The Hidden Power

The purpose of government is to produce beneficial change

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

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

Talking points:

It's not as simple as it looks

Hobbs and the pessimistic view

How do we fit into this?

Orchestrating change

Needs and myths of leadership

Clarity, purpose and mud

Beneficial change

Without purpose, there are various phenomena that present themselves

Privileging rules over purpose

What the purpose becomes in the absence purpose

Publicity, personal power, ideology, peers groups

Maturity and government

Breaking the inheritance

It worked for Germany and Japan post WWII

Cybernetic governance

Modelling beneficial change

Links:

Sasha Swire - British government is amateur (Guardian review)

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

Robert Cialdini - Influence

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

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Governments shall serve democracy, and be effective, stable, adaptable, accountable, and open.

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

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

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

Talking points:

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

Subsidiarity: we determine government, and can demand change

Change is possible

Our neoliberal predicament and the degradation of governmental culture

Step away from the system and start with purpose

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

What is the point of Welsh independence? An ongoing discussion

Deep Dive into Dentistry as a case study for Systemic Enquiry

Also - Ken Livingstone and the GLA

Also - a welfare system

Systemic Enquiry and Palestine?

Developing an environmental consciousness

And how behaviour relates to forms of governance

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Eliminate institutionalised bribery: No one shall benefit financially or electorally, directly or indirectly, now or later, from a decision in which they are involved or have influenced.

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

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

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

Talking points:

Drawing of boundaries, separation of powers and separation of people

Voter ID intervention

How is bribery institutionalised?

If one player cheats, the others lose interest

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

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

Spelling out neoliberalism

Job security and insecurity in politics

Types of institutionalised bribery:

• Civil service, MP pensions: stasis and unfairness

• Compensation committees and their incentives

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

Effects of bribery and benefits of using this principle

Where do we see models of this?

The global problem.

The Treaty of Watangi (New Zealand)

Links:

Cui Bono (wikipedia):

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

The Treaty of Waitangi:

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

...and its principles:

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

Fintan O'Toole:

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

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We each have a duty to think before we speak.

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

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

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

Talking points:

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

Context in challenges to environment, democracy and truth

Speech after WW2, individualism, where we are now

Simplistic thinking and authoritarian speech

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

Andrew Mitchell on what we are really doing with language

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

Right or wrong? The pleasures of being wrong

Mental Models

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

Links:

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

https://youtu.be/ZeIHi3KR_-Q

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

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

a16z podcast on moderating discussions (1hr)

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

Haim Ginott (Wikipedia)

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

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

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

Jung (Wikipedia)

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

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Why should we care about political lobbying? Isn't business all about making connections? What's the problem?

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

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

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

Talking points:

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

Strategic lying

Lobbying in the time of Blair

Civil servants and ministers are not equipped to understand

Ed's report on the civil service got squashed

The problem with reform

"Superficial civil servants and daft academics"

Private meetings and address books

Legitimate lobbying and grey areas

The capability to employ professional lobbyists

Secrecy is a central part of the problem

Broadband as a case in point

Preferential lobbying has emerged as a central theme

...as a common root cause

Post master controversy as a case study

Appearance and reality in democracy

pros and cons of industry experts

Transparency

Visionary leadership vs. the reality of financial markets

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

A capitalist ideal vs. rent seeking

Ethics and pragmatism

Feedback

Big pharma stamps out Teatree oil

Multiply that hundreds and thousands of times

viable systems method - how these conditions were identified

Problem - Analysis - Policy - Approval - Implementation - Solution

But policy making is fundamentally experimental

The need to build in redundancies

9 conditions necessary for preferential lobbying

Changing the constitution is the necessary condition of stopping preferential lobbying

Good lobbying is about making your case in pubic

The Finance Curse

Links:

Polly Toynbee on the 2014 Lobbying act:

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

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

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

Strategic lying (The Conversation - article)

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

Chart of the Ascent of Everest (diagram/ infographic)

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

Book recommendation:

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

The 9 key conditions that facilitate preferential lobbying:

1. Preferential access to decision makers

2. Government decisions made in private

3. Low subject knowledge of ministers and officials

4. Few restrictions on political party funding

5. Availability of patronage

6. An effective choice of two parties for government

7. A politicised judiciary

8. No direct or participative democracy

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

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The first statutory duty of straight speak for politicians and officials shall apply also to the media.

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

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

Talking points:

The main lies - our environmental predicament

News as entertainment

Truth and "balance"

The Fourth Estate myth

News ownership and political power

The friend-enemy distinction

Diversity of media, ownership and corporate governance

Constitutional court as arbiter

Noble role of journalism

Citizen scrutiny in East Lancing, Michigen

Links:

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

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

Citizen scrutiny in East Lancing (article):

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

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

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

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

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

Who owns the British media? (Wikipedia):

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

Book recommendation:

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

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

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Statutory duties for the behaviour of politicians and officials at work, including the duty of straight speak, shall be set.

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

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

This week we discuss:

Feedback effects of lying, cultural depression

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

Cultures of lying - in corporations and politics

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

Blame vs. improvement (design authorities)

From failure - we learn

What have we elected people for?

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

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

Hywell Williams and Boris Johnson

David Cameron's lobbying woes

Statutory duties would also protect government actors from risk

Decay of culture of trust within government

Rehearsal of some essential statutory duties

How would they be enforced?

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

Need for clarity and strictness in corrective

Relating this and trust in government in countries with Proportional Representation

Analogy with company principles - eg Amazon

Links:

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

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

Hywell and Boris:

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

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

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

David Cameron and Greensill:

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

Amazon's much-vaunted leadership principles:

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

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"A fourth separation of powers shall be incorporated in every system of government for the independent feedback of results through a Resulture or Feedback Branch of Government."

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

Would a business survive these conditions?

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

Talking points:

The Separation of powers from Montesquieu

The centralised nature of these powers and opportunities to respond

Systems Thinking, Cybernetics: responding to reality

The political class - unaccountable and uninformed

Wastage

Business as a model for government and its limits

Feedback on Social Purpose

Myths and perceived credibility about the centre

Broadband now and the 1984 privatisation of BT

Cybernetic feedback as non-political: Something just happens.

Law-making - spectacle vs value

Messianic transformation vs gradual improvement

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

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

...and the Global Financial Crisis

A mechanism to take feedback decisions out of politics

The contradiction at the heart of politics

Existing feedback institutions, their limits and potential

Abandonment powers for laws that don't work

The cost would be a fraction of the benefit

The building of a body of knowledge about specific circumstances

Links:

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

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

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

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

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

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

In Our Time - Montesquieu (podcast - 50 mins)

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

List of supreme audit institutions :

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

UK’s National Audit Office:

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

Reading List:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Extract 1:

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

Extract 2:

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

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Central government only undertakes tasks or makes decisions which localities cannot or which require uniform regulation.

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

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

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

Talking points:

Historic backdrop of Subsidiarity

We need to reinvent local democracy

Executive mayor in Tubingen and the pandemic

How that looks in other countries

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

Advantages of principle of subsidiarity

Hazards of disempowerment

Uniform regulation and local implementation in Germany

Ashby's Law of Requisite Variety and subsidiarity

...and child protection

Regional power, policy experimentation and learning

Links:

Good 2 min overview of Subsidiarity (youtube):

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

Troves of info on Wikipedia:

Subsidiarity in general:

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

...and the Catholic Church:

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

Pope Pius XI's Quadragesimo anno:

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

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

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

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

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

(Story about Tubingen 42:00 minutes in)

A new kind of democracy in Yorkshire (article):

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

In depth archive on German law:

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

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

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

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A right to deliberative referenda shall exist; specific issues shall be resolved through Engage–Deliberate–Decide.

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

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

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

Talking points:

Decide Announce Defend in the prevailing culture

Thought - or the lack of it - at the centre

Continual reform as an outcome and reality

"Democracy" in the UK electoral cycle

Who's decision is it?

Dysfunction in centralised decision-making in the Blair government:

(Progress and regress in family breakdown)

Levels of deliberative democracy: Engage, Deliberate, Decide

...in the health service in Canada

...under austerity in a Somerset library UK

...in a village in Wales

James Fishkin: better outcomes of deliberative democracy

Social purpose, and the "Blue zones"

Principles on why it works

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

...Professor Julia Lynch (politics of inequality)

Links:

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

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

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

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

Priti Patel and the Police, Crime Sentencing and Courts Bill

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

James Fishkin, Godfather of Deliberative Democracy (Wikipedia):

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

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

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

Professor Julia Lynch at the LSE (Facebook video):

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

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

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

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

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

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