Imagining a World Beyond Consumerism

while the Consumer Story has had a long enough hold, the Subject is much, much older. It was the dominant story across the world for centuries, shaping the interactions of the majority of humanity with our institutions and each other from at least the 1600s; but it’s not hard to find evidence of it going back millennia.

‘The way decision-makers see it is that the world is not run by people and systems that require imaginative citizens, that require dreamers and thinkers and makers – we’re not needed in the economic models planned out for us.’

We are Citizens by nature. Over the last eight decades, however, we have become increasingly trapped in the Consumer Story. Before that, we spent centuries, even millennia, imprisoned in the Subject Story. These stories have functioned as a kind of source code, shaping our beliefs and indeed our morality, not only guiding our behaviour but even con

The challenge is not that the Citizen Story is complicated to articulate or difficult to evidence; it is simple, rooted in deep truth, and emerging everywhere. But it is hidden by the dominance of the Consumer Story.