2. Imagining visionary community alliances to support stronger citizen-led resistance to state capture by 2040

GUEST: DR MARK DIESENDORF

My guest in this episode is Dr Mark Diesendorf, Honorary Associate Professor in the School of Humanities & Languages, Faculty of Arts, Design and Architecture, UNSW Sydney.

During our discussion, Dr Diesendorf outlines how we could weaken state capture of governments and institutions by vested interests - and push for a fairer society through building a mass movement and alliances; and implementing visionary policies, such as transitioning to a steady state economy and providing universal basic services.

In some of his most recent work he has identified the interconnected, damaging effects produced by politically powerful vested interests supported by an economic system based on the exploitation of the environment and most people for the benefit of a wealthy minority.

Along with other researchers in this space such findings point toward a highly probable dystopian future involving the continued loss of nature, massive social disruption and even the ultimate collapse of modern civilisation.

The good news is that we do not have to follow that trajectory into failing futures. We can and must change our development pathways - which is what the bulk of the discussion is focussed on.

INTERVIEW TALKING POINT SEGMENTS FOR EACH GUEST – with approximate time elapsed in minutes.

GENERIC INTRO AND GUEST FORESHADOW – 0.00

EPISODE INTRODUCTION – 3.38

GUEST SELF-INTRODUCTION – 5.37

GUEST WORK IN 2025 AND GOING FORWARD – 8.23

IMAGINATIVE EXERCISE 1 - TIME TRAVEL TO 2040 – 17.39

EXERCISE 2 - SIGNALS OF THE FUTURE IN 2025 – 30.36

CLOSING COMMENTS AND AUDIENCE INVITATION– 41.27

END OF EPISODE – 45.17

SELECTED RESOURCES BASED ON COMMENTS

Dr. MARK DISENDORF RESOURCES

His portal WEBSITE with links to a wide range of his research publications, presentations and ideas.

A recent paper covering many of the ideas discussed in the episode. A Strategy for Resisting the Vested Interests Driving the Collapse of the Biosphere and Civilisation (2025).

Some of Mark’s thinking on ecological economics and non-orthodox economic solutions to multiple interconnected challenges we are facing. (May 2025).

Mark’s landmark book dealing with the impacts of state capture by vested interests – and strategies of resistance The Path to a Sustainable Civilisation: Technological, Socioeconomic and Political Change (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023)

Selection of other research publications from Mark - listed by UNSW Sydney.

INITIATIVES AND ORGANISATIONS

DiEM25

‘Europe will be democratised, once the oligarchy is overthrown! (DiEM25 06 2025).

Australian Democracy Network

'We are creating an Australia where civil society isrobust and vibrant; public debate is informed, fair and diverse; citizens are engaged, government is clean, open and accountable and the wellbeing of people and the planet comes first.' (ADM 2025)

BOOKS:

Yanis Varoufakis - Another Now: Dispatches from an Alternative Present (2020). Google book review of an intriguing fictional approach to imagining a preferable more sustainable future.

Geoff Mulgan – Another World Is Possible: How to Reignite Social and Political Imagination (2022)

Miller, R. (2018). Transforming the future: Anticipation