Ecocivilization
* Book: Ecocivilization: Making a World that Works for All. Jeremy Lent, 2026.
URL = https://book.ecocivilization.net/
Review
Sanda Waddock:
"Systems theorist and architect Buckminster Fuller famously stated, ‘You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.’ Building that better model—in the increasingly likely event of ecological or social collapse, or at least disruption, is what Jeremy Lent is doing in his GTC essay and, more comprehensively, in his new book Ecocivilization.
Building on the important foundation laid out by David Korten and others, Lent synthesizes a clear, inspiring, and hopeful vision for tomorrow, articulating key principles that give life to human ecological-social (eco-social) systems. Throughout the essay and book, Lent is showing all of us possibilities that can overcome what some call today’s imagination gap—the inability to envision a better future. Indeed, breaking free of the ‘trance’ that the neoliberal narrative has deliberately put many into (perhaps not so many in this group) by forwarding its core narrative along with the idea that ‘there is no alternative’ (in the words of Margaret Thatcher) is a vital step. There are alternatives, many of which can be found in heterodox economic thinking as synthesized in a recent paper that synthesizes the need to base economics, as Lent does, in ecological, social, political economy, and holistic principles, not to mention ideas about transformative whole system change offered by many in this conversation.
The very idea of an ecocivilization provides exactly the type of core idea or meme—something easily remembered and repeatable—that is needed to frame what it will take to collectively build that better future. We don’t need to agree perfectly on such a framing. We just need operate on it and go forward using what the governance system of holacracy calls the principle of consent, the idea that this framing is good enough that we need not object to it. Doing that could help overcome what ecologist Hunter Lovins calls the ‘crabs in a bucket’ of progressive movements. Lovins’s insight that progressives are similar to these crabs, for when one crab tries to rise out of the bucket, e.g., lack of full agreement, the others pull it back, ensuring that no progress is made. The situation we face today on a planetary scale demands approaches that can get us all out of that bucket. For example, while we all likely have our own ‘take’ on the principles and ideas Jeremy Lent sets forward or the particular suggestions he makes, can we possibly agree that they are good enough for us to be able to move this coalition forward into action?
Such a consent-based approach might allow all of the excellent thinkers in this coalition to prospectively forward idea and, importantly, actions, about how the world might be if we could adopt the type of life-giving principles Lent articulates. That is, if we can project positive, hopeful futures instead of the dystopian barbarization that appears to be already in progress in some places, including the United States. As Fuller’s quote above indicates, dystopias don’t inspire transformative action or, for that matter, even hope. And arguably, hope (not Pollyanna-ish optimism) is needed to do the hard work of catalyzing transformative action that this Great Transition Network (along with Lent’s own Deep Transformation Network) already understands is needed.
Agreement on a good enough framing to move forward can provide an opportunity to recognize and weave in the work and worldviews of many Indigenous communities who already understand humans as part of and in relationships with the rest of nature, not somehow separate and ‘exceptional’. It could enable action, not just more conversation. Arguably we already know what needs to change and have insights about how to make it happen. The question then becomes how to move forward towards achieving these likely plural ways of enacting ecociviliation, including the types of eco-social framings that Patrick Huntjens and colleagues call a natural social contract. Because the core question that we all face now is how to transform thinking and our societies away from neoliberalism’s extractive, exploitative practices towards ways of living and being in the world that acknowledge the interdependence and interrelatedness we all have with the rest of life. Doing that means shifting what the IPBES Transformative Change Assessment identifies as views or worldviews and mindsets, i.e., ways of seeing the world, structures or the institutions we humans build, and practices or how things get done."
(https://gtcampaign.org/gtc-forum/ecociv-lent/)
Discussion
Jeremy Lent:
"In a single sentence, the social critic Fredric Jameson captured something profoundly true about our moment: “For most people, it’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.” This observation has only grown more acute with time. We are today closer than ever before to Barbarization scenarios, and the question of how to steer toward an alternative path, one of authentic socio-ecological transformation, has never been more urgent.
Part of the answer lies in understanding how we arrived at Jameson’s quip. Antonio Gramsci, writing from a Fascist prison in the 1930s, described how ruling classes maintain power not only through coercion but through what he called “cultural hegemony”: the conditioning of entire populations, through education, media, and cultural institutions, to perceive the dominant order as natural and inevitable. Neoliberalism, instigated by the Mont Pelerin Society in the 1940s, has been the most successful exercise in cultural hegemony in modern history.1 Ever since it achieved dominance in the 1970s, it has naturalized the assumption that humans are individualistic, selfish, calculating materialists, and that unrestrained free-market capitalism is simply the expression of that nature—not a political choice, but a fact of life. The result is a foreclosure of the imagination encapsulated by Jameson’s quip: a civilization so thoroughly hegemonized that it cannot picture its own transformation, only its ending.
We need to break out of this consensus trance. My new book, Ecocivilization: Making a World that Works for All, lays out the potential for a fundamentally different world system—an ecological civilization based on life-affirming principles rather than principles of extraction, exploitation, and elite wealth accumulation. This vision is based on the groundbreaking work already being done by visionary thinkers, leaders, and communities around the world who are showing how all aspects of civilization—not just economics but also technology, agriculture, finance, urban infrastructure, education, governance, and law—can be redesigned as a coherent whole, setting the conditions for all people to flourish on a regenerating Earth.
In the face of civilizational crisis, there are two ways to think about what a “realistic” response is. The first begins with the present and asks what incremental improvements are currently possible. This is the approach of most mainstream discourse—and it has brought us to a world accelerating toward a precipice, with no sign of reversing.
The other way to think about “realistic” is to sketch out the conditions that could enable human civilization to prosper into the indefinite future, and then work backward to understand what is needed to achieve them. This approach, known as backcasting, traces the pathways that could lead to a genuinely desirable future. It is emphatically not the same as wishing for a utopia. Instead, it is grounded in empirical research, existing evidence of what works, and the logic of living systems that have sustained themselves successfully for millions of years. By focusing attention on a desirable future and then working backward to see how we might achieve it, we avoid constraining the imagination into the narrow parameters of what appears possible from where we now stand. As Greta Thunberg put it in 2018, “Until you start focusing on what needs to be done rather than what is politically possible, there is no hope.”
(https://gtcampaign.org/gtc-forum/ecociv-lent/)
Policy Proposals
Jeremy Lent:
"Four Structural Cornerstones:
Four structural cornerstones, in my view, would be fundamental to such a genuinely transformed world system: a guaranteed social dividend from the commons, a triple bottom line requirement for corporate charters, citizens’ assemblies enacting authentic democracy, and binding rights of nature legislation. Taken individually, each is game-changing. Woven together, they could form a solid foundation for systemwide transformation.
* A Social Dividend for All
A more accurate name for what is generally referred to as universal basic income is a “social dividend”—which reframes the entire moral discussion.5 We are all heirs to a common legacy: a vast treasure of knowledge, infrastructure, and technology that has been forged collectively by the sweat, enterprise, and genius of untold generations of ancestors. We are all the rightful beneficial owners of this common legacy: the commonwealth.
Beyond reducing poverty, a social dividend would fundamentally alter the paradigm of capitalism that has commodified human lives since its inception—liberating people from the compulsion to accept degrading or ecologically destructive work, empowering unpaid care and community contribution, and sending a radically different message about human dignity.6
* Corporate Charter Reform
The requirement of for-profit corporations to maximize for shareholder returns above all else is a major driver of planetary harm. The corporate charter is a legal instrument that society can choose to grant if an entity exists for the benefit of society as a whole, and to take away if that is no longer the case. A simple but profoundly far-reaching modification could require all major corporations to meet a triple bottom line—people, planet, and profit—with a five-year charter expiration date and renewals granted only by a sortition-selected panel of affected stakeholders, if “people and planet” parameters are met. Senior executives who currently feel trapped by a system they cannot escape individually would find themselves on a level playing field—and might even feel liberated to let their moral conscience inform decision-making.
* Deliberative Democracy
In its current form, what we know as electoral “democracy” could be more accurately described as electoral oligarchy. Every few years, people choose between two alternating power elites, neither group representing their own preferences. Elections themselves are structurally inadequate, selecting for those who are charismatic, wealthy, connected, and ambitious—a dangerously unrepresentative sample of the population. By contrast, modern citizens’ assemblies—groups of randomly selected citizens engaging in sustained facilitated deliberation—have demonstrated that ordinary people, given sufficient time, skilled facilitation, and access to expert opinion, can reach thoughtful conclusions on the most complex topics. According to many observers of these assemblies: a shared civic consciousness emerges spontaneously, and participants, freed from the pressure of reelection, focus on the common good.
* Rights of Nature
Perhaps the most fundamental transformation of an ecocivilization is a revolution in legal standing: the recognition that the living world has rights that human law is obliged to respect. Current law is entirely anthropocentric, reducing the rest of life on Earth to the status of property. Around the world, this cognitive revolution has been enacted into law: Ecuador’s 2008 constitution recognized the rights of Pachamama; New Zealand granted legal personhood to the Whanganui River; the Stop Ecocide movement is working toward making reckless destruction of ecosystems a prosecutable international crime. This represents an ontological shift: a recognition that we are participants in the web of life, not its owners and managers.
These ideas cannot succeed in isolation. The principles of an ecocivilization are not a menu of separate reforms from which to pick a few favorites. When intertwined as a coherent whole, they reinforce each other, becoming an internally consistent, deeply integrated and resilient system. A social dividend without corporate charter reform will be captured by the same system it seeks to transform. Rights of Nature without deliberative democracy lack the governance structures needed to enforce them. Each thread requires the others to hold it."