Address to Macarthur Summit

The Changing World Order

Connectography Remapping Global Growth

Real GDP Per Capita and Standard of Living

The Importance of Institutions

The Superorganism and the Future

Capitalism at Risk (Article)

The case for letting business solve social problems

The Network State:

This Synthesis Report (SYR) of the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) summarises the state of knowledge of climate change,
its widespread impacts and risks, and climate change mitigation and adaptation. This report recognizes the interdependence of climate, ecosystems and biodiversity, and human societies; the value of diverse forms of knowledge; and the close linkages between climate change adaptation, mitigation, ecosystem health, human well-being and sustainable development, and reflects the increasing diversity of actors involved in climate action.

This report presents the most up-to-date synthesis of international research efforts to track global inequalities. The data and
analysis presented here are based on the work of more than 100 researchers over four years, located on all continents, contributing to the World Inequality Database (WID.world), maintained by the World Inequality Lab. This vast network collaborates with statistical institutions, tax authorities, universities and international organizations, to harmonize, analyze and disseminate comparable international inequality data.

Find in this report also data on international conflict und unresponsive government. Most respondents to the 2022-2023 Global Risks Perception Survey (GRPS) chose “Energy supply crisis”; “Cost-of-living crisis”; “Rising inflation”; “Food supply crisis” and “Cyberattacks on critical infrastructure” as among the top risks for 2023 with the greatest potential impact on a global scale (Figure 1.1). Those that are outside the top 5 for the year but remain concerns include: failure to meet net-zero targets; weaponization of economic policy; weakening of human rights; a debt crisis; and failure of non-food supply chains.

In March 2022, UN Secretary-General António Guterres established the UN Global Crisis Response Group on Food, Energy and Finance (GCRG) to respond to the unprecedented interconnected food, energy and finance crises in the world. Inflation, food insecurity, soaring energy and food prices, supply chain disruptions and mounting debt are among the pressing challenges added to a world recovering from the human and economic losses of the COVID-19 pandemic and facing the ongoing threat of climate change and the war in Ukraine. These challenges are particularly acute in developing economies.

Shareholder Value is not only a myth, as forcefully demonstrated by Lynn Stout. It has also led to a mess under the form of extensive negative externalities and growing inequalities. A different measure of value creation is urgently required.

Wall Street's 2007–09 implosion and the ensuing global recession highlight the crucial relationship between finance and the economy. Governments, international agencies and experts had failed to detect rising risk levels in the deregulated financial sector. The author outlines the resulting huge cost in lost jobs and likely reductions in public goods and growth, as economies restabilize budgets after paying for massive bailouts and stimulus packages. Specifically, he assesses the role of monetary incentives for rent-seeking in the decisions that led to the crisis. Finally, he makes the case for radical reform of the institutions linking finance and the real economy.

The integration of global financial markets has delivered large welfare gains through improvements in static and dynamic efficiency – the allocation of real resources and the rate of economic growth. These achievements have however come at the cost of increased systemic fragility, evidenced by the ongoing crisis. We must now face the challenge of redesigning the regulatory overlay of the global financial system in order to make it more robust without crippling its ability to innovate and spur economic growth.

The Limits to Growth was published 50 years ago. Ordered by the Club of Rome, the study was a milestone in the analysis of the economic, demographic, technical and ecological effects of the existing economic system. In industrialised Western countries in particular, the critical examination of the development model of continuous economic growth led to a broad discussion about the far-reaching implications of a global economy focusing on growth, on a planet with finite natural resources.

An article by Stephen Metcalf featured in the Guardian which implies that ideology, especially neoliberalism, has rendered evaluations of "good" and "right" to be unnecessary. "The word has become a rhetorical weapon, but it properly names the reigning ideology of our era – one that venerates the logic of the market and strips away the things that make us human"

Within a capitalist economic system, commodification is the transformation of things such as goods, services, ideas, nature, personal information, people or animals into objects of trade or commodities.[1][2][3][4][5] A commodity at its most basic, according to Arjun Appadurai, is "anything intended for exchange," or any object of economic value.[6]

To some critics, one reason for the perceived recent shortcomings of economic performance — and allegedly capitalism itself — is the rise of so-called “crony capitalism:” deals between some private interests (business, anti-business interests, professions, social groups) and government that “pick winners” and thereby also pick losers, on the basis of political influence rather than merit. Such
deals would inhibit the productive reallocation of society’s resources, and reduce innovation and economic growth. Examples of such deals include cash subsidies, tax preferences, earmarked appropriations and no-bid contracts, regulatory and trade protection, among other forms of favorable treatment. They can be crafted to benefit virtually any sector of the economy, and though each alleged deal has its defenders — else it would not exist — the list of questionable private sectorgovernment interactions is long.

In this article Bruni looks at how capitalism undermines our capacity for flourishing: "The best way to eliminate vulnerability inside the community has always been immunity. Immunity is the main feature of the large capitalist enterprises today. Every invulnerable culture is also an immune culture: if I don’t want to be hurt in my relationship with you, I have to stop you touching me by building a system of relations that avoids any form of contamination. Immunity is the lack of exposure to the other person’s touch. Immunitas, as we have mentioned, is the negation of communitas: the soul of communitas is munus (gift and duty) in reciprocity, while that of immunitas is reciprocal ingratitude, the absence and the opposite of gift (in-munus: anti-gift)."