Progress is more than GDP

The media dominance of many contemporary economists and their unilateral thinking is typical of a zeitgeist that we have to leave behind. A symptom of an opinion that has brought a lot of prosperity but resulted in an ecologically and social crisis. After all we live on the boundaries of what our planet still can handle. In fact we are already more than over those boundaries. Yet the call for more purchasing power and want to restore the systems that can excite our consumption pattern back to full predominant heights. Both experts as consumers dram of a world in recovery. Many of us lack the ability to doubt the world of which we have become so addicted to. A more than logic result because for the ruling powers is that a discussion that one doesn’t want. It could cripple their powers. And for the ordinary citizen road to what was is much simpler than the path of renewal and uncertainty.

In addition, individualization, consumerism and the shift of power from governments to large organisations have resulted that economic growth and consumption were directly affiliated with happiness and well-being. Our well being measured by means of gross domestic Product. Economists saw the link and the solution: we will have to consume us out of the crisis. What we forget is that our luck doesn’t consist of pure consumption. Our ego is not formed by the stuff we own. It is not what you own but what you are smart enough not to own. That should be more important. But the economic crisis shows us more. It is a crisis in confidence. Confidence in the future and the world we have created. A disturbance in our mental consciousness that we have come to the end of our ecological and economic systems. That’s what I call real progress for our society.

For many people, in a world in which the income gap gets bigger, perhaps a way of thinking which not everyone can convince. It is clear that the increasing differences between the rich and the poor is destabilising in the world. We also have seen the World Economic Forum mention the income gap as an important development which could threaten global stability.

The cracks in the old world and its systems result in social unrest. A logical part of a world in transition. After all without pain and unrest there will be no renewal. Chaos is the sign that fundamental changes are taking place and are coming. The solutions and networks that will finally support real human values, rather than the organisational and economic goals, are still unclear. But one thing is clear. We will have to learn again, as citizens and consumers, to deal with uncertainty. The stable base of securities where we as humans are so attached to are clearly pure artificial and therefore will fall away.

Unfortunately, many of us are addicted to our (economic) systems and strange ways of thinking. For example: endless economic growth at the cost of everything? People want to consume always more. You are what you consume? The assurance that our ego is fed by the stuff organizations can impose us so successful through clever marketing and advertising. The certainty that inequality in the access of knowledge and skills will continue to exist. And the certainty that organisations and governments can continue to control the mass via media and by pressing the fear stimuli. The question is whether these ‘certainties’ from the past arefalling? The future will tell.

The video below of the Dutch Rabobank gives insights in how we sawand identified progress in the past and what the challenges are for the future. We see the impact of new technology but hear little about the social new sentiments. Sentiments in which possesion in no longer a dominant status symbol. One thing is clear in the video. We must unlearn many of our traditional assumptions. To start with many of our of economic assumptions. It is time we make our economic systems serving to man instead of the man serving it’s systems and institutions. Time for radical innovation.

It is all happening right now. Only traditional media doesn’t take notice. They communicate in particular about how the world was and what recovery can bring us. In my opinion, economic recovery is the worst thing which can happen. It brings us back to the world where we came from. And one thing is for sure. That world is no longer feasible. Embrace uncertainties, be a rebel and embrace resistance on. It brings the renewal we all want.