Winning slowly is the same as losing: Reflections from Wellbeing Economies Gathering in Costa Rica

WEAll Co-Founder, Michael Weatherhead, reflects on the recent Wellbeing Economies gathering in Costa Rica.

“Winning slowly is the same as losing”

These words marked the closing reflections of one of 25 individuals that WEAll brought together in Costa Rica this month. Profound, given this person began our week (of intense discussion on economic reform among participants from across the globe) as a staunch defender of the current economic paradigm and an advocate of incremental change.

As part of WEAll’s work to explore economic system reform initiatives from around the world that could transform the current global economic architecture, we brought together a diverse range of voices, from representatives of indigenous groups and major industries, to finance reform think tanks and business and trade advocates, to policy makers and activists.

That range and breadth of world views and experience was deliberate. The gathering was an opportunity for ‘the system to see itself’. And the view was not always pretty. 

As was evident in our discussions, without reflection and a recognition of the weight of historical damage caused to minorities and indigenous peoples, developing the trust required to move forward genuinely transformative economic initiatives will be extremely challenging. As another participant put it, when one of your family has been hurt, you will naturally bring more attention and care to that member.

To act in the present requires acknowledging the past. To move forward together with any of the many global economic reform initiatives currently being proposed or under consideration, the historical (and current) inequality of how power is distributed cannot be ignored.

These are insights that are not easy to take in, because they force us to reckon with the complexity of addressing historical and ongoing patterns of exploitation and injustice, and to ask how much transformation is enough (vs. comfortable or convenient), whose views of ‘progress’ count, and what do we actually need to let go of?  In our impulse to address the most immediate symptoms of our economic, social, and climate crises (for some parts of the world), we are often tempted to bypass these more complex, and painful roots – and in so doing, risk perpetuating the very dynamics that have led to our current crises.

Taking a deep dive into this level of honesty and complexity, and being able to take in and hold such a breadth of views and voices is not easy. It requires curiosity, compassion, and courage. It asks more of us, and requires different modes of listening, showing up, and convening.

The hope for the gathering was that, through the intersection of different world views and practices, participants would bring a deeper understanding of each other’s perspectives and lived experiences out to their own audiences and into their own fields of economic reform work.

For myself, I went straight from Costa Rica to Oxford, and a workshop examining forms of democratization in business that might best support an ecological transition. For me, the thread that connected these two events was how the disconnect between supply chain labour and nature on the one hand and the owners of financial capital on the other is a critical barrier to ecological and social transformation. 

In short, an inability to recognise the other (human or more than human) and allow for self-determination, leads to economically destructive behaviours. That is not to say that stronger relationality between us is sufficient to transform the economic system, but without it, we will continue to change too slowly, and that is the same as losing.

The Costa Rica gathering was part of a programme of work begun last year by WEAll looking at initiatives from around the world that could improve global economic architecture. This work continues and we invite you to join our online platform to give your views on several of those initiatives as we bring attention to them and begin collaboration in support of them.