Our “Election Year” Requires an Imagination Manifesto Like This…
This year, as nearly half of the global population will participate in elections across 64 countries, Time magazine has described 2024 as: “… not just AN election year. It’s perhaps THE election year”.
The results of these elections will significantly impact our world and future. Of particular note is the US Presidential election, which could potentially see Donald Trump return to office—a prospect The Economist recently described as “the biggest danger to the world”.
We’re seeing a rise in dystopian future visions
Unfortunately, voters are often presented with uninspiring manifestos that adhere to an outdated and failing “business as usual” economic model. In turn, as we witness an alarming rise of the far-right globally, the narrative is increasingly becoming fuelled by dystopian future visions and a desire for ‘strong’ leaders to shield us from these scenarios.
Ignite your imagination for a positive vision of the future
The failure of progressive parties to articulate positive visions for our future has allowed the far-right to dominate this space, which makes it all the more important to ignite people’s imaginations with positive future scenarios.
Imagine a Manifesto that presents an optimistic future – one that meets the scale of our current challenges with boldness and creativity.
Political theorist Wendy Brown recently noted: “We can refute the premises of these positions until the cows come home. But only a compelling vision of a less frightening and insecure future will recruit anyone to a progressive or revolutionary alternative future—or rouse apolitical citizens for the project of making that future. This vision must be seductive and exciting, and it must be embodied in seductive and exciting leadership and movements, hopefully oriented by an ethic of responsibility.”
An amazing body of work for a Ministry of Imagination
Since 2020, Transition movement founder, Rob Hopkins, has hosted a fortnightly podcast called ‘From What If to What Next’. In that podcast, he has invited two guests to to time travel into the 2030 that resulted from our doing absolutely everything we could possibly have done, and to describe that world to the listeners. By late March 2024, the podcast finished on its 100th episode, and has become a treasure trove of visionary work.
In these episodes, subscribers were appointed as Ministers at the Ministry of Imagination (part-Hundertwasser, part-Hogwarts, part-Yellow Submarine) and invited to choose 3 policies each that would rapidly accelerate our transition to a world in which those changes had happened.
This exercise produced over 600 innovative and ambitious policies, ranging from universal free art materials to a Universal Basic Income, and the requirement for companies to list their failures alongside successes in annual reports.
A “Just in time” introduction to: The Ministry of Imagination Manifesto!
Now more than ever, we need a taste of what policymaking driven by radical imagination looks like. Recognising the extraordinary power of these policy proposals from a diverse group of contributors from all over the world (including ecologists, renegade economists, artists, prison abolitionists, somatic trauma therapists, printmakers, politicians, disability activists, rewilding practitioners, prison abolitionists and so many more), Rob Hopkins has compiled them into one accessible format for us.
And so: ‘The Ministry of Imagination Manifesto: an imagination-based manifesto for times that need one’ is born!
Rob and his team meticulously edited these policies to categorise them by subject and had them complemented by the beautiful designs of Capella Andrean of The Creative Bloc.
Download the Ministry of Imagination Manifesto here.
Please share this manifesto widely. Send it to policymakers and politicians you know, and post it wherever you can.
Let’s ensure the possible is not constrained by the unimaginative nature of our current manifestos.