Category: Corruption
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The Enshittification of Government
BY CHRISTIAN SARKAR The enshittification of government refers to the decay of government systems and institutions that were originally designed to serve the Common Good. Over time, they become corrupted, dysfunctional, and, in many cases, exploitative — benefiting a small elite while abandoning the needs of the public.. I borrowed the phrase from Cory Doctorow…
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What is Crapitalism?
BY CHRISTIAN SARKAR CRAPITALISM describes the negative aspects of capitalism when it becomes dysfunctional, exploitative, or excessively focused on profit at the expense of the Common Good: Is your business following Crapitalism’s degenerative playbook? Or is it working to regenerate the Common Good? Christian Sarkar is an author, artist, and activist consultant. He is a co-founder of the Regenerative Marketing…
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The Yezidi genocide devastated Iraq’s community 10 years ago − but the roots of the prejudice that fueled it were much deeper
BY GÜNEŞ MURAT TEZCÜR NOTE: The Assad family ruled Syria for more than 50 years with an iron fist. Now that has come to an end. The new regime is Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a former al Qaeda affiliate in Syria that used to go by the name Al-Nusra Front. They are not known for…
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‘This Is Genocide,’ Amnesty International Says of Israel’s Death Machine in Gaza
BY JAKE JOHNSON “Our damning findings must serve as a wake-up call to the international community,” said Agnès Callamard, the group’s secretary-general. “It must stop now.” The leading human rights group Amnesty International said late Wednesday what United Nations experts, national leaders, and historianshave been arguing for months: that Israel’s massive assault on Gaza amounts to the crime of genocide against…
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Frankenpolitics: An Interview with George Tsakraklides
George Tsakraklides has a diverse background in the sciences, having trained in molecular biology, chemistry, food science, and Earth sciences. He has also worked in data analytics and marketing sciences for some of the world’s largest corporations, giving him a front-row seat to some of the most profit-driven and exploitative aspects of human society. After…
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WICKED7: Where do the US Presidential candidates stand on solving the world’s most urgent problems?
BY CHRISTIAN SARKAR and PHILIP KOTLER Which candidate offers the best chance of actually working on the world’s most urgent problems? Which candidate would make things worse? Let’s give the US Presidential candidates the Wicked7 assessment – clarifying their positions on the seven most urgent problems facing us today. Wait, what is the Wicked7 assessment?…
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Water Under Siege: Corporate Control vs. Community Rights
BY CHRISTIAN SARKAR Jef Teugels invites us to explore the critical issues surrounding modern water management, focusing on the increasing commercialization of water and its implications for equity, sustainability, and indigenous rights. DOWNLOAD PDF >> Teugel’s essay – Water Under Siege: Corporate Control vs. Community Rights – examines how corporate interests and governmental policies almost…
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F-minus: A new report card for Lobbyists
By CHRISTIAN SARKAR Launched in July 2023, F Minus has built a revolutionary database of state-level lobbyists for upstream and midstream oil, gas, and coal interests to demonstrate the extent to which these lobbyists are also representing people, schools, communities, and businesses being harmed by the climate crisis. This is a problem, not just for…
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Steel Pulse: “Only One World (Wicked Problems)”
On this, the last day of COP26, Grammy-winning legends Steel Pulse have a message for us: we must come together to tackle the world’s wickedest problems – because there is no Planet B. What can we do to bring people together in our communities? How can we unite across the walls of hate and mistrust…
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We have weaponized fear and built the fear economy
By KARTHIGA RATNAM “I sit on a man’s back choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am sorry for him and wish to lighten his load by all means possible… except by getting off his back.” ― Leo Tolstoy, What Then Must We Do? Fear. A useful emotion. It…
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Webinar: Population & Migration
With us for the webinar – a group of dynamic Palermitans: – Leoluca Orlando. As Mayor of Palermo, Orlando’s extraordinary vision and courage has changed our understanding of immigration, tolerance, and the fight against corruption. – Claudio Arestivo. A co-founder of Moltivolti – a unique regenerative business – which serves as an example for the…
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WEBINAR: “Health & Livelihood”
Join us as we welcome: Stuart Hart – a leading authority on the implications of environment and poverty for business strategy. Hart is the Founder and President of Enterprise for a Sustainable World Bob Freling – Executive Director at Solar Electric Light Fund, Freling developed the “solar village development model” – a wholistic community-based approach to development.…
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The Death of Nature: Deforestation
The problem of deforestation mapped out by Laura Galdi and Chiara Falvo. Details here >>
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WEBINAR: “Power & Corruption”
REPLAY >> Join our guests as we discuss – “Power & Corruption” with: Obiageli “Aunty Oby” Ezekwesili, a former vice president of the World Bank (African Region), co-founder and founding director of Transparency International, co-founder of the #BringBackOurGirls movement and has also served twice as Federal Minister in Nigeria. Avivah Wittenberg-Cox, the Founder and Honorary…
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How do we stop the cycle of intergenerational hate and conflict?
By Aryssa Yoon, David Sehyeon Baek and Karthiga Ratnam Two households, both alike in dignity (In fair Verona, where we lay our scene), From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean -Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare This prologue of Shakespeare’s infamous love story about the star-crossed lovers – Romeo and…
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The Lost Children of the Philippines
BY KARTHIGA RATNAM, EMERALD PASFIELD, AND ARYSSA YOON “She listened to the silence. Her first thought was relief. He’s gone. Her second thought was utter devastation. He didn’t kill me.” ― Catherine Brusk, What Love Washed Up Have you ever been stuck in an elevator for a few minutes? You must have experienced a feeling of helplessness,…
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WEBINAR: “Hate & Conflict”
Hate is taught. What can be done to unlearn hate and build a just society? Join Philip Kotler and Christian Sarkar with special guests Siyabulela Mandela and David Hinds (of Steel Pulse) as they discuss the third Wicked Problem – Hate & Conflict. Members of the Wicked7 Working Group will help us with the discussion.…
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The Movement of Movements: A Last Chance to Save the Planet?
BY CHRISTIAN SARKAR, KARTHIGA RATNAM, & PHILIP KOTLER On this, the 90th birthday of Philip Kotler, we ask the world to come together to save the future. One way to do this is to build a “movement of movements.“ It’s time to put aside our toys – our ideologies and guns – and look at…
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Today: Webinar on Inequality
Join Philip Kotler and Christian Sarkar as they kickoff the second challenge: Inequality. The webinar includes a special presentation by Karthi Ratnam and Aryssa Yoon on Gender Inequality and Climate Change.
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Plastics and The Death of Nature
BY SUSI WEISENEGGER Interested? Here’s how you can participate >>
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The Impact of the Death of Nature on Gender Inequality
BY KARTHIGA RATNAM & ARYSSA YOON Climate Change. Environmental Degradation. Extinction Emergency. We have all heard the terms. The problem with climate change or the death of nature is that it’s usually tightly integrated with a host of other problems. We are focusing on the impact of climate change on gender inequality. To understand gender…
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The Powerlessness of the UN
BY CHRISTIAN SARKAR The only power the United Nations has is the “power of persuasion” – and that doesn’t seem to be working too well. Here’s a profound interview with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres about everything from climate change to vaccine nationalism (h/t Naveen Srivastava): Besides powerlessness, a second powerful idea we hear about is…
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Food Waste and The Death of Nature
Our second “map” of the World’s Wicked Problems is about the impact of food (production, handling, storage, consumption) on Nature… Interested? Here’s how you can participate >>
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The Insect Apocalypse
Our first entry in the Wicked7 Challenge is the “insect apocalypse”. At Wicked 7 we are mapping the world’s wicked problems so we can see the causes, how they are connected, and then work together to try and find solutions. >> Interested? Here’s how you can participate >>
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Webinar: How Jobs-to-be-Done can help solve the unmet needs of society
Here’s the replay of the webinar ‘How Jobs-to-be-Done can help solve the unmet needs of society’ with Strategyn’s Tony Ulwick:
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Mapping the World’s Wicked Problems. Kickoff – April 1, 2021
The Wicked 7 Project is mapping the World’s Wicked Problems to understand the causes and then see how we can work together to find solutions. We have divided the World’s Wicked Problems in to seven categories – Death of Nature, Inequality, Hate & Conflict, Power & Corruption, Work & Tech, Health & Livelihood, and Population…
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The Unmet Needs of Society: Introducing Multi-stakeholder Jobs to be Done
BY CHRISTIAN SARKAR, ANTHONY ULWICK and PHILIP KOTLER In his e-pamphlet — Rebalancing Society — Henry Mintzberg points out that a balanced society can be thought of as “sitting on a stool with three sturdy legs: a public sector of respected governments, to provide many of our protections (such as policing and regulating); a private…
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Latin America: inequality and political instability have lessons for the rest of the world
BY DIEGO SÁNCHEZ-ANCOCHEA, University of Oxford In a landmark speech about social mobility in 2013, the then US president, Barack Obama, warned against the problem of growing inequality in the starkest possible terms: The combined trends of increased inequality and decreasing mobility pose a fundamental threat to … our way of life. He was talking…
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It’s Time to Depoliticize Decision-Making
BY CHRISTIAN SARKAR & PHILIP KOTLER UPDATE: On the day we published this article, Texas Governor Gregg Abbott lifted Texas’ mask mandate – declaring the state 100% open for business. Health experts warned it was too soon. Texas Was Warned a Decade Ago Its Grid Was Unready for Cold reads the headline in Bloomberg Green…
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12 Tools to Reduce Income and Wealth Inequality
BY PHILIP KOTLER A major problem in American capitalism is the growing level of income and wealth inequality. America continues to have persons suffering from poverty, homelessness and hunger while eight billionaires own half of the nation’s wealth. Working class real wages remain where they were in the 1980s, while the rich who own 80%…
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What is Food Insecurity?
BY CAITLIN CASPI, University of Connecticut Among the many striking images from the pandemic is an aerial photo showing cars in seemingly endless rows lined up at a food bank in San Antonio, Texas. A jarring awareness of food insecurity in the U.S. has accompanied the health and financial concerns brought on by the COVID-19…
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In 2050, there will be more plastic in the oceans than fish
BY JEF TEUGELS Introduction: Made in Belgium On November 17, 1909, the Belgium-born Dr. Leo H. Baekeland explained Bakelite at the Franklin Institute (Baekeland, 1910). PlasticsEurope, the Association of Plastics Manufacturers, describes Bakelite as the first real synthetic and mass-produced plastic (PlasticsEurope, 2020). However, plastic is a form of fossil fuel since natural resources like gas…
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The Wicked 7: The APO Interview
Watch: The Asian Productivity Organization’s David Sehyeon Baek interviews Christian Sarkar >>
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How to See: When Narratives Create Reality
BY CHRISTIAN SARKAR AND PHILIP KOTLER In this video – more timely today than ever – James Baldwin explains that “reality” depends on our point of view: How you view the world is largely shaped by where you are in it. The cultural narrative we believe in dictates our understanding of reality: This makes our…
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Interlock USA: COVID, Racism, the Economy, and Climate Change
BY CHRISTIAN SARKAR & PHILIP KOTLER The USA is showing us how wicked problems are interlocked. How one feeds the other and the next and the next. In a society where power is corrupt, society loses its legitimacy. Not only is the social contract shredded, but so is our Constitution. The news is making our…
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Selecting the Wicked 7
CHRISTIAN SARKAR & PHILIP KOTLER The process of selecting seven wicked problems was not one we took lightly. In our book on Brand Activism, we asked: What are the most urgent issues facing society? How did we get here? What are the root causes? What must be done now? How can we find common ground?…
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What is a Wicked Problem?
CHRISTIAN SARKAR & PHILIP KOTLER To begin, here’s the article which introduced the world to the concept of “wicked problems” >> Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning by Horst W.J. Rittel and Melvin M. Webber. In it, we learn about the 10 properties of a wicked problem: There is no definitive formulation of a wicked problem. Wicked problems have no stopping rule. Solutions to…