Episodes
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"There's a class war alright," chirruped Investor Warren Buffet recently, "But it's our class making war on yours. And we're winning."
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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In this special edition of The Hidden Power podcast for Democratic Yorkshire, Philip Tottenham talks with Ed Straw, and Professor Malcolm Prowle on the subject of the day and panacea England's ills - Regionalisation.
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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Missing episodes?
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Philosophy, famously, will not get the washing up done. And it will not fix the crises of climate and biodiversity. So what can I do? An individual amongst Billions?
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 [email protected] 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
Ed @EdAStraw
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It is no secret that the various tribes and bubbles of our world have wildly differing beliefs about things. Why can't people just accept the truth? But the truth is so contentious. And framing is so contentious. And all these people seem to have the most outlandish superstitions.
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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The late Ken Robinson, in one of his TED talks, tells the story of a child who was drawing with wild strokes. The teacher asked - What are you drawing? And the child replied "God". The teacher said, "But nobody knows what God looks like." And the child said, "Well. They will in a minute." Badum Tshhhh.
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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What are we talking about, when we talk about God? There's no doubt that something has been lost with the pervasive decline of religion in the modern world. Society is fractured. We lack a shared framework. We're tired of trying to work everything out. It's easier just to avoid thinking at all.
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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We left off at the end of the last episode wondering what might make the Biosphere a compelling object for our attention; this in the context of the all-too-human reality of our challenges - the tragedy of the commons, the addiction system, the psychological imperative of avoidance.
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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When we finished series 2 - Preflight Checklist - one thing was clear, any governance for Spaceship Earth going forward must put the Biosphere at the centre. Governance models from households, up through companies and countries, to international bodies must include the Biosphere as their central partner.
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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26. In transitioning from polluting to non-polluting activities, communities and companies shall be supported fairly.
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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25. Systemic inquiry shall accompany investment commitments in the technosphere; thereafter, end-to-end producer responsibility applies.
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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24. Company duty to inform: For each product or service, consumers shall be informed of the biosphere and human impact of its sourcing, manufacture, distribution, and post-use treatment.
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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End-to-end producer responsibility: Producers are responsible for all impacts of their activities and products, from raw material extraction to product recycling/disposal.
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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Companies shall act in the interests of people, and the biosphere.
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; andA 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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The start of a new season is a good time to take stock, and as we look forward to the next series, on companies, we reflect on where we are now, nearly a year after the launch of The Hidden Power Podcast, on October 11th, 2020.
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're off for the Summer! But - I found a great quote on the great _nitch instagram this morning, by the writer James Baldwin, who seems to be almost uniquely articulate when it comes to things that really matter. So I thought I'd read it out.
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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Check 21 - Governments - Tax: Too much is never enough
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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Technocratic democracy: Government designs for action shall be disciplined through their vetting.
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:
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.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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Beneficial change most often results from working with the affected population through the medium of STiP.
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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Designs for action shall be put into practice in the knowledge and positive acceptance that feedback may result in their amendment.
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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Recognise that most ‘decisions’ by government are political experiments.
...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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