Global Compact International Yearbook 2016

innoVAtion
Not everyone dreams of a happy life
in the country
As the research shows, happiness is
relative. So it is less the Malaysia trip
in itself that generates happiness than
the ability to keep up with the Joneses.
A more frugal life can therefore make
a person happy if that person still feels
acknowledged. But happiness levels
also often increase when people have
more than those around them, and not
everyone dreams of growing their own
food in agricultural cooperatives instead
of going to the capitalist supermarket.
The increase in mental health disorders
in a globalized capitalism environment is
not in itself proof that capitalism causes
unhappiness. It used to be that someone
who was sad would simply go see friends;
nowadays, we diagnose depression and
prescribe pills, which not least benefits
the pharmaceutical industry and its
continually new products.
Capitalism is an important cultural
influence. Nevertheless, sociobiology
has demonstrated that human beings
have a certain propensity for selfishness.
Outside of the kind of directly
life-threatening conditions as occurred
in the Stone Age, our propensity for cooperation
is often limited. Cooperation
is particularly difficult when it has to
take place internationally, as with the
climate, rather than in relatively manageable
small groups, as in the distant past.
Therefore, we must count on clear and
very short-sighted calculations of selfinterest,
and among more groups than
just managers and politicians.
We are part of the growth world
We are all interlinked in the growth
world: through our jobs and our consumer
desires, or our pension funds
that own companies through their stock
portfolios. And none of us – politicians
included – always acts rationally. The
all too human biases toward comfort,
habit, repression, prestige, and the usual
concepts of normality complicate any
fundamental change. When I sit down
on the emissions-heavy plane to Tenerife
in February drizzle, I have absolutely
no inkling of the climate disaster and
limits to growth.
Concepts for the post-growth world
should not bank on a new kind of human
being, lest they remain ineffective
utopias. But change is possible. Calculations
of self-interest, concepts of normality,
and even values can evolve further as
different actors interact. They will even
have to – environmentally speaking –
if we are to survive.
Prof. Dr. Felix Ekardt is Director of the
Research Unit Sustainability and Climate
Policy in Leipzig, which he founded in
2009. Since 2009, he has also been a professor
for public law and legal philosophy
at Rostock University (Faculty of Law).
His scientific focus lies in issues around
human science sustainability studies.
Global Compact International Yearbook 2016 27