AIM: Adaptive, Inclusive & Moral Political Economy
AIM - Adaptive, Inclusive, Moral) Political Economy - is a new paradigm proposed by Yuen Yuen Ang to seize the polytunity for transformation in disrupted, multipolar world. AIM reshapes the way we study and manage political economies through a unique blend of three pillars:
Adaptive = replace machine-thinking with systems-thinking
Inclusive = replace one-size-fits-all templates with a diversity of local solutions and pathways
Moral = replace feigned neutrality with awareness of how power and positionality shapes ideas.
AIM challenges the default “industrial-colonial” paradigm, inherited from the 18th-20th centuries. That chapter in human history brought material and social progress through the spread of modernization, but it has also led humanity into the “polycrisis” in the 2020s.
Specifically, AIM is a paradigm, not a framework. A paradigm refers to a system of thought based on certain core assumptions about the nature of humans or societies, whereas a framework could just be a messy diagram. AIM is founded on three core assumptions:
Adaptive: Societies are systems, not machines.
Inclusive: There are multiple paths to progress, not just the Western model.
Moral: Power shapes ideas.