The following 5-minute video shows the January 2021 theme of the annual summit convened by the World Economic Forum (WEF). In the video, we see leaders from various organizations (and countries) such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the United Nations (UN) calling for a reset of society. The video offers initial insights on what this reset means.
Editor’s Note: Nationwide shutdowns have caused societal meltdowns, both in the rich and poor countries. Economies are suffering, and many people have lost their jobs. This is unfortunate, but for many economic designers and technocrats like Klaus Schwab, the current times present an opportunity to correct the dysfunctions of our society which arose due the way we do business. And we agree, we it is indeed an opportunity to correct the mistakes of the past. What we don’t agree with is the way these “corrections” are going to happen.
Just recently, the Time Magazine has released a new feature called The Great Reset which delves deeper into the topics touched on by the video below.[ref]https://time.com/collection/great-reset/[/ref] With it came the revival of a 2019 proposal by Klaus Schwab, which he initially termed as stakeholder capitalism.[ref]https://time.com/5742066/klaus-schwab-stakeholder-capitalism-davos/[/ref]
The 2019 article is again finding its way around social media as several governments have echoed the Great Reset and Build Back Better slogan. The problem with Schwab’s stakeholder capitalism is that it puts businesses and corporations at the center of society, directing the development that will happen to the world. And there is a lot of issues arising from that. First, it does not correct the problem with multinational corporations whose main purpose is to concentrate wealth. Second, it blurs the divide between government and corporations, and inadvertently give corporations greater power than they should have. Third, where is the human being in this scheme?
We agree that corporations have to realize that they are major stakeholders of the future, and they must act to improve the state of the world. They must learn to care in earnest for the future of the planet, and be at the forefront of changing their production processes into one that creates little to no impact on our living systems.
But what is not being considered by this Great Reset is the reality that it is the reductionist mindset that brought us here. Government policies and business interests are only symptoms of the issue. If a true shift will happen in our societies, it has to happen in the way we perceive and think [we shall discuss this more thoroughly in a future article relating to a concept introduced by Otto Scharmer]. No matter how many policies and structural changes are implemented, no true change can happen without a shift in perspective which puts human evolution vis-a-vis nature design at the forefront of all innovations and policies. We mean true evolution that upholds human dignity and freedom, not the reductionist-based evolution that is preoccupied with the material.