Heading Towards Change: Redefining our Economy

For the past few weeks, we have been deep in articles, literature, videos and podcasts; to better understand our current economic system.

Through this process, we identified actors and institutions that influence (and don’t) our system and the ways in which the values borne of and perpetuated by capitalism influence our needs and relationships (including our relationship with the Planet).

 While we have been able to identify several insights, we want to share with you a few key learnings:

1. Knowledge appears to be a key leverage point; access to it via internet, formal education or other means is an opportunity to shift perceptions, values and ways of doing
2. The individual, while officially only having power through voting, plays a critical role in ushering in change that can trickle up to larger actors, especially en masse – power of the people
3. Simultaneously, change at higher-levels or power are equally critical to changing the conversation

 By the end of this current analysis of our economic system, we were left with a final thought:

How might we redefine the value exchanged in the economy from purely financial to more purpose-driven to ensure the future care of the Planet and all Sentient Beings?

This past week marked the beginning of our second phase into this journey where we have been partnered up to work with the Social Purpose Institute, United Way B.C to investigate how we might understand and support the Purpose Economy in Canada to propel the paradigm shift from capitalism towards the next economies.

In this question, we will be challenging the notion of winner-take-all mindsets, a pervasive notion in our current system, and of which was initially mis-interpreted from Darwin’s Origin of the Species. This approach also affords us with the opportunity to apply a cybernetics approach; in understanding, more thoroughly, the role of knowledge and information sharing as a catalyzer of change; the power of informal markets on formal ones.

We are very much looking forward to finding new ways to make space for the different worldviews that accompany these different economic models that we see emerging in the start-up economies space. We are heading in this journey with a deep sense of curiosity, compassion and hope and look forward to keeping you posted on our progress.

In the meantime, if you feel curious about this project and want to learn more, please feel free to connect with any member in our team.

Sincerely,

The New Economy Team