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The Great Reset. Restratification for lives, livelihoods, and the planet

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  • Roth, Steffen

Abstract

In reviewing the Great Reset, an initiative launched by the World Economic Forum (WEF) in response to the global coronavirus crisis, this perspective article considers the scenario of an epochal transition from capitalism to “restorism”. To facilitate the observation of underlying trends and assumptions, a systems-theoretical framework is developed for the observation of both this Great Reset scenario and those scenarios that are by implication excluded by the WEF vision. It is thus shown that the “shared goals” advocated by the WEF would converge to a transition from a modern pluralist to a “new-normative” order stratified to the primacy of individual, institutional, and planetary health. In discussing sociological implications of this transition, a vision emerges of a new digitally enhanced medieval era where health plays the role once played by religion. In this restorist scenario of a neo-medieval world health society, the emergence of new social strata corresponding to different levels of purity, infection, or pollution would be a probable consequence. The paper concludes that idea of deliberately caused great resets and other control illusions nurtured by the WEF initiative are barely smarter than and spur what the UN Secretary-General refers to as “wild conspiracy theories”.

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  • Roth, Steffen, 2021. "The Great Reset. Restratification for lives, livelihoods, and the planet," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 166(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:tefoso:v:166:y:2021:i:c:s0040162521000688
    DOI: 10.1016/j.techfore.2021.120636
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Heylighen, Francis, 2017. "Towards an intelligent network for matching offer and demand: From the sharing economy to the global brain," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 74-85.
    2. Lenartowicz, Marta, 2017. "Creatures of the semiosphere: A problematic third party in the ‘humans plus technology’ cognitive architecture of the future global superintelligence," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 35-42.
    3. Sarah Sharma & Susanne Soederberg, 2020. "Redesigning the business of development: the case of the World Economic Forum and global risk management," Review of International Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(4), pages 828-854, July.
    4. Roth, Steffen & Schwede, Peter & Valentinov, Vladislav & Žažar, Krešimir & Kaivo-oja, Jari, 2019. "Big data insights into social macro trends (1800–2000): A replication study," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).
    5. Sean Ward, 2017. "From Fontainebleau to Facebook: The Early Modern Discourse of Personal Sincerity and Its Echoes in the Contemporary Discourse of Organisational Transparency," Systems Research and Behavioral Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(2), pages 139-147, March.
    6. Roth, Steffen & Clark, Carlton & Trofimov, Nikolay & Mkrtichyan, Artur & Heidingsfelder, Markus & Appignanesi, Laura & Pérez-Valls, Miguel & Berkel, Jan & Kaivo-oja, Jari, 2017. "Futures of a distributed memory. A global brain wave measurement (1800–2000)," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 307-323.
    7. Roth, Steffen, 2019. "Digital transformation of social theory. A research update," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 88-93.
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    Cited by:

    1. Jem Bendell, 2022. "Replacing Sustainable Development: Potential Frameworks for International Cooperation in an Era of Increasing Crises and Disasters," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(13), pages 1-19, July.
    2. Roth, Steffen, 2021. "The great reset of management and organization theory. A European perspective," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 39(5), pages 538-544.

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