Introduction

Suppose you’re in a system that evolved over thousands of years. A system that creates opulence out of scarcity and efficiently uses limited resources. It allows millions of people to coordinate their economic activity, and promotes productivity, innovation and enterprise. It is by no means perfect but it is the most powerful and effective coordination mechanism on the planet. And then, over a very short time period, the system begins to show cracks. Crises are emerging everywhere. They build and compound on each other.

When you look for the causes for these crises you discover that they are not external to the system. Rather, they are produced by its own workings. What's more, the crises didn’t result from the system failing, but from it working as intended. As the crises grow, they begin to threaten the very existence of the system and — if that wasn’t enough — of the society you live in.

The system in question is our current economic paradigm. If the crises are intrinsic to our system, the question then is what can we do about it? How can we alter our current trajectory toward dystopia and put ourselves on a path to sustained growth and abundance?