Prince of Wales calls for a shift to 'Community Capital'

In last night's Richard Dimbleby Lecture, HRH Prince Charles called for a shift to an approach "that recognizes not just the build up of financial capital, but the equal importance of, crucially, what I might best call “community capital.”

Defining Community Capital as "the wealth that holds our communities together", the Prince of Wales suggested that the diversity of cultures and ideas may provide the solution to the environmental crisis facing the planet.

"I have a hunch that this cultural diversity may provide us with the intellectual and social resilience to the challenges that we face in this moment of transition."

Calling for a return to a local relationship between communities and their suppliers, and bemoaning the economies of scale that have severed that relationship, Prince Charles suggested that engaging communities would help to create a new form of economics, one that was more in tune with nature's needs.

Does the solution to problems in our societies lie in going back to the "grass roots"? Perhaps control lies too much in the hands of a few powerful people and organisations, and the drive and innovation to find the right solutions is best found by creating networks of people in local communities, particularly those most immediately affected.

In Prince Charles' opinion, "we do still have within our societies and within our existing technologies the solutions that will enable us to transcend our current predicament. All we lack, perhaps, is the will to establish a more entire and connected perspective."

Perhaps it is the case that leaving the discovery and implementation of solutions in the hands of the few creates a narrower perspective, and it is the 'wisdom of crowds', the collective ideas of communities that will make the difference.

What do you think?