures and existing global hierarchies. In a 2010 speech to the Canadian International Council he spoke of a totally new reality in which “most people know what is generally going on … and are consciously aware of global inequities, inequalities, lack of respect, exploitation”. He concludes that “Mankind is now politically awakened and stirring”. Years earlier he warned of a demographic time bomb of impatient and unemployed youth is just waiting to be triggered (Brzezinski 2005).

Many sources are warning of increasing, and increasingly wide spread unrest. In 2011, the International Labour Organization warned that the unemployment resulting from the global financial crisis threatens waves of unrest in both rich and poor countries, pointing out that 45 of 118 countries that were studied already saw rising unrest (particularly in the EU, Arab world and Asia).

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The Economist (2009 December, 2013 November) has frequently reported on increasing global social unrest due to painful austerity measures, growing expectations from emerging market middles classes, and revolts against dictatorships. The Economist Intelligence Unit estimates that 43% of the 150 countries it studied will be at high or very high risk of social unrest in 2014.

A recent OECD publication states that “Income inequality has a ‘statistically significant impact’ on economic growth,” where as the redistribution of wealth through taxes and social benefits does not hamper economic growth. (OECD 2014). The report finds that in the 34 OECD member states the gap between rich and poor has reached the highest level in 30 years; and the richest 10% in those member states earn 9.5 times as much on average as the poorest. In the 1980s this ratio stood at 7:1. The only countries where inequality has fallen is in the economically stressed Greece, and in Turkey where a new middle class continues to emerge. Emphasis in the report was placed on the fact that lack of investment in education was a key factor in the rise of inequality. The report found that fewer educational opportunities for disadvantaged individuals had the effect of lowering social mobility and hampering skills development, thus reproducing systemic poverty.

The 2013 study of world protests by the Initiative for Policy Dialogue and FriedrichEbert-Stiftung New York outlined the following four main areas of grievance that sparked unrest from the 2006-2013 period (Ortiz et al. 2013: 5):

Economic Justice and Anti-Austerity

Failure of Political Representation and Political Systems

Global Justice

Rights of People

488 protests on issues related to reform of public services, tax/fiscal justice, jobs/ higher wages/labor conditions, inequality, poverty/low living standards, agrarian/land reform, pension reform, high fuel and energy prices, high food prices, and housing.

376 protests on lack of real democracy; corporate influence, deregulation and privatization; corruption; failure to receive justice from the legal system; transparency and accountability; surveillance of citizens; and anti-war/military industrial complex.

311 protests were against the IMF and other International Financial Institutions (IFIs), for environmental justice and the global commons, and against imperialism, free trade and the G20.

302 protests on ethnic/indigenous/racial rights; right to the Commons (digital, land, cultural, atmospheric); labor rights; women’s rights; right to freedom of assembly/speech/press; religious issues; rights of lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgendered people

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(LGBT); immigrants’ rights; and prisoners’ rights.

A lesser number of protests focus on denying rights to specific groups (eg. immigrants, gays).

The report explains that although it appears that the demand for economic justice takes precedence, the overwhelming demand was not for economic justice per se, “but for ’real democracy’ … and frustration with politics as usual and a lack of trust in the existing political actors, left and right” [our emphasis]. This demand is seen in every type of political system, from authoritarian regines to representative democracies that are failing to listen and respond to the needs and views of the people.

Protesting Failures of Political Representation/Political Systems by Region, 2006-2013

Source: world protests in media sources 2006-2013 as of July 31st 2013 (Ortiz et. al. 2013: 21) The report forcefully concludes that

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… policy reforms will be insufficient if governments fail to guarantee democratic participation and curtail the power of elites—not only in local and national governments but in the institutions of global governance as well. Leaders and policymakers will only invite further unrest if they fail to prioritize and act on the one demand raised in more of the world’s protests between 2006 and 2013 than any other—the demand for real democracy (Ortiz et al. 2013: 43).

In addition to the insurrection that results from political invisibility and disempowerment, unregulated capitalism is charged by these movements with creating wealth but not effectively distributing it and that it takes no account of what it cannot commodify, neither the social relationships of family and community nor the environment, which are vital to human wellbeing and survival, and indeed to the functioning of the market itself. There has been a surprising sustained character to global protests over time which could signal a new impetus for civil society and demands for new social contracts between citizens and power holders. Dissenting groups mobilize and form, submerge, and re-emerge in new, diverse and innovative morphologies.

Even before the financial crisis broke out in 2008, research was being carried out on new social and economic justice and democratic movements worldwide that were very much under the radar of the media. What was discovered was that something profound and pervasive was occurring in terms of social organization at the local, national, regional and international levels. This could not be called a “movement” in conventional terms, because it did not coalesce around a particular ideology or even topical focus. The world has become too complex for that today. What amazed researchers was the breadth and scope of this new phenomenon on a scale never seen before. Elements of this new formulation for activism extend to all parts of the globe; it cannot be divided because it is already atomized, although it shares a basic set of values regarding our world, how it functions, and our role in it. These new social organizations are based in environmental and social justice movements and movements of indigenous peoples and cultures, all of which are intertwined and interdependent.

Not just the forms of organizational structures are changing, but also the underlying values, especially as regards participatory democracy. The assertion “Nothing about us without us” is flourishing, increasing the voice of previously marginalized and excluded groups. This could be the means and the medium for implementing a new path towards inclusion and tolerance, based on respect for individual cultures and the environment, and it

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has powerful potential.

According to research, there may be as many as 114,000 international NGOS and, depending on the criteria, the Union of International Associations estimates about 65,000 international organizations operating at the global level today. This should be weighed against the estimates of 43,00 globally operating TNCs. Combined efforts, then of international NGOs and international organizations represent an enormous scope and potential power for change in terms of expertise, organization and activism. These estimates reveal an exponential increase since the 1950s, and do not even reflect millions of local or national initiatives in the civil sector.

Dunn (2005) argues that the reaction of popular forces against global corporate capitalism and the ideology of neoliberalism is generating new constellations of ideas and new forms of organization. What is happening now is the emergence of large transnationalized segments of the popular classes who are using new information technologies to organize globally. There are already clear and important initiatives, particulary emerging in civil society frames that are making attempts to reinterpret the content of contemporary structured relations (between states and societies; between business and states; between business and the societies within which they operate). There is an increasing cooperation and collaboration within and across sectors in general. This can be clearly seen in, for example, the Occupy Everything movements across the world that are still emerging, submerging and reappearing in response to a broad spectrum of threats and challenges. The World Social Forum, for instance, is an important arena for the organization of global networks and parties that claim to represent the peoples of the Earth.

The insurrections can be recognised as events of radical change only retrospectively, if the rules of politics change. This depends on who will uphold the possibility of changing the rules of what counts as political. There are certain moments in history when significant change is possible, it is not a certainty, but a possibility. It is very difficult for any single act or national response to actually set the “momentum� for change in motion. But when that historical wave arrives, it can be guided. We are in one of those moments now.

Some of the most salient examples of alternatives and a new and rising global civil consciousness and organization are presented here.

Occupy and Global Democracy Movements: In October 2011 a “United Global Democracy Manifesto was produced over four months through consultation among groups, activists and people's assemblies in countries such as Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Britain, Egypt, Germany, India, Israel, Mexico, Palestine, Spain, Tunisia, Uruguay, and the US. In

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summary the manifesto states that united in diversity, people demand global change, global democracy and global governance by the people. They call for a ’global regime change’ replacing the G8 with the whole of humanity. They criticize undemocratic global institutions like the IMF, WTO, global markets, multinational banks, the G8/G20, the European Central Bank and the UN security council. They demand that the citizens of the world take control over the decisions that affect their lives, from the global to local.

Occupy Central (Hong Kong). The Umbrella Revolution: The ongoing pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong have very specific local goals to achieve democracy but not in a broad ideological sense. What they want explicitely relates to universal suffrage, elections, reinterpretation of Hong Kong’s constitution by Beijing and the resignation of the current chief executive. They do not claim to be a revolutionary movement.

Occupytogether. This is the internet face of the #occupy movement. The website frames the international movement as by people with a variety of backgrounds and political beliefs who feel change must come from the bottom-up, and not from distrusted political institutions. It aims to fight back against the system that has allowed the rich to get richer and the poor to get poorer. The main issues they address are corporate influence, corporate personhood, student debt, wrongful foreclosures, too big to fail” banks, living minimum wage levels, and budget cuts.

The “New Abduction of Europe” Congress in Madrid (February-March 2014). The Congress was intended to mark a turning point in the recent history of European and Mediterranean social movements. It was to close the so-called “revolutionary” period (initiated by the Arab Spring, the events of 2011 in Spain, Greece and other Southern European countries). These were the countries who experienced the most social turmoil as a result of the economic crisis. A new period of a pan-European coalition of “old” and “new” social movements, political and non-governmental organizations and public cultural institutions was to be initiated at the conference. This new coalition is aimed at a democratic and open Europe as an alternative to both the market-oriented technocratic vision of the EU advocated by the Troika and the anti-European trends associated with increasingly strong national tendencies.

MORELIKEPEOPLE. Their recent publication (Anarchists in the Boardroom) calls for changes in the way social movements organize today in order to be more in touch with the people and the cause they represent. At the same time, lessons have been learned from the use of social media and technology from the new social movements that could improve impact and change the world. The publication travels from worker-run factories, to Occupy

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encampments and non-violent direct actions, and even to some forward-thinking companies.

More like people activists propose that social media and new technologies can help NGOs, charities, trade unions and voluntary organisations to both stay relevant during the current period of transitions.

Indigenous Movements: The objective of most of these movements is to protect the sovereignty and control of land and resources. Indigenous peoples’ organizations recognize the need to reach out to other movements and groups around the world because the nature of globalization requires a global response. In Latin America, for instance, there has been a very explicit effort of indigenous peoples to link with the environmental movement, and the campesino movement, and other social movements. Their strategies involve legal action, i.e. changing national laws and national constitutions, and using international law, direct action, voicing their cause to the international arena as well as entering government. One fascinating and successful group is the Pachamama Alliance begun among the Achuar people of Ecuador and Peru who began building a world alliance in 1995. The “Pachamama Alliance is a global community that offers people the chance to learn, connect, engage, travel and cherish life for the purpose of creating a sustainable future that works for all�.

Food Safety and Food Sovereignty Movements: These groups typically address the WTO, the World Bank, IMF, and multinational corporations like Monsanto and the roles they play in agricultural production, at the same time advocating the rights of peasants. One such group is the international movement Via Campesina. The movement operates in Asia, Africa, America and Europe and comprises and coordinates 148 organizations of small and medium sized agricultural producers and workers, rural women and indigenous communities. The coalition of small producer organizations from around the world operates programs of seedsharing. They protect seeds against Monsanto patents and against genetic modification.

Two other notable examples are the food sovereignty movement and the zero waste movement. Both movements exhibit features where the traditional meets the globalized world.

They are locally driven but organize widely across the globe. The food sovereignty movement is largely comprised of small-families, peasants and landless farmers. Their activism fights against the World Trade Organization and its role in agriculture, and the World Bank and International Monetary Fund and their roles in destroying local agriculture through the spread of corporate production.

The proponents of the zero waste movement are trying to find ways to step outside the consumption model of capitalist-produced goods. They are finding ways to regenerate what they need from what they have within their societies already, and thereby also produce

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cooperative forms of income that foster community development and cohesion. They are international in their reach and scope, and they are very clear and explicit in their analysis about the role of corporations and the international financial institutions in destroying their ways of life and lands.

Alternative Economic Models: There is a growing list of economic alternatives to capitalism which include the green economy, blue economy and the global Zeri network, Buddhist economics (aims to clarify the harmful and beneficial range of human activities involving production and consumption in order to enhance human ethical maturity), Muslim economics (where taxation is imposed in order to reallocate resources to the needy in societies). These models already exist and more alternative economic models are emerging with innovative tools and frameworks, like the sharing (mesh) economy or the participatory economy.

Cultural Creatives – A Cultural Movement: The term was coined by Paul H. Ray and

Sherry Ruth Anderson (2000) in their famous book Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People are Changing the World. Ever since the book’s publication, a self-awareness has formed in groups that promote innovative, non-mainstream lifestyles outside the flows of global capital and that now call themselves ‘cultural creatives’. They have web sites, as well as social media presence, and the movement has grown into a ’subculture’, also known as LOHAS (Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability). It aims to promote creative forms of capitalism and actively participate in making a better world. It is estimated that in America more than 40 million identify with the movement, and in Europe around 60-80 million people are involved with the cultural creatives (www.elasticmind.ca/innerpreneur/index.php/culturalcreativity/).

It is a mentality as well as a way of setting up and conducting businesses and living an organic life style. The attributes of being a culturally creative person are also formulated (see website above) and its primary values are authenticity, social activism, idealism, globalism and ecology, consciousness (feeling empathy and sympathy for others, understanding different viewpoints, valuing personal experience), and personal growth. The collective awareness of people advocating such values is not historically new, but the wide scale of this collective identity, and the number of people it connects are rather unprecedented – even with the common tendency that they are often isolated and not well-informed about each other.

Although the number of alternatives to the current paradigm of neoliberalism may appear small, it is important to know that their number is growing, and growing fast. They are

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not often connected to a larger super-structure of a hierarchical movement and they are not always articulated as anti-capitalist or anti-globalization. There has been a clear surge in attempts to create real alternatives. This is being done by stepping outside the current system of relations and creating more fulfilling parallel micro-systems. This can also take the form of overcoming obstacles to fulfill needs within the dominant system, or changing unjust structures altogether.

Pathways to the Formulation of New Norms

New norms cannot be achieved in a linear way via indoctrination, preaching or sanctions, especially not in a deeply divided world with a rapidly developing planetary or even cosmic technology of destruction, surveillance and manipulation. During the consecutive waves of democratization of the past century, new norms developed rather via open public discourse based upon the evaluation of failed political, cultural and social practices and the increasingly convincing moral, academic and artistic criticism of concerned citizens and the institutions run by them. It is impossible to forecast or prescribe the way a new discource or narrative will emerge from the cacophony of the different movements, civil society networks, responsible academic institutions and creative and courageous individuals.

Their increasingly dense networks seem to guarantee, however, the creative chaos for an emerging global civil society. This global civil society is far from chrystallized; it exists rather in fragments and only expresses itself in sporadic global and regional rallies (such as the World Social Forum, the European Social Forum) or spontaneous solidarity actions. A more systematic and interrelated structuring of these transnational and local events, combined with an efficient methodology of collection and dissemination of documents, appeals and analyses, would have significant impact on global public opinion. These are the embryonic seeds of transnational democracy. If their activities would be coordinated and shared, they might more effectively act as the controllers of today’s uncontrolled and nontransparent decision makers, holding them accountable for decisions that determine our planet’s and humanity’s destiny in the long run.

This path of global democratisation will not be easy, linear or rapid. It presupposes a new and complex perception of democracy, accountability and social responsibility from the side of concerned civil initiatives, movements and organisations. It also needs a new tacit consensus based on a new set of social contracts. All actors first of all have to make themselves as transparent and accountable as they claim state authorities, multinational

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companies, global financial and trade institutions should be. They also have to develop a new attitude and practice towards horizontal (civil lateral) systematic cooperation. During the past 50 years there were many forecasts, warnings, protests and one issue movements and crossborder initiatives to discuss, influence and alter questions of public concern. These initiatives (professional, intellectual or political) were largely ignored or quickly forgotten partly because they hurt the interests of unaccountable global marketplayers, the mainstream media and public authorities, and partly because of self-imposed isolation and narcissistic ideological divisions and the shortsightedness of civil organisations, NGOs and social movements. This attitude and non-cooperative behaviour might change for the positive as the negative impacts of global challenges and crises continue to accumulate. There will be fewer and fewer convincing and credible answers given by democratically elected governmnets for solving them.

In a globalizing world of instant and constant communication the utilization of collective synergies is better suited to meeting the challenges than individual visions and pursuits. The acceptance of constant change and intransigence must replace the compulsive desire for permanence, which is only illusionary in any case. New frameworks and strategies need further development to assist the confrontation and management of complex and interdependent crises in a coalition of stakeholders (governments, business and civil society).

Another path leading to changing norms is a fundamental restructuring of our educational systems. We need holistic, inter-and transdisciplinary methods and interpretation of the growing uncertainties, social, political and religious-cultural polarisation, ecological catastrophies, unsustainability and amorality in the world today. We need a new appraoch to science and research that is embedded in, speaks to and is relevant for societies, not isolated in ivory towers of so-called objectivity. Compartmentalisation and fragmentation of ’knowledge’ into ’disciplines’ and higher education kept under the control of national authorities fundamentally hinders the development of the much needed new knowledge that might develop into collective wisdom that serves the future of all humankind. We need completely new institutions with horizontal and open structures that can be called Futureuniversities where the generation and accumulation of knowledge serves the interests of local, regional and global societies, instead of irresponsible and uncontrolled global political and market actors.

Integrative Cognitive Tools: Towards One-ness in Scientific Analysis

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For many years, Immanuel Wallerstein has written about the two cultures of scholarship, that is science and philosophy. The gulf between these two cultures of thought was deliberate and a clear product of 19th century thinking. Science was assigned the task of looking for truth; while philosphy and what become know more generally as the humanities (history, and later economics, sociology, and political science) was positioned to search for goodness. The progress of the last 200 years has tried to reunite the search for truth and the search for goodness under the label of social science as it was established in the 19th century.

Wallerstein observes, that rather than reunifying these two cultures, social science has itself been torn apart by the dissonance between the two searches.

Wallerstein recognizes two remarkable intellectual developments of the last two decades that constitute something and perhaps provide evidence of a process of overcoming the split of the two cultures, and in the terms of this study, point towards a movement of oneness in scientific analysis. The first is called complexity studies in the natural sciences, examples of analysis found in this paper; and the other is called cultural studies in the humanities. The reason complexity studies was given that name is because reality is complex.

It rejects the Newtonian science (found in Table 2) that assumed that there were simple underlying formulas that explained everything.3 “Complexity studies argues, rather, that all such formulae can at best be partial, and at most explain the past, never the future” (Wallerstein 1997). The universe is filled with ever evolving structures which reach points at which their equilibria can no longer be maintained and bifurcation takes place where new paths are found and new orders established, but we never know in advance what these new orders will be.

If physical scientists and mathematicians are now telling us that truth in their arena is complex, indeterminate, and dependent on an arrow of time, what does that mean for social scientists? For, it is clear that, of all systems in the universe, human social systems are the most complex structures that exist, the ones with the briefest stable equilibria, the ones with the most outside variables to take into account, the ones that are most difficult to study (Wallerstein 1997).

Cultural studies do not study culture as such, but rather how, when and why they were produced in the forms they were, and how they were and are received by others, and for what 3

“Einstein was unhappy that e=mc2 explained only half the universe. He was searching for the unified field theory that would in an equally simple equation explain everything” (Wallerstein 1997).

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reasons. Thus, the study of cultural products has moved away from traditional humanities into the realm of the social sciences and the explanation of reality as a constructed reality.

With the move of natural science towards social sciences via complexity studies, and the move of humanities towards the social sciences via cultural studies, we are in the process of overcoming the two cultures through the ’social scientization’ of knowledge that recognizes reality as constructed. With this movement, we are in the process of overcoming the artificial construction of hard and separate disciplines and are moving towards a unification of scientific and human endeavor, overcoming 19th century constraints, and providing the basis not only for holistic scientific enquiry, but for the basis of new, regenerative educational models.

In academic scholarship (research as well as education), particularly in the social sciences, there is an increasing recent tendency to try to bridge the fragmentary nature on knowledge to create truly transdisciplinary methodologies. New methodology is needed that is not tied to compartmentalized disciplinary categories that reflect and reproduce a mechanistic world view. Knowledge produced through the cross-fertization of tools, information and methodologies requires a new type of university that can aid in the production of a complex understanding of contemporary global challenges.

In addition to Wallerstein, Christopher Chase Dunn (2005) and others repeatedly make the plea for the necessity to transform the social sciences and make them more global or cosmopolitan (Beck and Sznaider 2006). They convincingly argue that there is a necessity to renew the dialogue within the social sciences between activism (as public sociology) and scholarship (as professional scientific sociology). The two should not be thought of exclusive realms in conflict with each other, but rather as realms that are complementary and are thus equally necessary (Dunn 2005). Since “contemporary social change can only be comprehended in its world historical context,” Dunn emphasizes the importance of taking a more comprehensive, global (and less nation-based, reductive) perspective as it yields a deeper and more accurate understanding of the larger processes of an emergent global system.

He develops a typology borrowed from Michael Burawoy (2005) – i.e., professional, critical, policy, and public – that could be used to make the social sciences relevant, 4 applicable and Burawoy’s typology is summarized by Ericson (2005: 365-366) as the following: Professional knowledge refers to institutionally defined and regulated theories and methods of sociology. Conceptual frameworks and methods are agreed upon. Scientific knowledge “[produces] theories that correspond to the empirical world” (Burawoy 2005: 276). This he calls ‘mainstream sociology’ to differentiate it from critical sociology.

Critical sociology, on the other hand, “largely defines itself by its opposition to 4

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accountable in describing today’s complex global realities like the crisis of and challenges to neoliberalism and neoconservatism, and the dynamics of core and periphery. The responsibility of a global public social science could be enormous in explaining global historical processes to people while actively engaging with global civil society. Dunn maintains that the institutional boundaries between contemporary social science disciplines are “annoying obstacles” to a scientific understanding of social reality as well as politically.

Instead of abolishing the disciplines, however, he proposes a more effective transdisciplinary approach for both professional and public sociologists, who know the basic theories and methods of several social science disciplines.

He describes the following sub-fields for sociology as follows: 

Global professional Social Science is a field that studies social realities on a global scale incorporating the methodological tools and theoretical perspectives of various social sciences.



Global Critical Social Science is a field that critiques, deconstructs and reformulates important global social science concepts (e.g. globalization) and global institutions and proposes critical ways of categorizing social forces, contradictions and antagonisms in ways that are intended to be of use for transnational social movements (e.g. Hardt and Negri 2004, Starr 2000).



Global Policy Social Science is responsible for formulating global policies that plan ways and strategies to cope with global economic, social and political forces (e.g.

Global Policy Institutes).



Global Public Social Science comprises social scientists who use their research skills and analytic abilities to address global civil society and also serve transnational social movements (e.g. teaching and writing textbooks for students). Many universities have

professional (‘mainstream’) sociology’ (Burawoy 2005: 269–70). It is driven by normative frameworks and broader moral issues.

Policy knowledge is in the service of a client who defines a problem and asks the sociologist to help with solutions. It is judged by its practicality, effectiveness and usefulness to the client in making policy interventions.

Public knowledge appeals to broader public audiences. The sociologist is a public intellectual, communicating outside university contexts, especially in the media in public debates and fora. This public knowledge, according to Burawoy, is based on a consensus about the relevance between sociologists and the public.

While Burawoy acknowledges the overlap and interdependence among the types of knowledge, this can be better expressed as ‘antagonistic interdependence’ and each type of knowledge as relatively discrete.

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established interdisciplinary undergraduate majors in global studies (e.g. University of California at Santa Barbara, The Global Studies Association, UCR Institute for Research on World-Systems, The Giordano Bruno GlobalShift University).

One of the drivers for a revolution in the social sciences and eduation is the conceptualization of a Future University. A Future University needs to be different in fundamental ways from today’s obsolete, out-of-touch, and petrified institutions. New institions should be ’learning’ and not just teaching institutions where the co-creation of knowledge is translated into programs that promote self-reflection and self-correction, in systems, policies and societies. This way new knowledge hubs can steadily reconfigure their own capacities to include new partners and methods to assess and address changing realities.

The social and natural sciences, as well as technical innovations, should also be socially responsible. In the first place the question needs to be asked: does the research serve the interests of societies and if so, in what ways will it be useful identifying and providing relevant alternatives for the solution to problems. The Future University: 1) should not only be a teaching institution, but also a ‘learning institution’ that offers space, infrastucture and connectedness for creation and co-creation. The co-created, new knowledge produced and disseminated should be translated into developmental programs. That way research is connected to practice directly contributing to social, institutional and ecoonomic reforms and policies as well as to new, integrative and complex regional and city development strategies; 2) should benchmark social responsibility. The recent global crisis brought to the surface legitimacy questions caused by the lack of social reponsibility in scientific research.

Academia should become one of the strongest stakeholders in finding alternatives to the negative spirals and destructive tendencies of globalization. Researchers of humanities, social sciences, natural sciences and technical innovation should ask the same questions before starting a new project: does our research and if so in what way, contribute to finding the proper answers to increasingly intertwined, complex problems and challenges; 3) should be built upon the principles and methodologies of inter- and transdiciplinarity.

Divided knowledge undermines the solidarity of humanity and impedes development and achievement (UNESCO 2013). Complex problems caused by the pervasive global transformation cannot be understood and therefore solved without a new complex and

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holistic approach and methodology. New visions of sustainability will not be provided by divisive and one-sided scientific paradigms. This presupposes a move from multiand interdisciplinarity towards transdisciplinary thinking and research; 4) should be open towards all of the decisive actors of the globalizing world such as global and local market actors, including MNC-s and international financial institions, representatives and experts from local via national to regional and global governmental institutions, as well as towards representatives of civil society and all forms of Media. The representatives of these seemingly separate but de facto in many ways interconnected spheres should be active participants of the new process of knowledge co-creation. An institutionalized dialogue among these artificially separated spheres of production, reproduction and interpretation might pave the way towards a new common language and vocabulary of the emerging global culture of problem solving. Looking for solutions to common global problems such as environmental crisis, poverty and growing social polarization needs the broadest possible understanding, the details of which can only be provided by the broadest spectrum of stakeholders. A conscious development – co-creation – of a new common language might also be an inevitable precondition for new - global, regional and local social contracts; 5) should be responsible for its own ‘human products’ – for that reason the walls and boundaries between different levels of institutionalized learning and teaching should be eliminated. This open and integrative nature of Future Universities would guarantee the effective, rapid and broad new knowledge dissemination to the spheres of culture, society, economy and politics. The broad, effective and rapid socialization of knowledge, combined with guarantees of feedback mechanisms might be the base for the co-creation of a new widom based society.

Concluding Remarks: Towards a New Global SOcial Contract It will not be easy to bring down the mental, political, and physical walls of division and separation and replace them with a holistic view and requisite behaviors. In our our deeply divided world, the ideology and practice of ’absolute sovereignty’ and the security of states (and not societies) still dominates the realm of politics. Democracy is restricted to

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certain spheres of existence and human activities within the geographical units called nation states. It does not exist in institutionalised forms on global or regional/transnational levels. In political reality the idea of equal nation states as independent actors possessing the same rights is overwritten by the rule created by the biggest and mightiest actors.

The cognitive sphere of this world is equally dominated by separation: knowledge production and distribution is realized by so called ’disciplines’ which usually guarantee the maintenance of a fragmented and one-sided academic picture of the world. This is why mainstream social sciences or academia as such has little to nothing relevant to say about the complexity, nature and potential impacts and consequences of damaging and intertwined processes we usually call ’crisis’. In fact we are in the midst of a great global transformation without adequate explanatory and intellectual tools. Nation state authorities are themselves having trouble understanding the complexities of their own positions and potentials of both conflict and cooperation. All these creates a dangerous and fragile Weltzustand in a world without global leadership and well-functioning, accountable and predictable international economic, financial, and political institutions. The world system is unbalanced and reached the phase of bifurcation.

There are, however serious signs of fundamental change both in the functioning of the world system and in the way of thinking about it and analyzing it. Since the breakout of the global crisis in 2007, there is an identifiable new set of social and polical movements, protests, networks and individual initiatives that are formulating the core of a democratic global civil society. Revolutionary developments in ICT, the very new phenomena of social media, gives space for entirely new versions of self-mobilization, expression and the sharing of opinions and for transnational, regional or global deliberation. This new family of antisystemic players is not yet chrystallized but is gaining a new level of self-awareness, selfunderstanding and self-confidence. Their criticism has reached the official sphere of dominating institutions; their new vocabulary and narrative is more and more often echoed from international institutions such as the IMF or the World Bank and their representatives. In other words, we are witnessing a cognitive revolution whose outcome is yet unpredictable.

Powerholders and opinionmakers have an increasingly hard job to maintain the ideological, intellectual and institutional pillars of the old world order. The new paradigm of a possibly more democratic and just future world order can already be identified in the thinking, behaviour, networking, and associations of the new players.

We can and should make efforts towards re-unifying or integrating artifically separated elements of the whole (one-ness) in the different spheres at one and the same time:

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In our cognitive sphere of existence representatives and believers of complex and integrated thinking can pursue inter- and transdisciplinary research projects and re-configure existing institutions such as universities and research institutes accordingly or simply create new ones like the one we call the Future University. A new ethical base for social sciences is emerging worldwide and has begun to seriously influence academic discourse within international institutions such as UNESCO and the UN. For institutions under nationstate surveillance, a breakthrough seems take longer and be more troublesome, but cracks can be identified in the walls of old and obsolete knowledge factories as well. The need for new thinking and acting is growing worldwide. The concept of the Future University could integrate the fragments of these conscious or often unintended efforts of redefining the meaning and role of knowledge, academic research and scientific innovation in our lives.

In the sphere of real politics and action the changes are more obvious and dramatic.

From the late 1970 s the world has wittnessed the emergence of new social movements, civil society networks, protest and resistance against dictatorships and authoritarian rule. The new way of thinking and strategy of civil society was based on nonviolence and open, rational, and continous dialogue with authorities representing power systems. This new civil culture of selfmobilization has reached a global dimension and global consciousness today. Strenghtening networks of civil initiatives, movements and organizations can pursue public dialouge with global players if they find the right strategies of cooperation and coalition building and withold their narcissistic-individualistic attitudes. On the basis of this new thiniking and acting, complex and global strategies can built which can result in a new socal contract on all – global, regional and local – levels. This might lead us towards the notion of species consciousness that binds us all together with the other life forms on the planet we share.

How we have used and abused the Earth’s physical resources in the pursuit of economic performance and profit at the expense of ethical values and societal and environmental wellbeing is the narrative of our societies that explains how we got to where we are today. We need to re-engage with our capacity to wonder by intuiting the resonance of a world alive with energy and a relentless spirit of creativity. A world of instant global communication, where time and place are no longer central, is a world less suited to individual visionaries and more to the synergy of collective action. The new narrative expalining who we are and why we are here is in the making. It has been proposed that humanity is finally reaching the level of concsiousness. Scientists are studying the effects of our combined consciousness in, for example, the Global Consciousness Project. They say that “Large scale group consciousness has effects in the physical world. Knowing this, we can intentionally work toward a brighter,

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more conscious future�. The construction of a new narrative to take us into the future requires the input of each of us, and the time for action is now.

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