Facing a chaotic transition

By | Tue 23 Aug 2022

Editor Pim Kemasingki gets in a quick interview with Gibin Hong, the director of the Global Political Economy Institute, Seoul, South Korea, before he sits down for a talk to a small group of geo-political watchers at her home afterwards. 

Hong advised the former mayor of Seoul, who crafted Seoul into a leading ‘sharing city’, collaborated with one of the leading presidential candidates around transforming Korea, and is currently working with the governor of the leading province. He is a leading influencer with his own YouTube channel and a translator of political economy classics such as Kate Raworth’s book on the Doughnut Economy.

“There is no going back and there is no presenting what is going to happen, so what we must do is look at seeds of the future order,” warns Hong. 

Here is a short teaser of his talk later in the afternoon where he covers these following themes:

Themes from the past: Looking at patterns in past transitions of civilisations in order to  identify and understand the present.

Themes from the present: What factors are new today that were not there in the past? Communication technology? Decentralisation? Peer to peer organisations? Virtual global systems affecting traditional geographical systems. Looking at pioneering communities and what they are doing.

Themes from the future: History is an interplay between growth and conquest-oriented institutions; markets and states. How can we imagine a future world order that can guarantee production for human needs without destroying the planet’s viability? if the past is an incessant cycle between growth and collapse, is destabilisation inevitable? Let’s look at innovative institutions and solutions today.