The Working Groups of the Amerang Dispute

Since 2009, working groups prepare the Amerang Disputes. These groups develop suggestions on how society, state and economy can keep functioning even if, in a long-term perspective, the economic power stagnates or even decreases. Particularly in countries that have been subjected to the process of industrialisation early on, the operability of society and the state depends to a large extent on economic growth. The latter is the single most important prerequisite for personal contentment and social status, for a high employment rate as well as enterprises’ capacity to compete. Is it conceivable that enduring material loss will imperil the cohesion of society as well as the operability of the state?

Working Group on Contentment The working group called “Maintaining personal and social contentment in conditions of stagnating or decreasing material prosperity” has been established in June 2009. Its aim is to analyse, among other things, what role the accumulation of material prosperity plays with respect to generating personal contentment and social acceptance, to see in how far prosperity represents an objective of society, how it can operate in order to defuse distributional conflicts and what might possibly replace the current paradigm of material prosperity.
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