Chapter Ten: The Individuation of Business, Politics and Citizenship
Historical allusions to Tripartite Agreements most often refer to the deals made in closed rooms by the Imperial Powers of the early Twentieth Century. This chapter explores the potential of a new Tripartite Contract – one between Business, Politics and Citizenship; a Contract built and conducted in the spirit of openness, transparency and real understanding and in pursuit of the common good.
Our work on Citizen Renaissance has covered many diverse aspects of modern society and has, we hope, exposed current myths and misdemeanours without demanding that we all revert to a pre-industrial state of tee-pees and hemp. However, we have also seen that to replace rampant Consumerism with “new green” consumption or to audit our footprints without tackling the root causes, will simply not cut it. If we are to do what is really needed to arrest plummeting levels of happiness and escalating levels of destructive growth, progressive action is needed.
We believe that this progressive action sits at the inter-section of Business, Politics and Citizenship - and that, at its most fundamental, all parties ask of themselves two key questions:
- Are we now addressing Needs, not Wants?
- Are our actions sustainable and fair, not just for ourselves, but for our communities and can they work within the Means of our planet?
We have to learn to live within our means and to adjust behaviours accordingly. If we can learn to move away from a world of tobacco, to eradicate apartheid and to bring down false walls of political separation, then surely this is an achievable evolutionary step. We can only get in the way of ourselves.
Progressive action is needed to arrest plummeting levels of happiness and escalating levels of destructive growth.
While this may seem a trite over-simplification of a hugely complex conundrum, it is an essential starting point. We have titled this Chapter “The Individuation…” because we recognise that a journey is required of and from us all. We have to all live up to our Responsibilities. Our starting points, however, are rooted in Recognition – where we really are today and where we really need to be tomorrow.
The three, great seismic shifts of our time must now be followed by a series of smaller, but no less pivotal or urgent shifts in behaviours and actions that will, taken together, re-calibrate us all towards a more Citizen-centric sense of purpose and achievement.
- Actions for Progressive Politics and the Architecture of a Wellbeing Economy
- Actions for Progressive Business
- Actions for Progressive Citizens
- Confluence and the new, Tripartite Contract
- The Individuation of Business, Politics & Citizenship: Communicating Differently
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