Introducing Life-Ennobling Economics (Part 1)

In this 2-part series we are excited to introduce a new area of our work. We have divided this first introductory publication into two short reflections to invite flexible engagement. As we continue to explore the concept and produce new multimedia materials we will update the links and images to reflect this emerging content. The modular, conversational design of this publication is intentional and has been created to respect the dynamic and collaborative nature of the initiative.

• Part 1: Life-Ennobling Economics: what is the idea and what are we hoping to stimulate by sharing it?
• Part 2: the philosophical framework: exploring the foundational questions of the LEE (linked here).

A downloadable interactive pdf of this full publication is available here.

Part 1 — Life-Ennobling Economics: what is the idea and what are we hoping to stimulate by sharing it?

The term life-ennobling is in itself an adjacent extension of Ruth Wilson Gilmore’s work on life-affirming institutions.

Our economic systems are failing to serve the interests of our living planet and the great majority of those who inhabit it. It is not our intention to restate the multiple crises that this mismatch has fuelled and continues to perpetuate. Instead, we are sharing our emerging thinking as we strive to build pathways towards alternative ways of organising society. Reading this opening paragraph you may already be holding many questions. For example:

• ‘Surely we don’t need yet another type of economics?’.
• ‘We already have Doughnut Economics, Wellbeing Economics, Solidarity Economics, Ecological Economics — the list goes on — wouldn’t it make more sense to focus on implementing their principles rather than proposing a new version?’
• ‘What gives Dark Matter Labs the authority to suggest a new form of economics? This seems like an audacious and perhaps even arrogant proposal to make.’

We are holding many of these questions ourselves and fully acknowledge that we are standing on the shoulders of giants. LEE draws on the work of intersectional scholars, feminist and ecological economists and fuses their insights with indigenous wisdom, the life-affirming passion of the abolitionists and the dynamism of radical technologists.

As we move deeper into the work we are planning to weave the questions and wisdom of our ecosystem into the things that we are learning. We will embrace the friction that comes with an organic conversation and share this unfolding journey using different mediums. If you have comments on the content, or ideas to shape the format of the conversation, then we would welcome feedback.

Credit: Martin Lorenz

The concept

We are proposing Life-Ennobling Economics as an invitational vision and as a call to action. It is an ennobling invitation to break free from ideological constraints, to embrace the radical potential of new technologies, and to challenge the structural codes of our current socio-economic systems. Implicit in this opening position is an understanding that the structure and values of the economy must be in service to all forms of life (present, future, human, non-human and machine) providing a scaffold of care and respect.

One way of understanding LEE is as a series of linked questions:

• What would a desirable future economy actually look like?
• What would need to shift for that to become a reality?
• What does that mean in the context of our current socioeconomic and political reality?
• What can we build or seed to test those assumptions?

We have started to explore these questions as part of our own organisational strategy. We have visualised our response as a 3D matrix and we will publish more about this soon.

To open the dialogue with a wider audience we are testing three core worldview philosophies that we think could underpin a desirable future economy. From there, we have identified six structural shifts that we are hypothesising would need to occur for that to become a reality. The aspiration is to begin building and testing elements of these proposed shifts on the ground, in diverse contexts and communities.

What are the core elements of the hypothesis?

We are presenting the opening hypothesis as three short sections: (1) an overall framing (2) a philosophical framework (3) an action orientated scaffold. In some places we have included links to more in-depth content and we will expand on the concept in our upcoming publications, including a series of conversations with critical friends.

1. Overall framing

The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house

— Audre Lorde

The central augment being put forward by the LEE is that whilst we indisputably need to shift to a new economy, we will not get there using the mental models, tools or value systems of the current one. If we allow ourselves to sit with this statement for a moment, how do we feel? Possibly a sense of deflation, frustration or hopelessness. This is not our intention. Rather, we are proposing that we allow ourselves to lean into the idea of a beyond paradigm movement of unusual allies. Donella Meadows retrospectively adjusted her thesis ↗ to include an additional level that she named the power to transcend paradigms. Building on this insight, LEE is inviting us to explore what could happen if we allow ourselves to sense into the edges of everything that we are capable of becoming. From nature rights activists and abolitionists to the advocates of self sovereign technologies and universal basic income, many diverse voices are advocating for a common shift. What might be unlocked if we could collaborate across a broad spectrum of unusual allies?

2. A philosophical framework

Iain McGilchrist has commented that in modern society we are living under a philosophical error that is far from abstract and instead runs deep to the way that we experience the world¹. Collaboratively building a coherent philosophical base for a more generative future feels critical, because it is this foundational logic that shapes the more tangible layers of our societies. For example, if we start from a value system that promotes individualism and competition then we are likely to design narrow indicators of progress such as GDP, that further entrench these values. In contrast, in a system centred on regenerative vitality we would probably lean towards more embodied measures of success, thus reinforcing the interconnected basis of societal wellbeing².

To begin exploring and crafting a shared philosophical baseline we are using the following questions to frame our opening thoughts:

Q1: What would a future economy look and feel like if it was rooted in the recognition of the full web of life, grounded by a non-bounded theory of value and enabled by technological ecosystems of care?

Q2: If the journey to get there involved moving beyond theories of property, labour, extraction, private contracts, governance and monetary colonisation, what would we be shifting from and towards?

We are deliberately using a beyond x,y,z rather than a steps towards framing to explore the proposed structural shifts. We hope that this will encourage a less prescriptive and declarative mindset as we consider what we might collectively work towards. For example:

• What could be unlocked if we looked beyond our current understanding of terms such as natural resources, money, institutions and governance?
• How can we ensure that voices from the ideological left or right, those who are privileged or oppressed, indigenous or geographically separated can are respectfully represented within the LEE framework?
• What might we imagine (or perhaps glimpse existing fragments of) if we let go of a solution oriented mindset?
• Are there already existing pockets of these alternative worldviews spread across diverse communities?

3. An action oriented scaffold

“We’ve been told repeatedly that the current political economy can provide the answers, ignoring systematic faults and invested interests in the way of change. Isn’t the real question here then, how we go about redesigning this political economy in a way that includes other voices, values, and ideas.”

— Gail Bradbrook

Establishing a strong theoretical baseline is a priority for this initiative, but it also feels important to begin testing and elevating alternative pathways. There is already a stunning global constellation of organisations, movements and thinkers who are actively embodying regenerative crafts and values (for example we recently mapped actors working on a just transition for housing in Europe). We hope that by broadening the conversation, welcoming unforeseen allies and recognising diverse interests, the LEE can contribute to strengthening this distributed network.

An initial suggestion for this scaffold is to think of it as two connected threads:

• Case studies: we cannot be sure of how the future will play out. However, we can draw on historical events and foresight methods to explore the more likely scenarios. What might we discover if we collate an evidence base of existing signals of change from around the world (for example UBI trials and distributed currencies)? Or perhaps we can gain new insights from building out exploratory case studies, over varied time horizons, for specific sectors such as finance and food systems. How could our understanding shift if we embrace practices such as vision-questing, somatic and dream work? Perhaps you have practices or ideas that you think might be powerful for this collective visioning? We would be grateful for any suggestions and references.
• Systemic capabilities: building on the case studies, we hope to identify a speculative portfolio of systemic capabilities that can be developed, tested and iterated in parallel to the existing system. Potential pathways might include designing large scale participatory dialogues, launching transitional financial instruments or developing the policies and tools for distributed decision making structures.

Living the questions

In Part 2 of this post we have illustrated our current understanding of some of the questions raised above. We are also working on a series of conversations where we will present some initial reactions to this proposal and explore the points of resonance and friction.

This blog was designed and written by Martin Lorenz, Emily Harris and Indy Johar as part of Dark Matter’s Next Economics LAB.

The list can never be complete but to the following, thank you for your wisdom, foresight and work — your voices have given shape and clarity to the LEE concept: Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Ilya Prigogine, Stuart Kauffman, Hermon Daly, James Lovelock, Donella Meadows, Kate Raworth, Daniel Schmachtenberger, Fritjof Capra, Daniel Wahl, Katherina Pistor, Aime Cesaire, Iain McGilchrist, Tim Jackson, Nora Bateson, Elinor Ostrom, Sheila Watt-Cloutier, E. F. Schumacher, Farzana Khan, Thich Nhat Hanh, Mariana Mazzucato and David Abram.

References:

1. Iain McGilchrist is a psychiatrist and polymath most famous for his work on how the different hemispheres of the brain impact individual behaviour and thus society as a whole. His view is that this psychological error is based on a belief that the world is made up of a series of parts, rather than understanding that everything happens out of the coming together of complex wholes. In this talk Iain outlines his thinking on the psychological drivers of our current interconnected challenges: https://channelmcgilchrist.com/the-psychological-drivers-of-the-metacrisis-john-vervaeke-iain-mcgilchrist-daniel-schmachtenberger/
2. For a more detailed analysis of the need for a strong philosophical stack, this paper by Professor Eric Beinhocker is highly recommended. https://www.inet.ox.ac.uk/files/Beinhocker-2020-Ontological-Frmwrk.pdf