Vicki Saunders: Re-Imagine the System

Years from now, how do you think historians will describe this current moment of global history?

• We’re at the end of a time that started 400 years ago; when we all decided that Adam Smith was a genius, and self-interest was what people were all about. 
• There was no society, and it was all about the individual getting as much as they could. Also, there was this idea of scarcity, that there isn’t enough for everyone. We’re going to look at this time in our society as the end. What once was a place where five people had the same wealth, is now being broken down. 
• It’s interesting the extent to which millennials, even more so Gen Z,  are reacting against this kind of framework, and trying to redefine the narrative of what constitutes a meaningful life. Ultimately, what’s the kind of society that we want to live in so related that removes the massive inequality our society faces.

What is the path forward, how do we end this kind of 400-year cycle that you described?

• There isn’t one solution.
• This is going to be a series of very small individual experiments in communities, in multiple places around the world, that is just going to show us the way.  
• As long as we believe the lie that we’re separate, and that there’s not enough. The system will stay in place. As we wake up to the fact that there is enough for everyone. It’s just a distribution problem and evaluating realignment.
• When we believe that, and when we come together as communities, everything will change.

Who are some of those leaders that you particularly admire who are pursuing that kind of new way?

• There’s an organization in New Zealand called spiral.
• They’re global and really looking at new structures and ways of organizing together. They have a great little handbook that you can download for free on the web. They look at shared decision-making, shared power, and the snowflake effect of this network effect of people, organizing in small communities, being connected together, and how they share resources and shared decision making and share power.