The Hidden Power

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; 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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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:

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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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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