Here is a quote from the novel ‘The Ministry of the Future’ by Kim Stanley Robinson.1
“If economics is a method for optimizing various objective functions, subject to various constraints, then the focus of change would need to look again at those “objective functions.” Not profit, but biosphere health should be the function solved for; and this would change many things. It means moving the inquiry from economics to political economy, but that would be the necessary step to get the economics right. Why do we do things? What do we want? What would be fair? How can we best arrange our lives together on this planet?
Our current economics has not yet answered any of these questions. But why should it? Do you ask your calculator what to do with your life? No. You have to figure that out for yourself.”
The questions at the end of the first paragraph are what I’m hoping Earth’s Next Chapter prompts more of: the deliberate and intentional collective questions of what we really want the next chapter to say.
I don’t think what we want now is the same as what we wanted in the 19th Century, but our system is still more or less geared towards successful industrialism.
And just like the system we have now, a new system will likely have to arise organically. No single person is going to stand up and say “I tell you what, how about we prioritize the biosphere instead of profit!” and we all run around changing the system accordingly. It will more likely happen as we all begin to change what we do individually, putting pressure on the system, or leading it in a different direction. Even just changing our awareness individually makes us more or less likely to follow leaders who are proposing change.
So, answering the ‘system’ question has to start with each of us understanding what we want to measure as ‘important’ in our own lives.
For example, how do you measure success in yourself, your home, and your family? Most of us still, unconsciously, think about our income as a key component of a successful life. We generally consider money as being able to give us a life that we prefer. But it’s still a means to an end - money itself is not the life we prefer - it’s the things that money can do for us that we want. So what are those things? What if we integrated income into a ‘better’ measure of what’s most important? (And what if we integrated GDP into a measure of what’s most nationally important?)
For example, what if we considered health to be our number one measure of individual success? (And then think about how it would change our nation if we considered it our number one collective goal).
Income is built into that measure as well of course, but as a means to an end, not an end in itself. Other components of this measure might be access to (and time to prepare) nutritious food, a solid social network, enough sleep, affordable access to preventive and curative healthcare, time and commitment to exercise, good air quality (indoors and out), walkable communities etc etc. It’s both a fundamental and integrative measure.
Without good health, we literally find it hard to function. And if we have exceptional health, we can do more of the things that make life worth living, including working, and serving society. Some of the list above is within our control and a few things are not, but if we start to prioritize it within our own family and schedule, and vote for leaders who get it, it puts pressure on the system to respond and correct the parts that are out of our control.
Health is just one example, but a deliberate one, given that we may be the first generation that does not live longer than our parents. If we measured health outcomes before income as a way of understanding success, how would that change what we do daily, annually, and over our lifetime? How would we reorganize our week? How would it change what job you do or who you work for? Where you live? What you do on the weekends (or even if you have weekends anymore)? What you encourage your kids to pursue? Where you buy groceries and how much of your income you devote to it? What house you buy or rent? Who your friends are? What time you get up?
These are sometimes little things and sometimes big things. But we can easily get out of alignment with what goes into the equation if we don’t know what outcome we’re actually looking for.
So, what are you solving for? What is the ‘X’ that you want out of life and the world? It’s not an easy question, and this post has a lot embedded in this one thought, so don’t stress about it, but if you haven’t already, just maybe begin to play with it.
Perhaps experiment with a few different measures of a successful life? How might you rearrange things to move more of your energy and activities towards producing more ‘X’?
When you are busy, what are you busy achieving?
I am only half way through this book and I’m not sure what I think of it yet. I might profile it properly in the future, but it is at least interesting so far!