Module 6: Building a wellbeing economy movement
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world;
indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”
— Margaret Mead, Anthropologist
The old economic system is known, but the new system is still in its infancy. Movement towards a wellbeing economy involves both hospicing 'the old' and nurturing 'the new'. The Two Loops model of change, developed by Margaret Wheatley and Deborah Frieze at the Berkana Institute, describes this process of simultaneously nurturing initiatives that positively impact social and ecological wellbeing, as well as proactively reducing activities that impact it negatively.
The Berkana Two Loops Model
The Two Loops model shows a dominant system that is no longer sustainable (a ‘legacy system’) and an emergent system, inspired by a new vision of desired outcomes, which is gaining influence. At the heart of the Two Loops model is the relationship between the ‘legacy system’ and the ‘emerging system’: the transition.
As the legacy system loses its fitness and ability to sustain itself, it goes into decline. This is a painful process: people will try to hold on and use their power to attempt to sustain what is being lost. Without good hospicing of a dying system, resistance can reduce opportunities to use the resources of the legacy system to support the new system that is emerging. These resources are referred to as ‘compost’ in the Two Loops model.
Image sources
The Berkana Two Loop Model: The Moment, www.themoment.is/how-change-happens/