The First Visser 't Hooft Memorial Consultation reviewed the potential and actual conflict between present models of economic growth and a sustainable society and recognized the need for a conceptual reorientation of today’s economies.

Focusing on Work in a Sustainable Society, participants in the Second Memorial Consultation also identified key areas where new paradigms must develop and wrestled with the mechanisms of organizing for change. In sum, a new political culture is needed for the move toward a sustainable world.  [See Growth, competitiveness, employment: The challenges and ways forward into the 21st Century. Chapter 8, Turning growth into jobs. European Commission, 1994.]

7.1 The need for a new political culture

The existing incompatibility between the prevailing economic system and the ecosystem has serious societal consequences which partly manifest themselves in widespread unemployment, underemployment, expansion of the informal sector, and a growing number of marginalized and excluded people.

Resolving the current conflicts between the economic and ecological systems demands courage at the level of the political decision makers. There is an urgent task to promote a new political culture given that:

1. at the global level, political instruments have not kept pace with the rapid economic integration;
2. the distance between political decision makers and citizens is growing, which creates distrust and introduces blocks to the necessary democratic interaction between the decision making process and control of the decision;
3. as a consequence the political institutions are in many ways unable to cope and respond with new issues and questions confronting people today.

Today’s world is complex for citizens, too. A new political culture would involve people learning to manage potential conflicts between different levels -- international, regional, national, local -- and giving consideration to the consequences of today’s decisions for future generations.

7.2 Political actors needed for action agenda

To this end, the following actors are encouraged to participate in public debate to develop the necessary political agenda for action:

• individual people: voters, workers, employers, educators, homemakers, clergy
• excluded peoples: unorganized (marginalized) individuals who have inadequate financial resources or/and opportunities for organizing
• Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), civil society, especially in developing activities and strategies, personal and inter-/intra-generational perspectives on respectively common properties, and in facilitating organization among peoples, workers, and communities for full and sustainable participation and responsibility:
• trade unions
• consumers organizations
• associations
• women organizations
• non-profit organizations
• environmental organizations
• social movements
• political parties, especially in bringing a longer time line to decision-making and incorporating personal accountability into public life
• public "social" institutions
• independent social institutions
• state (governmental) institutions: political, social and legal frameworks should recognize and protect the rights of unpaid, unemployed or/and excluded people. Current political, social and legal concepts need improvment to take into account the claims of those groups. This calls for new developments in constitutional law (e.g., prohibition of discrimination in women's work), in labor and company law (concepts like the "guarantee of labor rights") and in physical law (i.e, pollution and energy taxes).
• research, development and education institutions
• economic institutions at all levels (including employers)
• enterprises
• juridical and legislative chambers
• media and public opinion makers
• churches and other religious organizations

7.3 Values

1. Church have a key role in re-injecting a sense of community to counter the emphasis on individualism. Churches need to improve their links to the economic actors in society, such as employers’ and workers’ organizations, and to establish partnerships with the kinds of groups listed above to participate in a broad coalition for change. To this end, churches should take the necessary initiatives and assure the needed infrastructure to facilitate exchange and communication between these different actors.
2. A sense of moral and social responsibility in leaders and decision-makings needs encouragement so that different levels, decisions can be evaluated as to possible negative consequences for nature and community life. This is especially pertinent today in the transition economy countries.
3. In facing the dilemma of short term needs v long term solutions, politicians must be held accountable and muster the courage to speak the truth and to pay due attention to the people who would be affected by the choices.
4. To move from a reactive towards a pro-care society, the patriarchal, male domination of the present political value system must be challenged and revealed for the costly and destructive force it is.

Chapter 7, page 1 of 1