"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
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.
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
Check 23 - Companies - The Circularity
Season 2 · Episode 24
Saturday, October 9, 2021 • Duration 24:22
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?
Check 22 - Companies - Purpose
Season 2 · Episode 23
Saturday, October 2, 2021 • Duration 27:34
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
Special Episode - September 2021 - Autumnal Thinking
Saturday, September 25, 2021 • Duration 41:50
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.
Thought for the Summer
Saturday, July 24, 2021 • Duration 01:54
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.
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
Check 20 - Governments - Vetting
Season 2 · Episode 21
Saturday, July 10, 2021 • Duration 43:07
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
Check 19 - Governments - Systems Thinking
Season 2 · Episode 20
Saturday, July 3, 2021 • Duration 36:40
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
W. Edwards Deming: "Deming's teachings and philosophy are clearly illustrated by examining the results they produced after they were adopted by Japanese industry:"
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:"
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.
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.
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:
"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:
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."
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."
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
'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.’
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.
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