On Competitiveness

The Systemic Insight podcast

In this episode, Shawn and Marcus discuss the concept of competitiveness. The chat was inspired by some reading Marcus had been doing that condemned competition to be part of the driving force that makes our society so extractive and unequal. In particular, Marcus is using two quotes from Daniel Wahl’s book ‘Designing Regenerative Cultures’ to exemplify the argument. To contrast this viewpoint, Shawn and Marcus explore the positive aspects of competition and why competitiveness and in particular systemic competitiveness in the way it is used by Mesopartner and others still are and will remain important concepts in economic development - and why they can indeed also be forces that drive a positive transformation of society towards a more sustainable future. They asked Christian Schoen to share his opinion on competitiveness in development.