Foreword

Ten years after the great financial shock hit Wall Street in 2007–08, it is now generally recognised that at the root of the Great Recession (with its wide-ranging and enduring effects) there is a disconnect between econ- omy and society produced by neoliberalism in the last thirty years. And yet, such awareness is not enough, since a number of questions still remain unsolved: if a model based on debt, consumerism and rising inequali- ties has proven to be unsustainable, what does growth mean in advanced Western democracies today? What does wellbeing mean for the years to come? What model of growth can be pursued at this turning point? What kinds of production and consumption will become features of the coming decades? How can economy and society be newly reconciled in practice? What are the financial, economic and social paths to a new prosperity? The book comes as a conclusion—as usual opening up further lines of inquiry—to a three-year interdisciplinary research project financed by Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore di Milano (under the joint direction of professors Francesco Botturi, Luigi Campiglio and Mauro Magatti) focused on the possible ways of overcoming the crisis