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2017: Vision for less Efficiency but more Resilience

Vision for less Efficiency but more Resilience

Artikel in Rotary Magazin, Hamburg, August 2017:

Brexit, Trump’s electoral victory and populist inducement point to a growing sense of anti-establishment coupled with reluctance and fear of over-reliance – all signs of a deep upheaval. Was Kurt Tucholsky right when he said: “the people often think wrong, but always feel right”?

At least the second part of this sentence is correct; because with efficiency and resilience there is a conceptual pair that has fallen out of balance and can well explain the emergence of this feeling: efficiency – that is, the pursuit of an “ever better” relationship between input and output – combines materialism with linear rationality. Thinking and has become the comprehensive guiding principle of Western society; Resilience, on the other hand, expresses lasting robust resilience and above all requires holistic thinking. In short, we will starve to death without efficiency, and without resilience, we’ll soon hit the wall. Sustainability is best served (according to resilience researcher Bernard Litaer), when resilience is greater than efficiency – which is clearly not the case today.

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2009: Fighting Globoliath

Fighting Globoliath

  Publication by Fourth World Review, a Transition Journal, London, No 151 Nov/Dec 2009

Over fifty years sjnce Kohr’s Breakdown of Nations was first published, former Austrian Ambassador Michael Breisky hails his theory of scale as being more relevant than ever.

David’s fight against Goliath is a wonderful story every century loves to reenact. For me, the 20th century’s fight was between David Leopold Kohr and Globoliath, crown-prince of the Philistine empire of Globalisation. The fight began in the mid-1950s, when David Leopold, the Austrian born philosopher, wrote his „Breakdown of Nations“. Using this book like a slingshot, he hurled three simple ideas against Globoliath:

  1. One: At any time, every man and every woman is good for a big surprise (and not to speak of children!).
  2. Two: The complexity of things increases with the square of their size.
  3. Three: Man’s capacity to understand complexity is limited. If complexity rises beyond this limit, surprises are likely to get nasty and nastier.

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Welcome to Post-Globalization

      Welcome to Post-Globalization - the Politics of Second Enlightenment, Human Scale                                          and the  Economy of the Mind                           Preface by Austria’s  Foreign Minister  Michael Spindelegger                                Published by…

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