Almost everything is up for sale: personal relationships, health, education, politics…

We have somehow come to accept that market mechanisms are a neutral tool to solve societal problems. Adopt a child for 1€/month to stop poverty? Put a price on nature to save it from environmental destruction?

If money governs access to the essentials of the good life like health and education it sharpens inequality. Market mechanisms are not neutral – they can undermine our moral values.

We need to start questioning the role of markets and money in our society.

About this project

Public discourse in most countries is still largely taking the dominant economic model as a given. The market as the key mechanism to solve our political problems is rarely questioned.

Similarly for most civil society organisations and most actvist networks that are fighting for justice and and a more sustainable world, questioning the underlying economic model is mostly not a core issue in their campaigns and projects. By ignoring or accepting the market ideology and even making use of its mechanisms in their campaigns, indirectly and mostly unintentionally civil society organisations are contributing to reinforce the dominant narratives of progress, markets, consumerism, globalisation and economic growth.

The Numbers has been created by a cross-sectorial civil society alliance and was coordinated by the Smart CSOs Lab. It aims to contribute to a change in public discourse by asking the big questions that really matter. The project partners believe that this is an important element of a broader and much needed transition to a new economic system that will enable human wellbeing, justice and ecological sustainability.