Across our lives old narratives about progress—what it looks like and what it takes—are breaking down. At the same time, new narratives are yet to emerge in any clear way. And so we find ourselves in a narrative vacuum. Dystopian stories love vacuums; they play to our fears. So people sell us more and more dystopia, filling our feeds and phones, creating a vicious cycle in our content consumption. What’s more, as we consume more dystopian stories we shrink our natural capacity to positively create the future.

My podcast guest this week is Ari Wallach, a futurist who has spent the past decade thinking about this narrative vacuum problem. These days much of his time is spent finding, planting, cultivating, and amplifying “protopian” stories to counterbalance the dystopian ones. It was an uplifting 45-minute conversation that helped me reframe our current moment and gave me a shot of hope.

Links referenced in the podcast

* TED Talk

* Longpath Book

* A Brief History of The Future (PBS Series)

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dougsundheim.substack.com

In July 2020 the former chair of the economics department at Harvard wrote an article for the NY Times titled C.E.O.s Are Qualified to Make Profits, Not Lead Society. It pissed me off. I responded in Forbes with CEOs Have A Responsibility To Help Lead Society.

The article left me with a question: How can one of the most prominent economic thinkers in the world have such a myopic view of the mandate of corporate leadership, the most highly compensated members of our society. Some quick research ruled out the possibility that he was a rogue bad apple. Something more systemic was going on.

Being in the middle of Covid, with too much time on my hands, I did a deep dive on the history of economics. I read a lot of books to better understand how some of the more odious “values-free” truths came to dominate the economics profession and thus our society.

One of the best books I read was The Battle For Human Nature by Barry Schwartz. It was written in 1986 but read like it could have been written today. In it he makes an expansive and compelling case that many of the challenges we face today are rooted in an oversimplified and mechanistic conception of human nature conceived by a variety of social sciences, in particular, economics.

For my second episode of The Possibility of Business I’ve invited Barry on to discuss the book, its implications on our world today, and where he sees hope for tomorrow.

About Barry Schwartz

Barry Schwartz is an emeritus professor of psychology at Swarthmore College and a research associate at the Haas School of Business at Berkeley. He has spent fifty years thinking and writing about the interaction between economics, psychology, and morality. He has written several books that address aspects of this interaction, including The Battle for Human Nature, The Costs of Living, The Paradox of Choice, Practical Wisdom (with Kenneth Sharpe), Why We Work, and most recently, Choose Wisely (with Richard Schuldenfrei). Schwartz has spoken four times at the TED conference, and his TED talks have been viewed by more than 25 million people.

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About The Possibility of Business Podcast

I believe business has the opportunity to be a larger net positive force in society than it is. Moreover, I believe it has an obligation to be. I’ll talk with leaders and thinkers who believe that too. We’ll explore what they’ve found works, what doesn’t, and what they’re encouraged about on the road ahead.

Episodes will be available here on Substack and wherever you watch or view podcasts.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dougsundheim.substack.com

I’m starting a podcast titled The Possibility of Business.

My first episode is with Pam Dodd, aka my mom. She’s a big reason I got into the organizational development field. In the 1960s she designed a multidisciplinary major at Penn focused on sociology, psychology, and management—uncommon at the time. In the 1990s she got a PhD at Michigan in organizational psychology and social work and did her dissertation on what it takes to be a bright and ambitious woman in business. We explore her career trajectory, the limits of academic models, and what makes a great company great.

About The Possibility of Business

I believe business has the opportunity to be a larger net positive force in society than it is. Moreover, I believe it has an obligation to be. I’ll talk with leaders and thinkers who believe that too. We’ll explore what they’ve found works, what doesn’t, and what they’re encouraged about on the road ahead.

Episodes will be available here on Substack and wherever you watch or view podcasts.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dougsundheim.substack.com