Reflections from Partners for a New Economy’s gathering in Lyon
Lyon is built at the confluence of two rivers with very different tempers: the Rhône, historically notorious for being difficult to navigate upstream against its powerful current, and the Saône, known by contrast for its calmer nature. This city was a fitting backdrop for Partners for a New Economy’s (P4NE) annual gathering, bringing together people working to reconfigure the economic system at the source of both ecological destruction and social injustice. It’s a task that simultaneously requires us to push for upstream change against powerful political and social currents, while exploring and reconciling the many different paths to transformation.
A floating workshop on the river at New Economies X Lyon
Mirroring the geography, two strong currents ran beneath the surface of the days in Lyon packed with sessions on everything from de-dollarisation to building movement resilience. Firstly, that collapse is already here. It hasn’t arrived as the sudden crash that the word itself might suggest, but as the slow unravelling of familiar institutions and social fabric. Secondly, to avoid being paralysed by this fact, we must treat hope as practice. As keynote speaker Joycelyn Longdon put it “our hope has to be active, not merely existing”. The story of how the collapse unfolds is not yet written and we can still intervene, but it requires us to reject the despondency that so easily takes hold.
That hope is forged through our collective actions was a welcome reminder for the 250 changemakers, advocacy professionals, researchers, activists, campaigners, academics, and funders working to change our economic system who gathered in Lyon. The reflections that follow are drawn from those days.
Engaging with power and politics
A few years ago, a common criticism of the new economy field was that we were stuck in problem analysis, focusing excessively on why the economy isn’t working. At this year’s P4NE gathering, it was clear that we had moved beyond that. But perhaps now we’ve overcorrected and become stuck on thinking about what we’d like to replace the current system with. Spaces such as this gathering can help us bridge the why and the what with the much-needed analysis of how we get there. And despite progress in our thinking, we still have some work to do here to bring cohesion to a disjointed landscape of ideas.
As part of the effort to start filling in the blanks of how change will happen, one theme that surfaced time and again in Lyon was that of power and politics. How we engage with politics has long been a tension point within the field and as societal polarisation deepens, it’s no wonder that divisions among new economy actors have intensified too. One stance that did seem to have faded, however, was the once hard-lived notion that creating a new economy could ever be a purely technocratic and apolitical endeavour. As Tariq Al-Olaimy put it in a plenary session “we have to stop bringing data to a meaning-making fight”. Recognising the political nature of the work is the first step towards levelling the field of that fight.
The gathering explored some of the routes to enhancing our power and influence; from refining our advocacy strategies through working with unlikely allies, to building power from the ground up re-connecting to the role of unions as forces for change.
The gathering explored some of the routes to enhancing our power and influence; from refining our advocacy strategies through working with unlikely allies, to building power from the ground up re-connecting to the role of unions as forces for change. Our efforts, however, are still too fragmented and in need of a much more vigorous analysis of how to connect those building power through existing power corridors with those working to enhance it independently. To successfully do so, we’ll need to join forces with adjacent movements and actors – perhaps those that are more accustomed to working with the how but are finding it increasingly difficult to articulate the what through collapsing structures. I hope this conversation continues beyond the gathering.
The other side of opportunity
Over the last year, the repeatedly quoted line that one should “never let a crisis go to waste” has echoed through new economy events as a reminder to literally look for hope in times of collapse. Searching for a silver lining in an increasingly ruinous political landscape has become as second nature to us as rejecting carbon pricing as a silver bullet for tackling climate change.
In one workshop in Lyon, I joined a group discussing the opportunities for rallying support that arise from the cost-of-living crisis now running rampant across Europe. One person made the conversation pause by saying “it doesn’t sit right to talk about cost-of-living crisis as an opportunity when we know how devastating it will be for so many people.” Just as crises can create openings for systemic transformation, the opposite is also true; strategic opportunities are often characterised by pain and loss. When we get caught up in strategy language and forget to connect our work to what’s really at stake in people’s lives, we risk losing both legitimacy and with it the ability to create lasting change.
When we get caught up in strategy language and forget to connect our work to what’s really at stake in people’s lives, we risk losing both legitimacy and with it the ability to create lasting change…. we should lean into the new economy movement’s unique ability to work not just for current generations, and not only for future generations, but to ease pressures on both.
This exchange at P4NE’ gathering was a timely reminder that having a long-term vision for a better world does not excuse blindness to more immediate struggles people face, and which very likely were part of what brought many of us to the economic systems change work in the first place. Rather, we should lean into the new economy movement’s unique ability to work not just for current generations, and not only for future generations, but to ease pressures on both.
A sceptically hopeful movement
Over drinks in the evening, someone who was attending a P4NE gathering for the first time remarked: “there’s a lot of energy here, compared to the climate gatherings I usually attend.” Coming to economic systems change work as a climate funder, I recognise this pattern. Where does that energy come from?
A more convincing explanation, in my opinion, is that the new economy field can better resist the doom and gloom that has many other movements in its grip, precisely because of the systemic character of our work.
The easiest explanation would be that the new economy field hasn’t grasped the severity of what we’re up against, but the title of the gathering itself quickly debunks that. There’s no illusion within this community that the inevitable change will come easily or without resistance and suffering. A more convincing explanation, in my opinion, is that the new economy field can better resist the doom and gloom that has many other movements in its grip, precisely because of the systemic character of our work. We can be, as one speaker put it, “sceptically hopeful”, because we know that things could be different.
Looking out over the Saône on the final evening of the gathering, surrounded by people committed to this work, I thought that P4NE’s gathering itself, in line with Joycelyn Longdon’s words, could be seen is a small act of hope in a time of collapse.
That stance has led to ridicule and dismissal over the years, but imagine the straitjacket it must be to believe that change is confined to the margins of existing economic and political systems. How heavy must the notion of collapse be if your theory of change hinges on the institutions and social fabric now coming undone? Hospicing the world that’s waning is far less dramatic for those who have long stopped seeing the old system through rose-coloured glasses and are free from nostalgia that comes with it. In that light, active hope becomes not the opposite of realism but the antidote to the paralysis that cynicism can cause. Not sufficient, but essential.
Looking out over the Saône on the final evening of the gathering, surrounded by people committed to this work, I thought that P4NE’s gathering itself, in line with Joycelyn Longdon’s words, could be seen is a small act of hope in a time of collapse.
Ida Laerke Holm
Ida works at KR Foundation and is an advisor to Partners for a New Economy