Abstract: Research conducted by the author and others, but especially Murray Bookchin, shows that hardly any of the endless demonstrations of the desirability, possibility, and viability of more “organic”, more sustainable, more “degrowth-oriented”, ways of doing things have survived. Even more seriously, research conducted by the author and his colleagues over the past half century shows that this will continue to be the case unless two fundamental problems are addressed. The first is to devise alternative public management (viz sociocybernetic) arrangements which will promote decentralised experimentation, learning, and evolution. The second is to map, and find ways of intervening in, the network of social forces (viz the sociocybernetic system) which, continuously undermines all attempts to introduce more “organic” organisational arrangements and instead promotes the hierarchical, command and control, systems that are so deeply destructive of human beings and their habitats. This paper will summarise research that has already been conducted in these areas and seek collaborators in taking the work forward.

There is no paper for this media entry. This was a contribution to a scientific session at the 4th International Degrowth Conference in Leipzig in 2014, which doesn't exist in written format or is not published under open access.