From John Ruskin to the Milliard Report: rethinking value through Recroissance

Value is not a number. It is a living system.

There is something deeply revealing in the report Opération Milliard - Measuring Social Value, 2026 which has just been published (1).

This is not just a methodological document: it is a symptom.

The symptom of a moment when our tools can no longer see what truly matters.

We know how to produce… but do we still know how to create value?

For decades, we have learned to measure performance, visible and immediate results

But these tools were designed for a stable, linear, predictable world.

A world where causal chains are simple, timeframes are short, and actors are isolated.

That world no longer exists.

Today, value emerges elsewhere: in cooperation, in slow, diffuse, often invisible transformations, in territorial dynamics,

Value has shifted, not our tools. And gradually, a gap appears.

Until we end up measuring what no longer creates value.

What the report reveals (without always saying it)

The report proposes improving measurement.

But implicitly, it says something more radical: We no longer know how to recognize the value we actually create.

And perhaps worse: We continue to steer using indicators that move us away from what truly matters. Because today, value cannot be reduced to what is measurable.

Does value live in boxes?

Value precedes the tool. Value comes from the heart.

Value, before it can be measured, must emerge. And this emergence is fragile. It does not arise from an Excel sheet or a report. It arises from intention, from relationships, from commitment.

Stepping away from measurement to rediscover value. Starting from the heart before returning to the tools.

Yet, as the report rightly reminds us, “evaluating differently to evolve differently” is essential, because measuring is always a way to progress.

Everything is a matter of place, and above all, of precedence.

John Ruskin: the quality of a work reveals the quality of a world

This debate is not new.

In the 19th century, John Ruskin was already raising a fundamental question: “A society is not judged by what it produces, but by how it produces it.”

Production can increase in volume, while impoverishing those who carry it out, and weakening what it produces.

Value is not in the visible result. It lies in the quality of work, the dignity of people, the relationship between humans and what they create.

Value is born from relational intention, from the added soul in each action, more from the “why” than the “what for.”

Simon Johnson: institutions as the matrix of prosperity

More recently, Simon Johnson, Nobel Prize in Economics 2024, has highlighted a decisive point: prosperity depends on our ability to organize cooperation.

It does not come only from capital or technology but from the institutions we build to connect, enable participation, and make engagement possible for all.

What Johnson shows strongly echoes the report: value is systemic.

It emerges from a framework, an organization, a web of relationships.

RecroissanceⓇ: putting production and value back in the right place

This is precisely where regrowth takes on its full meaning.

It is not about producing more.

It is about changing what producing means: Producing differently to create more value. Not only economic. Global.

A value that does not simply add up, but that articulates: economic performance, social progress, and environmental regeneration.

But above all: a value that cannot be decreed but must be built over time, through relationships, at the heart of territories.

And behind this transformation, a deeper shift: production is no longer an end in itself, it no longer serves a consumerist model. It becomes a means again, a means to create shared prosperity.

It is no longer about placing humans at the service of the economy but about placing the economy at the service of shared prosperity.

Shared prosperity becomes the compass: it guides new forms of value creation, it reshapes the economy.

This is the real shift. We are no longer facing a question of production. We are facing a question of the world.

It is no longer: “How much do we produce?” but  “What quality of world are we producing, through what we do?”

Measuring or steering? The real paradigm shift

The report suggests moving from a logic of measurement to a logic of learning.

This is an important step.

But the real challenge lies elsewhere: learning how to steer in a world where value is alive.

This requires embracing uncertainty, working with weak signals, and combining indicators, narratives, and observations.

Measurement becomes a tool rather than an objective.

What we need to change fundamentally

Three major shifts are required.

1.From indicators to systems

We have learned to manage through indicators.

But an isolated indicator says almost nothing. It simplifies. It reduces. It freezes.

Today, value cannot be confined to a single measure. It emerges from interactions between actors, timeframes, and contexts.

Measuring value is not about accumulating KPIs.

It is about understanding dynamics.

2.From performance to contribution

We have optimized performance.

Targets, results, efficiency.

But for what purpose? Performance without a clear purpose can become counterproductive. It can even destroy value without us realizing it.

We must rediscover the notion of contribution.

Contribution to people, to their development, contribution to an organization, a territory, a society, a desirable future.

It is no longer just about “being efficient.”

It is about “being useful.”

3.From control to cooperation

Our measurement tools are often tools of control. They check, compare, and sanction.

But today, value is no longer created in silos.

It is built through interdependence.

Through the ability to connect, collaborate, and co-create. Value is no longer created alone. It is built in relationships.

And this changes everything: what must be steered is not only what each individual produces,

but what we make possible together.

Conclusion : value is not a number. It is a living system.

We are still trying to measure value… when the real challenge is to make it possible.

The Opération Milliard report opens a path.

John Ruskin reminds us that value reflects the quality of the world we create.

Simon Johnson shows that it depends on our ability to organize cooperation.

And Edgar Morin gives us the key :

“The individual produces the society that produces them.”(2)

Value is neither in numbers nor in discourse.

It lies in this living loop.

The next step is not technical.

It is systemic : connecting worlds, organizing cooperation, creating the conditions for value to circulate.

What we need to learn is not only how to measure differently.

It is about bringing about a world whose value we will be proud to measure… because we will have truly created it, together.

(1) Opération Milliard, Mesurer la valeur sociale, 2026.

https://operation-milliard.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/operation-Milliard-Rapport-Mesure-de-la-valeur-2026.pdf (french version).

The Opération Milliard report is led by a collective of actors engaged in social and economic transformation, bringing together companies, social economy stakeholders, researchers, and practitioners.

(2) Morin, Edgar, Introduction à la pensée complexe, Paris, ESF éditeur, 1990.