Why Saving Our Planet Requires Dismantling Patriarchal Economics

Humanity faces a cascading polycrisis as climate destabilization and widening societal inequities outpace government institutions, threatening a dangerous Hothouse Earth trajectory unless economic systems undergo a profound, life-serving transformation. Storms, floods, and extreme weather events form part of an escalating new normal that converges with widening wealth gaps, accelerating militarization, and the resurgence of authoritarian politics. While many people still experience an economy that functions reasonably well on the surface, this illusion of normality fuels shortsighted, extractive, and growth-dependent practices at the very moment when profound systemic shifts are urgently required. A new volume published in Transforming Economies explores these urgent themes by bringing together international scholars and practitioners to map alternative pathways toward regenerative civilizations.

How Feminist Economic Thought Exposes Patriarchal Power Structures

Edited and authored by researchers including Inca Petra Kuenkel, the book argues that converging ecological and social crises cannot be addressed without fundamentally transforming the purpose, logic, and power relations of contemporary economies. The analyses within the volume draw heavily on feminist political economy, systems science, Earth stewardship, and pluriversal worldviews to critique patriarchal and neoliberal architectures that prioritize endless accumulation over life and ecological integrity. According to the contributors, dominant economic models operate through hierarchical, extractive, and dominance-based power relations that inherently cannot deliver regenerative futures. By examining how power is organized, feminist perspectives reveal that mainstream economics ignores the vast infrastructures of care and relational labor predominantly borne by women, migrants, and Indigenous communities.

Bridging Emergency Narratives with Emergent pluriversal Futures

The global discourse on planetary destabilization is shaped by two major narratives, each offering vital insights while carrying distinct limitations. The emergency narrative, driven by warnings of climate collapse and polycrisis, highlights imminent threats and calls for urgent action, yet it often assumes that existing institutional architectures can be salvaged through top-down reforms and responsible leadership. In contrast, the emergence narrative celebrates community initiatives, local experiments, and pluriversal alternatives grounded in well-being and interdependence, though it frequently underplays the necessity of transforming deep-seated power relations. The volume suggests that both narratives must be grounded in redistributing power, legitimizing care, and building collective agency rather than relying solely on technological fixes or regulatory adjustments.

Rebuilding Economic Architectures Through Living Systems Theory

To move beyond extractive models, the volume distinguishes between academic economics as a discipline and economies as real-world systems of provisioning, while emphasizing the deeper economic architecture that sets the rules for property, finance, and governance. Tracing the historical roots of neoliberalism through networks such as the Mont Pèlerin Society and the Chicago School of Economics, the authors detail how market fundamentalism and surveillance capitalism have systematically subordinated democratic governance to corporate expansion. Against these trends, contributors offer a triadic framework for transformation inspired by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, targeting paradigm shifts in worldviews, structural reforms in institutions, and the scaling of everyday sustainable practices.

What Comes Next for Regenerative Civilizations

The chapters are divided into conceptual foundations and practical implementation strategies, featuring diverse contributions from scholars such as Astrid Agenjo-Calderón on the Sustainability of Life approach, Sandra Waddock on eco-social principles, İpek İlkkaracan on the Purple Economy, and Petra Kuenkel on Economies of Aliveness. Together, these works demonstrate that solidarity economies, care collectives, and Indigenous stewardship practices are not marginal exceptions but living laboratories for post-patriarchal futures. Transforming economies requires building collaborative knowledge ecosystems that integrate diverse ways of knowing, enabling societies to navigate complex transitions and cultivate shared responsibility for the health of people and the planet.

The research was published in Transforming Economies on January 1, 2027.