It reminded me of the Lao Tsu, where he says that the Way of Heaven is to take from those with excess, and give to those who do not have enough.

"The way of man is different," the sage quips. "He takes from those who have nothing, in order to give to those who already have too much."

When did the worm turn? When did the liberal centrist consensus become this nightmare of neo-feudalism? How did the Tories, in particular, drift from their one-nation, Compassionate Conservatism to the libertarian bandits who rarely miss an opportunity to darken our media with stirring xenophobia, and hallucinations of Getting Things Done? Was this written into economic neoliberalism from the outset?

In this episode we rehearse the history and make some observations, not least the upcoming opportunity to vote.

Talking Points:

Some context of the Centrist Consensus

How the worm turned: Brexit

Empire and Old Tory

Feudalism in Britain and Russia

The Thermocline of Truth: erosion of the middle class

The Irish answer to Neoliberalism and inequality

Will they ever learn?

Links:

Ed's Cris de Couer - Old Tory

Start the Week - Left Behind But Not Forgotten

Ireland and Neoliberalism - David Mc Williams Podcast

John Pilger - Governments and Media roles in War Propaganda | The War You Don't See - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mDuxFnn2RY

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Talking Points:

- The experience of government: consultancy, Thatcher, Blair, powerlessness at the centre of power

- Problems with centralisation. How we experience it.

- Devolved parliaments and regions. Wales, Switzerland, Germany 

- How this might look for Yorkshire. Some of the challenges and pitfalls.

- What’s the next step? Talking about it. Taking an interest. The long road ahead.

Links:

Wikipedia on Regionalism:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regionalism_(politics)

Localism - a tangible route to Regionalisation:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Localism_(politics)#:~:text=Localism%20can%20also%20refer%20to,power%20becoming%20centralized%20over%20time.

From the time of the Scottish referendum on independence:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/sep/17/scotland-independence-referendum-england-counties-devolution

Widely respected community action group Locality:

https://locality.org.uk/

Some links from Malcolm:

Has Devolution Worked - a 2019 Institute for Government report reflecting on the first Twenty years:

https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/has-devolution-worked-essay-collection-FINAL.pdf

Some reflections on Government dysfunction (Malcolm Prowle, LinkedIn):

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7130931236369231874/

Ed Balls and others on regional inequality in the UK for the Centre for Economic Policy Research

https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/how-tackle-uks-regional-economic-inequality-focus-stem-transport-and-innovation

From Ed:

Northern Independence Party:

https://www.freethenorth.co.uk/ourfuture

Charter to End Westminster Rule:

https://citizen-network.org/library/charter-to-end-westminster-rule.html

A Nation Trapped Inside England (YouTube):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=C2DFTj0Ot2o

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In economics, a basic unit is - The Household. And while economics tracks the flows of goods and services, it is striking that both goods and services require energy and other resources. Therefore The Household is an important unit to think about in terms of how we metabolise - exhaust and pollute - the planet.

Confronted with countries and large companies, we all have recourse to wringing our hands - but the Household is a strikingly accessible unit for pretty much everyone.

So - having surveyed, in Series 1, Proof of Concept, just how effective Systems Thinking can be; having rehearsed in Series 2 Preflight Checklist the principles that would see us through the climate and biodiversity crises; having explored in Series 3 - Is God the Biosphere? - how making the Biosphere a central partner in our governance systems requires us to rethink our religious demeanour - what next?

Given our relative entrapment in what are in many ways systems of extraction and poisoning, what levers might be available to a Household to minimise harm while maximising the best life has to offer?

This episode is a call to action to all our listeners -

• Can you articulate your household constitution?

• Can you produce a suitable systems map of the flow of goods, services and ideas passing under your roof?

Send your household constitutions and household systems maps to thehiddenpowerpodcast@gmail.com or tweet a link to Ed @EdAStraw - we are v excited to see what people have to show, and will set up a Google Doc to exhibit any responses.

Talking points:

Model of change in the 1850's

Convening as accessible - Systems convening event SCIO - t

https://youtu.be/vdohTndxWSM

Our innate Systems Sensibility, governance as adequate development and mental health

Religion, science, commerce, a moral code - and consumer power

The migration from past state to future state - in increments

- awareness beyond the bin

The power of collective action - The Preston Model

https://www.uclan.ac.uk/articles/research/preston-model-community-wealth-building

https://cles.org.uk/publications/how-we-built-community-wealth-in-preston-achievements-and-lessons/

Family constitutions: some relevant points -

News media:

Preferential Lobbying (articles)

voting

Proportional Representation (podcast)

https://theconversation.com/how-to-express-yourself-if-you-want-others-to-cooperate-with-you-new-research-182705

thehiddenpowerpodcast@gmail.com

Ed @EdAStraw

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An abiding feature of these podcasts, as we've highlighted many times, is this thing called Systems Thinking, and while this is a broad enough discipline to be fairly tribal in its own right, one key feature of this Systems Thinking is thinking about your thinking.

In this episode we review some of the things in normal western life that have the character of superstition, and explore to what extent our innate capacity for gullibility and naïvity might be used to our advantage, in evolving a more constructive mindset; in connecting better with Nature, and specifically in nurturing the health of our habitat.

Talking Points:

An experience with a palm reader

The power of belief and ritual in performance

Listener comments - a bishop, a yogi, and a reflection on who we are

Some superstitions - recognisable, and hidden

Like Science - eg impact of false HRT Study warning cancer

To what extent are your superstitions working for you?

Heuristics and humility regarding knowledge

Good and bad fairy-tales

What you do and what you think about it

Whatever gets you through the night

We all need superstitions

Faith as an alternative to cynicism

Faith in your own human system

Faith in our project of a viable habitat

The Good Place - it's impossible to be "Good"

The system is fundamentally bad

The challenge is bigger than all of us

And that is why we need faith in a higher power to sustain us

Links:

Fundamentalism as a superstition about text:

https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/first/a/armstrong-battle.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

On the placebo effect:

https://www.health.harvard.edu/mental-health/the-power-of-the-placebo-effect

On a scientific Truth that turned out to be untrue - HRT and cancer -

https://www.nursingtimes.net/clinical-archive/cancer-clinical-archive/study-linking-hrt-to-breast-cancer-was-wrong-26-01-2012/

William James (Philosopher and psychologist)

On pragmatism:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_James#Pragmatism_and_%22cash_value%22

On the Variety of Religious Experience (Wikipedia preçis)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_James#Philosophy_of_religion

Timothy Morton:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Morton#Ecological_theory

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Last week we explored what people are talking about when the talk about gods. But for most people, this is a secondary aspect of religion - the primary aspect being the rituals. So what are rituals, and why are they so powerful?

In this episode we look at some rituals, religious, secular, useful, destructive, and start to imagine what rituals might help us to place the biosphere at the pinnacle of our aspirations.

Talking Points:

Listener Email - A moral revolution is possible

Rituals. What are they?

Ablutions, Jewish weddings, Christian signs of peace

Conscious and unconscious rituals in daily life: focus and distraction

Positioning the biosphere and political will

Rituals of nurturing and kindness

Waste is an affront to nature, not wasting feels good

Gods - conscious and unconscious

Addiction and deification

Human power - like a bull in a china shop

Possible futures

Possible rituals - the 12 step recovery process as a route out of the addiction system

When things change, we'll be happier!

Habits as the b-side of ritual - and their power

Getting past the Doom Bar - learning to love stress

Links:

Peter Oborne - the Triumph of the Political Class (review/Guardian)

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/sep/30/politics

Water and religion ( incl Ablutions) - BBC podcast "How Water Shaped Us" -

https://open.spotify.com/episode/5NURa5GgoD7PxTzJQNrjzG?si=0hgb5f6hQkuo4Oc_XbleqA

The 12 Step Program (Wikipedia) - main points:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve-step_program

Dr Alia Crum on mindsets

Excellent paper on the subject:

https://mbl.stanford.edu/sites/g/files/sbiybj9941/f/2014_mindful_stress_chpt_crumlyddy_handbook_of_mindfulness.pdf

And podcast on mindsets in general,( 1:04:50 - The three step process: 1 Acknowledge; 2 Welcome; 3 Utilise):

https://open.spotify.com/episode/3ELdxrMTQum8E4ulpMSb2J?si=HGPXTCRiR9ykMy-UOdn2qw&context=spotify%3Ashow%3A79CkJF3UJTHFV8Dse3Oy0P

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (Wikipedia summary):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_7_Habits_of_Highly_Effective_People

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Which is in some ways the point of religion - to avoid having to reinvent the wheel when it comes to purpose and morality. In its absence, we are adrift.

Here at the Hidden Power Podcast one thing has been clear all along: we need to put the Biosphere at the centre of our governance models, and as Lynne White proposed over Fifty years ago - religion may be the key. What is a governance model, if not the prioritising of what is important?

In this episode, Ed sets out various ideas about God, laying them against the Biosphere like a series of well-formed suits.

Talking points:

Context of this episode: nature in its maternal aspect

What are we talking about when we talk about God

Some theologies - Scott Littleton, Monotheism, Carl Jung

Worship is for the Worshipper

Gods as forces of nature, as the highest thing

Explanation - God vs Science

God as unifying moral compass

The symbol of human value

Spirit - team spirit

Faith - God as purpose, God as love

Accountability - God, People

Communication - the golden rule and the biosphere

God the fixer and the prime minister of Australia

Deism vs Pantheism

What is God? Why can't He be the biosphere?

Links

Erasmus

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erasmus#The_first_translation

Scott Littleton on God

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deity

Carl Jung

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Jung

- read by Alan Watts, shortly after Jung's passing in 1961 (YouTube)

https://youtu.be/15pjQRA80bs

Accountability buddies (NY Times)

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/08/well/live/habits-health.html

A workable version of pantheism (podcast):

https://open.spotify.com/episode/7w2IJE332ztKAnglGjxohf?si=iFn5qW9eQO68jr-IC150VA&context=spotify%3Ashow%3A6NOJ6IkTb2GWMj1RpmtnxP

Water and God (The Compass - podcast)

https://www.airr.io/episode/605aae14439f559d6a5c52f0

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In listening back over this episode, I'm reminded of two things: one, Edmund in King Lear - "Thou, Nature, art my Goddess!" And the other, Fidel Castro: if he was to go through the revolution again, he said, he would select just twelve highly committed comrades - echoing, no doubt, the twelve disciples of Christian mythology.

In this episode we start to feel our way into our relationship with the Biosphere. In particular Ed takes a cue from Lynne White, who argued in the 1960's that Western religion was a root cause of environmental degradation, but - controversial! - a religious way of thinking might be the way out.

Talking Points -

Context: the Tragedy of the Commons, the Addiction System, Avoidance etc

We are an emergent property: nature is an absolute, there's no escape

But the relationship has broken down. How can we restore it?

Lynne White and Environmental Ethics, Human Ecology and Beliefs

What is religion?

Was there a good idea behind Christianity?

Earth Mother as a mind-set

Purpose and fly-fishing on the Danube

Nature as a hedonistic giver

Biophilic design

What should we give to nature? The two way relationship

Biomes

Purpose and change in organisations

Links

Article on Lynne White in Nature:

https://ecoevocommunity.nature.com/posts/14041-the-long-reach-of-lynn-white-jr-s-the-historical-roots-of-our-ecologic-crisis

Original (pdf):

https://www.cmu.ca/faculty/gmatties/lynnwhiterootsofcrisis.pdf

Jesus - a Buddhist Monk - YouTube/ BBC

https://youtu.be/FsN4zE2yilo

Kindness is the opposite of stress (Dr. David R. Hamilton)

https://drdavidhamilton.com/kindness-is-the-opposite-of-stress/

And podcast

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/a-scientists-case-for-woo-woo/id1081584611?i=1000548804097-

Biophilic design -

Wikipedia -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biophilic_design

Video 8 mins- sound cuts out between 0:45 and 2:05, but still interesting:

https://youtu.be/MJ6fbYz-x04

Fly-fishing on the Danube (BBC):

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0015qj3/earths-great-rivers-ii-series-1-2-danube

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So far, perhaps, so obvious. We know we need to act, and in many cases, we know what we need to do. But it's not happening. We just can't seem to muster sufficient focus.

In Series 3 - Is God the Biosphere? - we interrogate this state of play.

In this episode we introduce the background and take a look a the systemic straight-jackets that contain us - politically, economically, psychologically - in a kind of trap that makes it almost impossible to avoid feeding the beast. But this is not doom and gloom, not at all. As we constantly reiterate, Change Is Possible - this is our purpose. And there can be no effective change without a frank assessment of reality, so this is where we start.

And then. As the series progresses, we will explore the tranquil jungles of possibility, armed with the question:

What, exactly, would make the Biosphere a compelling object for our attention?

Talking Points:

The attractions of Systems Thinking, and what it is

The challenge - Biodiversity Revisited

Urgency of IPCC report: what does Systems Thinking have to contribute?

Why has the biosphere not proved a compelling object for our attention?

1 - The Tragedy of The Commons: shortsightedness

2 - The Global Addiction System: The monetary system, and the Technosphere

3 - Avoidance: The doom bar, the scale of the challenge, the vast constituency of the very rich, the fantasies

Links:

Biodiversity Revisited:

https://luchoffmanninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/biodiversity-revisited-research-agenda-2020.pdf

IPCC Summary - (MIT Technology Review)

https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/04/04/1048832/un-climate-report-carbon-removal-is-now-essential/?truid=&utm_source=the_download&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=the_download.unpaid.engagement&utm_term=&utm_content=04-05-2022&mc_cid=1ab39c4971&mc_eid=24fa1486a0

Original Peter Haff article describing the Technosphere - Technology as a Geological Phenomenon: Implications for Human Well-Being:

https://pne.people.si.umich.edu/PDF/Haff%202013%20Technology%20as%20a%20Geological%20Phenomenon.pdf

Epic sweep of monetary system (book review):

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/the-financial-system-is-supposed-to-serve-the-economy--not-harm-it/2019/12/26/59c26028-1d0c-11ea-8d58-5ac3600967a1_story.html

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We have finally arrived to this episode, and this crucial check in our pre-flight checklist, as if through layers of an onion to its core, and yet - its as though we have arrived back where we started. It’s about the people. 

A good example of what not to do, in transitioning communities to the new economy, is simply shutting coal mines. This is what happened under Margaret Thatcher in Britain in the 1980’s, and many communities have never recovered. Glasgow, one-time ship-builder to the empire, lost ground to more dynamic economies around the world and for many years languished in economic depression - but in recent years has experienced a cultural renaissance. Could this have been brought about without the years of pain?

Of course it could, and in this episode we rehearse these and other examples to see what is possible, and take a deep dive into the question of mind-set.

Talking Points:

Shipping as a case study

People, feelings, abandoned communities

Proportions and emotional impact of climate crisis

Technosphere: human context

Five stages of grief, communities and politics

Individual acts, collective acts

The need for political leadership

Transition in Glasgow

Coal miners eg. in Poland

Change in organisations

Links:

Timothy Morton extracts, and wikipedia -

Five stages of Grief (Kubler Ross Model) - look out for the visualisations

Peter Haff - full paper on the Technosphere: Technology as a geological phenomenon: implications for human well-being

David Pocock, rugby player and activist

George Monbiot on mobilisation

Zapatista Principles

Clips:

Gordon Brown saves the world financial system (48:00)

Greta Thunberg goes to Poland to talk coal (15:10)

Simon Sinek on the Law of Diffusion of Innovation (10:56)

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Throughout Preflight Checklist, and our previous series Proof of Concept we have placed great hope on Systems Thinking. What is that, again? Yes, trying to see systems in their totality - but also: humility with regards to knowledge.

In this case, rather than assuming you know enough (Facebook: "move fast and break things") to chuck out products and see how they boom, bust or blow up; instead, armed with this humility, and with eyes and ears open to the variety of impacted perspectives, companies can move more deftly and discretely to create sustainable, durable designs.

Disruption, moving fast and breaking things, asking for forgiveness and not for permission, creating minimum viable products and trying them out on The Market - these things are fetishised in our intensely consumerist and wealth-focussed version of capitalism. And because importance is mainly attached to economies, economics and money, we are acculturated to the restrictive dimensions of this perspective. But such reductionism has landed us with outcomes we know well: the climate and biodiversity crisis, massive inequality, and more besides. It's not enough to wring our hands and look to the market in hope that an answer will appear - it hasn't so far.

So we're back to the rails - constitutional change - and with this principle, a principle both of humility and an approach to reality, we have an important pre-flight check, as it were, for any durable, sustainable, economic activity.

Talking Points:

Technosphere, Investment Commitments, Systems Thinking

Increased urbanisation as symbolic

The internet creates monopolies

Systems Thinking

Design Principles, Dieter Rams

Good intentions vs. Accountability

Uber and The London Assembly: City pushes Back

The casualisation of labour

Airbnb and communities

Links:

On the Technosphere, Jan Zalaceiwicz (Guardian, 2015) references Peter Haff, who coined the term for his 2013 paper - well worth a click, if only to read the abstract.

McKinsey on The Business Value of Design (2018)

Dieter Rams' - 10 Principles of Good Design (Wikipedia)

On the casualisation of labour - "I could have been a somebody... instead of a bum, which is what I am."

Marlon Brando On The Waterfront (1954 - IMDB trailer, 01:35):

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As consumers, we have more power than we might think. We not only vote with our wallets, but our consumption is conspicuous, and contributes to setting a tone across society - and this is a secondary and perhaps more powerful effect. And change is possible - look at how perception of veganism has shifted, in a relatively short amount of time, from being seen as a fringe activity paraded by the pious few, to a reasonable and accepted option for the main stream, who are now interested in personal and planet health.

In thinking about this episode, three things struck me. Firstly - out of sight, out of mind. Beautiful products mask less beautiful realities involved in their creation. To make choices, we need to know about them. Secondly, the scale of the challenge. The vastness of it. When you research and think about the some industrial activities, the sheer scale of it is staggering. And thirdly - it's the job of the system to shove the big picture right in people's faces: if information is clear and present at the point of decision - which, for products means the point of purchase - then consumer choices are not only more straight-forward, but there is potential for a major shift in standards, both for us, and for our world.

Talking points:

This is not a guilt trip: it's about free choice

Neo-freudian advertising and marketing

Oil fields the size of France, undersea mining the size of Europe

This principle is very simple: it's about attention

It's not just the system, there's also just bad practice

The world can't run on company lies

Labelling can make the difference: it tells you what you are doing

Carbon trading, bio-fuels and true effects

Styles of labelling: medicine info, tobacco images, energy ratings

Fourth separation of powers: holding large companies to account

Gaming in the system - civil society, the media and change

The other 25 principles will provide a strong context

The Freedom Pollute in context: as a last freedom

Systems thinking meets governance

Links:

Earthtime story on undersea mining (2019). View on a desktop, requires patience and engagement - but will be rewarded in spades:

https://earthtime.org/stories/ocean_mining

Other Earthtime stories:

https://earthtime.org/#stories

Economist podcast on the environment:

https://www.economist.com/podcasts/2021/09/20/to-a-lesser-degree-a-new-climate-podcast-from-the-economist

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There's no doubt that a single company can create and inspire change. But if all producers up and down the supply chain, and indeed across the economy, are holding each other accountable for all impacts by virtue of this principle, then we really do have the potential see the kinds of changes we need on a grand - global - scale. Effectively, a feedback loop. And let's not forget what Einstein had to say about about another feedback loop, compound income: it's "the most powerful force in the universe".

In this episode we see in Fast Fashion Brand Boohoo a case in point of many of the things we have been talking about: the Global Monetary System at work, almost blindly driving profit, with scant regard for its vast impacts in human and ecological terms. And failure of consumer power, and tension between activist censure and investor appetite. In contrast we also consider Renault, a company that is embracing complete re-use and recycling.

What would complete circularity look like?

Talking points:

The limits of limited liability

Out of sight, out of mind - we don't want to know

Fast fashion, Boohoo - and the Global Monetary System

Contributory factors in the development of fast fashion

Extended Producer Responsibility

Plotting the chain - gouging and dumping vs circular process

iPhones and the truth of supply chains

Is this a basis on which the world wants to work?

Renault transitioning to the new economy - PACE

Respect and the biosphere

Nature vs consumer culture

Ethos and company culture as something accessible

Community as a part of good business and good branding

Neo-liberalism means - take and don't care

Links

Business of Fashion Podcast:

https://www.businessoffashion.com/podcasts

Greta Thunberg BBC series:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p099f58d/episodes/player

PACE - Platform forAccelerating the Circular Economy

https://pacecircular.org

Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_producer_responsibility

UK Govt/ recent DEFRA EPR Consultation:

https://consult.defra.gov.uk/extended-producer-responsibility/extended-producer-responsibility-for-packaging/

...+ consultation document pdf (06.2021/ 213 pages):

https://consult.defra.gov.uk/extended-producer-responsibility/extended-producer-responsibility-for-packaging/supporting_documents/23.03.21%20EPR%20Consultation.pdf

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As we've mentioned in recent episodes, from the standpoint of the biosphere, humanity's existence is felt primarily through industrialisation. Resource extraction, pollution, as well as much monoculture in agriculture have taken their toll on both the biosphere and many of the people it supports. Indeed, while populations have been increasingly "farmed" over the decades, the characterisation by technology companies of humanity as end-users to be addicted and data to be mined is an obvious extension of this outlook. And these exploitations are often the preserve not of individual people but of companies, with their diffuse networks of responsibility and "the corporate veil."

But things could be different. In this episode we re-imagine the role of companies in our world as inverted: from the current slavishness to the global monetary system and its obfuscating pipework of corporate ownership - to something that privileges human value in the context of our life-support system, the biosphere.

Talking Points:

Picking apart the principle: the real is almost the reverse of the ideal

The corporate veil as central to the current version of capitalism

The ethical drift in corporate behaviour over the last several decades

Free-flowing capital before and after WW2: neoliberalism

This is not an insurmountable problem: we can reinvent the system

Crystallising public opinion

Tomorrow's Company - since the 1980's

A case in point: demutualisation of AA and RAC, submission to global monetary system

Design- and Systems thinking vs the pressures of neo-liberalism:

Other "tomorrow's companies" - The Body Shop - hinges on structures of ownership

Japanese management in manufacturing: raising the global standard through competitive pressure

W Edwards Deming

Consumer power, shareholder power and greenwashing

Paying the true cost is possible - if you can afford it

Flooding brought people together, and they never felt happier

What is it to be human? Community is a big part of it

But also: diversity of experience within the community - or company

Aligning the word Company with what it means

Links:

Alternative search engine to Google: Ecosia. They plant trees:

https://www.ecosia.org

W. Edwards Deming: "Deming's teachings and philosophy are clearly illustrated by examining the results they produced after they were adopted by Japanese industry:"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming

Limited Liability - brief history:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limited_liability#History

The Corporate Veil (wikipedia)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piercing_the_corporate_veil

Global Monetary System: "Leading financial journalist Martin Wolf has reported that all financial crises since 1971 have been preceded by large capital inflows into affected regions:"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_monetary_system

The origins of "Tomorrow's Company" stem from a lecture given in 1990 by Charles Handy, Chairman of the UK’s RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce) on the question ‘What is a Company For?’. This led to the inquiry ‘Tomorrow’s Company – the role of business in a changing world’, led by Sir Anthony Cleaver, then Chairman of IBM, which culminated in a report of the same name published in 1995.

Here's the original report from the RSA:

https://www.tomorrowscompany.com/publication/rsa-inquiry-tomorrows-company-the-role-of-business-in-a-changing-world/

Its current incarnation, 30 years later - https://www.tomorrowscompany.com - Still interesting and forward looking, although their prioritising away from society and toward the embrace of disruptive innovation diverges from our ideal of systems thinking:

"[...]In 2016, in the light of all the organisation’s learning and experience in working with companies and investors, Tomorrow’s Company report, UK Business: What’s Wrong? What’s Next? restated [their definition of a Tomorrow's Company as three principles.

These are:

• A purpose beyond profit and a set of values that are lived through the behaviours of all employees to create a self-reinforcing culture;
• Collaborative and reciprocal relationships with key stakeholders – a strong focus on customer satisfaction, employee engagement and, where possible, collaboration with suppliers, alongside working with society; and
• A long-term approach that embraces risk – investing long term and embracing disruptive innovation.

Community energy companies and projects

http://awel.coop/

This is the largest employee owned company in Scotland:

https://homecarescotland.co.uk/

Profiting from Integrity - Alan Barlow (book)

https://www.waterstones.com/book/profiting-from-integrity/alan-barlow/9781138090613

There are quite a few surveys of staff as the best places to work (although - what these surveys show and mask is up for debate), e.g. for tech companies:

https://blog.greatplacetowork.co.uk/uk-best-tech-companies-to-work-for

Quakers Businesses -

"Quakers didn't wring every last penny out of a business so they were appealing companies to be taken over." [ie - with the dawn of neoliberalism in the 1980's]

- it looks like the great myth of Quaker businesses has struggled to stand the tests of neoliberalism:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-17112572

Couldn't find a list of Quaker company principles - rather, it seems they held each other accountable in the context of how they conducted their meetings.

Forbes Magazine says:

"..During early Quaker meetings, "the business activities of their members were scrutinized by their peers, not only for their soundness but also to ensure that the interests of the broader community--not just the Quakers--were protected,"...The Quaker congregation "would stand behind the activities of members who were in good standing, and if one of them got into trouble, they would supervise the liquidation of the business and make good the deficit."

https://www.forbes.com/2009/10/09/quaker-business-meetings-leadership-society-friends.html

Quaker Companies.

Predictably enough, Quaker Oats was never a Quaker company.

"This is a list of notable businesses, organizations or charities founded by Quakers. Many of these are no longer managed or influenced by Quakers. At the end of the article are businesses that have never had any connection to Quakers [3, to be precise - the first being Quaker Oats], although some people may believe that they did or still do."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Quaker_businesses,_organizations_and_charities

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But who has time to reflect? These turbulent years have been eclipsed by another Summer of wild fires and wilder floods, as the climate crisis begins to bite - presenting an appalling, stunning spectacle of human tragedy. So we have the IPCC report, with it's Code Red for humanity. And then there's Afghanistan, which one struggles to adequately describe.

In this special episode, we assess the accelerating climate disaster and take a clear-eyed look at what next month's COP26 Conference in Glasgow has to offer. We have a think about whether the UK's "Levelling Up" can have any more meaning than previous political slogans like "Northern Powerhouse" or "Compassionate Conservatism". We also take a look at the storied link between war and business - and see yet again the dark fact of government capture at work.

With all this darkness, we also look forward for some light. In the final series of our Preflight Checklist we will be examining the role of companies in shifting our societies to a sustainably happy future.

Talking points:

The IPCC Report

The COP26 Conference

Afghanistan and Preferential Lobbying

Dominic Cummings Is Apparently Still Relevant

Michael Gove is The Minister of Levelling Up - will he fake it or make it?

What is working in Systems Thinking? Deliberative schema: DAD and EDD

We Need To Talk About Companies.

Links

Structures and systems and thinking (Youtube, 10 minutes into an hour)

https://youtu.be/A3P5XJJVN3I

Here’s the Big issue piece explaining why the supermarket shelves are often empty, and why HGV drivers are scarce - fed up with being treated as low lifes

https://www.bigissue.com/news/inside-the-uk-food-shortages-why-nandos-and-sainsburys-are-running-out/

Here’s a piece on the futility of the war in afghanistan

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/08/what-i-learned-while-eavesdropping-on-the-taliban/619807/

And here is a piece on what it cost and where some of it went:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/11/us-afghanistan-iraq-defense-spending

Foreign intervention (article, behind paywall):

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v43/n16/charles-glass/hush-hush-boom-boom

'In 2011, as Obama was considering what action to take in Syria, some of his advisers urged him to support the rebels. Before making up his mind, Obama commissioned a report on the history of US covert operations. Robert Malley, then Obama’s Middle East adviser and now President Biden’s negotiator with Iran, read the CIA’s classified report. It was, he told me in 2019, a litany of failure. ‘I think there were one or two, out of I don’t know how many tens of cases, where you could, at a limit, say that there was a success by working through opposition proxies.’ The vast majority of the CIA’s secret wars had backfired, from Albania in the late 1940s through Angola in the 1980s to Afghanistan in the 1990s. Despite this, Obama ordered the CIA to arm and instruct militants in Turkey and Jordan under a programme that permits such activities in defence of American national security. The outcome was both predictable and tragic: the insurgents failed to overthrow Assad and Islamic State emerged.’

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We've finished the Governments section of our Preflight Checklist series - basically, a constitution to save the world - and in September we'll be back, tackling what seems to be at the heart of human activity from the standpoint of the planet - Companies.

How should we think about them? What do companies look like on a sustainable planet?

Find out in these last six episodes of Preflight Checklist, coming this September wherever you find your podcasts.

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Everyone pays their taxes.

The deceptive simplicity of this principle belies the fact that, obviously enough, not everyone pays their taxes - quite the contrary, and the leaders of the G7 group of the world's richest nations are attempting to address this by imposing a global corporation tax of 15%. Whether this is enforceable remains to be seen. As things stand the global monetary system is set up in such a way that, on the one hand, nations are in a race to the bottom on tax costs to make their countries attractive to multi-nationals, under the delusion that such winning such a competition will benefit them and not harm them; and on the other, their funds are secreted through tax havens to evade contributing to the various infrastructures they benefit from. So instead - these costs fall to us, the citizens.

But if we step back from the whole issue of Making The Big Guys Pay - do we need to pay taxes at all? What does this practice really mean to us, as citizens? How might it become more meaningful?

In this episode we place these questions in three key contexts - the citizen, the national economy, and our bio-physical world - the biosphere.

Talking points:

Why do we pay taxes?

"Rent", surplus and the common good

The tax planning industry: not bad people, but in a bad system

It's about fairness - why are we paying tax and not vast corporations?

Nailing down the wealth extractors, rampant individualism, and the fault-lines

Global taxation vs global tax competition: The G7

National taxation vs local taxation: efficiency 

Centralisation, opacity and local power

Transparency and accountability - Sweden’s public tax returns

The UK’s hand-maiden economy 

Deadweight taxes - thinking back to Adam Smith

A society of rent-seekers vs a society of wealth-creators

Efficiencies in tax expenditures: hypothecated taxes, mutual insurances

Compassionate communities and cost savings

Carbon taxation is a muddle

End-to-end producer responsibility vs the planet as an economic “externality”

Links:

Interview with Fred Harrison (audio interview, 30 min):

https://www.prosper.org.au/2021/01/we-are-rent-with-fred-harrison/?fbclid=IwAR1zkII88E7f2TKLXQOa9-wppO-27fwDoEz9Bt0JDTpLSTz5MchioDXSjvE

Nicholas Shaxson on Britains Second Empire (...of tax-havens - article):

https://taxjustice.net/2019/09/29/tax-havens-britains-second-empire/

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We often hear that politicians are essentially sales staff - but there are implications of this, if we extend the metaphor. They are not the engineers. They don't really understand what they are selling, they're just playing for the team. And if we were to imagine that someone did really understand, we would be a bit naïve. But clearly things - all kinds of things - would work a lot better if the question of how laws and regulations, or indeed overall missions, designs for action, were to be implemented - they would work better if this question was interrogated from the outset.

As things stand, at least in the UK, any such evaluation is entirely optional, and normally ignored. Again, the spewing of 150 items per ministry per week should shock us into attention to the sheer dysfunction of our system, and the volume of wastage. What this principle does is, in effect, to paraphrase the famous designer, Dieter Rams: Less, but better. And not only that, but to make it enforceable. And this is where the separation of powers comes in to play - a second chamber can take the Executive's wild if well-intentioned hallucinations of the glorious future, interrogate them and reconstruct them as workable programmes.

In this episode, we look in detail at an eight-step vetting process devised by Ed and his co-author, Ray Ison, that would ensure that any designs that a government might have for action would align with the overall ethos of bringing about beneficial change.

Talking points:

Using expertise within a democratic structure

...as a check on the executive

The PR basis of political activity

There's nothing to ensure that learning is applied

Evaluations do not typically challenge the system

Money gets creamed off, culture of graft

Commercial due diligence as a model

Norman Strauss: ethos

The 8 Tests: Framing, Purpose, Engagement and Stakeholder, Insider, Other Countries, Systems Thinking, Capability, Value

Some systems have a more conducive ethos

Singapore - decisions tree

New Zealand - other forms of Capital

Links:

Norman Strauss

https://normanstrauss.wordpress.com/tag/norman-strauss/

Stafford Beer: “Rules come from System 5: not so much by stating them firmly, as by creating a corporate ethos – an atmosphere”

The inside and now, the outside and then:

1. Systems 1, 2 and 3 between them make up the internal environment of the viable system – the Inside and Now. The autonomous parts function in a harmonising internal environment which maximises its effectiveness through creating mutually supportive relationships.
2. System 4 is concerned with the Outside and Then. It formulates plans in the context of both the outside world and its intense interaction with System 3 which ensures all plans are grounded in the knowledge of the capabilities of the organisation.

The Viable System Model (blog)

https://metaphorum.org/viable-system-model

Gillian Tett: Anthropology as the study of what it means to be human in a digital age (Zoom interview with The Mint Magazine)

https://www.themintmagazine.com/tribes-and-tribulations

Sarah Novak & Dr Caroline Mc Leish: Social Capital and New Zealand's Living Standards Framework (blog/interivew):

https://www.centreforpublicimpact.org/insights/good-economics-new-zealand-s-focus-on-living-standards-and-social-capital-to-navigate-crisis

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Systems Thinking in Practice - or STiP, as we sometimes call it - is, frankly, one of the great hopes of our time. It has the endorsement of the UN, the WHO and the OECD and has proved effective in alleviating difficulties of bewildering complexity by engaging social learning.

This principle takes the fundamental purpose of government - beneficial change - and addresses the patchy performance of governments everywhere. The placating, appeasing, and overall absence of effective action on the part of governments is easily traced to the impossibility of such a tiny cohort being able to contend with the vast complexity of their imagined mandate. The systemic response, the STiP response, is to turn this on its head, and put the mandate where it is needed - at the front line, where life is happening, far from the much-vaunted Corridors of Power.

What is it, to think systemically? What does it look like, in practice?

In this episode we unpack this promising approach to the challenges of our time.

Talking points:

This great hope

Problems are the world's problems

The problems with governments - over-stretched

Laying it all out - "problems", maps, stakeholders, "solutions"

Situations of concern

Extending and containing boundaries

Systems mapping - a picture of the whole system, how the system works

Goulburn-Broken River Catchment - vast complexity

Polarised perspectives: Bawdens World-views

The library at Shepton Mallet

Rich pictures - visual representations and complex communications and humans

Framing and re-framing

Solutions landscapes - homelessness in Vancouver

The design turn - systems thinking in practise is designing

...and is empowering to civil society: Pacific coast tidal wave planning and the pandemic

Individual action and STiP - An art therapist bucks the bureaucracy and frees an agoraphobic

What Why and How - applying learning to your relationship

Links

Systems thinking in practise at the Shepton Mallet Library(slide deck):

https://www.systemspractice.org/resources/attachment/eca09f7f-03f0-4115-9c9a-1ed113670d5c

To beat a pandemic, try prepping for a tsunami (MIT Deep tech podcast)

https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/06/03/1002535/podcast-to-beat-a-pandemic-try-prepping-for-a-tsunami/

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Decisions, decisions: as we saw in the last episode, 150 per week per ministry, each spouting its share of paperwork like a photocopier out of control, swamping its surroundings with verbiage, utterly lacking in practical intent, and for anyone trying to see if the system works in any meaningful way - bewildering in its senselessness.

But who are the people who make these decisions? And what do they know, really? And what are they expecting to come of them? Contemplating these questions quickly draws one to the conclusion that we are watching a pantomime, a Punch and Judy show, that exists to conceal the pointless governmental machine that is out of control.

This principle does two things: it reframes these empty "decisions" in their ideal and realistic intent - to bring about beneficial change, as designs for action. And in being realistic, it is realistic about how plans - designs - need to be course-corrected on contact with reality: they need to evolve.

Talking points:

First and second order cybernetics: Dashboards, and people within the control system

Running the country: the pantomime and the possibilities

We would fail if we were politicians too

The risks of ineptitude: London as an instrument of Russian power

Market liberalisation as a decision - out of sight, out of mind

Financial crisis - absence of feedback!

Design authority in context: how to prevent ships sinking?

The spirit of improvement and learning, the operating principles

Every design for action is an experiment

Failure inquiries - here to learn, not to blame.

Root causes and purpose: Why is government here?

The promise of systems thinking: living in paradise, sufficiency

The four main benefits of feedback

The fundamental importance of good feedback

Systems sensibility

Factfulness: opinions based on strong supporting facts

7 psychological sins of investing

Psychological defensiveness

Labour and smoking: a day out

Presumption and personal experience

Links:

Dr. Fiona Hill on The Rachman Review:

https://play.acast.com/s/therachmanreview/comingtotermswithputinsrussia

Stein Ringen (youtube/RSA):

https://youtu.be/AHcfNy1_zqA

The Roslings on Factfulness (TED talk)

https://youtu.be/Sm5xF-UYgdg

Steven Pinker on the world getting better (TED talk)

https://youtu.be/yCm9Ng0bbEQ

Falsifiability - Karl Popper (wikipedia)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability

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...except that with normal experiments - the scientific kind - measurements are taken, changes are monitored, conclusions drawn, theory is adjusted.

Oddly, this is not the case with government decisions: debate is held, rehearsing the full repertoire of grimace, flush, sound and fury; and someone wins, and after that - a hot cup of tea. No connection with implementation. And yet with almost every regulation it is impossible to get a full view of how this adjustment to law or regulation will play out in reality, with the inevitable unintended consequences - so we end up with decision makers who are not fully informed making decisions for people who aren't aware that anything has changed. Even more jaw-dropping - roughly 150 of these changes occur each week per ministry. That's about 10,000 per year, year after year, in a kind of nightmare of bureaucratic process.

How would it be if, rather than decisions being taken, forgotten, and tossed into the bureaucratic machine, they were seen as designs for action, to be monitored and adjusted as their process unfolds?

In this episode we survey the ghastly scene of current decision-making, and find hope in the impact of the pandemic.

Talking points:

Decisions: words on a piece of paper, or designs for action

Wandering from start line to start line without staying to watch the race

The sheer volume and impossibility of keeping track

How subsidiarity would alleviate this

The Tiny Top and the noise

The end-state fallacy: housing developments post-war, EU and CO2 emmissions

The whole new-liberal economic system is an experiment

PAPAIS - the dark truth of how government functions

Ashby's Law of Requisite Variety: Science and system

The limitations of government

Ostrom: “Human societies are constituted by the symulateous operation of various experiments variously linked to one another”

The government should be setting up the system

The pandemic has forced experimentation

The Observatory for Public Sector Innovation

The Monetary Policy Committee at the Bank of England

Links:

The Observatory for Public Sector Innovation - for more on this see Series 1 Episode 5, The Sense of Powerlessness at the Heart of Leadership with Dr. Piret Toñurist.

https://oecd-opsi.org

The Monetary Policy Committee at the Bank of England

https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/about/people/monetary-policy-committee

W. Ross Ashby

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Ross_Ashby

Law of Requisite Variety:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variety_(cybernetics)#Law_of_requisite_variety

Vincent Ostrom: "Human societies... are constituted by the simultaneous operation of diverse experiments variously linked to one another."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_Ostrom

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One of our central concerns in this podcast is why government is so ineffective - why don't governments work? And while many roads have led to preferential lobbying, there is arguably a deeper, darker reason even than that: aimlessness. The result? Bureaucracy, shiftlessness, the famous treacle that blinds and obstructs us in our endeavours. But institutions - and individuals - are capable of great things, if they act in concert - which is to say, if they act with a sense of purpose.

What is the point of government? How do we fit into this as individuals? This principle may seem self-evident, but as we find out, it certainly requires to be reiterated.

Talking points:

It's not as simple as it looks

Hobbs and the pessimistic view

How do we fit into this?

Orchestrating change

Needs and myths of leadership

Clarity, purpose and mud

Beneficial change

Without purpose, there are various phenomena that present themselves

Privileging rules over purpose

What the purpose becomes in the absence purpose

Publicity, personal power, ideology, peers groups

Maturity and government

Breaking the inheritance

It worked for Germany and Japan post WWII

Cybernetic governance

Modelling beneficial change

Links:

Sasha Swire - British government is amateur (Guardian review)

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/sep/20/sasha-swire-british-politics-is-totally-amateur-thats-why-its-so-sexy-and-toxic

Robert Cialdini - Influence

https://www.theguardian.com/business-to-business/2018/mar/09/how-to-persuade-people-hint-not-by-telling-them-theyre-stupid

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What is government for? What to we want from it? We can hazard a guess at what we don't want: uselessness, volatility, inflexibility, opaqueness and inaccessibility may seem like familiar themes - and we know we don't want them. And a government that does not serve democracy - well, what would that look like? What it calls to mind is really the classic kleptocratic autocracy.

But this question of what government is for, or what governance is for, is also a question we each answer with our actions and habits - and to approach the idylll imagined in this principle would require us to embrace our roles as exemplars and stewards of good governance in order to establish the requisite culture.

In this episode we not only explore these themes through various examples, but also drill into how good governance can be explored and modelled through a Systemic Enquiry - the engagement of social learning around complex situations of concern.

Talking points:

If you don't get the system right, you won't get the government right

Subsidiarity: we determine government, and can demand change

Change is possible

Our neoliberal predicament and the degradation of governmental culture

Step away from the system and start with purpose

Think, and talk, about what you might want from this entity

What is the point of Welsh independence? An ongoing discussion

Deep Dive into Dentistry as a case study for Systemic Enquiry

Also - Ken Livingstone and the GLA

Also - a welfare system

Systemic Enquiry and Palestine?

Developing an environmental consciousness

And how behaviour relates to forms of governance

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There is a Grey Area. Not a clearly defined circle of criminality, but a vast zone of stasis and obfuscation which represents an almost impenetrable sea wall to buffet back waves of improvement. It's not necessarily easy to perceive, and it exists as a cultural norm. But, versions of incentive - pensions, honours, remunerations and golden handshakes - used inappropriately as they often are, distort decision-making, contribute to inequality, and, cumulatively, along with the preferential lobbying discussed in a previous episode, are at the creeping heart of our corruption.

What is "institutionalised bribery"? How does it affect us? What would the implementation of this principle look like?

In this episode we consider the vital importance of boundaries, and conclude that - since, as we've seen in a previous episode, all root cause analysis of wrong things in government leads to preferential lobbying - this principle has the potential to be a silver bullet, clearing out the political system and opening the way to a vast landscape of beneficial change.

Talking points:

Drawing of boundaries, separation of powers and separation of people

Voter ID intervention

How is bribery institutionalised?

If one player cheats, the others lose interest

We can't quite grasp this soft corruption, but it degrades us

The doctrine of irresponsibility is like a slime that sticks to us

Spelling out neoliberalism

Job security and insecurity in politics

Types of institutionalised bribery:

• Civil service, MP pensions: stasis and unfairness

• Compensation committees and their incentives

• Mergers and Acquisitions feeds the global monetary system, no shareholders

Effects of bribery and benefits of using this principle

Where do we see models of this?

The global problem.

The Treaty of Watangi (New Zealand)

Links:

Cui Bono (wikipedia):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cui_bono

The Treaty of Waitangi:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Waitangi

...and its principles:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principles_of_the_Treaty_of_Waitangi

Fintan O'Toole:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fintan_O%27Toole

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What does the world look like if people don't take the time to think before they speak? Oh wait, that's the world we live in already. And the results are bemoaned, debated and endured.

But what is duty, really? And what does "thinking" actually entail? And what are we really doing, when we speak?

In many ways, in this episode, we cut to the heart of the hidden power, our hidden power - our capability to set a tone, to make our appearance something joyous, or something terrible.

Talking points:

"Duty," "Think," "Speak" - what do they really mean?

Context in challenges to environment, democracy and truth

Speech after WW2, individualism, where we are now

Simplistic thinking and authoritarian speech

How does this help us? What a measured response can do for you.

Andrew Mitchell on what we are really doing with language

We are "creating" - whether we like it or not

Right or wrong? The pleasures of being wrong

Mental Models

• Widening the lens
• The 5 Whys
• Post crash analysis/ avoiding blame
• Active listening

Links:

Andrew Mitchell on Second Order Thinking (youtube, 25 minute talk in 1hour discussion:

https://youtu.be/ZeIHi3KR_-Q

Michael Fuller author of Kill the Black One First - podcast interview (50 min)

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/shade/id1469562537?i=1000442294103

a16z podcast on moderating discussions (1hr)

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/how-to-moderate-talks-panels-meetings-more-virtual/id842818711?i=1000497404790

Haim Ginott (Wikipedia)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haim_Ginott

Everything that's wrong in a condensed piece of philosophy: The Law of the Excluded Middle (Wikipedia)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_excluded_middle

Jung (Wikipedia)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Jung

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You hear phrases like "systemic" and "endemic" - but what does that actually amount to?

Unfortunately it amounts to a vast global problem that creates the illusion of democratic process, but with out much actual democracy. Instead, all kinds of effects which are clearly and obviously problematic are ignored and suppressed - climate change, wealth inequality and much more.

In this special episode we start out with a look at the hypocrisy at the heart of the preferential lobbying machine, and in particular we explore not only how it became visible to Ed during his time working with central government, but also how, as he and Ray Ison applied systems thinking to governance, all roads seemed to lead one way: preferential lobbying is the central problem in our many and various challenges, and it can only be adequately mitigated, and even eliminated, by means of constitutional change.

Talking points:

The true intent of the 2014 lobbying bill, and the way David Cameron expressed it

Strategic lying

Lobbying in the time of Blair

Civil servants and ministers are not equipped to understand

Ed's report on the civil service got squashed

The problem with reform

"Superficial civil servants and daft academics"

Private meetings and address books

Legitimate lobbying and grey areas

The capability to employ professional lobbyists

Secrecy is a central part of the problem

Broadband as a case in point

Preferential lobbying has emerged as a central theme

...as a common root cause

Post master controversy as a case study

Appearance and reality in democracy

pros and cons of industry experts

Transparency

Visionary leadership vs. the reality of financial markets

Preferential lobbying is a zero sum game: it's wealth extraction

A capitalist ideal vs. rent seeking

Ethics and pragmatism

Feedback

Big pharma stamps out Teatree oil

Multiply that hundreds and thousands of times

viable systems method - how these conditions were identified

Problem - Analysis - Policy - Approval - Implementation - Solution

But policy making is fundamentally experimental

The need to build in redundancies

9 conditions necessary for preferential lobbying

Changing the constitution is the necessary condition of stopping preferential lobbying

Good lobbying is about making your case in pubic

The Finance Curse

Links:

Polly Toynbee on the 2014 Lobbying act:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/apr/15/cameron-lobbying-act-business-politicians-2014-charities

A corporate entertainment story - Biathlon (NY Times - article)

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/28/sports/olympics/biathlon-russia-doping-besseberg.html

Strategic lying (The Conversation - article)

https://theconversation.com/strategic-lies-deliberate-untruths-used-as-a-political-tactic-new-study-159723

Chart of the Ascent of Everest (diagram/ infographic)

https://historyshots.com/blogs/news/18078975-chart-of-the-ascent-of-everest

Book recommendation:

The Finance Curse: How Global Finance Is Making Us All Poorer - Nicholas Shaxson - Vintage

The 9 key conditions that facilitate preferential lobbying:

1. Preferential access to decision makers

2. Government decisions made in private

3. Low subject knowledge of ministers and officials

4. Few restrictions on political party funding

5. Availability of patronage

6. An effective choice of two parties for government

7. A politicised judiciary

8. No direct or participative democracy

9. Weak checks and balances on government decisions, especially the lack of independent feedback

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With photography and news stories, it's hard not to view what one is seeing - as reality. And yet these stories and images are mostly taken out of context, and elements are suppressed and magnified, and if reality remains in the final image - it is distorted. Less of an issue when multiple perspectives colour in the true reality - but seriously problematic when interests are manipulating these distortions and their audiences for nefarious purposes.

Why and how does our view of reality get distorted through our media? Who benefits from all this? In this episode we pick over the presence and absence of major issues, who owns the media in the UK; the role of the press and how it might be fixed.

Talking points:

The main lies - our environmental predicament

News as entertainment

Truth and "balance"

The Fourth Estate myth

News ownership and political power

The friend-enemy distinction

Diversity of media, ownership and corporate governance

Constitutional court as arbiter

Noble role of journalism

Citizen scrutiny in East Lancing, Michigen

Links:

Many books on the news media as political institutions(article)

https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/fox-news-propaganda-eric-alterman//

Citizen scrutiny in East Lancing (article):

https://eastlansinginfo.news/about-eli/

“Seaspiracy” - documentary on confusion and malice in global fishing (Netflix, 1 hr)

https://www.netflix.com/title/81014008?s=i&trkid=13747225

Former US intelligence director backs Turnbull and Rudd’s call for Murdoch media inquiry (Guardian)

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/apr/21/former-us-intelligence-director-backs-turnbull-and-rudds-call-for-murdoch-media-inquiry?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Who owns the British media? (Wikipedia):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_media_in_the_United_Kingdom

Book recommendation:

Re psychology, and us all wanting to believe something other than what is, including the politicians stuck in a dysfunctional system:

Jackson, Jodie. 2019. You Are What You Read. London: Unbound.

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If you stopped, for even a second, to wonder what might increase trust in government, or any governance, you might start with Being Trustworthy. This week (mid April 2021)in the UK, a Welsh MP - Hywel Williams - referenced a bill put forward in 2007 by Plaid Cymru ("Plyed Kimri"), proposing to make lying by politicians illegal. He asked the Prime Minister, known for his extravagant attitude to the truth, whether he would support the principle behind the bill. The Prime Minister responded that he would “concur with the basic principle that he just enunciated”. Is that a yes? A no? An evasive circumlocution? An evasive circumlocution. Does it increase anyone's trust in the Prime Minister?

There was once a version of trust within government, a fabric of norms and tacit agreements which maintained a standard of behaviour but - crucially - wasn't encoded. Over the decades around the turn of the 21st century, this culture of trust has decayed to the point where, with the ascent of Boris Johnson to power, many MP's have fled the parliament at Westminster, whose culture is routinely described as toxic.

This week we discuss:

Feedback effects of lying, cultural depression

Corruption as waste - Ceaucescu and the orphanages, China and the pandemic

Cultures of lying - in corporations and politics

Sources of lying - politicians are required to make promises and defend performance

Blame vs. improvement (design authorities)

From failure - we learn

What have we elected people for?

Trust and learning - getting away from "good" and "bad"

Governing is a team sport - it's about teams, not glory

Hywell Williams and Boris Johnson

David Cameron's lobbying woes

Statutory duties would also protect government actors from risk

Decay of culture of trust within government

Rehearsal of some essential statutory duties

How would they be enforced?

...through intention, and through institutional enquiry - ultimately through judiciary and constitutional court

Need for clarity and strictness in corrective

Relating this and trust in government in countries with Proportional Representation

Analogy with company principles - eg Amazon

Links:

Great explication of Greensill affair with reference to inadequate rules (FT podcast, 30 mins)

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/paynes-politics/id975569919#episodeGuid=d040d631-8d89-4cbf-8b2a-17836e29ce2e

Hywell and Boris:

https://nation.cymru/news/boris-johnson-just-agreed-with-principle-that-politicians-must-not-lie/

Truth and untruth in ocean governance (Netflix - Seaspiracy 1:03 hrs):

https://www.netflix.com/watch/81014008?trackId=14277281&tctx=-97%2C-97%2C%2C%2C%2C

David Cameron and Greensill:

https://www.ft.com/content/ade87a61-b1e1-433a-a79f-25fc6b9a0aaf

Amazon's much-vaunted leadership principles:

https://www.aboutamazon.com/about-us/leadership-principles

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You might imagine that for all the debate at the heart of government, there might be some function to check up on the outcomes of these debates. And in some cases there is. In many, even in most cases - nothing. Maybe a profit and loss account to show value for money - but with regards to the actual purpose of all the laws and policies and programmes, answering the question of whether they have achieved their aims - there is no structure in place to make sure this happens, and so mostly they become atrophy and waste, pointlessly clogging up the system and pointlessly exhausting tax-payer's money.

Would a business survive these conditions?

In this episode we start with Montesquieu's idea of checks and balances behind the separation of powers, explore its reality in the UK's political system, and think about what effective feedback might mean for this system.

Talking points:

The Separation of powers from Montesquieu

The centralised nature of these powers and opportunities to respond

Systems Thinking, Cybernetics: responding to reality

The political class - unaccountable and uninformed

Wastage

Business as a model for government and its limits

Feedback on Social Purpose

Myths and perceived credibility about the centre

Broadband now and the 1984 privatisation of BT

Cybernetic feedback as non-political: Something just happens.

Law-making - spectacle vs value

Messianic transformation vs gradual improvement

Diversity of perspective, Design Authorities and purpose - safety, reliability and performance

Failure enquiries - no politics, no blaming and the origins in the Victorian rail system

...and the Global Financial Crisis

A mechanism to take feedback decisions out of politics

The contradiction at the heart of politics

Existing feedback institutions, their limits and potential

Abandonment powers for laws that don't work

The cost would be a fraction of the benefit

The building of a body of knowledge about specific circumstances

Links:

The god-like power of the feedback loop (1 hr BBC 4 film of Jim Al Khalili on The Secret Life of Chaos):

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xv1j0n

Mathematics, complex systems and small changes (5 minute clip from above):

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0060b2c

On the separation of powers: origins in Montesquieu and Aristotle:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_powers

In Our Time - Montesquieu (podcast - 50 mins)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b5qnfx

List of supreme audit institutions :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_audit_institution

UK’s National Audit Office:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Audit_Office_(United_Kingdom)

Reading List:

Schumpeter, Joseph (1976) Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, George Allen and Unwin

Drucker, Peter (Number 14, Winter 1969) The Sickness of Government, The Public Interest

Friedman, Mark (2005) Trying Hard Is Not Good Enough: How to Produce Measurable Improvements for Customers and Communities, Fiscal Policy Studies Institute

Straw, E. 2014. Stand & Deliver: A Design for Successful Government. London: Treaty for Government.

Fazey, I. Schäpke, N., Caniglia, G., Patterson, J., Hultman, J., Van Mierlo, B., Säwe F., et al. 2018. Ten essentials for action-oriented and second order energy transitions, transformations and climate change research. Energy Research & Social Science 40: 54–70.

Schwartz, D. 2017. The Last Man Who Knew Everything: The Life and Times of Enrico Fermi, Father of the Nuclear Age. New York: Basic Books.

Furubo, Jan-Eric and Nicoletta Stame, eds. 2018. The Evaluation Enterprise: A Critical View. Aldershot: Routledge.

Guilfoyle, Simon. 2016. Kittens Are Evil: Little Heresies in Public Policy. Axminster: Triarchy Press.

Nyhan, B. and J. Reif ler. 2018. The roles of information deficits and identity threat in the prevalence of misperceptions. Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties: 1–23.

Rosling, Hans with O.Rosling and A. Rosling Ronnlund. 2018. Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong about the World – And Why Things Are Better Than You Think. New York: Flatiron Books

Forss K, Marra, M., and Schwartz, R., eds. 2011. Evaluating the Complex: Attribution, Contribution and Beyond. Comparative Policy Evaluation, New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.

Extract 1:

PROGRESS is a radically different model of school accountability. It explores what might be learned from the history of Antidote – an organisation set up to foster more emotionally supportive school environments – to inform the development of such a model. It starts with pupil, staff, and parent surveys to describe their experience of the school, using the data that emerges to have conversations with each other to develop an explanation about what it means and a strategy for improvement. Every school should engage in this sort of process every year. League tables of public examination results are too blunt an instrument, and unlike the PROGRESS process do not stimulate solutions as well as highlight problems. Independent surveying and confidential reporting averts the syndrome of the untouchable but largely ineffective head teacher. All government agencies should find out how their stakeholders experience them and be held to account for responding to the findings. Board members would then have the judgment of the people and organisations they are there for and not airbrushed data from management in the annual review. - 22 Park, James. 2018. Turning the tide on ‘coercive autonomy’: Learning from the antidote story. Forum 60(3): 387–396. http: //doi .org/ 10.15 730/f orum. 2018. 60.3. 387.

Extract 2:

Rework was the term used in manufacturing for all the parts of an assembly not made to specification, which post quality control were then sent back for further machining to get right. The cost in time, money and organisational complexity was high. This was a bane of ‘old world’ engineering and led to the demise of much of the West’s manufacturing industry. Starting with the automotive industry, Japanese companies revolutionised the process with ‘zero defects’, ‘right first time’ and similarly purposeful intentions. Today, either a company’s manufacturing is world class or it’s not in business. These attitudinal changes, translated into practice, are at the heart of this book - Laing, T., Sato, M., Grubb, M., and Comberti, C. 2013. Assessing the Effectiveness of the EU Emissions Trading System. Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy Working Paper 126. London: Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.

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The gravitational pull of power to the centre is one of the things designers of the German constitution had in mind at the end of the Second World War.

Germany had a certain fundamental and rather paradoxical advantage the UK lacks - they were defeated, along with Japan, and so their institutions were largely dissolved and reinvented in such a way as to avoid the accretion of power at the centre.

This is a version of this week's topic - Subsidiarity - and we look at the German model in depth, and why it has been so successful.

Talking points:

Historic backdrop of Subsidiarity

We need to reinvent local democracy

Executive mayor in Tubingen and the pandemic

How that looks in other countries

Trust in government and optimal population (+/- 5 Million)

Advantages of principle of subsidiarity

Hazards of disempowerment

Uniform regulation and local implementation in Germany

Ashby's Law of Requisite Variety and subsidiarity

...and child protection

Regional power, policy experimentation and learning

Links:

Good 2 min overview of Subsidiarity (youtube):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GD0moAiq22k

Troves of info on Wikipedia:

Subsidiarity in general:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidiarity

...and the Catholic Church:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidiarity_(Catholicism)

Pope Pius XI's Quadragesimo anno:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadragesimo_anno

Great conversation on Local Government in the UK (youtube, 10 min):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RO8c1Iy1VWE

Successes in the fight against Covid - (Panorama/ BBC iplayer):

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000thry/panorama-covid-who-got-it-right

(Story about Tubingen 42:00 minutes in)

A new kind of democracy in Yorkshire (article):

https://www.shaping-community.co.uk

In depth archive on German law:

https://germanlawarchive.iuscomp.org/?p=380

...and a top-line view on Wikipedia:

https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_government_in_Germany

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How are decisions made? If we cast our minds back, not just to Priti Patel's "Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts" Bill, but to numerous policies including Grenfell Tower fire cladding and the Poll Tax - we see a pattern: Decide, Announce, Defend - or DAD. And the result is, in many, many cases, a mess.

Why so? Or, more to the point - is there a better way? 

Very much so, there is a better way - and in this episode we explore deliberative democracy on a national level in Canada and Ireland, as well as on a local level in Somerset, England.

Talking points:

Decide Announce Defend in the prevailing culture

Thought - or the lack of it - at the centre

Continual reform as an outcome and reality

"Democracy" in the UK electoral cycle

Who's decision is it?

Dysfunction in centralised decision-making in the Blair government:

(Progress and regress in family breakdown)

Levels of deliberative democracy: Engage, Deliberate, Decide

...in the health service in Canada

...under austerity in a Somerset library UK

...in a village in Wales

James Fishkin: better outcomes of deliberative democracy

Social purpose, and the "Blue zones"

Principles on why it works

...Fintan O'Toole (Irish Abortion Referendum)

...Professor Julia Lynch (politics of inequality)

Links:

From DAD to EDD - The Tinmouth Tiff (Article):

 https://www.edstraw.com/new-public-service-management-from-dad-to-edd/See 

The Hidden Power Episode 1, (Podcast - Go to 34'40"):

https://www.edstraw.com/the-hidden-power-podcast-ep-1-where-is-the-power/

Priti Patel and the Police, Crime Sentencing and Courts Bill

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police,_Crime

James Fishkin, Godfather of Deliberative Democracy (Wikipedia):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_S._Fishkin

Fintan O'Toole on the successes of the Irish Abortion Referendum (The Guardian):

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/may/29/brexit-ireland-referendum-experiment-trusting-people

Professor Julia Lynch at the LSE (Facebook video):

https://www.facebook.com/lseps/videos/1008977266175627

Stein Ringen gives a 10-min animated précis on his book The Economic Consequences of Mr Brown (Youtube), a stinging rebuke of the system of government in the UK:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHcfNy1_zqA

Overview of participatory democracy (webinar (1hr+), text)

https://www.publicdeliberation.net/the-contours-of-participatory-democracy-in-the-21st-century/

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Well they may appear to be - but they're not, really, in the UK. Boris Johnson's government took power with less than one third of the electorate. So two-thirds of voters would have preferred not to have the Conservatives in power. But this is nothing in comparison to the take-over of the Conservative party by a group who are in many ways extremists, who slipped in under the banner of Getting Brexit Done. So very far from being representative of electorate, the system we have has resulted in a wealthy, powerful and power-hungry minority taking control.

In this episode we trace the destructive effects of our system of First Past The Post, and explore some systems of Proportional Representation, and the benefits they bring.

Talking points:

Democracy and Subsidiarity in the context of Biosphere and People, as sub-series of this podcast

The current set-up in the UK: First Past the Post as a distortion field

Destructive effects of First Past The Post

Who does it serve?

Politics is an accumulator: hinterland of previous laws

Vulnerability to media manipulation: Rupert Murdoch

Preferential lobbying: the need for limited and proportional party funding

Proportional representation

Why the political extremes should be included

Varieties of proportional representation - Party List, Additional Member, Single Transferable Vote

Electoral boundaries, gerrymandering and the need for extra-governmental boundary setting

Analogy with voter registration

Benefits of proportional representation - fairness, diversity, consensus

Analysis of dysfunction in Italian politics as a counter-example

Positive effects of Proportional Representation in Switzerland

Links:

Why do Italy’s governments keep collapsing? BBC Inquiry Podcast:

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-inquiry/id932499233?i=1000513494631

A case in point: the food critic behind Italy's deadliest terrorist attack - Times Stories Of Our Times Podcast:

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/stories-of-our-times/id1501716010

More and Less Represented: James Meek (2019) in the LRB on Leavers and Remainers:

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v41/n20/james-meek/the-dreamings-of-dominic-cummings

Electoral Reform Society on varieties of election system:

https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/voting-systems/types-of-voting-system/

Make Votes Matter on 3 types of Proportional Representation:

https://www.makevotesmatter.org.uk/proportional-representation

Get proportional representation working in the UK:

https://www.makevotesmatter.org.uk/join-the-movement

Ed's recent 4-part series of articles on Preferential Lobbying:

1

https://johnmenadue.com/preferential-lobbying-the-rich-get-richer-the-poor-get-poorer-part-1-of-4/

2

https://johnmenadue.com/preferential-lobbying-money-talks-loudly-part-2-of-4/

3

https://johnmenadue.com/preferential-lobbying-no-explicit-deals-all-unstated-understandings-how-it-works-behind-the-scenes-part-3-of-4/

4

https://johnmenadue.com/preferential-lobbying-a-scourge-on-our-democracy-part-4-of-4/

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Is this about property, or value generation? These simplifications mask the vastness and complexity of human life, and in this episode we explore where common ownership might be effective, and what it takes to make it work.

List of Talking Points:

What is the commons?

The Tragedy of the Commons

...as it relates to the Biosphere

Enclosure

...and the commodification of the individual

...and monopolies

...and rent paying

Types of commons

Eleanor Ostrom's design principles

...examples around the world

Other commons to consider: air, open source software, drugs

Commons forms as generating more value

local park problem traced to governance and taxation model

...and federalism regarding cities etc

Commons as a means of citizen engagement

Local action linked to wider system can bring about political progress

Evolved definition of Commons: resource + community + set of social protocols

Extra-monetary value derived from commons

...vs consumerism

Commons thinking and global resource conflicts

Thinking forward to the next set of episodes: Democracy and Subsidiarity

Links:

Commons Wikipedia article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commons

Enclosure Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure

Tragedy of the Commons on Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

Eleanor Ostrom's design principles - wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elinor_Ostrom#Design_principles_for_Common_Pool_Resource_(CPR)_institution

...youtube (2 parts)

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEcMLEwaltc

plus https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTQPy9tC5WE

Great David Boiller exploration of commons enhancing city life:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3itmhDuem8 

3000 year old Persian Qanats and Kariz on Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_water_sources_of_Persian_antiquity#Qanat_and_Kariz

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Rather than restate what we have been hearing, our focus here is on the logic of diversity from a governance standpoint - why blind-spots are self-destructive and the embrace of diversity is so enriching.

Talking points:

• Pluralism and truth
• Neoliberalism and consumerist monocultures
• Roots of logic of diversity in need for resilience
• Tribal societies and settled societies
• Diversity of capitalist model - Co-ops and Quakers
• Global monetary system as de facto governor
• Unity in diversity - not liking someone is less important than burning to death
• It's a value - the richness of pluralist societies
• Leadership, certainty and diversity of perspectives
• Humility: disconfirmation of beliefs as the root of all wisdom
• Diversity in forms of feedback (language, media etc - vs truth as such)
• Monoculture in Chinese politics centred on fear of the leader = pandemic
• ...and culture of target-setting
• Liberty, Equality, Fraternity - and Swiss National Service
• ...as a way of escaping our media bubbles
• ...and developing network of consensus on eg. climate action
• Listening to people you don't like

Pluralism as a political philosophy

• on wikipedia

Ibn Khaldun - Berbers and the Maghreb (14th C! Not 10th;)

• on wikipedia
• In Our Time Episode

Successful prison experiment in Norway

• Bastøy Prison

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Just because we don't live in a perfect world doesn't mean we can't improve things. If events surrounding the death of Ruth Bader Gainsburg in September 2020 left you despairing at the US Supreme Court, perhaps the Supreme Court of the UK's blocking of Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings' attempted prorogation of parliament gave you hope.

However a constitutional court is concerned with interpretation of the constitution into law, not law as such. And as such, it requires a degree of specialism.

Talking points -

• It sits above the system of government
• The tragedy of Sally Clark, ignorance in power
• The need for people who understand
• How is law made? vs How does government work?
• Diversity of perspective
• Eg - Germany, data and social media
• What emerges when the constitutional court works
• Eg - South Africa escapes dictatorship
• US Constitution and separation of powers
• Citizen coalition
• Gentlemens' agreements and culture of trust
• Neoliberalism and culture of exploitation
• Loss of ethics across society
• Trapped in absurd global monetary system
• Delusions in the arena of power
• The value of rules and referees

1 in 73 Million - tragic ignorance and Sally Clark

Not for the feint hearted - but if you want an epic survey of how our reality is constructed and why, have a look at Adam Curtis' series Can't Get You Out Of My Head

Republic of South Africa - Court Youtube Channel

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In this episode we delve into how it has emerged as a principle that requires clear articulation, what difference it makes and where we see versions of it in action.

Talking points:

• the rule of law replaces the rule of violence
• is an agreement as to how to live
• autocracies emerge where constitutions are inadequate
• need for independence in judiciary
• tension with business - eg with data
• international aspect a necessary element
• re. the biosphere
• Ireland, 13th C Wales, South Africa
• adversarial vs inquisitorial justice
• truth as therapeutic
• law as empowering
• law and norms

Great Wikipedia article on the subject:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_law

Stanford SU discussion on rule of law in Hayek:

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rule-of-law/#Haye

The late Lord Bingham, who posthumously won the Orwell Prize for literature with his book The Rule of Law, speaks at the RSA in 2010:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlMCCGD2TeM

No busted pluggers - Aussies make it easy to follow:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0R20U9zkMmg

French TV series, Spiral, on BBC:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0072wk9

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Sovereignty - we've heard a lot in the UK about both sovereignty, and "taking back control" - but this taking back of control in the context of leaving the EU has so far barely extended to us as citizens. Why and how is the current UK system so paternalistic? What are the roots of the widespread and long-standing political apathy in the UK? What alternative models can we look to for inspiration?

In this episode we examine how the UK's First Past The Post system creates, not least in Boris Johnson, but also Tony Blair and Margaret Thatcher, rulers that are effectively sovereign monarchs, and a citizenry of disempowered subject-consumers. And we explore what it would take for us to assert our sovereignty more effectively.

Talking points:

• The planet is ideally sovereign, but to be practical it's people who are doing the doing
• Who actually exercises power in the UK?
• Centralisation leads to bureaucracy leads to powerlessness
• The Welfare System as a case in point
• Think Tanks vs. Thinking Tanks
• People are perfectly capable, regardless of background
• Switzerland's consensual democracy as exemplar
• Fragmentation of the UK as an opportunity for this
• Hangover of Empire in the current administration
• Challenges to active participation
• Leadership model in Amazon
• Scientific Method, falsification and Karl Popper

Bonus Links:

Sovereignty boffin and Brexit campaigner Claire Fox celebrates the engaging effect that the UK's leaving the EU has had on democratic participation in the UK, and that this is only the beginning - neatly illustrating that for some, Brexit is a gift that keeps on giving, even if for others it is a night - long, dark, damp, and cold - with no promise of morning. Brrr.

Pioneering paediatrician and psychotherapist of family systems D.W. Winnicott's 1949 essay exploring the question of maturity in individuals and society, strongly anticipating themes of systems thinking.

From the In Our Time History Archive - now pieces of history in themselves:

Long history of psychoanalysis and democracy (2002)

Thoughts on the Nation State (1999) - prescient and rather Brexity in retrospect.

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The first and fundamental principle of this series - and indeed this entire way of looking at things - reflects the unseen, creeping processes causing catastrophic climate change. Why do we need this? How are we to think about it? What can we do?

Talking points:

1. industrialisation
2. limits on human behaviour
3. secondary effects of climate change
4. our personal relationship to the biosphere
5. self-harm as an image for how we treat our environment
6. the future generations act in Wales
7. boundaries
8. constitutions filter through to all activities
9. responsibility at different levels
10. what people with higher incomes can do
11. focus on where you live

There are so many links relating to this topic, it's hard to know where to start - but to get a global view on an array of challenges on the horizon, it's hard to beat Earthtime, an open source mapping project which allows you to view other people's stories, or play around with available data yourself:

https://earthtime.org/#

New economic model: https://time.com/5930093/amsterdam-doughnut-economics/

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In this nice, concise episode we revisit and draw some of the connections from series one - governance, systems thinking - and explore how, through this medium of a constitution, or "preflight checklist," as we frame it, we can alleviate some of of the pressures we face, and enhance the joys of the apparently unique paradise we find ourselves living on.

Listeners have expressed how much they enjoyed series 1, but still were not clear about what we mean when we talk about systems thinking - so we also try to frame this complex but powerful subject in simple terms.

Any questions or comments? Please email us at thehiddenpowerpodcast@gmail.com

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Dominic Cummings has been seen as a controversial and divisive figure, but as with so many people at the political extremes, significant parts of his analysis can be agreed upon by disparate factions across the political spectrum.

In this special episode we unpick the good and the less good from this lauded and demonised character, assess the reality he found himself confronted with and also assess where he went wrong. His intent to improve significantly the capacity of central government to produce meaningful change throughout Britain has been felt by many past radicals in and around no 10.

And we have the unexpected good fortune to have a co-presenter - Ed Straw - who has been deeply involved in an attempt to achieve the same aims as Dominic Cummings - civil service reform. And who can spell out in clear terms why, regardless of his wit, intelligence and muscle, he was never going to succeed in reforming the government machine.

Why does the Civil Service need reform? What might be the best way to achieve it? Why was Cummings’ attempt more on less doomed from the outset? Indeed, why have all 5 attempts, over 5 decades, at civil service reform - failed? Is this a symptom of something else?

Find out in this hastily assembled episode, dense with anecdote, comparison and analysis.

Links:

The actual control room - Chile 1973: “Cybersyn", no doubt an inspiration for James Bond films.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Cybersyn

Stafford Beer “The Godfather of systems thinking”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stafford_Beer

Salvador Allende, Communist president of Chile

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidency_of_Salvador_Allende

Article by Ed as accompaniment to this podcast

https://www.edstraw.com/four-lessons-of-civil-service-reform/

The Economist is on side:

https://www.economist.com/leaders/2020/11/19/remaking-the-british-state

Ed’s 2004 report, adopted by Tony Blair - The Dead Generalist:

https://www.demos.co.uk/files/TheDeadGeneralist.pdf

Peter Hennessy, leading constitutional historian

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Hennessy

The Thick of It - Available on Netflix, or here are some "deleted scenes”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=im_KryFuPeg

Yes Prime Minister - also on Netflix, I think - On The State of Education:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeF_o1Ss1NQ

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First we look at the globally used post-crash analysis as a model for investigating governance - "It's important that they are not looking to blame someone," Ed says.

Then we get onto Ed's Preflight checklist - essentially a renewal of our global social contracts, or constitutions, as they are known, that would take into account the conditions necessary for our survival.

Finally we hear from Gerald Midgley, philosopher on human systems and founding father of systems thinking as an intentional discipline, spelling out with some excitement the impact of what in many respects has been his life's work.

Gerald Midgley:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Midgley

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_systems_thinking

Ed’s preflight checklist for planet Earth:

https://www.edstraw.com/principles-for-systemic-governing/

Eileen Munro (Episode 2 Contributor) advocating post crash analysis model to address culture of blame in child protection:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/nov/03/serious-case-review-child-protection

On checklists - great article overall, if you want to cut straight to flying fortress story go about 1/4 of the way in, paragraph opening “On October 30, 1935, at Wright Air Field in Dayton, Ohio…” https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/12/10/the-checklist

On October 30, 1935, at Wright Air Field in Dayton, Ohio, the U.S. Army Air Corps held a flight competition for airplane manufacturers vying to build its next-generation long-range bomber. It wasn’t supposed to be much of a competition. In early evaluations, the Boeing Corporation’s gleaming aluminum-alloy Model 299 had trounced the designs of Martin and Douglas. Boeing’s plane could carry five times as many bombs as the Army had requested; it could fly faster than previous bombers, and almost twice as far. A Seattle newspaperman who had glimpsed the plane called it the “flying fortress,” and the name stuck. The flight “competition,” according to the military historian Phillip Meilinger, was regarded as a mere formality. The Army planned to order at least sixty-five of the aircraft.

On the Psychology of Military Incompetence

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Psychology_of_Military_Incompetence

9 Lessons from the Blue Zones:

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/06/changing-the-way-america-eats-moves-and-connects-one-town-at-a-time/

Thoughts on Purpose:

Listen to Why Cornel West is hopeful (but not optimistic) from Future Perfect on Apple Podcasts. https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/future-perfect/id1438157174?i=1000486452652

Welcome to the Anthropocene: 

https://vimeo.com/anthropocene/shortfilm

Perspective, via some very interesting maps:

https://earthtime.org

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Themed on this question of power, our discussion looks at what power is, really, when it comes to the granular detail.

Talking Points

- Connecting knowing and doing

- The end-state fallacy, manifestos and political experiments

- Politics as a rash

- From where does innovation in schools come?

Dr. Piret Tōnurist at the OECD’s Observatory for Public Sector Innovation:

https://oecd-opsi.org/about-observatory-of-public-sector-innovation/

Articles:

https://oecd-opsi.org/author/piret/

…at TalTach:

https://old.taltech.ee/institutes/ragnar-nurkse-department-of-innovation-and-governance/department-11/academic-staff-5/piret-tonurist-3/

“Wicked” Problems:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicked_problem

End-state fallacy:

https://www.csis.org/analysis/end-state-fallacy-setting-wrong-goals-war-fighting

Toxteth Housing project: Welsh Streets, Liverpool:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welsh_Streets,_Liverpool

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In our discussion Ed and I pick up on the de-globalisation of the internet, the digital divide and on surveillance capitalism - and while it turns out these problems are not new, the perennial importance of Truth to our Age of Enlightenment once again comes to the fore.

Talking points:

• Weaknesses in our systems of governing are at the root of the souring of social media. 
• Constitutions can and must have provisions to ensure governments, politicians and citizens deal in reality. 
• The basics would be - independent feedback, deliberative democracy and measures to minimise the culture of lies and inflamation. 

Most of our main challenges are bewilderingly complex, and they will never be solved through adversarial two-line posts. But they might well be mitigated by inclusive, deliberative conversations.

John Naughton:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Naughton

John Naughton in the Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/series/networker

Article we were discussing:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jun/13/silicon-valley-has-admitted-facial-recognition-technology-is-toxic-about-time

Google’s dominance in search, as a graph that is well worth a view:

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/this-chart-reveals-googles-true-dominance-over-the-web/

Tech and truth - mainstream media turns out to be the biggest amplifier of White House disinformation:

https://www-technologyreview-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.technologyreview.com/2020/10/07/1009642/mainstream-media-is-the-biggest-amplifier-of-white-house-disinformation/amp/

These problems are not new (1984 interview):

https://billmoyers.com/content/30-second-president/

BILL MOYERS: What I see and hear deals more with the emotions than what I read.

TONY SCHWARTZ: That’s right. We are in the business of using PR in a new manner, not in the old print terms of press relations. We are using PR as people’s reactions, personal retrieval of your feelings and associations. PR — people’s recall, of their experiences. PR — planning reactions. That’s our whole new business. It’s a PR business, planning reactions.

BILL MOYERS: But isn’t it manipulating people to in effect tell them what they’re feeling instead of telling them what they need to know to vote?

TONY SCHWARTZ: I use the word not manipulation, I say partipulation.

BILL MOYERS: Partipulation?

TONY SCHWARTZ: You have to participate in your own manipulation. In that, you’re bringing things to your manipulation. If you don’t want to participate in it, you could turn off the commercial. You could tune it out. But there are things that get into you. And that’s the participation.

The global network of local internets is a step closer:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-53686390

Podcast - Facial recognition and racial profiling - cautionary tale:

 https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-daily/id1200361736?i=1000486946788

A spelling out of the substance and scope of surveillance capitalism (Alexander Nix/Cambridge Analytica):

https://youtu.be/n8Dd5aVXLCc

Google in China article (MIT):

https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/12/19/138307/how-google-took-on-china-and-lost/

China’s AI Surveillance State goes global:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/09/china-ai-surveillance/614197/

Podcast - More on Cyberspace and Governance - Preet Bharara (NY state prosecutor dismissed by Donald Trump after refusing to resign) talks to John Carlin, the US Justice Department’s former head of the National Security Division:

https://omny.fm/shows/stay-tuned-with-preet/introducing-cyber-space-with-john-carlin

The world is awash with bullshit:

https://www.callingbullshit.org/?utm_content=bufferfcd66&utm_medium=social&utm_source=linkedin.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Film - The Social Dilemma:

https://www.thesocialdilemma.com

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Social_Dilemma

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In this episode he talks about these challenges, and how this ‘action enquiry' model has allowed them to ask bigger, harder questions, or as he says "to navigate the uncertainty, to reveal what there is to be revealed, to adapt strategies - to connect new things together" - and, crucially, to create a community of fellow enquirers. Improvement flows from the enquiry: to learn is to change.

As Ed points out in our discussion, we all have the opportunity, when the system of governance isn’t working for us, to set up alternatives. 

"These institutions are essentially inventions of the mind," he says, "and they always need to be refreshed... deconstructed, and reconstructed."

About Julian Corner:

https://lankellychase.org.uk/person/julian-corner/

First person view of what “complex problems” actually amounts to - George the Poet - episode 1 is pretty inspiring, also the episode on the Grenfell Tower tragedy:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07mk7cx

Robert (Not John!) Peel’s Principles - No. 7: 

“To maintain at all times a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and that the public are the police, the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.”

Full article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peelian_principles#Sir_Robert_Peel's_principlesNa

General discussion of national service:

https://www.europeanceo.com/finance/redrafting-national-service-policy/

Reintroduction of national service in France:

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/06/france-is-bringing-back-national-service/

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In this episode, she reflects on the successes - and revealing failures - of her review into child protection. Eileen covers a lot of ground in a short space of time. It is fascinating.

Talking points:

• Centralised processes can't protect children, and this centralisation is an unavoidable consequence of the current state of governance
• How child protection can work much better, when the system is re-aligned to its purpose
• Key role of feedback, service sampling, education, and the news media.

In our commentary Ed and I pick up on these and other points, specifically the governmental conditions that allowed for success, and especially: leaders believing they have grasped the systemic nature of necessary change, when in reality they haven’t. What to do? Find out in this concentrated and stimulating episode.

The Munro Review into Child Protection:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/175391/Munro-Review.pdf

Eileen Munro:

LSE

https://www.lse.ac.uk/social-policy/people/Emeritus-Visiting/Professor-Eileen-Munro

The Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/profile/eileen-munro

Detail on what child protection actually entails (podcast)

(listener alert - not for the feint-hearted):

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07ffxtr

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We talk about his journey from being an engineering graduate to consulting at the heart of Westminster, how he encountered power and the confusion surrounding it. 

Then we get into his current thinking - he’s now a research fellow at the Open University’s Applied Systems Thinking in Practice Group, and has found in Systems Thinking many effective responses to issues that have plagued governments down the decades.

Ed Straw:

http://www.edstraw.com/about/

The (full podcast!) story of General Motors' collaboration with Toyota is a great rehearsal of how systemic change can work, and the relevant challenges:

https://www.thisamericanlife.org/561/nummi-2015

W. Edwards Demming, genius behind Japanese revolution in manufacturing:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming

and that revolution:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1993/12/23/japans-secret-w-edwards-deming/b69b8c00-4c5d-483a-b95e-4aeb1d94d2c6/

Relevance of Drawing the Boundary to Systems Thinking:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boundary_critique

The Compassionate Frome Project:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/21/town-cure-illness-community-frome-somerset-isolation

DAD and EDD:

http://www.edstraw.com/new-public-service-management-from-dad-to-edd/

Ed's story, told in more length and depth on Survival of the Kindest:

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/ed-straw-looking-at-it-in-the-round/id1525026504?i=1000489658805

Real world example in Australia:

https://johnmenadue.com/cock-ups-conspiracies-or-system-failures/

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We live in confusing times - and a lot of that confusion is about where power lies. With Ed Straw, former chair of Demos and consultant to government, & Philip Tottenham.

In 2017 the UN, the WHO and the OECD all called for the use of Systems Thinking to deal with highly complex problems. But what does that mean?

In Series 1 "Proof of Concept" we explore power - power in terms traditional ideas about it, and in terms of beneficial impact on the ground - and hear from people thinking and operating at the leading edge of where beneficial impact is taking place.

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