Acknowledgments xiii

List of Abbreviations xvii

Part 1 A Present-Day Imperative 1

Chapter 1 A Present-Day Imperative To Think or Not To Think… 3

1.1 Where are we by now? 3

1.2 Situating this book 8

1.3 From local to global to complex 11

1.4 In search for growth 14

1.5 On futures and their values 15

Chapter 2 Situating Growth in Time–Space 17

2.1 Two six thousand day lapses 17

2.2 Complexity to the fore 19

2.3 The message is not the content 21

2.4 On the approach taken by this book 25

Chapter 3 Dominant Thinkings of the Past Century 27

3.1 Economic dynamics evolved 27

3.2 Change and no change: the art of governance 28

3.3 What’s in a “dominant design”? 29

3.4 Why are dominant designs important to consider? 32

3.5 Operating dominant designs on an example 33

3.6 Categorizing four general fixations found in the economic world 34

3.7 On the remarkable fixation on competition 39

3.8 Implementing the defixation process 41

Chapter 4 The Historical Contribution of System Dynamics 43

4.1 The pioneering work at MIT 43

4.2 The historical quest for cracking the “world problématique” 45

4.3 The historical outlet with the Club of Rome 47

4.4 On complex systems and the legacy relevance of system dynamics 47

4.5 On the psychology of “not wanting to know” 48

4.6 Some prevalent differences and similarities with the seventies 50

4.7 Getting away from system dynamics from now? 52

4.8 The position taken in this book 54

Part 2 A Methodology for Tackling Growth Problematics 57

Chapter 5 In Search for New Approaches Fit-For-Purpose 59

5.1 A GDP comfort zone 59

5.2 In search for growth 62

5.3 How to correctly model the situation problematics 66

5.4 Leaving duality 67

5.5 The ever-growing complexity 70

5.6 Searching for a representation framework beyond set theory 73

5.7 Shifting from problem-based to design-based methods 79

Chapter 6 Angling the Core Subject Appropriately 81

6.1 Principle 1: find the “lowest lever point” 81

6.2 Principle 2: divide to multiply 83

6.2.1 An example 84

6.2.2 The overall scheme 84

6.3 Principle 3: going from the “two” to the “three” 85

6.4 Practical considerations 89

6.5 Case: reflections from a Haitian context 91

6.6 An asset base for growth 93

6.7 The exponential movement 94

6.8 The economic equation 96

6.9 Relationship with SDGs 96

Chapter 7 Cracking Open a Growth Concept 101

7.1 On the presence of dominant designs 101

7.2 Some background knowledge relevant to GDP 104

7.3 Discussing GDP features 107

7.4 Evidencing past GDP’s dominant designs and breaking axes 107

7.5 A framed template for “new growth” 108

7.6 Charting GDP’s dominant designs and breaking axes 112

7.7 Blueprinting new growth concepts 117

7.8 Expanding on growth-related concepts 119

Chapter 8 Opening Up New Growth Axes 123

8.1 Energy is everything; efficiency best manages it 123

8.2 Option one: “electrifying GDP” 125

8.3 Option two: “efficiency GDP” 126

8.4 A side note 127

8.5 On distribution and its criteria 128

Part 3 Going Beyond the Notion of GDP 131

Chapter 9 New Growth Operational Formulations with Examples 133

9.1 A quick return to system dynamics 133

9.2 How to balance the disequilibria by injecting a conduct way 135

9.3 Why isn’t a circular economy enough? 138

Chapter 10 Discussing Work, Labor and Money 141

10.1 Is work still on demand? 141

10.2 Cultural factors underpinning work 142

10.3 Work: background knowledge 144

10.4 Fixations on work 144

10.5 Work: dominant designs and breaking axes 146

10.6 Blueprint concepts for extending the notion of work 148

10.7 Expanding the notion of work towards a cooperation principle 149

10.8 The fixations on money 150

Chapter 11 Case Study: Growth Through Cooperation, Work, Time and Space 153

11.1 Evolving work in co-working settings 153

11.2 Why co-working as a subject matter? 154

11.3 Generations of co-working spaces don’t act on the same premises 155

11.4 Departing from some current views opens up future co-working spaces 158

11.5 Using C-K theory for thinking future co-working spaces 158

11.6 Giving thought to today’s 1.0 co-working spaces 159

11.6.1 What’s critically missing in current CWS interpretations? 161

11.6.2 Limits to the concept: is this a co-working space? 161

11.6.3 Extending and reformulating the state-of-the-art for more conceptual expansions 163

11.6.4 Structuring the K space for opening up ensuing C expansions 164

11.6.5 Summarizing this thinking 165

11.7 Mechanisms for expanding the original concept 166

11.8 What may be a language for “working together?” 167

11.9 Founding experiments – the protocol and schedule 168

11.9.1 Evolving the results obtained: socio-economic implications 171

11.10 Concluding with some considerations for the future 172

11.11 Acknowledgments 173

11.12 Further reading 173

Chapter 12 A Society’s New Clothes 177

12.1 The main messages from this book 177

12.2 Enhancing dynamics 179

12.3 Consciousness as the molding factor? 180

Part 4 Appendices 185

Appendix 1 A Short Primer on C-K Theory 187

Appendix 2 Some Chronological Reports to The Club of Rome Commented 199

Bibliography 201

Index 211