Building a Win-Win World

Book description

In Building a Win-Win World , world-renowned futurist Hazel Henderson extends her twenty-five years of work in economics to examine the havoc the current economic system is creating at the global level. Markets are now spreading worldwide-a spread which is often equated with the hope of democracy spreading along with it. But markets still run on old textbook models that ignore social and environmental costs-leading to a new kind of warfare: global economic warfare.
Building a Win-Win World demonstrates how the global economy is unsustainable because of its negative effects on employees, families, communities, and the ecosystem. Henderson shows that win-win strategies can become the norm at every level when people see the true current and future costs of short-sighted, narrow economic policies.
Henderson shows how humans are encountering the endgames of the competition/conflict paradigm, and identifies the signs of transition. Using warfare as a metaphor for the dark side of today's world economic system, she shows how both are destructive, inhumane, wasteful, irrational, inefficient, competitive, and crisis-driven. Both create more new problems than they solve. She describes how the globalization of the war system, technology, and industrialization brought the Cold War to a dead end. By the mid-1980s the global warfare paradigm had given ground to a global economic warfare which many economists, politicians, and business leaders hailed as a victory of capitalism and competitive "free markets." Yet this new type of warfare proved little better than the military warfare it was advertised to replace. By the mid-1990s global economic warfare had already reached crisis points of its own.
Building a Win-Win World examines how jobs, education, health care, human rights, democratic participation, socially responsible business, and environmental protection are all sacrificed to "global competitiveness." Henderson shows many ways out of the dilemmas faced by all countries. New agreements are described to tame the global economic casino, regulate multi-national corporations, and levy fees for commercial use of global common resources-oceans, atmosphere, space, etc.-and tax their abuse. These revenues can then be invested in civilian needs and sectors worldwide. She also describes a trend toward "grassroots globalism"-citizens movements that are addressing poverty, social inequities, pollution, resource-depletion, violence, and wars. Grassroots globalism, she says, is about thinking and acting-globally and locally. It is pragmatic problem-solving, implementing local solutions that keep the planet in mind. Such social innovations can raise the ethical floor under the global playing field so that the most ethical companies and countries can win.

Table of contents

  1. COVER PAGE
  2. TITLE PAGE
  3. COPYRIGHT PAGE
  4. PRAISE FOR BUILDING A WIN-WIN WORLD
  5. ILLUSTRATIONS
  6. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  7. INTRODUCTION
    1. THE GOOD NEWS IN THE BAD NEWS
    2. THE ROLE OF OUR MENTAL TOOL BOXES
    3. THE NARROW FRAMEWORK OF ECONOMICS
  8. PART I: PATHOLOGICAL PARADIGMS
    1. CHAPTER 1: GLOBAL ECONOMIC WARFARE VERSUS SUSTAINABLE HUMAN DEVELOPMENT: FLASH POINTS, TRENDS, AND TRANSITIONS
      1. LEVEL 1: GLOBAL POPULATION AND THE BIOSPHERE
      2. LEVEL 2: INTERNATIONAL AND GLOBAL GOVERNANCE STRUCTURES
      3. LEVEL 3: THE GLOBAL CIVIL SOCIETY AND CULTURES
      4. LEVEL 4: NATION-STATES, DOMESTIC POLICIES, AND DEMOCRATIC PROCESSES
      5. LEVEL 5: GLOBAL MARKETS, CORPORATIONS, TRADE, AND FINANCE
      6. LEVEL 6: PROVINCIAL, URBAN, AND LOCAL GOVERNANCE
      7. LEVEL 7: FAMILY/COMMUNITY/INDIVIDUAL VALUES, ETHICS, AND BEHAVIORS
    2. CHAPTER 2: JUGGERNAUT GLOBALISM AND THE BANKRUPTCY OF ECONOMICS
      1. GLOBAL RESTRUCTURING
      2. FROM BALANCE SHEETS TO CIRCULAR PROCESSES
      3. NEXT STEP: GLOBAL COOPERATION, STANDARD-SETTING, AND REGULATION
    3. CHAPTER 3: THE TECHNOLOGY TRAP
      1. OUR PERCEPTIONS WILL GOVERN OUR SURVIVAL
      2. IMAGINATION: KEY TOOL FOR SURVIVAL
      3. BROADENING OUR OPTIONS THROUGH CITIZEN PARTICIPATION
    4. CHAPTER 4: THE JOBLESS PRODUCTIVITY TRAP
      1. NEW STRUCTURAL PROBLEMS REQUIRE NEW REMEDIES
      2. SOME ANTIDOTES TO JOBLESS ECONOMIC GROWTH
      3. THE STRUGGLE TOWARD SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
    5. CHAPTER 5: GOVERNMENT BY MEDIOCRACY AND THE ATTENTION ECONOMY
      1. DO WE ALL SUFFER FROM ATTENTION DEFICIT DISORDER?
      2. THE ROLE OF MASS COMMUNICATION IN SOCIETY
      3. UNDERSTANDING TODAY’S INFORMATION REVOLUTION
  9. PART II: SLOW-MOTION GOOD NEWS: ROAD MAPS AND RESOURCES FOR REBIRTH
    1. CHAPTER 6: GRASSROOTS GLOBALISM
      1. CITIZEN ORGANIZATIONS CHALLENGE THE STATUS QUO
      2. COLD WAR LABELS DAMPENED CREATIVITY
      3. CITIZEN ORGANIZATIONS ARE EMERGING AS LEADERS
    2. CHAPTER 7: RETHINKING HUMAN DEVELOPMENT AND THE TIME OF OUR LIVES
      1. IS HUMANITY GROWING UP?
      2. PEOPLE ARE PURSUING THE CHALLENGE OF GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP
      3. THE REVOLT AGAINST HIGH CONSUMPTION
    3. CHAPTER 8: CULTURAL DNA CODES AND BIODIVERSITY: THE REAL WEALTH OF NATIONS
      1. CULTURE: THE DOMINANT FACTOR IN DEVELOPMENT
      2. CROSS-CULTURAL DIALOGUES AND CRITIQUES
      3. ANCIENT MYTHS MAY PROVIDE PATHS TO THE FUTURE
  10. PART III: BUILDING A WIN-WIN WORLD: BREAKTHROUGHS AND SOCIAL INNOVATIONS
    1. CHAPTER 9: INFORMATION: THE WORLD’S REAL CURRENCY ISN’T SCARCE
      1. TECHNOLOGICAL AND SOCIAL EVOLUTION: THE HARE AND THE TORTOISE
      2. CRISES OF THE GLOBAL CASINO AS PARADIGM PROBLEMS
      3. BREAKUP OF THE GLOBAL MONEY CARTEL
      4. LOCAL INFORMATION SOCIETIES CAN BECOME NEW SOCIAL SAFETY NETS
    2. CHAPTER 10: REDEFINING WEALTH AND PROGRESS: THE NEW INDICATORS
      1. NEW INDICATORS ENCOURAGE SUSTAINABILITY
      2. THE POLITICS OF INDICATORS
      3. UNBUNDLING THE AGGREGATED INDEXES
      4. DEMOCRATIZING THE INDICATORS AND THE POLITICS OF MEANING
    3. CHAPTER 11: PERFECTING DEMOCRACY’S TOOLS
      1. MONEY AND POLITICS IN THE GLOBAL FAST LANE
      2. DEMOCRACY’S FUTURE: CITIZENS WANT TO SET PRIORITIES
      3. DEMOCRACY AND TECHNOLOGY: UTOPIA OR DYSTOPIA?
    4. CHAPTER 12: NEW MARKETS AND NEW COMMONS: THE COOPERATIVE ADVANTAGE
      1. THE CHALLENGE TO COOPERATE
      2. RECONCEPTUALIZING THE GLOBAL CASINO
      3. NEW MARKETS TO SERVE BOTH GLOBAL AND LOCAL COMMONS
    5. CHAPTER 13: AGREEING ON RULES AND SOCIAL INNOVATIONS FOR OUR COMMON FUTURE
      1. NEW APPROACHES TO FUNDING THE UN: MAKING THE WORLD SAFE FOR SOCIAL INNOVATION
      2. THE BUSINESS COMMUNITY BEGINS TO BUILD BRIDGES
      3. EARLY INNOVATORS CONTINUE TO CHALLENGE OLD PARADIGMS
      4. EXPLORING OPTIONS FOR TAMING THE GLOBAL CASINO
      5. SOCIAL INNOVATIONS TO ENCOURAGE DEMILITARIZATION, PEACE, AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
  11. NOTES
  12. GLOSSARY OF ACRONYMS
  13. BIBLIOGRAPHY
  14. INDEX
  15. ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Product information

  • Title: Building a Win-Win World
  • Author(s):
  • Release date: October 1997
  • Publisher(s): Berrett-Koehler Publishers
  • ISBN: 9781605098456