The shifts in higher education and research would be of relatively minor import were it not for the major crises facing the world today. Among them we can count climate change, food price volatility, water shortages, rising energy costs, widespread obesity, and, last but not least, the financial crisis—not to mention wars, racism, and poverty. Each of these is a wicked problem (Rittel and Webber 1973) that cannot be solved through straightforward puzzle solving. This is the case because (1) each involves not only technical change but iterative changes in norms, laws, and standards; and (2) each crisis is intertwined with the others. Moreover, grappling with these problems is not only a necessity for us, it is essential for future generations. Let us briefly consider each of them.
Climate change. Despite some who continue to doubt it, not only is climate change upon us, but it is almost certainly the result of human activities. However, regardless of responsibility, climate change will require measures that go far beyond the market. Although there have been some well-intentioned attempts to mitigate climate change through, for example, the Kyoto Protocols, the overall effects have been minimal. The biggest producers of greenhouse gases did not sign on, and the protocols have been all too easy to manipulate. More important, even the best market-based climate change policies to date suffer from three major flaws: First, future generations have no voice in market-based decision making, although they will be most affected by decisions made today. Second, regardless of any attempts at mitigation, coastal plains—where many of the world’s largest cities are located—will likely be flooded as the oceans rise. Decisions will have to be made in numerous locales about whether to resettle populations or attempt to build dykes. These decisions will have to be made by governments, and they are best made before major flooding occurs. Third, research needs to be undertaken now to determine what technologies will be effective in what locales; such research is unlikely to be undertaken by the private sector as the risks of failure are high. The usefulness of those technologies will be in large part a function of the policies enacted by governments.
Rising and more volatile food prices. Food is not merely a desire but rather a basic human necessity. Hence, although one can decide to avoid television and computers, one cannot stop eating. There are essentially three options. First, one can grow food oneself, which assumes that one has access to land and the required skills; given the rapid urbanization of the world, this is impossible for most people. Second, one can purchase food in the market, as most of us do; this, of course, requires that one have the ready cash. Third, in desperate circumstances, one can steal food so as to survive. What this means is that rising food prices, although of minor consequence for most of us in the rich world, are of central concern to the poor. In some nations, we have already seen food riots.
Moreover, in recent years, food prices have risen substantially and become more volatile, even as there is sufficient food produced in the world to feed everyone (Hossein, King, and Kelbert 2013). Volatility has increased because a significant amount of cropland is now devoted to fuel production. In addition, in some nations such as the United States, futures markets for crops have been opened to speculators who have no intention of ever taking delivery of the crop in question. Furthermore, productivity growth has leveled off in many nations, in part a result of more erratic weather conditions. Grappling with this complex set of relations among food prices, climate change, and the need for transport fuels requires research that cuts across disciplinary boundaries and is both social and technical in nature; it is sociotechnical.
Water shortages. Like food, we all need water. Yet water for agriculture, manufacturing, and domestic use is likely to be in short supply. Already, in some parts of the world, there are disputes over water use. In some instances, these disputes are between farmers and city dwellers; in other places they are between nations that depend on a single river (e.g., the Nile). As with food, there have been riots over water prices in some nations. We cannot afford to “let the market decide” about water use because the market will only register effective demand. Put differently, we cannot let those with the most money determine how water will be used because to do so is to consign those without monetary means to a life that is “nasty, brutish and short,” as Hobbes would have put it.
Rising energy costs. Energy costs are rising everywhere in part as a result of the growth of manufacturing and rising incomes among the middle and upper classes in India and China, among other places. They demand more energy and look to industrialized nations for the “good life.” In addition, there is little cheap oil left, forcing oil companies to shift to more costly sources (both in monetary and energy values). Furthermore, as the environmental costs of coal production have become better understood, most nations are trying to reduce reliance on coal. Hence, oil shale and bituminous sands are currently being developed as energy sources. They are fraught with controversy as they pose a number of environmental problems. Both require considerable use of water and risk contaminating local water supplies, while mining bituminous sands also involves removing vegetation from large areas. Moreover, given that the environmental costs are undervalued and not adequately taken into account by many markets, we cannot rely on markets to resolve these issues.*
Widespread obesity. Obesity is on the rise globally, among both the rich and the poor. Doubtless, the rise in obesity is related to a change in diet—toward the cheap fat-, salt-, and sugar-rich diet successfully marketed by many large food companies—and our increasingly urban, sedentary lives. It is also linked to (often hidden) subsidies for the production of maize that make it an ingredient in countless products either as carbohydrate or sugar. Obesity has a wide range of health problems associated with it, most of which raise healthcare costs. Moreover, a small industry has developed attempting to grapple with the causes and consequences of obesity. Here there is little question that the market is the problem. Unless the terms of food marketing are changed (e.g., by removing subsidies and taxing high-sugar products), the market will continue to provide perverse incentives to all of us.
Financial crises. After the Great Depression, considerable effort was made to ensure that finance was adequately regulated, such that in the future it would not drag the global economy down again. However, starting in the 1980s, much of that regulation was relaxed or repealed. I need not go into the details here because virtually everyone reading this has been personally affected by the massive bailouts to failing banks, the collapse of the housing markets in several nations, the austerity imposed within the European Union, and the painfully slow improvements since. That said, while fighting against further regulation, the financial sector recovered rapidly, paying bonuses to its executives while the rest of us faced declining real wages and wealth. Even now, some years later, we are discovering that a wide range of unethical and often illegal behavior has been all too common in finance, ranging from the fixing of interbank rates to the failure to inform investors of risks. Importantly, although the financial crisis was due almost entirely to the actions of financial institutions, only a handful of persons have been convicted of crimes, and only a few fines have been levied. Instead, national governments have inherited the bill. We are all paying for their behavior through higher taxes and/or declining public services, whereas those responsible remain unscathed.
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There is no single formula, permanent set of policies and practices, or fixed marker of success in these intertwined endeavors. Nor can these endeavors be merely parceled out to individual technical disciplines. They require interdisciplinary projects and programs that include both persons with technical expertise in many fields of science and engineering as well as those with competence in the humanities, law, and social sciences. Put differently, building more sustainable societies—even defining sustainability—will require changes to both our practices and our imaginaries. Because we can never begin again de novo, this will have to be accomplished in an iterative fashion. What we desire will be a function of both our collective goals and our collective practices; both will change as they interact with each other.
Importantly, these crises are not likely to be mitigated by market means for several reasons. First, they fail to consider those who cannot participate in the market. Future generations and those lacking the wherewithal to participate in markets have no voice in how we address these issues, but both groups will most certainly feel the consequences.
Second, they demand social improvements, not individual ones. Although I might well reduce the amount of energy I use, maximize the environmentally friendly ways in which I live, avoid high-fat and high-sugar foods, reduce my carbon emissions by using public transport, invest my money conservatively, and install water-saving devices on my faucets, my individual actions are simply insufficient because there are millions of people who are unlikely to do any of those things unless institutional changes are made.
Third, the market logic of supply and demand is inadequate. Each of these crises is not independent of the others. The financial, climate, and energy crises affect the food supply. Water shortages affect our ability to produce energy and food. Market incentives in our food system promote diets that create obesity, thereby putting extra demands on medical institutions. In short, these are wicked problems—problems that admit no simple “solution.” New knowledge will be central in addressing each of these issues. However, we will require not only the creation of new technologies but also a questioning of our values and a transformation of the skills required of nearly everyone. In particular, creativity, teamwork, and critical thinking will become far more important (Anderson and Rainie 2012). We will need to understand how to give the public voice in determining how to proceed under conditions of both uncertainty and complexity. We will need to develop new policies, laws, standards, and technologies. Higher education and research can and must play a key role in addressing these issues. To do so, we will need to rethink and re-enact both. We will need to transform research and education. But before turning to these challenges, let me first try to portray the central tenets of neoliberalism. As you will see, neoliberalism occupies a central, although sometimes invisible, role in our dilemma.