#19 Gaya Herrington | Limiting Growth

Thomas Gauthier

Hi Gaia, welcome.

Gaya Herrington

Thank you, good to be here.

Thomas Gauthier

So here you are, you are looking at the oracle and to the questions that you will ask her about the future, you know that she will answer right every time. What is the very first question you would please like to ask her?

Gaya Herrington

Yeah, so before I answer that, maybe I should start with why I would… ask that question. So I believe that the way that we’ve been going, the business as usual, so to say, so our old economic system is kind of losing its strength.

You see this in surveys, that people in general, especially in the mature economies, like so including France, but really all over the West, people are starting to lose faith in the current form. of our economic system, our political systems. They want deep systemic changes, for example, to deal more with major crises like the climate change challenge, but also social and economic inequalities, right?

And so I think what we are in need of, and I think what will happen, one way or another, is that new common narrative of how we think. the world works, how our economic system works, and who we are and what our role is in the world. I think all of those, that narrative is about to transform.

This is very common, this has happened many times in history, and some transitions were easier than others, right? Even capitalism itself has been transformed in various ways in the past, and I think we’re at that kind of junction in history again.

So that’s… that I wanted to preempt my first question with, which is what is this new narrative going to be? Because nobody knows yet.

I think we are about to see that it’s forming right now, but we don’t have it yet. And people are longing for it at the same time.

Coming up with a new shared narrative is easier said than done, right? So that would be my first question.

What is this new narrative going to be?

Thomas Gauthier

Since you’re bringing up… the narrative question, I would now like to jump into this conversation and ask if you are already around you recognizing new narratives. And also if, as you are recognizing new narratives, you see that they may be, let’s say, setting things in motion in a deeper way than just offering perhaps new ways of doing business or new ways of doing…

Gaya Herrington

politics are we talking about civilization level narratives here we are you know uh throughout history it’s always been the the financial system was always embedded most of history i should say embedded in society and society uh oh sorry embedded in the economy economy is embedded in society and then society is embedded in our larger natural environment And at the moment it’s been kind of turned upside down. So the financial streams we see daily, there are multiples of what is actually exchanged in goods in the real economy.

And then the real economy is clearly impinging on our social fabric. Our social fabric is fraying.

You see this in France and in Europe. You see it even more in the United States.

It’s starting to erode in our institutions, democracy. And that’s one of the reasons also why it’s so hard to pass real climate change combating laws.

For example, the majority of the populations, at least from surveys, shows that they support more action, but it’s not happening, because we’re spiraling away from each other. So it’s impinging on our social capital, so to say.

Trust in one another, our ability to cooperate. And of course, right now, the way that our economy is structured, because most we have this concept right now that’s called externalities, right?

So a lot of the pollution, including from greenhouse gases, but certainly not only greenhouse gases, right? Plastic pollution, chemical pollution, all those things are, they’re making us less healthy.

They’re destroying nature. And we depend on that.

And it’s very much a human need as well to for just for our survival, of course, but really also for our connection with nature. And so that’s been eroded as well.

And that’s why it’s ultimately the economic system is unsustainable. It’s also why our political systems don’t work anymore.

So it’s very much down to the deepest level of how we want to organize ourselves in a society.

Thomas Gauthier

Now, we know that narratives are very, very… strong driving forces to get people to do things differently. If I remember correctly, the book Sapiens by Harari is all about this unique capability of human beings to tell stories and listen to stories and believe in stories.

Now, if new narratives are to emerge, what can we say about the ways in which those narratives can essentially expand? While not being turned down by existing narratives, there seems to be then the prospect for some sort of a struggle between narratives.

How does one envision a safe pathway forward for a new narrative to, in a way, replace an older, not so sustainable narrative?

Gaya Herrington

Yeah, so there are many aspects to answering that question, right? So first of all, yes, you’re right.

So we’ve known this for many years now. And Yuval Harari has done a great job in really broadening the audience that understands this.

There was, not that long back, there was a general notion. There was always the question, why are humans so successful?

Because clearly we are. This is undeniable, right?

If you look at our population. Because we’re not that impressive in many ways.

And we were like, well… well we have a fairly large brain to body ratio so maybe it’s that um okay but how then right what do we do with that and then for a while the notion was well we have better tools and then they were like yeah but animals actually use tools too so that’s um it wasn’t that believable that hypothesis and then ultimately we found that it was our ability to cooperate and a key thing that enables cooperation is stories. And again, Yuval Harari did a great job in showing that.

So I work at a multinational, Schneider Electric. A multinational is a story, right?

It doesn’t really exist. But it clearly allows for enormously better collaboration between just random people.

I work with a lot of people. Schneider Electric is from origin a French company.

Again, they’re all over the world now. They have a large presence in the US where I am based. but um I work regularly with lots of people who are in Paris or Hong Kong.

Why on earth would I ever even accept a meeting invite from a random person in Hong Kong? It’s purely because they are also in Schneider Electric.

And all of a sudden, we’re both in that story. And we’re like, of course, we’re going to work together.

So it’s an enormously potent tool, stories. Right now, the current economic story of capitalism, I think it is very clearly a losing. uh support and that’s the thing with stories the you know if people stop believing because they don’t really exist if people if not enough people believe in it anymore it just disappears and now we’re looking for a new one um if you look asking me what is it is a is a good pathway.

I go into that a little bit in my book where I say the safest way that I see is connecting around our needs. Because people are very fond of their stories and they’re very reluctant to let it go.

So as long as you keep talking about, you know, principles, I don’t think you’re going to find common ground. But we can always connect around our needs.

And then of course that doesn’t mean that then we’re done, because then the questions around how to fulfill those needs best are, those are going to be long discussions. But as long as you can meet around and connect around your common needs, we can start there, we can find ourselves there.

And there are communication techniques, for example, a non-violent communication is one of those techniques where we always start by finding… identifying the needs underlying a lot of debates and conflicts and tense situations, and then working from there.

Thomas Gauthier

So perhaps a way forward that you’re suggesting and we’ll have more time to develop it is that there is a need to begin by undoing layers of narratives that now people are increasingly losing faith in so that we essentially… put the finger down on those most essential needs that connect us and that can serve as the basis for us to create common narratives that might be more sustainable.

Gaya Herrington

Absolutely. And you see, if you were asking me what do you see happening, that’s exactly also what we see happening now with attempts at new stories, right?

So if we stay for now in the economic story, So neoclassical economics, which is clearly the dominant form of economics right now. And at its core, we have the homo economicus.

That’s a story about who we are and what drives our decision making. It doesn’t actually reflect that well how we behave.

And so now we have a new strain of economic frameworks that are really just only starting. but They all start from these needs. So we have the well-being economics, for example.

So they start with, well, what do we actually need to be happy, right? Not to maximize profits, not to optimize based on scarce resources.

What makes us happy? The donut economics also takes very much at the center, our needs, right?

So the donut economics is where… You have the doughnuts, everybody knows what the doughnut is, so you have the inner hole, right?

And that’s the boundary of our human needs and we cannot fall below that because then our needs aren’t met. But then there’s also the outer limits and that’s the planetary boundary.

So we cannot go above it because beyond that the earth cannot sustain us. So it’s a very simple and therefore I think very effective way of framing this economics, which is of course very different from what we have currently, which is, because there the goal is not necessarily meeting human needs.

Ultimately it’s growth, right? Continuous growth.

And of course continuous growth on a finite planet, I mean this is a very obvious fact, but we’re still not amazing as if we know this, is that it’s not possible, right? It’s unsustainable.

So this donut economics and a lot of other economic frameworks now are are saying well our actively introducing this concept of enough in two ways right so enough um in the sense that sufficient everybody gets something that is sufficient to meet their human needs but also enough with not beyond this that’s that’s enough for you and we cannot go beyond it because it will be too much you You mentioned earlier the book that you just released um five insights for avoiding global collapse which builds upon your understanding of the uh Seminal work by the MIT researchers published back in the 1970s, in 1972, The Limits to Growth. Can you please tell us before we meet the oracle again, how did you come up with the idea first to do this work that you first published in a research journal in 2020?

Where did the need come from for you to do this research?

Gaya Herrington

Yeah, and thank you for bringing it up, because that’s a good segue into the second question I wanted to ask the Oracle. But yeah, so I came on this.

I found this when I was doing my master’s studies at Harvard in sustainability, which is not that long ago. It was my second master.

So my first master was in econometrics. So I am actually very well trained in the old economic school.

That’s why I love picking it apart so much. So the second one, my second monster I got when I moved from the Netherlands to the US.

So I started that six years ago. Or seven by now.

But somewhere there I was introduced to this Limits to Growth book, which was published a half a century ago now. At the time, it was an absolute bestseller.

And nowadays, I had never heard of it. And many people of my generation hadn’t.

So it was very well buried. Because when I learned about it, I thought, oh, so they had built this.

They had a different kind of modeling than what you see in econometrics. They had, it was called system dynamics.

And in that modeling, all variables interact with each other. And anybody who’s done, I think most people know this because even if you don’t go to, if you don’t study economics, you will still. get an econ 101 even if you do psychology or communication or something so then you have learned that you typically have a model where you have one or two what are called endogenous variables and then the rest is sort of constant right so um in system dynamics all variables interact with each other and i looked at that and you get very different behavior then and i looked at that i thought yeah i think actually that is how our economy works much more it’s not a It’s not a complicated machine where you just tinker a little bit here, you tinker a little bit there.

Everything responds to everything. So you get a very dynamic situation at all times.

That’s why it’s so hard to predict sometimes. Because as you probably have noticed, a lot of times economists are getting totally wrong.

And studies show that, for example, financial advisors, they don’t actually outperform the markets. So if they’re the professionals and they can’t predict it, then maybe nobody can, right?

And that’s because it’s a dynamic system. And maybe it’s such a dynamic situation, there’s so much complexity, that it’s simply not possible to predict accurately in the future, right?

So anyway, that’s what they did. They created scenarios with this first dynamic systems model of the world.

And they created scenarios. They didn’t try to predict the future, but they did say if we do this based on these assumptions, these are the general dynamics that we will see.

And the general dynamics in the business as usual scenario, so that’s a scenario only based on historical averages and no additional assumptions, that ended in collapse, setting in really around a decade from now. And a collapse does not mean that we were going to die out as a civilization, but it did mean a steep collapse from a previous peak, including in our welfare.

So that’s not a great prospect. So when I saw that, I thought, well, this has been done decades ago, so there’s enough empirical data to compare it with.

And I just googled and I thought, surely somebody has done it. And it turned out that there was almost nothing on that.

And so I thought, well, I guess I found the subject for my thesis. Orateur #0 That’s a very amazing story.

No one could imagine that almost 50 years after the report was published, there would be no empirical study. Now, you said just before you explained to us how you came across the study and started your master’s thesis on it, that this would resonate with the next question to the oracle.

So here we are. You are facing the oracle again.

What is it that you would like to ask her?

Gaya Herrington

Yes. So when I did my empirical data study, I did find that we were actually most closely aligned with the business as usual scenario now, which, as I just told you, ends in collapse.

There were other scenarios, and one of them, for example, was called stabilized worlds. So in that, we maintain our current welfare levels.

So there’s no the collapse is avoided. But that…

The assumptions in that scenario are that humankind really changes its core goals in society. So basically what it does in the model, they consciously limit industrial outputs. and then redirect resources from industrial output, which is basically the stuff that we have, they diverted that towards human services, which in the model are education and healthcare, and then also pollution abatement.

So enormously increased efficiencies and pollution abatement. So again, to me, that is the scenario in which we change our society from pursuing growth, especially in stuff, right?

Because that’s how we measure it, GDP, towards where we say we’re gonna focus way more on meeting human needs within planetary boundaries, you know? There it is again.

So my conclusion from my findings was that we need to fundamentally change the goal from growth to meeting human needs within planetary boundaries. And so for that, we need a new narrative, because if you start to think about it, everything, all our systems are primed towards pursuing growth.

Our economic system, we measure, many governments still measure by GDP growth, companies measure by profits, etc. There’s nothing wrong in and of itself with profits or GDP, but having that as the sole ultimate at all cost goal is just not making us happier and it’s not sustainable.

So if we have that new narrative, and if that’s what we need, and I just asked the Oracle, what is that new narrative going to be? And now she’s told me.

My next question is, will we adopt it in time? Because the biggest, as I told you, the scenario where we align most closely towards still now, it starts to happen around a decade.

So what I… took from that is that this upcoming decade what we do as humanity will determine our welfare levels for the rest of this century we have a now or never time opportunity in time now to consciously change our directory towards more of a stabilized world scenario we are not most closely aligned with it now based on empirical data but we’re not that far yet where we cannot we align ourselves but it will not happen by itself. So that’s why we need a real new narrative for humankind.

I think we are ready for it, but I’m not sure it will happen in time. And so then the third question would be, what can I do to speed up that transition?

Thomas Gauthier

Well, maybe to jump on the question two and question three, you’re asking to the Oracle. It seems also listening to you that there is little chance that a single state would be able to, let’s say, enforce a new narrative.

And this is probably not something desirable. I mean, when states have tried to, let’s say, establish dominant narratives in the past, it has not always been the best outcome for people.

I understand that companies also have a role to play. They are aiming for profits within the current… game that they are asked to play.

What sorts of coalitions could there be that would bring together these players? We’re talking states, we’re talking companies, we’re probably talking also civil society organizations.

Are there designs for coalitions that are not available today that you see coming? How can we imagine orchestrating ecosystems that could be strong enough in a way to to create those safe spaces for new narratives to emerge?

Gaya Herrington

Yeah, that’s a good question, right? And that’s exactly also why I asked the Oracle, what do I need to do to speed that up?

Because it is not always clear what you need to do. When you work in systems, again, it’s not just like approaching it and pushing a button here and then this is the result, right?

So even if you know that something needs to happen. It’s hard to…

It’s not easy to know where to start necessarily, where you have the most influence and if there will be no unintended consequences, if what you’re doing will actually have the results that you think it will have. So that’s why that’s always when you work in the system, it’s very important to really think that through before you start to to act.

So I will say that there are already a lot of coalitions going on right now. I think, this is just one example, but I already mentioned the more economic labs of seeing what works, but World Economic Forum has a new narratives lab. you know they’re working on they they also recognize we need a new narrative and so they’re working on it so there’s there are many um we have the well-being alliance for example that’s working on best sharing best practices on uh well-being economics there’s the we go that’s the sub part of it um well-being governments we have there it’s just a small it’s a small team um it’s iceland scotland new zealand a couple more So it’s certainly not the majority of countries, but everything starts small, right?

And they are sharing best practices on how to govern with them. I think Canada just joined them.

And Bhutan is not in there, but of course Bhutan has been doing this for a very long time, right? They have always been…

Well, I don’t know that, I don’t know enough about Bhutan, but as far as I can remember, they have been governing by a gross national happiness index, and they have set caps very deliberately. on how much inequality there can be in the country, for example. So it’s certainly possible, right?

And I think ultimately, if you want to think about what can I do, for me, it’s a very, I think it’s very important to start with the personal level. It cannot end there, right?

Because you’re working in a larger system. And yet, paradoxically, it starts on a very deeply personal level.

That’s the only way that you can get there. Christiana Figueres, she was the architect of the Paris Agreement.

She was absolutely instrumental at the time to get that agreement. And she also said that.

She said, before I could accomplish this, I first, a few years before that, started to make changes in my own attitude. And I could not have done it if I hadn’t started. at that personal level.

And then that’s not why, again, you can’t end there. But in order for you to make change in the system, paradoxically, you first have to start with yourself.

Thomas Gauthier

So to turn yourself into a change agent, you begin by changing yourself, you begin by opening yourself to a new perception of reality, a new sense of urgency, probably. That is going to be a very nice transition into the… third and final chapter of this interview, if you will.

But before we get there, now that we’ve spent time with the Oracle, now that you’ve helped us ask questions regarding the future, I’d like to invite you to look in the rear view mirror. Can you please bring back from history, let’s say, three key events that you think have marked history and they should serve or they… could serve as lessons or perhaps guiding stars for how we govern ourselves in the present and how we build the future?

Gaya Herrington

I think there are definitely some very clear keys in the past on how to move forward today. And I also go into that in my book.

Let me start maybe with um, his. historian and systems thinker Rihanna Eisler. So she actually looked back on history and she also looked at throughout history how humans have, what models they chose for social organization.

So basically how we live together, how we coexist, right? And she could actually discern two distinct models and of course in real life there’s always a blend of them.

But they’re two types on either side of the spectrum. And one is the domination model, and the other one is the partnership model.

And I think this is still very relevant for today and how we move forward, given our global challenges and our inabilities to tackle them. And then at the same time, the twin social crisis of these enormous inequalities in the world.

So the domination model was marked by very strong… hierarchies. So there was always the hierarchy of men over women, men over men based on class, for example, religion over religion and race over race.

So the differences between people were qualifying. So it means if you’re different, you’re either superior or inferior.And these kind of structures did maintain a certain kind of order, but because there were so many inequalities, there was also a need for a lot of enforcement of them.

So they had a high degree of violence to maintain the hierarchies. And their stories around that was, of course, the stories that would justify the inequalities.

This has always been the case in history. I think Yuval Harari also mentions that, and you would have to, right?

I’m of European ancestry, and so European aristocrats would always tell people that they were chosen by God. So you imply with that that it’s the natural order, and you would have to.

Otherwise, people wouldn’t accept these enormous differences in wealth and opportunity, etc. So, and to some extent, I would say…

That’s what capitalism does today, right? So we don’t have any European aristocrats here in the US.

But there is this notion of the market always being right. And so I guess if there’s a gender wage gap, I guess the man just works harder or smarter, right?

So it’s a way to justify inequalities. I guess if you are poor, I guess you just don’t have the right attitude.

Or alternatively, you just didn’t get there yet, right? You’re just temporarily embarrassed as a millionaire, but you will get there because a rising tide floats all boats, which of course we haven’t seen, right?

We haven’t really seen the trickle-down economics work. But those are the stories to justify abject poverty, while at the same time also hosting plenty of billionaires here. in the US at least.

I’m not sure how many billionaires exist in France. I know that we have very little or maybe none at all in the Netherlands, where there’s a much more progressive taxation system and that’s been a deliberate choice.

But so you can really see how these ultimately, these differences, they are resulting from how things are structured. Like our, you know, our policies and our tax structures and all these other things.

So that’s the domination model. And then on the other side, we have the partnership model.

That was, those were marked by a very egalitarian structures. There were some hierarchies, but these were, as Rihanna Eisler calls them, empowering.

So they were just meant to facilitate decision making. For example, a democratic process, right?

You choose certain representatives because it’s just easier. Because you don’t have to have town halls with… millions of people and um and there was very little uh but other than that there was there was very there was a lot of tolerance for differences and the differences weren’t equated to uh to notions of inferiority um there was not so much tolerance for aggression but other than that uh fairly open um those were sustainable communities they were also more prevalent in history than the domination models.

So communities, it is actually a more natural form of operating. It is our default way of organizing.

And I think that’s where the hope lies. We actually are fairly intolerant towards inequalities.

And that’s why if we are close to each other, if there’s direct feedback, for example, so in small teams, you’ll see that inequalities tend to not expand that much, because we don’t have much tolerance for it. It only works if the people who benefit are very far removed from the people who are the losers in the system.

And again, there’s a lot of violence, of course, in just various varying degrees across the globe to enforce certain inequalities. So, I think therein lies a key insight for us.

The domination models societies, they were unsustainable. They were always, sooner or later, they were doomed to fail.

Because what happened is that because they had this strong narrative of, you know, man over woman, for example, they would tend to neglect what they would think are feminine things like… environmental protection and taking care of one another. And so ultimately, there would just be too much pollution, etc.

And their health would deteriorate. So is any of this starting to sound familiar?

Right? So, I mean, that is obviously where we are right now and where I was going with this.

Right? We need to take it down as a global society, way down on the domination model.

And we need to align way more. with a partnership model. If we want to combat these changes of inequalities and environmental pollution, that’s what we need to do.

We’re totally capable of it. It is in our nature.

We’re actually much kinder than, for example, the Homo economicus, which we’ve been told to emulate, but we don’t do because it doesn’t describe us very well. And we really wouldn’t want to because we’re really actually a lot more empathetic than… that calculating profit maximizer.

And so that’s what I would say are the key insights from the past, where, you know, if you look at, for example, some other book of Jared Diamond, arguably the most well-read book on collapse, right? You see the same patterns.

So collapse is certainly in that extent in our nature too, in the sense that it’s unprecedented. But…

There are also many examples that Jared Diamond also described of societies that have been able to adopt a new narrative and a new identity and completely transform their societies towards a more sustainable one. And I think those are all the ones that we can learn from.

Thomas Gauthier

Well, what’s very interesting with this insight you’re bringing back from history and the questions that you were asking earlier to the Oracle is that they seem to all be pointing to the… need to essentially rediscover who we are as a species, rediscover who we are as human beings, drill down to, you know, appreciate our basic needs, recognize that we have innate capability for empathy, for collaboration, and recognize that there might have been not so well-intentioned narratives that, well, throughout the years and decades, essentially, have ended up structuring the way that we govern ourselves individually and collectively. But you’re pointing at the fact that we are inherently capable of this partnership mode that you’re also asking us to urgently engage in.

Gaya Herrington

Not only that, I think we long for it. I really don’t think it’s…

Just like well, we need to come together we can do it this is in our nature and then we avoid collapse No, it will actually make us happier because once our physical needs are met right which in the West they they are So object poverty in developed countries notwithstanding Right. We have enough stuff there to have everybody’s basic needs met and what you see in very clearly from studies Let’s say Maslow’s pyramid where most people are quite familiar with that, right?

You have the basic, the base of the pyramid is our physical needs and we need materials for that. It’s undeniable, right?

Shelter, yeah, we need a house for that. Food is also material.

So no denying there. After that, it gets quite fuzzy because we get more into the social realm of where we need connection to each other.

We need a sense of purpose, right? And that purpose actually is very much lacking.

And I already went into the fact that we can’t, it’s harder to connect now with one another in developed economies because of inequalities. But a lot of people, and I know plenty of people listening to this, they’re maybe in business, and then you know that a large, the majority of workers actually, and surveys are very clear on this, they don’t feel like they’re disengaged from work.

A lot of them don’t feel like their jobs. They’re just unsure if it really adds value to society.

And that’s not a small thing. We need to feel that what we do serves others.

That makes us happy. If we’re hungry, we don’t care.

But once our basic needs are met, we actually really thrive and feel alive from getting the sense that what we did actually served others or nature around us. And so it’s not just a necessity, really more than a necessity.

It’s an opportunity for everyone to feel better.

Thomas Gauthier

Well, that’s very clear. And it, I think, leads us nicely into the… third part of the interview.

So earlier you helped us remember that the architect behind the Paris Agreement explained that she had or she went first through a personal change before she could, let’s say, find the resources and establish for herself where she wanted the agreement to go. So this resonates nice with the…

I think the words of Gandhi, who invites us to be the change we wish to see in the world. So now getting into your present, Gaia, can you please tell us how you strive to align your words with your actions?

Can you just allow us a bit of an immersion into what you do, how you do it? We know of your role as an author.

We’ve mentioned the book. We know that you’re also a speaker, but please share with us a bit of your personal journey.

Gaya Herrington

Yeah. Oh, absolutely.

Yeah, I think for me, I discovered about two, three years ago that this pursuit of growth maybe wasn’t the deliverer of prosperity that I too, of course, have been told it was. And then later on, I discovered, oh, it’s actually the root cause of all the things that we see.

And that’s a journey because there’s no doubt that we have all been, we’ve all grown up in this story. of growth being the engine for prosperity for us. And I was asked, I was giving a lecture at Cambridge University yesterday, and somebody asked, well, how are we without growth?

What’s gonna happen to our pension funds? How are we gonna make sure that the elderly are taken care of?

And I really, and I answered with a lot of empathy. I’m like, yeah, I’ve been there.

Where you’re like, but how will I pay my rent? what if you know all those things um and that’s a journey where you have to go through where you’re like wait a minute um who is telling who is benefiting from this story that we need growth in order to care for the elderly who is benefiting from the story that we need perpetual growth for me to be able to keep a roof over my head And so I don’t want to go in that too much because I really want to look at all the opportunities here. And I really don’t think that shaming works.

But I do think it’s once in a while asking yourself who benefits from that story is enlightening. Because if it’s not you, if it’s not the majority, do we want to keep the story?

I think that’s a worthwhile question to ask. So I will point out that if you start to think about it.

What you might find is that growth is in fact the only way that we can keep the majority improving and eradicate poverty if the ultra-rich don’t want to share anything. Because then we can keep just the growing of the pie, we can distribute that, right?

And what they have already of the the pie they can keep, but just get parts of the growth. If we decide that we’ve grown enough, this is it, the only way then to eradicate poverty and to make sure that the elderly are taken care of and that everybody has a roof over their head means that they will have to redistribute some of their wealth.

So those are some things that I think, that I just want to give the listeners and do with it what you want. Because again, I do think it’s a personal journey.

But for example, since I realized that, when Schneider Electric gave me a salary, they hired me less than a year ago. And when they gave me my salary offer, I have always been told as a woman to negotiate because there’s a gender wage gap.

So they said the least you could do, at least because you have the leverage as an educated, successful woman, the least you could do as a woman is then negotiate up. because you know you’re already going to get less. And that makes sense, right?

And then I started to rethink that and was like, yeah, or maybe men need to just stop asking for so much. And maybe actually we should tell men, take a note from women and just say, this is enough because they offered me enough.

They really did. It was enough.

All my needs are taken care of. And so I didn’t negotiate up, but I didn’t ask for more money, I should say.

But I asked for more holidays. Because I think, and that’s actually also very clear from economic studies, that we’re actually, if anything, we’re working too much.

There is absolutely no need to work this much. And we could have way more time for, for example, care activities if we didn’t work so much.

Because the reason some would argue, this is, I mean, economists never agree on anything, right? But some economists argue that… the only reason we’re still working this much is to keep up GDP growth because it goes into GDP.

And GDP doesn’t measure, GDP is more of a, doesn’t really measure economic performance. It’s more of a busyness measurement, right?

So it measures quantity much better than quality. So whatever you do in that hour is not measured.

If it adds real value to people’s lives, it’s not really measured. But I mean, you register an hour made and you get paid for that.

So, in that sense, I think that might be one of the reasons that we’re working way more than anybody really cares to be working. And so, when I thought of that, I’m like, okay, this is in my super tiny way how I’m going to put that into practice.

Thomas Gauthier

Well, and with what you said regarding business, I think this is much enlightening for the listeners. it I think also speaks to the relationship with time that perhaps has been a bit disturbed in the last few decades. And now that you’re saying that you’ve personally asked for more holidays, also, I mean, the way that I’m picturing this to myself, you asking for a richer relationship with time, really.

Gaya Herrington

Yes, yes. And yeah, and reprioritization, right?

If you, and France is better with this. Because I know that I’m your first English speaking guest, so I’m very honored.

But so I’m sure there’s still many French listeners. But for example, in the US, there is no maternity leave.

Some companies do offer it, but especially lower wage women, they just don’t get any maternity leave. And so, you know, that’s very much.

It very much seems to be in the realm of the domination model, right? Where we all agree that creating the next generation is important.

And studies are also very clear on that. If you give parents both the mom and dad time off, that it will have better outcomes for the child.

But it’s not done. So, you know, in general, the caretaking is… is just completely out of the economic realm.

And this is an economic… This is not just about, well, what are we asking of…

That’s not nice for the women and children, right? But it’s just not good economics.

Because if you think about it, care is really the core of the economy. You have the invisible hand of the market, right?

Very strong force can be very effective. in some ways. And sometimes it can also be destructive, which is why it should be limited, in my opinion, because the market is clearly not always right.

But it is undeniably powerful. But there’s also a very strong other part of the economy, which is what George Monreal calls the invisible hands.

And these are the hands that every single day cook and clean and take care of us when we’re sick. And And this is certainly also done by men, but the majority of it is done by women.

But the thing is, regardless of whose hands they are, right, if they stopped working today, all of these hands, our economy and entire society would fall apart within a week. Completely complete chaos, right?

Yes, it is nowhere in economic measurements, which is, of course, a huge miss. So I think, and I’m not the only one who says that, right?

This is also very much part of what the well-being economists, etc. mentioned. In Japan, you know, another advanced economy, there was this green, it was actually called a communist green manifesto, that was arguing for the same thing.

It was a very much unexpected bestseller, especially, again, the younger generation. right? We see this especially with the younger generation around the world.

And he did the same thing. He said we should go back to taking better care of the environment and valuing way more caring for one another.

So actually what we need to do in broad lines, you see this in the stories that are emerging around the world. everywhere. How to put it in practice, really, the details will really depend per location very much.

But in general, it’s actually quite clear where we could be heading.

Thomas Gauthier

Well, I think the listeners will find like I am finding your words to be very inspiring. We’ve covered much through the questions to the oracle through the look in the rear view mirror, and now also getting to appreciate how you are aligning your words with your actions.

So you said it. You are my very first English speaking guest.

I’m very happy that we spent this almost hour together, Gaia. So I can only wish now that our paths are going to cross again.

Thank you very much.

Gaya Herrington

My pleasure.