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"Change the system, not the climate" is a common demand in the climate movement. But what kind of system do we actually want? In the midst of humanity's worst crisis and biggest challenge, there are pioneers ready to revolutionise our economy. This film explores their ideas and delves deep into what a sustainable economy could look like.
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AprendizadoTranscrição
00:27This
00:29economic system is utterly mismanaging our planetary home.
00:35We are destroying the life-supporting systems of the only known living planet in the universe.
00:45So this system is not working and we need to transform it so that our economy enables
00:52us to belong and thrive on planet Earth.
01:24So this system is not working.
01:28It's not working.
01:34Change the system, not the climate is a common demand in the climate movement.
01:43But what does systemic change actually mean?
01:53How can we transform the dysfunctional system that we have today to one that can be of service
01:59to both people and the planet?
02:06We are going to meet economic thinkers who try to find answers to these questions.
02:11I am an associate senior lecturer in human ecology.
02:15When you're an ecological economist, you're trying to study the interaction between the
02:18economy and nature.
02:20We will explore new economic models and theories.
02:25Donut economics, degrowth, economic democracy, participatory economy and the not-for-profit world.
02:35We need to have the grassroots.
02:37They represent the seeds of a radically different economy.
02:41BRAC is a development organisation that was founded in Bangladesh.
02:45We will visit companies, grassroots organisations and municipalities that are trying to play their
02:52part in this large transition.
02:55Can we imagine alternative systems?
02:58And if you get people to feel that you can influence in the small, you can get a kind of
03:04Yes, new economic thinking, not just thinking, new economic doing.
03:08Let's put this into practice.
03:31The challenges humanity faces today are immense and complex.
03:41The effects of climate change and biodiversity loss are getting more and more severe and are
03:47already affecting millions of people around the globe.
03:52Traditional economic theories have treated the environment as an externality, something that
03:58is external to the price agreement between consumer and producer.
04:03And therefore, it has been left out of the calculation.
04:11This means we find ourselves talking about the ongoing death of much of the living world.
04:17Economists will say, yes, yes, that's what we call an environmental
04:19externality.
04:21Well, I'm sorry, if we're going to talk about the death of the living world as an environmental
04:25externality, that is information enough to me that this framework does not work for our
04:32times.
04:33The death of the living world is not an externality.
04:36It is the foundation of all life on which everything depends, including, of course, the success
04:42of an economy.
04:43So we need to overthrow that framing and start somewhere else.
04:53But where should we start?
04:56What other frameworks are there?
05:04A common misunderstanding is that there are only two ways to organize an economy.
05:13If you're against the system, we have you're a communist, which is like choosing an economic
05:19system is not a multiple choice questionnaire with two answers.
05:24It's more like picking a movie on Netflix.
05:27You know, you have everything available and you could have like an infinity of other systems.
05:31We just need to invent them.
05:32So I think today what we need is not, you know, one theory to rule them all and just to
05:38replace
05:39mainstream economics.
05:40We just need to realize that this transition we're talking about is so complex that it will
05:47require interdisciplinary thinking.
05:51We can invent whatever economy we want.
05:54Anything that has been socially constructed can be socially deconstructed.
06:03So if there are other ways, how can we design a system that works for both people and the environment?
06:16One person who has given this a lot of thought is Kate Raworth, creator of Donut Economics.
06:27So I worked for many years at the United Nations and with Oxfam working on issues of human rights, workers'
06:37rights in global supply chains,
06:39working on issues of protecting the environment, stopping climate change.
06:43And then one day I saw a diagram which had been drawn up by some Earth system scientists,
06:49in fact, led by a Swedish scientist who I know is very well known, Johan Rockström.
06:54And this diagram was a circle showing that there were nine planetary boundaries,
06:59nine life supporting systems for planet Earth that keep this delicately balanced living planet
07:05in a stable state that's so benevolent to humanity, but that we were already overshooting
07:10multiple of these planetary boundaries.
07:21A few examples of the planetary boundaries are climate change, freshwater use and ocean acidification.
07:36So, sitting at my desk in Oxfam, I was struck by this diagram.
07:41It hit me that economics needs to be practiced within that circle.
07:49We need to create economies that work within the planetary boundaries.
07:54That seems so obvious.
07:57But at the same time, I was thinking, well, if there's an outer limit of pressure
08:01that human economies should put on this planet,
08:05for each person there's also an inner limit of resource use
08:09that's required to meet our human rights.
08:12And so, inside their circle, I drew a second circle and it turned into a doughnut.
08:21So, put it in the simplest of terms, here's the goal of the doughnut.
08:25Leave no one falling short on the essentials of life in the hole in the doughnut,
08:28but don't overshoot the life supporting systems of this delicately balanced living planet.
08:34And when we start there with that as our goal, the shape of progress is utterly transformed.
08:42It's not never-ending growth.
08:44It's balance.
08:45It's finding that balance between the social foundation and the ecological ceiling of the doughnut.
08:51Thriving in balance, that's where health lies.
08:55And I believe this is the shape of progress for the 21st century.
09:12The challenge here is, if this is progress and the state of balance, we are very far from that right
09:20now.
09:21As all of the red in this picture shows, this, I call it the selfie of humanity and our planetary
09:26home.
09:27Billions of people in the world are falling short on the essentials of life.
09:3211% of people worldwide don't have enough food to eat every day.
09:35So this little red wedge goes 11% of the way to the center of the circle.
09:39We want to eliminate all of the red so that nobody is left falling short on the essentials of life.
09:46But we've got to do that while recognizing that we've already overshot multiple planetary boundaries.
09:57Today, a worldwide movement has emerged.
10:00Where changemakers across the globe come together through the Doughnut Economics Action Lab.
10:07Turning the ideas of the doughnut into action.
10:17Several cities in the world have passed legislation to implement the model.
10:23Amsterdam, Copenhagen and Melbourne are a few examples.
10:34We are going to visit a newly started initiative in a small town in the south of Sweden, Tome Lilla.
10:44This is the first place in Sweden to work with the doughnut model.
10:49The work with the doughnut economics, or Munker-model, which we call it,
10:53started in connection with that we took a life-quality program in the community.
10:57And it was called the environment and the health-world model.
11:02And then we had a complex environment with the environment and a complex environment with the environment.
11:08And when you put together two complex areas, they are not easy to do, but they are even more complex.
11:13So we started to think about how we can handle this and work with it in a small town in
11:18a small town with no resources.
11:20So, so.
11:24Någonstans kommer man vilja hitta en win-win-situation där som faktiskt kan kombinera odling och bo under på ett
11:32väldigt bra sätt utan att ta land i ansvar.
11:35Ett spår som vi jobbar på är den fysiska infrastrukturen och samhällsplaneringen.
11:40Och sen så ett annat spår är mer mot medborgare och medborgardialog.
11:45Det har vi i Onslunda, då har vi det också.
11:48Ja, det visste vi.
11:49Inte bara Tomt i Onslunda.
11:51Och då diskuterar vi både vad finns i Tomlilla idag som kan bidra till en bättre livskvalitet inom Munkerns gränser.
11:59Och så kollar vi på det på lokal nivå och på global nivå och ser vad finns idag och vad
12:06saknas i Tomlilla idag.
12:07Och försöker då hitta olika initiativ som medborgare kan driva och som kommunen då kan stötta dem i.
12:16Look at your wild land next door, what they mean is look around Tomlilla and see what is, what do
12:22we have here.
12:22We have maybe forest, I heard about wetlands or maybe other types of...
12:27By starting with the rights of every person and the integrity of the living planet, this just changes the economic
12:35conversation.
12:35Because the first question we ask is what kind of economy can we design that will actually bring humanity into
12:43this space.
12:43And it sets a completely different vision for what success looks like.
13:13Economy.
13:14economy. The word means household management, to manage scarce resources. But how well do
13:29we actually manage our resources right now?
13:36An economy, and that's in the word, it's supposed to economize resources. Now, I look like I'm
13:45saying something that should be obvious to anyone, but like, if your economy does not economize
13:51resources, then it's not working well. What does that mean to economize resources? It means that
13:57year after year, as we better organize together to have this thing we call an economy,
14:03we should be able to work less. We should be able to safeguard natural resources so we can have
14:09national parks and beautiful forests instead of having to cut them down. So over years, we should
14:15see this economy actually getting smaller because it's getting more efficient. So we have to dedicate
14:20less and less of our lives and natural resources to that very, you know, material thing that is the
14:26economy, which is just here to coordinate the satisfaction of our needs. It's not like the
14:31end purpose of civilization. Who cares about the economy should be something peripheral in social life.
14:41The problem today is that we've inverted this. We've considered the economy the pinnacle of human
14:47civilization. And we tend to subordinate the social, the cultural, the political, and especially the
14:56ecological to the economic. In the mainstream debate, a common position is to advocate for so-called green growth.
15:08Statistically, there is a tight bond between economic growth and increasing climate emissions.
15:18Proponents of green growth believe that it's possible to disconnect these two so that the economy can keep
15:25growing while the emissions go down. This is called decoupling.
15:33When I was a kid, I believed in the Loch Ness monster. I really liked this. It was a nice
15:37story. But
15:39at some point, growing up as an adult and facing a lack of evidence concerning the existence of the
15:44Loch Ness monster, I mean, I had to give it up. I think green growth is precisely the same. It's
15:49a nice and
15:50appealing story because it doesn't force you to change anything to the system. Just something at some
15:56point in the future will happen that will just green the economy. You will have just people, profit,
16:02planet, everything, triple bottom line. Win, win, win, win, win. You don't have to choose. Everything is fine.
16:09All scientific evidence we have on decoupling, and we're talking about around 900 empirical studies
16:15since the emergence of the term in the 1990s, has shown us that this green growth politicians and corporate
16:24leaders believe in does not exist.
16:32How do you build a society that is sustainable without economic growth?
16:37And that is a huge problem because we are accustomed to that our structures,
16:40our pension systems, all of which are based on this. But while we know that it is impossible in length.
16:47Even if you read the nationalencyclopedia, it says that the bruttonational product,
16:52BNP, it means that it is exponential and it is impossible in length. Let us take it to us.
17:00And considering the gap between the gains we're having and the gains scientists tell us we should be having
17:07to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees for example, that requires nothing less than total systemic change.
17:15Even when I sat in the rickstown, in the rickstowns bastu, when the manly politicians sat all
17:22of us naked, they all understood all of this. Then they sat on their costumes and slips and strips
17:26and then they all understood nothing in the talarstown. But all of us understand how this is actually.
17:34They understand how this is. They understand it. But then they say, we can't change it just now. We do
17:39it then.
17:46Degrowth is an idea that criticizes the current system's need for constant growth.
17:55The degrowth movement is made up of researchers and activists who advocate for societies that
18:02prioritize social and ecological well-being over corporate profits, over production and excess consumption.
18:15Timothy Parikh is an economist specialised in degrowth.
18:20We need another economic system and we need it to be way smaller. So we need that process of
18:26degrowth as a biophysical diet applied to rich, high-income, large GDP economies so that they can
18:34reach a sustainable steady state where these economies could prosper without growth.
18:45It means that you just right now the goal is to shrink the footprint, to stabilize it to a
18:51sustainable level. And then we'll be shifting to a post-growth economy where actually production will
18:56fluctuate. If there's a new need emerging at some point, then we can produce more. We can mobilize
19:01a bit more of our time and our resources to match that need. But when that need is matched,
19:06or if we find new technologies to produce more efficiently, then we can do what an economy is
19:11supposed to do, economize resources. And you know, we can have, instead of a 40 hours work week,
19:19we can transition to a 30 hour work week and to a 20, into a 15. And I call that
19:24economic progress.
19:26An economist would be, oh my God, that's terrible. That's unemployment.
19:31But from our community economic perspective, we would see like that time we managed to free means
19:38you can start a sport association. You can teach badminton to kids in your neighborhood. You will
19:43be able to somehow be more active in local politics. We would enrich democracy. You would volunteer
19:50to different NGOs. You would start to, you know, spend more time with your neighbors,
19:54which would increase like trust systems in a specific city. You would do all these kind of
19:59stuff that creates huge amount of value, even though there's no money numbers on it.
20:05So when I look at this, I don't see like, oh, it's just all of a sudden the economy stops.
20:11No,
20:11the economy shifts.
20:14We would shift. We would shift from this pursuit of abstract monetary values to the pursuit of
20:21concrete needs satisfaction.
20:26So we would be forced to ask ourselves the very deep question of political economy.
20:32What do we want to produce? And how? What do we value? What do we really need?
20:53Another important aspect when talking about our economic system is the question of democracy.
21:02Who is actually governing the economy today?
21:09The thing that you become very clear about is that multinational corporations control
21:14our global economic system and are governing our global economic system. And
21:19every government is just trying to compete against one another to attract or appease these giants,
21:26right? And so we have a system now where nearly every sector in the world is now controlled by less
21:32than a handful of corporations.
21:35So the bigger a company becomes, the more profit it can get. So there's a built-in incentive for
21:41companies to become quite large and powerful. And there's also a built-in incentive to use that
21:47wealth and power to influence policy in order to protect the profits of the company, right? And we're
21:53seeing that as well all over the world, that companies are investing in lobbying politicians
22:00in order to get subsidies or, you know, fight down regulations and taxes that would take away from
22:07their profit. And so we've got this state of what Oxfam and others have called political capture.
22:17And we have these global legal instruments like, I don't know if you're familiar with the ISDS,
22:24like the Investor State Dispute Settlement System. It sounds like it would be super boring and I think
22:29that's intentional because it is a, it's a clause that is written into hundreds, like all of the trade
22:37agreements and bilateral investment agreements that allow for multinational corporations to sue
22:42governments for the right to impose any policy that might infringe on their profits. Ecuador,
22:49for example, got sued for the right to not drill in the Amazon. And they had to pay the equivalent
22:57of
22:57their entire health budget for the right not to do that because they had signed on to these agreements.
23:02And it makes you realize that we have this global economic architecture that is working in service
23:09of multinational corporations that could be used to actually hold them accountable, but we're not using
23:15it that way. For me, that political capture is something that's very prevalent and very clear. And the
23:22sort of the limited policy space that a lot of governments even have for sort of economic
23:27self-determination, let alone the people, right, and the communities that are really trying to just have
23:32a voice over their livelihoods.
23:49Problemet idag är att om du har företag som styrs väldigt hierarkiskt, där du har styrelser som skickar
23:54ner direktiv till ledningar som skickar ner till mellanchefer och nedåt så, och de längst ner har
23:59ingen möjlighet att påverka uppåt. Vad skapar det för typ av medborgare? Är det en bra skola för
24:06demokrati? Jag tror att det är fostrar ett hierarkiskt tänkande som sedan spiller över på det
24:15politiska livet i stort och som också bidrar till det som vi nu kallar för hotet mot demokratin eller att
24:21demokratin inte fungerar så bra. För människor är inte vana, man får inte ta del så mycket av
24:27beslutsfattandet i sitt dagliga liv.
24:34A recurring idea, when talking to economic thinkers about systemic change,
24:39is that the economy needs to become more democratic.
24:44Where and by whom should decisions be made?
24:48What resources should we use and for what?
24:52Today, these decisions are often made in closed boardrooms of large companies,
24:58with little to no possibility for influence from the general public.
25:03These decisions could instead be made democratically,
25:08by the people who are affected by these decisions.
25:16economic democracy is a concept that proposes to shift decision-making power from corporate managers
25:24and shareholders to a larger group that includes workers, customers and the broader public.
25:34We're seeing the rise and return of cooperatives of employee-owned companies,
25:38who then have a lot of voice in the governance, in the decision-making of the board.
25:43To me, this is a really good example of economic democracy that can arise up from the systems we've inherited,
25:50but transforming how things are owned and governed and financed brings back that democratic voice.
25:59Economic democracy is a theoretical framework with many different branches.
26:05There are different ideas about the market and what parts of society should be under democratic control and not.
26:16A common denominator is that companies should be governed by their employees.
26:25We are going to visit an employee-owned company in Sweden, called Kärdärs.
26:30Kärdärs.
26:37Eftersom vi är personalägda så är det nog lite annorlunda beslutsprocesser än traditionella företag.
26:44Så fort du blir anställd på Kärdärs så har du en medbestämmar rätt med att du är en del i
26:51vår stiftelse.
26:52Det är ingen som kan äga en aktie i Kärdärs som inte är anställd eller en av de externa styrelseledamöterna.
26:59De har också möjlighet att äga aktier så länge man har uppdraget.
27:06De senaste decennierna har det vuxit fram som ett helt forskningsområde där man tittar på hur de här företagen funkar
27:12i praktiken.
27:13Så det är inte att man liksom teoretiserar utan du tittar empiriskt och fungerar dem.
27:18Dels så har man sett att de kanske tvärt emot hur många tror att de faktiskt är mer produktiva än
27:26likartade konventionella företag.
27:30Att de anställda känner sig mer motiverade och att man ofta behöver inte ha lika många övervakande mellanchefer har man
27:39sett bland annat.
27:40För att de anställda har ett direkt incitament att bry sig om sitt eget företag.
27:48Tack så mycket.
27:50Tack så mycket.
27:52Tack så mycket.
28:04Tack så mycket.
28:06Tack så mycket.
28:15Tack så mycket.
28:17Tack så mycket.
28:24Tack så mycket.
28:25Det är en skillnad om ett företag ägs av människor som bor nära företaget eller om det ägs av människor
28:33som bor 500 mil bort och sitter på en ö någonstans.
28:39För att om det är människor som bor nära företaget så kanske man tänker två gånger innan man liksom släpper
28:47ut tungmetaller i den lokala badsjön där du ska gå till helgen och bada med dina barn.
28:55Vi är inte ägda av ett riskkapitalbolag som vill tjäna pengar ett tag och sen kanske lägga ner eller flyttar
29:03utomlands.
29:04Här fattar vi besluten nära kunderna och nära företaget.
29:08Jag tror att om inte vi hade varit i den här rollen nu då hade vi varit uppköpta och nedlagda.
29:13Då hade inte huvudkontoret legat i Manköping. Det är jag ganska övertygad om.
29:20Jag tror att vi skulle få bättre företag.
29:22Företag som är mer långsiktiga, som inte tittar på bara nästa kvartal.
29:28Som har lägre löneskillnader mellan högsta ledning och lägsta ledning.
29:34I Mondragon så får den högsta vd inte tjäna mer än sex gånger mer än den som tjänar lägst.
29:40Och i Sverige idag så i de stora bolagen så tjänar vdarna ungefär 60 gånger vad en industriarbetare tjänar.
29:48Och sen så skulle såklart utdelningarna från de här företagen försvinna iväg inte till andra länder.
29:56Utan det skulle stanna i lokalområden och spridas ganska jämt på de som jobbar nära företagen.
30:02Och företagen skulle ju bli mer lokalt orienterade. De skulle få rötter där de är.
30:16En del av ekonomisk demokrati som går längre än den andra.
30:20Det kallas participatory economy.
30:24Det proposes att uppnå marken med en participatory, decentralised planning process.
30:33Participatory economy is unusual as an alternative to capitalism and central planning.
30:40Precisely because it does try to propose a third way between markets and central planning.
30:47to get the business of economics done, right?
30:52Reconciling supply and demand in a different participatory way that puts workers,
31:04as both producers and consumers, front and centre in the decision making process.
31:13There is a need in any economy to balance aggregate supply and demand.
31:17To figure out what goods need to be produced and where they need to get to.
31:25In a participatory economy, there will be a recurring planning procedure.
31:31Such a procedure is coordinated by consumer councils that express what is needed
31:38and worker councils that propose what they can produce.
31:47This information, what they want to produce and consume, is then compiled by a facilitation group
31:55and the prices of products are calculated and sent back to the councils,
32:00who then revise their suggestions.
32:03This process is repeated over several rounds until a plan is attained.
32:12It's producing data based on what people say they want to do and what they want to consume.
32:19And it's producing the data in a format that allows workers to see the big picture, right?
32:28To allow them to make an informed decision.
32:30What we have managed to do is to figure out how could this process of workplaces proposing what they want
32:40to do,
32:41neighborhoods proposing what they want to consume, how could this process arrive at a feasible plan
32:48where everybody could finally do what their final proposal, you know, says?
32:53And under what conditions would that feasible plan be efficient?
32:59Would it use the scarce productive resources in the economy efficiently?
33:04So you need a mechanism that is going to adjust pricing, which is basically just a quantified way of attaching
33:15social and labor costs to things and ecological costs to things.
33:21So you need a way to do that that's not relying on markets because markets systematically misvalue crucial prices.
33:39And so a participatory planning mechanism is designed to reconcile these kinds of things in a way that values people's
33:49actual interests and needs and desires,
33:52instead of, you know, maximizing the profits of an owning class or shareholders.
34:01It allows people to participate in the way that makes sense to them.
34:06They're making decisions about what affects them the most, what goes on in their workplace, what goes on in their
34:12neighborhoods.
34:14And that's an important thing, because for us, economic self-management is having input or decision-making power about decisions
34:23to the degree you're affected by those decisions.
34:27Some decisions affect us all.
34:30But a lot of decisions affect some people a lot more than others.
34:33And that's the trick.
34:34How do you actually manage to at least approximate decision-making input in accord with how much people are affected?
34:40So that was part of the motivation for proposing the planning work the way that we proposed.
34:47We are also taking into account workers have been discouraged from time immemorial, not just in capitalism and feudalism and
34:56slave systems.
34:58People have lived, you know, in complex human societies for eons now.
35:04And we wanted to take that historical legacy into account when designing our proposal for how things would be done.
35:13To make it painfully obvious this is really different.
35:26Another aspect that is key when redesigning a system is equality.
35:39One thing that we need to bear in mind is that in this globalized world, we have these deep and
35:48embedded structures of inequality that come about from historical processes such as colonialism, but are continued and perpetuated today through
35:58the very economic system that we have.
36:04There's a recent Oxfam report came out that shows that 10 men, 10 billionaires doubled their wealth during the pandemic,
36:11while 99% of the humanity was left worse off.
36:16And this is also showing that this is not a, we're all growing and some people are accumulating more.
36:22It's like, no, some people are making more at the expense of everyone else.
36:26They have yachts and private jets and several homes and even private islands.
36:32While we have, I think the last time I looked at the statistic, it was 800 million people who aren't
36:39even having their basic nutritional needs met.
36:43We constantly hear that we don't have enough food to feed the world's population.
36:49But the reality is, we do actually have enough food.
36:54It's a lot about how is that food distributed?
36:58How much that food costs?
37:00What food we choose to eat and where?
37:03And those issues we need to tackle first.
37:06Then actually, we might have more than enough food for everyone exists on this world.
37:19So why do we have such inequality in the world now?
37:25According to one theory, a force that is driving inequality is the profit motive, which is the ruling principle of
37:33companies and other financial institutions today.
37:38The not-for-profit world proposes to remove the profit motive and replace it with a social benefit purpose.
37:48Jennifer Hinton is one of the creators of the model.
37:54The model I've been working on for the past 10 years or so is, we call it the not-for
37:59-profit world model.
38:01And it's basically a model of a not-for-profit market economy.
38:06So in the for-profit way of organizing the economy, the purpose of economic institutions like businesses and banks and
38:15financial institutions is to enrich their owners, to seek financial gain for private investors and owners.
38:22And so that's one of the key purposes embedded in these institutions.
38:30A not-for-profit market economy, on the other hand, would have the key purpose of social benefit, of meeting
38:38people's needs and even meeting environmental needs.
38:41And so that difference in purpose really changes the structure of the economy and accordingly the outcomes and the consequences
38:49of the economy.
38:52It would be a market that is selling goods and services to meet people's needs.
39:00But again, needs can be fulfilled, so there's this ethic of enough.
39:05There's a constant sort of monitoring of the needs and challenges in the community and whether people have enough or
39:11not.
39:12So once we have enough, maybe we don't have to produce more goods and services.
39:15Maybe we don't have to sell more stuff.
39:17We can sort of have this steady state economy or even a, you know, a shrinking economy if we've sort
39:24of gone too far.
39:31The not-for-profit world is based on existing types of businesses, not-for-profit companies, sometimes called social enterprises.
39:42These companies have a social benefit purpose as their driving force, and all of the surplus goes towards this mission.
39:53We're going to visit BRAC, one of the largest NGOs in the world.
39:59BRAC owns several social enterprises.
40:03Some of the things that they produce and sell are artisanal clothes, dairy products and seeds.
40:13BRAC is a development organization that was founded in Bangladesh.
40:17But we now work in about 14 countries outside of Bangladesh as well.
40:23The way BRAC, we look at social enterprises.
40:27First of all, it has to solve a social problem.
40:31It's there to make social impact.
40:33Our social enterprises make surpluses and we reinvest 50% in the growth of the social enterprise itself.
40:41So we retain 50% and we give 50% to BRAC.
40:46And BRAC then uses it for its development programs or to pilot or innovate a new idea.
40:54So it spends the money in its development programs.
41:04So we are not here to sort of sell products, make money and therefore produce where it makes sense or
41:10where it makes the most financial benefit or sell things that have the highest margin.
41:15We take these decisions based on who we are trying to support.
41:22Over 65,000 artisans are dependent for their livelihoods on our own.
41:28And all of our decisions, we have to navigate so that their interests and what we really want to do,
41:35our mission is always intact.
41:47People often coming from the private sector, when they come and work in social enterprises, something changes within them.
41:56And people who are sort of arguing with me, you know, when they first joined about, you know, OK, why
42:01don't we do this?
42:03You know, why don't we import milk powder and sell more because, you know, instead of, you know, because it's
42:10milk is cheaper now and the global market is cheaper than collecting from the smallholder farmer.
42:15And then now the same person is is talking about how, you know, we need to sort of, you know,
42:23collect from more smallholder farmers, go to more remote areas, a complete change in sort of the person's thinking and
42:30understanding and therefore, you know, action and decision.
42:33And it's absolutely fascinating to see.
42:42We would have much more equality in a not-for-profit type of economy because we wouldn't have private owners
42:48accumulating wealth from businesses and we wouldn't have the built-in incentive to keep wages low.
42:54There wouldn't be a built-in incentive to expand consumption and production constantly to deliver profit to owners.
43:01So it would align much, much better with redistributional taxes and environmental protection regulations and regulations to protect workers, for
43:11instance.
43:12So it could actually serve to solve a lot of the problems that we're facing today in a very systemic
43:18way by changing the goal and structure of the economy.
43:26In a not-for-profit world, there would still be a market, but it would play a smaller part in
43:32society.
43:34The size of the market would be determined by how to best meet everyone's needs within ecological limits.
43:44Unlike now, enterprises would not feel an inherent pressure to grow.
44:12It's not always easy to approach the large and complex topic of economics.
44:21How can we make it more accessible?
44:27One of the biggest challenges of changing the economic system is that people feel powerless.
44:33And they think that it's very complicated, that it requires a certain expertise or a university training.
44:42Which I don't think it's true.
44:45I think it's a lot of the economic system.
44:53And that's why for me a lot of my passion is around trying to demystify the economy and really making
45:03it clear that like we are the economy, you have a right and a responsibility to have an opinion on
45:08it.
45:08Right? And you should be engaged in these sort of decision-making processes because so often it's riddled with a
45:15lot of jargon and a lot of really complex ideas that can feel really intimidating and therefore as if it's
45:21beyond the scope of influence.
45:26We have looked at different economic models and concepts.
45:32The not-for-profit world, economic democracy, donut economics, degrowth, participatory economy.
45:41All of these models have a lot in common, but they also differ in some aspects.
45:48And they are not the only ones.
45:51There are a myriad of examples popping up everywhere right now.
45:57Collaborative economy, solidarity economy, regenerative economy, community wealth building, positive money, economy for the common good.
46:11One organization that has tried to gather many different perspectives and ideas under one umbrella is the Wellbeing Economy Alliance.
46:25The Wellbeing Economy Alliance, or We All, started about four years ago now.
46:31And it was originally a group of a lot of like new economic thinkers that were working in, you know,
46:38donut economics or regenerative economy or circular economy, degrowth, postgrowth, like a lot of these different conceptual ideas and who
46:46recognized that there was more that unites us than divides us.
46:50But that if we're really going to build this alternative paradigm and mainstream it, then it's really important that there's
46:59more like collaboration.
47:03The thing that unites us is a recognition that we have to stop treating people and planet like they're here
47:08to serve the economy and start treating the economy like it's here to serve us.
47:12Right. And so that sort of shift just in terms of our understanding of the economy is what connects us.
47:19Even if there are a lot of different strategies and approaches for getting there, we feel like they all hold
47:25a piece of that puzzle of that different sort of economic system.
47:28The Wellbeing Economy Alliance is a global network with 19 hubs spread over the world.
47:38Susan Joy leads the East African hub.
47:41One of the issues they are tackling is land grabbing, a problem many smallholder farmers face all over the world.
47:50Large corporations come and take control over their land, often through the use of corruption or force.
48:00So with all this land grabbing, it has become completely extremely hard for farmers to survive.
48:05And most of these farmers are poor. They are poor farmers.
48:08It's like it's very few smallholder farmers can actually support, feed their families.
48:12So you'll find a farmer has, let's say, roughly three acres of land, but this farmer is eating one meal
48:19a day.
48:27The climate has changed. Things are not how they used to be. There's longer drought. There's pests and diseases.
48:34There's all these factors that come in on top of that, plus also the land grab.
48:40We are like working with activist groups and organizations that are doing a lot of work around land.
48:47For example, Soldai to Uganda, they do a lot of work with communities that are addressing land grabbing in various
48:53parts of the country.
48:55And at the same time, also, there are lawyers that have also been able to support these communities as well,
49:01to like to offer pro bono work so that these communities are able to like protect their land as well.
49:20It really is about building economies that are locally rooted and a reflection of our unique cultures and context, geographies
49:29and histories.
49:30And also that is molded and directed by our voices and by our active participation,
49:35whilst being connected globally and recognizing that we are also, you know, one species on a shared planet.
50:00The science is clear. Continuing with business as usual is no longer an option.
50:11We need alternatives. In different parts of the world, changes are already in motion.
50:21But we still have a long way to go before we reach a truly sustainable economy.
50:30What is needed now?
50:33Where do we go from here?
50:40When I say I think economic systems need to be transformed, I'm not saying scrap everything we have and start
50:45again.
50:46We can't do that because we need to eat every day. We need energy and travel and connection every day.
50:51We need to transform these systems by working with them, transforming them deep within.
50:56And I think we need to go deep, the design of the systems we've inherited.
51:02Let's redesign the future of business by redesigning the deep design of companies in the world.
51:06That will take us a long way to the future we need.
51:09And while we're there, we need to redesign the regulatory environment in which business happens.
51:14So we need governments to incentivize and encourage and enable companies to be purpose driven.
51:22We need governments to make it possible for them to be incorporated in ways that are owned far more socially
51:29and community like a cooperative or an employee owned company or socially purposed enterprise.
51:35We need finance that is not there to serve itself, but it's there to serve the real economy.
51:42So reinventing the finance of the future is key to making it possible for business to help bring humanity into
51:49the doughnut.
51:50There are a lot of social entrepreneurs that would like to start not for profit types of business, but they're
51:55not sure if they can or how they can.
51:58So we can support them by identifying them, mapping out the not-for-profit businesses in our communities, shifting our
52:08consumption to support them wherever we can, and working for them, maybe even volunteering with them and raising awareness about
52:18them.
52:24A new sustainable economy system is not something that will be built up from and down.
52:30It's not the FN that will create this for us.
52:33But if we have a sustainable economy system, I believe that it's based on that a people's movement of a
52:43lot of initiatives, a lot of different places, a lot of different companies,
52:48creates this more sustainable economy on the ground, after the ground and after the ground.
52:54That it's what will build a new system.
53:02I mean, I think it's always going to be a multi-level process, right?
53:07And so you need to have the grassroots movement and examples and local transformations.
53:14But I do think that there is a very real constraint to how much any local community or national entity
53:22can really meaningfully transform the economy,
53:26because we're so globally interconnected, right?
53:28And all of our production systems and consumption systems are really interwoven with one another in a way that requires
53:39a certain level of global economic reform,
53:42even to just make space for self-determination.
53:50So for some people, it's about doing the care work, doing the emotional labor of taking care of our family
53:57and friends, of building community together.
54:00That is having agency.
54:02For others, it might be through art, the art that they create, which can give us a sense of other
54:08features.
54:09That can be really important. And for some, it is about doing the hard work of protesting or writing policy
54:17or building houses, whatever it is.
54:21Finding the different ways, but understanding that our impact is through what we do as a collective.
54:31Step one is just talking about the economy, right? And demystifying the economy, encouraging people to feel like they have
54:41their lived experience,
54:43their common sense has a place in this sphere and in these discussions, because I feel like that's step one.
54:48And then expanding, once you have opened people's minds to really even consider what the economy is or can be,
54:55then you can really start to advocate for a different vision for it.
54:59And we should spread the information, raise awareness, have these discussions, create social momentum.
55:04Because the more social momentum we have, the more we can pressure economic actors and policy makers to move in
55:11the direction that we need them to.
55:14These practices that are today a minority, they're happening in the cracks of capitalism, they represent the seeds of a
55:22radically different economy.
55:23What we need today is to give them space and resources and to water them so that they can become
55:29the main way of organizing an economy.
55:36Yes, new economic thinking, not just thinking, new economic doing. Let's put this into practice.
55:43But let's get started where we can get started.
55:46And I think we can get started at every level, right from my own personal life and my household and
55:51my street and my town and my city and my region and my nation and the world.
55:55We need change to be happening at every one of those places.
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