Transforming Towards Life-Centered Economies

Transforming towards Life orients change agents, policy makers, activists, business leaders, ecologists, economists, and thoughtful people everywhere to the values and practices needed to build a world where all can flourish, where ‘all’ includes all humanity and all of life’s beings. It provides an in-depth understanding of what it will take, especially in the wake of the global Covid-19 pandemic and the burgeoning climate emergency, to transform today’s growth-and profit-oriented socio-economic systems to life-affirming ways benefit all rather than just an elite few. Transforming towards Life argues that to move towards a world in which all can flourish, we all need to start telling new, yet very ancient, stories about who we are and why we are here in the world—stories built on relationship or connectedness, responsibility for the whole, reciprocity, and equity. We need to incorporate core ideas about what gives life to systems into all businesses, communities, governments, and other types of organizations—that is, what helps them flourish. Business and other institutions need to create collective value, that is, value for all, and change the mindsets of people engaged with them so that they in turn can generate new performance metrics, practices, and power relationships that enable people everywhere to find their voice and their capacity to participate actively in bringing about a flourishing world. The book concludes with thoughts about how each one of us can do our bit to bring about this necessary transformation.