Abstract

In 1993, David C. Korten contrasted the key elements of an emergent alternative wisdom on sustainable development that was then emerging from a global citizen dialogue with the conventional wisdom of mainstream economists and the institutions of what we now know as the Washington consensus. Disregarding evidence that policies grounded in the conventional wisdom are devastating the environment and increasing the gap between the super rich and the desperately poor, the alternative wisdom has not gained a consequential foothold within the establishment even to this day. The alternative wisdom has, however, given birth to Ecological Economics as a new economics discipline and to global civil society as an increasingly powerful social force that is beginning to align global politics behind a new social and environmental vision.