Learning for Change: social innovation for a humanized economy

Discussions at the social welfare table focused around the inherited models of welfare capitalism that were established in Western Europe in the last Century and now dominate in the EU, but which have high costs and often impede creation of the kind of ‘caring’ society that many social innovation organisations and initiatives aspire to (re-) build and the kinds of care giving and receiving that people want.

There was agreement around the table (over two rounds of group discussion) that government and professional welfare organisations have lost sight of core values of care-taking in family and community. What is our goal as a society? Is it to make profit, to be efficient? Or is it to create wellbeing for everyone, to care for the unfortunate, to care for ourselves and each other, to arrange care giving and receiving as people want? Societal goals, progress indicators and even the tax system set perverse incentives. GDP is bigger if more people are sick and more money is spent treating symptoms of (often avoidable) sickness. A re-orientation to focus on prevention could reduce avoidable cost, but the political system is locked in a point-scoring debate around marginal changes to the existing system or in stigmatizing and blaming system users even when what is needed is system change.

There’s a need to organise and empower people to take care of each other. Social innovation initiatives can contribute to care-taking in the community and to creating wellbeing directly through their activities. There are already bottom-up self-organised social insurance initiatives that mobilise community members and look, not at people’s needs, but at the assets they bring and the contributions they can make. Community initiatives bring care back into community at a neighbourhood scale. Successful demonstrations can begin to change the debates and narratives around social welfare and its creation. Recognising, valuing, and rewarding care-taking in family and community will help empower people and facilitate system change.

Further information available from: pweaver.groundswell@gmail.com