polycrisis

First we had the permacrisis which Collins Dictionary listed as a Word of the Year for 2022 and defined as ‘an extended period of instability and insecurity’.  It seemed to be a word that was of significance to the British.

Now we have the polycrisis, a term popularised by the Columbia University historian Adam Tooze who argues that the individual shocks involved in a polycrisis interact so that the whole is more than the sum of its parts.  The term was used by the former European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker in 2016.  He was describing the effect of a number of different challenges to the EU including the Syrian refugee crisis and the Brexit referendum. The original coiner of the term in the 1990s was the French philosopher Edgar Morin.

And now our Treasurer Jim Chalmers is discussing what the polycrisis might mean for the world economy, and how it could affect Australia. He sees it as a time to refashion our economy and society, and to build values into capitalism, an opportunity to give ourselves a better future.