To be taken into account as such

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Reflection on the Framing of the Polycrisis

For over a decade now, the world has been described as existing in a state of “polycrisis.” Yet this label is often treated as an abstract diagnosis, something that allows policymakers and commentators to acknowledge overlapping emergencies without confronting their deeper causes. What is left unsaid is that the framing of responses is almost exclusively economic—growth incentives, debt restructuring, new investment packages—while the very fabric of social, political, and institutional life erodes beneath the surface.

The economic dimension is real, but it is only one part of the problem. The polycrisis is not primarily about markets, deficits, or productivity. It is about the collapse of adequate planning and the exhaustion of our paradigms of governance. It is about the institutions that claim to represent society yet are unable to act beyond short-term cycles, caught in bureaucratic inertia or captured by vested interests. It is about democratic systems that call themselves representative while failing to embody sovereignty, fairness, or accountability. It is about urban planning that does not safeguard the livability of communities but instead undermines it through congestion, speculation, and disregard for ecological balance.

The result is that what is called “planning” today is not planning for life, but planning for extraction. It is not oriented toward the continuation of life on earth in a livable form, but toward the perpetuation of systems that sap that very possibility. When I speak of continuation, I do not mean the abstract survival of biological life at any cost. I mean adequate continuation—the possibility for human beings to live sovereignly, safely, and meaningfully, in ways that respect both ecological limits and individual dignity.

That possibility is being drained away not only by ecological damage and financial excess, but by systemic failures across the entire spectrum—societal, institutional, democratic, political, economic, and urban. Each of these domains is failing not separately, but together, in a reinforcing cycle of inadequacy.

To speak of a “polycrisis” without naming this deeper pattern is to conceal the truth. What we face is not a series of overlapping emergencies, but the exhaustion of an entire model of civilization. It is a crisis of paradigms. The languages, the assumptions, and the institutional structures that governed the last century are not only insufficient—they are directly obstructing the possibility of a livable future.

The task is not to patch these systems piecemeal, or to adjust policies within their current frameworks. The task is to re-found: to construct anew the paradigms, institutions, and forms of collective life that can sustain adequacy, sufficiency, and sovereignty in the face of planetary limits.

This is not optional. To delay the work of refoundation is to prolong the illusion of continuity while deepening collapse. To begin it, even imperfectly, is to open the only real path toward a future where life on earth can not only continue, but remain livable.

Sincerely,
Olivia


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