The Hames Report

Making the World a Better Place

How can we make the world a better place? Many think we are already doing just that. Some might even believe we have reached the pinnacle of human civilisation. I am not one of them. In fact I truly believe that making the world work for everyone will require a momentous leap of consciousness, and possibly take decades to achieve.

According to some pundits, inspiring a quiescent societal revolution over the course of a century is sheer folly. However, that is the purpose of the Centre for the Future. It is based on the conviction that few others, as far as we know, understand the issue and are doing precisely what we are set on doing.

Our century-long mission aims to shine a light on how homo sapiens can develop sufficient wisdom to survive their own success. The complexity we will be striving to disentangle, the context for so many of our problems, will be at the core of our ability to address the various existential crises facing us. Consequently, our philosophy embraces beliefs and associated practices that define what we must do differently to survive the Anthropocene epoch. Our vision is a human family awakening to a deeper impulse for survival and advancement. But in order to achieve that vision we must curate a more conscious coevolution – not only with each other but with the Earth upon which we still rely for our subsistence.

The Betrayal of Future Generations

Planning by governments and corporations is universally short-term, parochial, and lacking in terms of moral foresight. For those in power it is far simpler to continuously patch up the present while leaving the future to take care of itself. This betrayal, for that is what it is, washes over conservative minds and goes unheeded by those whose task it is to lead. Nor is it just individuals who are at fault. At a time when homo sapiens are challenged by any number of existential crises, not one major global institution appears capable of mobilising its resources to address the scale and gravity of our predicament.

Like rabbits in the headlights, those who should be leading are trapped in a cognitive and emotional gridlock preventing any alternative design ontologies taking hold. Should we extricate them from their discomfort, voting them out of office, or try opening their minds to new possibilities? And if we resolve that particular dilemma, how do we then go about generating the synthesis of intelligence and praxis needed to guide our further evolution? More crucially, where can we find the courage to take the collective leap of consciousness that will allow us to transcend our destructive obsessions and noxious habits?

It is in such impervious circumstances that Centre for the Future – part integral knowledge amplifier, part whole-system incubator, part pluriversal think-tank – was established with a mission to inspire, design and curate a world that works for everyone - a world where the truest expressions of what it means to be human can be realised.

Mindful Uprising, a bold, one-hundred-year change agenda, demands continuity across four domains in order to remain viable over such a lengthy timeframe, and at scale:

• The navigation of continuously volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous conditions, at all societal levels and stages of development, and from one generation to the next
• Continuous development of organisational maturity and endurance to allow for the mutual co-existence of organisational discipline and entrepreneurial energy
• Constant upgrading of motives and purposes – especially in terms of potential synergies across the global ecosystem of incubated initiatives
• The sufficient provisioning of resources in order to avoid distraction and collapse.

The first three domains demand entirely novel approaches and skill-sets to organising and leading that are experimental, yet stimulating to implement. But the final domain, that of adequate, assured provisioning, is proving to be the most challenging. It also happens to reveal the mystery of what holds human development poised on the cusp of history.

Two factors were especially critical in helping define the long-term viability of the Centre for the Future enterprise. The first, daunting as reality sank in, was a recognition that we could not rely on other people for money, and would need to explore methods that did not rely on philanthropy, grants, venture capital, private equity, or other traditional forms of funding. That became more and more apparent as we experienced the insecurity which arises from being dependent on the promises and whims of a single wealthy individual. The second factor, relating to how we might be able to self-fund our operations, evolved more slowly and opportunistically.

The initial revelation occurred almost precisely two years into our startup phase. By now we had moderated numerous strategic conversations around the world; presented the concept of “conscious coevolution” and “second order change” at numerous workshops, including in the House of Lords in London; and had met with potential benefactors. We had also incubated our proof-of-concept project: MiVote was an attempt to answer the question of governance adequacy in societies where old power structures dominate, and traditional approaches to democracy are in a shambles. We had also germinated fresh ideas in the minds of many, and were changing conversations that matter into actions that, in due course, could make a huge difference. Or so we thought.

Intimidating Truths

The realisation that most people with whom we spoke, including those in a position to be most persuaded by our arguments, failed to comprehend our unique value proposition, caused a shock wave within our circle. Entrepreneurs, academics, bureaucrats, venture capitalists, and philanthropists alike, and even our founding sponsor, as we were later to discover, found it a challenge to accept six basic propositions:

1. Almost all the emergencies facing humanity arise from a set of norms we use to imagine and express who we are, what matters, and what we believe is possible (or not). These norms define what is rapidly becoming a shared worldview– multifaceted and forever shifting, yet increasingly monochromatic in its foundation on Western cosmology, scientific realism, Cartesian logic, economism, and the objectification of the individual.
2. While the resulting transactional world-system was originally shaped by us, it now shapes us. We are conditioned, and even take comfort in, the most obvious tenets of this world-system. Unfortunately, none of its interior structures were designed to evolve in harmony with dynamic external conditions. Indeed, they remain caught in a time warp. The fact that our most life-critical structures within this world-system were constructed in another era, and were in no way intended to cope with the dreams and demands of 7.6 billion inhabitants, is a major factor in their shortcomings today.
3. In a world-system that fails to serve the entire human family, a conscious redesign of the source worldview and its dominant narratives becomes a necessity.But who has that responsibility?
4. This exposes a central paradox regarding leadership or, rather, the lack of it. For, trapped by and within the current world-system, we seem to have lost the capacity to imagine any alternative worldview. Yet if we lose that unique capacity we run the risk of forgetting what it means to be human.
5. Any attempt to redesign the worldview must honour the richness of humankind by positioning that redesign within the context of a kaleidoscopic array of experiences, understandings, and beliefs - not solely through the eyes and familiar trappings of the Western cultural ethos, or “brand”. This is precisely why our sixth, final proposition, rankles so many affluent individuals whose wealth has been generated solely from within that current wellspring.
6. Almost every attempt to “change the world for the better” by the global elite, even those with the most noble of intentions, is a pretense wrapped up in a plethora of platitudes aimed at safeguarding present circumstances or mining it for additional assets. By denying or disguising their own complicity in causing the problems they later espouse to solve, and by bolstering a skewed and morally inexcusable socio-economic reality, they make the need for second order change much harder to perceive, let alone tackle.

The last of these statements is highly provocative as it conflicts with almost everything we are told about how private wealth and public funds are both used to eliminate poverty and vagrancy, solve the refugee crisis, put an end to disease and injustice, eliminate war, and increase prosperity for more people. The truth is that many wealthy individuals, even those with good intentions, are making matters far worse. By spending their fortunes on pet projects, and perpetuating upbeat clichés, such as win-win, doing good, and making a difference, alongside the language of big business and its claims for conscious capitalism, market-driven solutions, social impact, and ethical business, the affluent classes are able to deny, resist, and at least delay, real systemic change – change that would undoubtedly result in a massive redistribution of wealth and power, as well as the swift emergence of peer-to-peer and mutual structures, in a more empathic, less extractionist, society.

But let us take a step back...

The Motive for Giving

By and large the individuals we were trying to persuade with these propositions are smart, well connected, highly respected people. But for some or all of the reasons stated above, including the deliberate way we chose to position the Centre’s goals as incompatible with certain key assumptions underpinning the status quo, they were slow to engage with us.

For most, the proposition that the current worldview should be taken apart and recast, to be replaced by fresh, more viable, narratives, and a world-system that works for everyone, was too idealistic to contemplate. The notion that most elitist projects aimed at “changing the world” were at best a farce, in spite of virtuous intentions, was summarily dismissed as heretical nonsense.

This was especially the case when it came to ongoing funding. Entrepreneurs appreciated the start-up energy of our vision. Academics commended our creative disruption. Industry leaders lauded our nerve. Politicians our foresight. But then we ran into vexing misgivings concerning the nature of our mission. Venture capitalists were genuinely confused by the lack of an immediate financial return. Economists had no idea how to respond to the idea of substituting integral well-being for growth, while philanthropists struggled to connect a purpose that was in conflict with the constraints imposed by their various family offices.

Traditionally, philanthropists and social impact investors are familiar with, and prefer, first order incremental change.[i]Habit has led to their preference for donating relatively small amounts of money into building a school in a remote African village, or digging a well to provide fresh drinking water in that same village, for instance. More ambitiously, those with greater wealth might sponsor a university research program to find a cure for cancer or instigate a competition to tackle global risks. Institutions and foundations, right up to the United Nations, follow suit, the only significant difference being their ability to invest at scale.  

While I have no reason to doubt the good intentions of these benefactors, the motives for their generosity have been comprehensively documented. By and large they want to look good among their peers, feel good about their charitable works and, where possible, get some kind of tangible benefit, or at least additional leverage, from deploying their assets in this manner. Socially responsible investors also seek guarantees that their contributions are having the kind of impact they intended. They want to be able to view the results from their altruism at first hand - guiding it and, when possible, participating in its deployment.

Of course, first order changes are not inherently unworthy. The world would be a poorer place without such endeavours. But our addiction to incremental improvement has now entirely corralled the practice of giving. There is no energy remaining for transformational change - not even for the most life-critical systems that are on the verge of collapse. In some ways this is not surprising. In a world of speed and instant gratification, a world of vicarious thrills, a world where outcomes are rapidly realised and display an immediacy that is possibly unparalleled, the benefits from second order change, though profound in comparison with first order change, take far longer to gain traction and to see tangible benefits.

For example, reinventing democracy so that politicians are obliged to enact the will of the majority of citizens, unethical and corrupt practices are eliminated, and dualist ideologies are exposed as ineffective mechanisms for framing the subtleties of most policy dynamics, cannot occur through the wave of a magic wand. Nor can lessening the likelihood of war between nations be achieved overnight. Cultivated over centuries, benefitting powerful interests, such deep-seated constraints might take generations to change.

Psychological Impediments

For institutions the perceived existential risks accompanying second order change are invariably high. For example, any not-for-profit public enterprise established to address a specific wicked problem[ii]must inevitably put itself out of business by fulfilling its mission. It is far more innocuous to prolong first order change strategies so as to remain relevant and operational – in spite of the fact that relevance, in this instance, is delusional.

A further, psychological obstacle, is the fact that when attempts are made to reinvent, or even marginally improve, whole systems, performance typically deteriorates before any improvements can be observed. This factor deters whole system change; it is perceived to be too dicey by career politicians wedded to short-term electoral cycles, and neither here nor there to corporate leaders charged with generating short-term profits for their shareholders.

This is also why the whole idea of investing in second order change eludes traditional philanthropists and venture capitalists. Their motives are simply incompatible with the concept and scale of such endeavours.

But there is also a far more insidious, and deeply worrying, explanation for why structural change is not even a consideration these days. Second order change necessitates deep-seated shifts in thinking, and a reframing of prior learning. This then serves as a launchpad for one or more transformations to new levels of comprehension.

At its core is the ability to reframe what we know - to see it from differing perspectives so that we can discover fresh insights and new levels of understanding. This vital evolutionary capability may be under threat as we move into purely digital-based modes of speed learning - trusting more on surface analysis, executive summaries, and scanning the headlines for our interpretation of information.

It is well established that the neurological circuitry that handles behavioural change needs an environment in which to mature and time to adapt to that environment. The dominant digital medium today advantages processes that are speedy, multi-task orientated, and well-suited to large volumes of data. This also means that the brain’s circuitry responds best to that medium.

The consequences are that slower, time-demanding, deep-design processes, including conjecture, relational analysis, curiosity and empathy, all suffer. Such cognitive intolerance means we could lose precisely those levels of critical and systemic analysis needed to grasp the complexity of connections and dynamics inherent in designing for second order change. For those of us brought up preferring digital modes of learning, including most of the young generation, this changes not only what we will choose to design, but also the purposes for why we design, and how we navigate what has become an avalanche of data and information.

Solutions & Resolutions

Research surfacing in many parts of the world, across several fields, all seems to point to a particularly disquieting issue: the longer we avoid structural change, or see no need for it, the more likely we are to lose the capacity for systemic analysis and deep design that is at the heart of transformational change.

Dealing with inequities arising from within socio-economic stratification, the destruction wreaked on the poorest people by arms trafficking, the expansion of autonomous arms, and the impacts from climate change, for example, are all wicked problems. In order to reach any semblance of a resolution of these issues, second order change will be vital. If we lack the capacity for deep design because of cognitive atrophy, or the belief that we are already making sufficient headway, these problems, and many others in the same category, will persist and undoubtedly deteriorate.

We certainly need to review the social impact and public investment landscapes so as to understand what capital could be made available for second order change at scale. We should also undertake a more comprehensive inquiry into the modern world-system, its narratives, relationships and balancing loops, so that we can create the kind of profound knowledge necessary for genuine solutions to emerge. And there is no doubt we should find ways to persuade (or possibly require) affluent individuals, foundations, and family trusts, to collaborate with governments on a small number of global projects that are desperate for second order solutions.

For example, the failure of international aid, mostly used as a cynical bargaining chip in international trade negotiations, is a valid case in point where combined resources, fresh perspectives, and determination is necessary if we are to overcome the prevailing flawed narrative, as well as agreements and practices that do nothing to benefit those in need.[iii]International cooperation involving government funds and private wealth is the only way the real root cause of endemic poverty can be exposed and the real issues of inequity, injustice, and the imposition of disadvantageous conditions by donor nations, resolved.

Besides all of that, though, we need to evolve a more advanced mind – one with biliterate fluency, capable of the deepest forms of reflection and analysis in both traditional and digital mediums. Conscious coevolution of the human species, and the ability to break through the cognitive threshold I have been talking about for some time, depends on this development. The ability of citizens to experiment with various forms of governance, and to discern the truth, hangs on this. The talent of our children and their children to create and appreciate beauty, the collective aptitude to venture beyond today’s information glut, and the acquisition of the intelligence and wisdom necessary to sustain a viable society and make the world a better place, all ultimately depend on this.

Perhaps such advancement will be one of the benefits to come from the singularity – when machine intelligence equals that of human beings and we can experience an ecology of mind that simply does not exist today.

 

[i]First order change does more or less of something within an existing structure. Fixated on restoring balance to a system, it is generally incremental and linear. Second order change transforms a system from one state to another. Inviting new ways of seeing and understanding, such deeply structural changes are usually disruptive to the status quo.

[ii]A problem whose solution requires a great number of people to change their mindsets and behaviour is likely to be a wicked problem. Solutions will invariably demand second order (structural) change and thus resist being categorically right or wrong. Many wicked problems come from the areas of public planning and policy, taking in global climate change, natural hazards, pandemics, social justice, nuclear weapons, and international drug trafficking, for example.

[iii]The orthodox narrative we have been sold for decades is that the rich nations of the OECD give generously of their wealth to the poorer nations of the global south, to help them eradicate poverty and improve the health and wellbeing of their citizens. In actual fact the flow of money from rich countries to poor countries pales in comparison to the flow that runs in the other direction.Neo-colonisation is alive and well. In 2012, the last year of recorded data, developing countries received a total of $1.3 trillion - including all aid, investment, and income from abroad. But that same year some $3.3 trillion flowed out of them. In other words, developing countries sent $2tn more to the rest of the world than they receive.

Blind Alleys & Alternative Tracks

THE HUMAN CONDITION

What do you suppose uniquely characterises our species over all others? Our intelligence? Wisdom? Compassion? Our capacity to converse, invent, or to bring order where none previously existed? None of these? Looked at another way perhaps it is our intransigence and our determination to triumph over nature? The craving for more stuff that we throw away only to replace with more stuff? The impulse to compete against each other? Or perhaps it is just the conceit of believing we are exceptional and therefore invulnerable to the forces that impact others?

Whatever these distinctive qualities are there are quite a few humans around these days. Our home is getting quite crowded. So whatever we agree best defines us should, one would have thought, be quite noticeable.

Put that way perhaps negative qualities like greed, vanity and envy do define us more than generosity, amity or cooperation. Almost every current affairs and news program on television seems to focus on the latest atrocity perpetrated by one group on another. The entire discipline of economics is founded on the rather dismal notion that individuals will invariably act out of self-interest. Commentators as candid as biologist David Suzuki or naturalist David Attenborough maintain that our species is now a scourge on the planet. These are harsh, uncompromising words. What is it about human behaviour that leads them to such an indictment of how we conduct our relationships with each other and the Earth? How could they come to such an unforgiving conclusion?

And if they are right, is it the sheer numbers of people all striving to achieve the best quality of life they can that is the problem? Or just that the complex infrastructure of systems and support services, upon which we rely and utilise every day, was designed for a less populous era and has consequently outlived its effectiveness?

The number of homo sapiens on planet Earth over the past 40,000 years grew slowly. Before the year 1800 there were possibly fewer than 1 billion people inhabiting Earth. By 1945 there were still well under 2 billion. But a shift in conditions triggered an incredibly rapid increase in numbers. Human fecundity suddenly took a disturbing course. Between 1945 and 2015 the human population grew exponentially. Today it stands at well over 7.4 billion.

There were several reasons for such an explosion. Improved sanitation and nutrition, breakthroughs in medical care, the elimination of diseases like smallpox, and control over others through inoculation programs, all saw birth rates climb and infant mortality rates decline. Vastly increased crop yields from the industrialisation of agriculture provided a platform for this escalation to be sustained.

According to the most recent projections, and assuming consistency in the rates of growth, the human population is likely to reach 8.5 billion by 2030, 9.7 billion in 2050, and around 11.2 billion by the turn of the next century.

These numbers are already causing many human-designed systems – agriculture, energy production, and political governance, for example - to fail under the pressure, while putting unprecedented stress on the Earth’s natural systems, which we need in order to survive - such as an equitable climate, an unpolluted atmosphere, and ecosystems that support an abundance of life.

Instead of choosing to conserve nature and redesign artificially-constructed systems, reinventing them from first principles so they are better able to accommodate the needs of a burgeoning population, the most common responses have been to (i) deny that additional numbers are creating a crisis; (ii) blame each other; and (ii) divert attention away from the existential nature of the problem through a forlorn mix of showbiz, consumerism, and surveillance.

Although these tactics of denial, censure and distraction unquestionably evolved inadvertently, they have been absurdly effective at preserving values inherent within the established world-system as well as supporting the illusion of linear progress. Today the impact of late-stage capitalism is encroaching on the show. The echo chamber of neoliberal politics and economics is reverberating uncontrollably. As a consequence the public’s faith in established institutions is unravelling, trust is dwindling and with it our tolerance for inequality, unfairness and injustice.

Vast amounts of information are available to almost anyone at the swipe of a screen. But an entire fog of data, misinformation, half-truths, fake news and gossip, confuses and confounds us. We are losing the capacity to distinguish fact from fiction. At the same time individuals and entire communities are waking up to the threats of a civilisational model (worldview) that is depriving them of opportunities, dignity, contentment and hope.

This might not be immediately evident at a societal level. One needs to be sensitive to the failures occurring in some of our most life-critical systems; the collective impacts from a range of perverse behaviours displayed by incumbent leaders, as well as the inertia arising from their dread of putting a foot wrong; the inordinate power exercised by giant multinational corporations; and the influence of a small cadre of ultra-wealthy individuals. But for ordinary men and women going about their daily lives the burden of finding and keeping a job, raising healthy, well-balanced children, and managing the family budget, while feeling betrayed by our leaders at every juncture, and having to put up with the apparent unfairness of it all, is instilling a universal mood of anxiety and despair that could implode on us all if an alternative model and purpose is not forthcoming.

Increasing rates of narcissism, substance abuse, sociopathic crime, psychotic violence generated by fear or envy, suicide, religious fundamentalism, and the radicalisation of youth, all indicate a sense of anguish that is shared by increasing numbers of people who feel worthless, vulnerable and abandoned. Valid or not, these symptoms are beginning to define the contemporary human condition.

PRISONS OF OUR OWN INVENTION

It was not meant to be like this. It does not need to be like this. At our finest we have been amazingly resourceful and cooperative. Over the ages we have accumulated a wealth of knowledge and acquired even greater technical prowess. Our ventures have been heroic. We discovered distant lands, climbed the tallest mountains, explored the deepest oceans, and even put people on the moon. If that were not enough we built miraculous structures, remodelled landscapes, and produced a vibrant tapestry of art, customs, relationships, organisations, theories and philosophies, that chronicle the sheer ingenuity of our civilisation.

But we also allowed competition, greed and envy to divide us. In recent decades we became more and more intolerant of one another’s beliefs, brutally attacking those with whom we disagreed. We defiled nature as though it was our God-given right to pollute and pillage. We engineered systems that served the well-to-do, turning our backs on those we deemed less important. We became serfs to the concept of sovereignty and allowed uncaring corporations to control our food, energy and water. And although our innate curiosity led to the acquisition of vast amounts of knowledge regarding the exterior world, we always deferred examining ourselves too closely. Indeed the brain and human consciousness are relatively uncharted mysteries even today.

As a consequence we arrived in the 21^st century divided along cultural fault lines across five theatres of human activity:

1. Economics: Disparities between the rich and the poor have escalated to a point at which an incredibly small percentage of individuals own the majority of our productive capacity and wealth. This is indefensible and unsustainable.
2. Governance: The degree to which elected legislatures have become unable to make speedy and effective decisions, exacerbated by the speed and convoluted volatility of each unfolding crisis, is resulting in a leadership vacuum at nation state and international levels.
3. Intelligence: A tendency to express reality in terms of opposing poles has distorted and caged human imagination. This is to be seen most clearly in the rift opening up between those who espouse scientific laws, and others who happily peddle superstition and ignorance. Played out in social media, such dualism is corroding our ability to distinguish between fact and fiction.
4. Ecosystems: Attempts to accommodate the escalating demands from the populace for critical resources - such as food, water and energy - with the capacity of nature to continue providing these, often exacerbate the situation by creating more problems. An inability to fully consider the consequences of our actions displays a disturbing lack of design thinking.
5. Community: Nationalism and tribal allegiances are impeding an appreciation of what it means to be human and part of the species homo sapiens. Cynicism with respect to our most revered institutions, and age-old routines that no longer work for the majority, has led to a pervasive pessimism that threatens social cohesion.

Schisms along some of these fault lines seem to be expanding at an alarming rate. Others are wedged open through unceasing conflict - sowing mistrust and signalling the potential collapse of society on a massive scale if remedial action, too late in coming, also becomes excessively disruptive.

The most fundamental question facing humanity is whether we are wise enough to survive our own success. The civilisational worldview seems to be in a terminal state of decline. But new models are nowhere on the horizon. We seem disinclined even to consider alternatives. Complacent and gullible, we have been lulled into believing our own myths - of intrepid progress and the ascent of mankind. As a result we have become far too accepting of what ails us.

So we sit idly by as the current model languishes. We watch as rates of obesity and diabetes continue to rise, yet still permit a few large corporations to control the food chain. We continue to feud and to wage war, even though it is clear the criminal classes are the only ones benefitting from conflict. We complain at the dire state of political decision-making, yet persist with governance models that have not changed in over 200 years. We lament the fact that one billion people go hungry every day, but continue to use industrial farming methods in the forlorn hope of improving nutritional value as well as yields. And in several cities around the world we wear masks to prevent the smog from choking us. If these are not symptoms of a sick society, they are at least indicative of a shortsighted one.

Occasionally we might be persuaded to tweak a little here and there. But by and large we refrain from tackling the task of fundamental change – a particularly onerous task given the compartmentalised nature of our world-system, our penchant for short-term planning cycles, and an unfortunate tendency to interpret any deviation from the norm as having potentially negative financial impacts. We seem to have fallen into the habit of valuing instant wealth rather than long-term survival, and vicarious thrills more than the future well-being of our children.

Neither the wealthy nor those in situations of power are aware of how diverse cultural mindsets could be used to inform social foresight in the redesign of a more viable shared worldview. Why else would they be encouraging social homogeneity and cultural monocultures? Nor are they prepared to act on that information if its value was indeed apparent. Few would be conscious of the need for it, nor that a forensic examination of our current circumstances would be a pre-requisite for rectifying conditions that are deteriorating and fast becoming non-viable – at least from the perspective of the human species as a whole.

To make matters worse, reform of the civilisational worldview is not a strategic issue on any agenda. The pursuit of profitability blinds corporations to any moral role. National governments, parochial at the best of times, are only intent on patching up the present. International non-government agencies who are best placed to tackle human-scale problems are blinded by the need to remain active, reliant on obsolete tools, and burdened by self-serving bureaucracy.

In spite of external appearances, securing economic growth through unremitting trade and commerce is the obsession of almost every international forum. Meanwhile, as the world-system folds we seem to have acquired collective amnesia concerning what it really means to be human.

A MINDFUL UPRISING

As one would hope, and expect, not all the news is bad. On the contrary I have painted the story here in the most callous way - as a burning platform - simply because an acceptance of the explicit dangers that are starting to erupt, from a world-system too often taken for granted as benign, is our best chance for reinvention and renewal.

Hundreds of thousands of people at a grassroots level are awakening to a new rallying call: the need to create a world that works for everyone. No single initiative has the perfect solution. There are no magic bullets. But every endeavour in the shift towards a more empathic and sustainable society is a step in the right direction. There are many such endeavours.

A growing number of regional councils, cities and commercial enterprises are transitioning to more viable social economies. Peer production, open source, clean manufacturing, permaculture, alternative currencies, crowdfunding platforms, collaborative lifestyles, redistributive markets and commons-based initiatives are all playing their part in reducing the more destructive and toxic elements of the predatory capitalist machine.

Prominent activists including Polly Higgins, Wangari Maathai, Naomi Klein, Adam Jacoby, Malala Yousafzai, Rosie Batty, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Michel Bauwens, Pia Mancini, and Madhav Subrmanian, to name just a tiny sample, are raising the tenor of their messages through social media in their tireless campaigning for fundamental change in fields ranging from the criminal code to family violence and from online democracy to new forms of education.

Organisations from Unicef and Amnesty International to Global Innovation Fund, Katerva, Global Challenges Foundation, Xprize, Verizon, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and Singularity University are showcasing innovative products, sponsoring global competitions, or funding research programs they hope will provide practical answers to wicked problems - such as the need for cleaner industry, the elimination of disease, and tackling issues like poverty and pollution. Meanwhile, entrepreneurs like Elon Musk, Bill Drayton, Deb Nelson, Danny Almagor, Ma Jun, Safeena Husain, Muhammad Yunus, Jagdeesh Rao, Bunker Roy and Hugo Spowers are pioneering ground-breaking advances in personal mobility, renewable energy, education, financial investment and alternative lifestyles.

With all of these incredible initiatives going on what possible role is there for yet another organisation devoted to pioneering change? What niche and distinctive purpose does Centre for the Future satisfy?

From our perspective the answer to both these questions is self-evident. It is based upon deep study, analysis at a causal level, and the recognition it is no longer feasible to turn a blind eye to corruption, unfairness and injustice. Neither can we continue to pretend that everything will be fine the way it is. We can no longer ignore the need for substantive change in the ways we choose to inhabit the Earth and interact with each other.

But “making the world work for everyone” entails moving beyond old assumptions, blind trust, and motives of self-interest so as to construct a set of common beliefs based upon empathy and wisdom. This includes changing the way we see ourselves, changing the way we treat each other, and changing the way we discern and talk about issues of mutual concern. This goes to the heart of why we intend activating and leading a mindful uprising of those who are advocating for a more altruistic worldview - a world-system based upon compassion, cooperation and a spirit of generosity - in stark contrast to the more toxic and indefensible aspects of the civilisational model we have inherited, and within which we have become both trapped and accidentally segregated.

Centre for the Future is uniquely prepared to fulfil this purpose. In synergy with others around the world we intend intervening to reinvent humanity’s most life-critical systems that are failing us, or that no longer serve the majority. We will also design from scratch, systems that do not yet exist but that will be needed for a future we cannot yet comprehend. In summary, our purpose is to prototype and scale humanitarian solutions that are socially unifying, ethically defensible, economically prudent, culturally distinctive and ecologically responsible.

Give a mission of such audacity it would be absurd to continue using the same dialogical methods, view issues through identical lenses, or scan information with the same indistinguishable biases, as before. They contributed to our present untenable situation after all. Thus, the technologies we use, the insights we derive from our Academy of scholars, the interpretations we harvest from our global network of immersive observatories, and the systemic acupuncture points we identify prior to project incubation, all serve a single purpose: systematic reform of the archaic civilisational worldview.

In similar vein, our tools and methods eschew conventionality in favour of inclusive, whole-system intelligence, design thinking, and a capacity for real-time navigation and adaptation. This stance is even reflected in our appeal to philanthropists – asking that they donate a gift for future generations, rather than the usual prosaic request to invest their money for an immediate financial return.

A GIFT FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS

Developments that were inconceivable barely a decade ago, have resulted in humanity waking up to the necessity for substantial change. As homo sapiens our first obligation must surely be to care for each other and rid the world of factors that get in the way of that. Can there be any other greater goal?

Compared to the thousands of years humans have occupied Earth our awakening has been relatively swift. Recent events across a broad theatre of activities have sounded alarm bells which we ignore at our peril. Harmful effects from extreme heating of the Earth’s atmosphere, projected to occur decades into the future, are arriving much earlier than expected. Growing rates of species extinction, a rise in sea levels as well as ocean acidity and salinity, scorching surface temperatures, melting glaciers and shrinking sea ice, more droughts, shoreline erosion, wilder weather, and the death of coral reefs, all provide indisputable evidence we are sleep walking into a crisis of our own making.

Yet ultra conservative economists, climate sceptics, and those whose financial interests are vested in maintaining the power of the old smokestack industries, still refuse to accept the realities around us.

But of all the elements colliding to generate this emergency, which of these entanglements should we attend to first? Shifting from fossil fuels to renewable energy? Curbing greenhouse gas emissions? Replacing industrial agriculture with ecological stewardship? Redistributing wealth more equitably? Finding permanent homes for refugees? Introducing legislation to prevent seizure of the global food chain by corporate interests? Or possibly attending to the political and financial networks that keep all of these elements quarantined from substantive change? And when we solve that puzzle, how can we be sure not to generate other unintended side-effects? And in order to get that far how do we begin to persuade incumbent leaders of the need for immediate, wise, collaborative action in dealing with global and parochial issues simultaneously?

Humans have undertaken incredible structural and engineering projects before – the Great Wall of China, the Pyramids, the post World War II reconstruction scheme known as the Marshall Plan, the Apollo mission - but we have never embarked upon a premeditated cultural self-transformation, an evolution of consciousness, based upon a more in-depth appreciation of what it means to be human; certainly not on a scale envisaged by the Centre for the Future.

In that regard our mindful uprising is unprecedented. It is not a series of grandiose schemes that are easily captured on a Gant chart, nor indeed a socialist plot to scupper wealth creation and take us back to the dark ages. We do not imagine for one moment that conflict, inequality, corruption and poverty can be eradicated simply through the wave of our magic wand. But neither is mindful uprising just an agenda for change, a scenario, a social enterprise, a business for delivering financial returns to a few shareholders, a funds manager, or an evolutionary design incubator. In fact it is all of these and more.

Our mission is almost sacred. Successive generations of people will need to grasp the leadership on this particular journey. For the final destination cannot even be glimpsed on the horizon by founders like myself. Our children and their children will be the ones to inherit any benefits we achieve.

On this journey, recalibrating early on how we relate to each other - by moving away from undue competition and giving cooperation a little more liberty - and examining what we can do to enhance our stewardship of the planet’s natural ecosystems, will be paramount. But who do you know whose job it is to assure the future of the human family and the well-being of subsequent generations?

As far as I am aware no one has set themselves up to examine the human condition through the richly kaleidoscopic cultural lenses of our species. No global body or international institution has shown any inclination to put itself out of business by fulfilling the mission it espouses. Besides, our current band of incumbent power brokers and their puppets do not really comprehend the need for massive change.

While there are many deserving and audacious initiatives out there, including ours, we are uniquely positioning Centre for the Future to tackle these global problems a whole-of-system level. We cannot do this without help. We need your help. Invest in the future of humanity with us. Help make our world one that your children and their successors will be grateful to inherit. And, in so doing, become the person others close to you already believe you to be.

 

I am grateful to numerous colleagues for helping me refine the points I have been trying to make in my writings over the past few months - particularly Stuart McGregor, Michael McAllum and Marvin Oka. If you would like to help us with our quest at Centre for the Future in any capacity please refer to our website for contact details: www.cftf.co

 

 

 

 

 

Cortege et Litanie

It was a damp crepuscular morning. A bedraggled dawn most suited to the closing act of a long-drawn-out melodrama. The funeral procession passed by my vantage point at a glacial pace - accompanied only by the occasional stifled cry of a shadowy figure in the crowd and the sound of muffled drums. This was a sight I could never have imagined was possible. I was witness to the last gasp farewell of the world’s most universally revered religious curse – with all its conflicted virtues and excesses.

A deep black cataphalque, draped with images signifying the four sacraments - free markets, self-regulation, monetary policy and the Dow Jones Index - forged from pure Californium 252, the most precious metal on Earth, had cradled the gold-encrusted casket as it lay in state on Capitol Hill. NSA executives and members of the US Reserve Bank Board had taken it in turns to provide the guard of honour. Dignitaries from all over the world had flown in to pay their final respects.

Now, on the concluding stage of its final journey, the casket mounted on a carriage specially constructed for the occasion, was pulled by a coterie of 100 silver-collared bankers, billionaires, celebrity traders, venture capitalists and speculators from the world’s most affluent nations, who had won that honour by entering a competition conducted by the state Lottery.

After them, walking arm in arm, marched politicians and leaders from the world’s wealthiest nations. The only notable absentees were from North Korea, Iraq, Syria, Iran, Cuba, and several African nations who decided to boycott the ceremony. Oh, and Greece. But they were hardly missed. This ceremony was for the rich and wealthy. The poor were not welcome. If not before, they were now the enemy. 

It seemed only fitting that the casket was to be laid to rest under the marbled floor of the Goldman Sachs lobby in Wall Street. After all this is where the ultimate end-game, a ceremony of lost innocence driven by fear, greed and corruption, had been conceived.

Although a few ideologically colour-blind economists like Paul Krugman had been warning us of its imminent demise for well over a decade, the final agonising death throes of capitalism had been a shock – mourned by millions from Wall Street and the Industrial Military Complex to Singapore’s Temasek Corporation, the City of London, members of the Chinese Politburo and far, far beyond.

In the minds of many in the global financial system this was truly the end of history. There was simply nothing that could take the place of capitalism. Now there was just an empty space - a vacuum in which economic growth would stall, wars would stop, the poor would start issuing a backlog of claims demanding equity, and the quality of life would go downhill fast.

The end was always going to be a bitter affair. In an incendiary eulogy broadcast to a live television audience of almost three 3.5 billion citizens, US industrialist Charles Koch berated social activists and commons-based movements. Led by irresponsible people like Naomi Klein, Barack Obama and Russell Brand, Koch went on to identify a core group of ignorant losers and communists he deemed culpable for destroying the capitalist system and trying to promote the sad illusion of equality.

The world is about to witness the true meaning of austerity, he raged. If compassion and other humanitarian ideals continue to embed the poor will try to emulate the rich but will suffer for their impertinence. Those activists who call for greater transparency or for a more equitable distribution of wealth should be shot. They will preside over a massive catastrophe. And people like us who have created jobs and given you the quality of life you enjoy today will never forgive you for wrecking our economic paradise, he insisted.

Of course there were those who, like myself, saw things a little differently. For one thing the predatory nature of the capitalist system would no longer be able to funnel wealth from enslaved workers to the well-to-do. Easy credit leading to indebtedness would be a thing of the past. But I kept quiet. It was best not to be too outspoken on the very day the burden of capitalism had been lifted from our shoulders. Besides, it might be that liberal democracy will be the next in line for such an exit.

In truth the more obvious symptoms of consumption, control, accumulation and misuse had been recognised for some time. They were clearly indicative of a serious mental illness. But most people could not see that or had simply tried ignoring such a painful fact. When the end came it was undramatic – just a gradual slipping away into a demented state from which recovery became impossible. The coroner noted that although the corpse twitched for awhile, all signs of intelligent life had disappeared by the time he finally pronounced capitalism dead…

I jest of course! Capitalism is far from being dead. Nor is liberal democracy next in line for the morgue. Yet! But then you knew that. And although it can certainly be regarded as a form of mental illness in those who become infatuated with the egocentric creation and hoarding of wealth, capitalism is not even in the Emergency Room, even if some of us think it should be.

Capitalism is not all bad of course. It has brought advantages to some – most notably those who are already wealthy. And even now it is trying to morph into a variety of less harsh, more caring forms - such as ethical capitalism, conscious capitalism, natural capitalism and the sharing economy, for example, all of which might be an illusion. But capitalism as it is currently practiced has been a curse to many others. It is this underbelly of greed and of corruption that most concerns me from the viewpoint of legitimacy. My litany of anxieties goes something like this…

In a world of collapsing systems the only path to redemption is via a paradigmatic shift in our most fundamental beliefs about what really matters. In other words we must redesign our shared system of convictions (worldview), that manifest as the civilisational world-system, if the results are not what we desire, or do not live up to our expectations.

That is easier said than done for we are all deeply entangled in and provided for by that same world-system. It is the air we breathe and the soundscape enveloping us. It is the leaders we most admire, the entertainment we seek, the friends we keep, and the language we use to express our most intimate thoughts. It is innate and we take it for granted. So how can those of us who have the means and influence to do so, possibly oppose this system when we are all so obviously beholden to it?

This morning I listened to a speech by the US author Anand Giridharadas, which he delivered a few days ago to the Aspen Institute Action Forum. In this unusually frank and forthright speech, for which he asked forgiveness from his audience by the way, he raised the following dilemma:

We subscribe to a consensus that some things can be discussed but that other, equally important matters, can not. This tacit agreement determines what we will not question, even as we need to question so much.

He has a valid point. The real issue though is that this consensus is not just confined to a small group of young people from the Aspen Global Leadership Forum, nor even from the keen business minds of Richard Branson, Bill Gates and Oprah Winfrey. It is the prevailing ethos of our time. Think about that. Our tacit compliance is the basis of a worldview that has brought wealth and prosperity to many and who now find its relevance too distressing to challenge for fear of losing what they have. But it is also the consensus of a world-system that is no longer sustainable or even beneficial to the majority of the human family.

In a world where generosity often becomes a surrogate for justice why are we so willing to turn rationality upside down by encouraging creatively gifted business men and women, inheritors of family fortunes, and obscenely wealthy entrepreneurs, to continue making money through all the usual business channels, just as long as they give a little bit of their wealth back? A token playground for urban kids perhaps? No problem. Some free tickets to a concert for a little girl dying of cancer? Why not - its all good publicity. Such is the stuff of CSR, or corporate social responsibility, a contemporary euphemism for spending the least amount of money to make sure our customers view us as decent people so they are inclined to buy more of our product.

What good does this really do? How does this change the plight of anyone? The wealthy individual and the good corporate citizen both feel virtuous about softening the harshness of a system that cares little for the underprivileged. But ultimately their aim is to preserve that system at all costs.

As Anand Giridharadas reflects: Sometimes, I find myself wondering what we’re actually doing here in Aspen. Are we here to change the system, or be changed by it? Are we using our collective strength to challenge the powerful, or are we helping to make an unjust, unpalatable system, feel a little more digestible? How is it rational or ethical to keep contributing to the disease we are purporting to treat?

The fundamental question remains. What should we do when trapped between the good intentions and generosity of wealthy people who want to give back to the community, and the defensive mechanism that must always be the instinctive reflex of those who have so much to lose by changing a system in such a way that their generous gifts became superfluous?

The full text of Anand Giridharadas’s address, The Thriving World, The Wilting World, And You, can be seen at https://medium.com/@AnandWrites/the-thriving-world-the-wilting-world-and-you-209ffc24ab90  

 

Abundance - The Alternative Aesthetic

By and large we humans are a compliant and gullible lot. We are socialised into how and what we should think and do by our teachers, politicians and the media. We are persuaded on the merits or otherwise of matters that should concern us by masters of spin whose craft hinges solely on the manipulation of meaning.

We do as we are told, occasionally blindly even when common sense urges caution, by obeying rulings made by others in circumstances very different from our own. We are directed to pay attention to particular fashions, ideas and propositions, and to ignore others, by people we do not know personally and with whom we have no relationship. We are told where to look for proof in support of truths that cannot be confirmed, and are then guided in how to use that distorted information.

Yet because of our willingness to conform we are hardly ever prepared to challenge the integrity of those who instruct us, query the legitimacy of the information served up to us, or inquire more deeply into the underlying motives of our myth-makers and their familiar narratives.

As a consequence it is hardly surprising that we fall hook, line and sinker for stories that are repeated often enough, and in tones sufficiently shrill to drown out all other possibilities; stories supported by rigorously researched data and emotively convincing images, but based upon dubious assumptions; stories that are are communicated by those we are told we can trust; and stories that make sense to us by appearing to equate with the truth as we assume it must be.

One of the most familiar of these themes, pivotal to the perceived success or failure of the civilisational world-system, is that of poverty and how it is being wiped out. Indeed we are advised by everyone from the World Bank's Development Research Group to aid agencies like Oxfam, that poverty is in rapid retreat wherever we look. If this is true it is a big win for the civilisational worldview. It validates government social programs. And it provides indisputable evidence that charity and foreign aid are effective tools for fighting inequality and poverty.

But what if this recurring story is misleading? Or just plain wrong? What if the accounts we read are not just overly optimistic but actual distortions of the truth? What would you feel if the overarching narrative was fabricated using three lies: (i) the fallacy of success based upon spurious data sets; (ii) the survivalist ethos of today’s philanthropic industry; and (iii) mostly fortuitious outcomes from policies that relate only indirectly to the alleviation of hardship?

1. The Fallacy of Success

The UN suggests that more than 1.4 billion people are destitute. In other words these people live in poverty so extreme they can barely survive. This calaculation is based upon the World Bank’s average poverty baseline of $1.25 per day.

Now I am not a statistician but the fallacy to which I refer is one I would have thought anyone with one iota of common sense could challenge. It is this notion, commonly-held, that $1.25 is the most suitable baseline upon which to make policy decisions with regard to mass poverty. I would find it extremely difficult to live on just $1.25 a day. So who decides what baseline to use? None other than the World Bank. This is the organisation that sets the most fundamental rules in support of the current game of international capitalism. This is the same organisation that staunchly represents the views of its most wealthy backers – the US and European empires.

Set by the World Bank in 2010 - prior to that the figure was $1.00 – the figure of $1.25 is supposedly the average line of the poorest 15 countries. Yet inexplicably this excludes India, whose own poverty baseline is still $1.00 a day, and China that, in the early 1980s, had the highest incidence of poverty in the world, with 77 per cent of its population living on $1.00 or less a day. This has since dropped to under 14 per cent – an extraordinary shift.

Thus, not only is the figure of $1.25 a distortion of the truth, it no longer mirrors reality. Poverty depends as much on local conditions as on context. The idea of any median being pertinent in the context of extreme poverty is a convenient nonsense. There are too many factors in play to use such an obsolete measure as the basis for policy settings. But it is also a dangerous nonsense because it leads to the illusion of success - through claims, so often told, that we are eradicating poverty.

This claim can be shown to be flawed by simply changing the baseline from $1.25 a day to a more realistic $1.50 a day. If we apply this to Asia where, according to the World Bank there are currently 473 million people living below the poverty line, the numbers suddenly explode to 1.5 billion! Naturally this also alters Asia’s poverty rate from 12.7 per cent to a staggering 41.2 per cent.

Unfortunately this kind of deception is not unusual. A recent analysis by the Asian Development Bank - itself a key pillar of the capitalist establishment - identified the use of such specious data as proof of a very disturbing trend. They admitted that instead of poverty decreasing, figures recorded by many national governments and international aid organisations show that the numbers of those affected by poverty are actually on the rise.

In fact the prevalent view that poverty is decreasing is a total and deliberate sham. But it has one advantage. It allows the World Bank to claim a rapid decline in poverty alongside rising prosperity – a claim that not only defies logic but calls into question the legitimacy of global governance policies.

If we must use measures to determine the level of poverty in the world then let us at least use ones that are relevant, accurate, and do not offer a warped picture of the truth.

Poverty differs from one country to the next as well as between urban and rural areas in the same country. Increasing numbers of citizens in the developed world are also living in relative poverty. It is surely vital that we face up to this unpalatable fact instead of trying to hide behind gold-plated statistics and pretending that everything is satisfactory.

2. A Survivalist Ethos 

Aid has become an industry. A massive and highly competitive one at that. It should therefore not be too much of a revelation to see that many of the larger aid agencies are now driven less by their mission than by the instinct to survive in the struggle for capital. Smaller, privately funded initiatives, often achieve far greater traction in small local initiatives, than the larger, well-established, charities. Typically, charitable organizations and aid agencies attract funds by persuading us that their campaigns and outreach activities are working. Being thus persuaded we keep donating to the cause while putting pressure on governments to do the same.

But in order to stand by their often extravagant claims while remaining in business these organizations are increasingly seduced into compromising what they espouse by allocating more resources to administration, and focusing on less hazardous yet fashionable trends like “capacity building” and “conflict resolution”, for example. As a consequence, and in spite of being awash with funds, many agencies are simply abandoning emergency work, particularly in dangerous war zones. Nor is the UN immune, having to deal with various conflicts of interest caused by its multiple roles as donor, coordinator and implementer of programs.

Of course it is also true that the situations these organizations face are daunting. The number of global refugees now exceeds 50 million for the first time since the second world war. From Afghanistan to Ukraine and from Syria to Somalia, conflict and civil war are crippling countries and devastating lives. In a country like South Sudan, for example, the poverty is unimaginable. Facing bloodshed and extreme famine, more than a million people have abandoned their villages since fighting erupted at the end of 2014. Yet confronted by this potential catastrophe many aid groups are crying poor.

Resourcing is not the main issue however. I have friends who are on the staff of the most reputable charitable and aid agencies in a sector that, though competitive, is flush with funds. I have listened to their many frustrations and complaints as they are instructed to shift their attention away from critical work in the field to fulfilling donor demands and keeping the bureaucracy in business. They are personally affronted and hurt as a result.

As they see it the problem is not a lack of money but a lack of moral leadership. Politicians, senior bureaucrats, and charity chiefs, especially those hailing from the old empires of the West, want easy wins with the least amount of effort. They are also under the illusion that using aid and development funds will hasten democracy, in spite of overwhelming evidence to suggest that the injections of foreign cash so readily available from governments in the West, so often nurture repressive regimes, fuel corruption, and foster further conflict.

Ultimately many agencies seem to have developed a form of expedient amnesia. They have forgotten their authentic mission. Instead they have chosen to become self-serving corporations dressed in the fashionable attire of concern, who believe their own story. They spend big on logistics, conferences, and media, targeting victims who are easy to reach with the least expensive activities, such as radio campaigns or doling out drugs, yet still portraying emergency and relief work as their primary focus.

3. Fortuitous Policy Outcomes

The best example of a “fortuitous” policy outcome in the context of poverty is the deliberate creation of a middle class in China by the People’s Party in the era of former Chairman Deng Xiaoping. This effort, in tandem with the opening up of China to “free” market economics, has taken around 660 million people out of poverty since 1981. In that year the poverty rate in China stood at 77 per cent.

The side effect of alleviating poverty in this country has been remarkable and welcome. But the intent of this bottom-up policy was aimed all along at creating a larger and reliable domestic market for Chinese goods - not to alleviate hardship. This was most fortuitous - but a “planned” outcome only in hindsight.

This is a pedantic point but critical nonetheless as it informs other important issues to which we must turn our attention.

In their excellent article Three Ways Humans Create Poverty, Jason Hickle, Joe Brewer and Martin Kirk make the valid point that poverty is not a fact of nature, nor is it a default state arising from the lack of organized activity. Poverty is man-made. It was consciously designed into the way we desired our economic systems to work. There is an upside however. For if we created the problem in the first place there is every reason to believe we can change it – particularly if we can comprehend how it arose in the first place and then redesign the system constraints to create different, more compassionate, outcomes. [NB. See footnote]

Hickle, Brewer & Kirk nail the problems we need to address. They note that an initial privatization of the commons led to an unparalleled humanitarian crisis. For the first time peasant farmers were unable to grow their own food or to enjoy basic rights of habitation. It was then that the word poverty first came into common usage as millions of commoners were forcibly displaced by aristocrats and wealthy merchants.

This merciless policy gathered even more impetus once an unanticipated yet “fortuitous” benefit became evident. Since migrants from the countryside had little choice, other than to accept slave-like conditions and rock-bottom wages offered by the factories, they effectively supplied the cut-rate labour necessary to sustain the Industrial Revolution.  Children as young as seven years old were put to work by families desperate to survive. And as more peasants were displaced from the land, and the cities began to swell with their numbers, so wages plummeted even lower. Capitalism was born. But the unfolding story of its shadow side had only just begun.

Although this early mode of capitalism imperceptibly improved the quality of life for many citizens living in England and across Europe the original crisis was not allowed to fade and disappear. As poverty worsened, those who had been dispossessed and factory workers began to rise up against the affluent establishment.

By the end of the 19^th century England was on the brink of an out-and-out class war. But the solution from the new industrialists was ingenious. Instead of sacrificing their new-found power the crisis caused by poverty was now out-sourced to those in far off lands through a process of colonization. Land and resources across America, Africa and India were brazenly stolen. Meanwhile the wealth was siphoned back to Europe where it was used to build schools and hospitals, and to provide services aimed at improving the lives of the “lower” classes.  

But the story did not end there. During the 1960s and 1970s, after a brief lull when poor countries started to use tariffs and subsidies to grow stronger, and incomes grew quite quickly, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund used their “free market” dogma to impose structural adjustment programs on the developing countries as a basic condition for receiving financial assistance of any kind. Worse still, these countries were then required to sell off most of their public services and assets to foreign companies.

Once more a way had been invented whereby poor nations were forced to abandon the very means they were using to eradicate poverty and to become independent. Once more numbers of people living in absolute poverty escalated – this time in countries like Mexico. And once more millions of farmers were forced to leave their land and seek employment in the new sweatshops that sprang up to feed the rabid materialism of wealthier nations.

You might think we had learned our lesson. But the lessons of the past have been deliberately discarded. Today a whole new round of trade agreements are being put in place that are likely to have identical results. Bills like the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership will extend the model of contemporary serfdom across the globe, just as the enclosure movement, colonization, and the concept of the “free” market did before them.

Reflecting on the broad sweep of history, and examining the patterns of poverty creation we have deliberately designed into our system of globalized commerce over a time frame of several hundred years, it becomes obvious why the official “trickle-down” economic narrative, still intoned by most rich governments as well as many charitable enterprises in order to justify their actions, is so incredibly naïve and inadequate. Indeed by concentrating our efforts to end poverty on charity and foreign aid we are either revealing our ignorance of the issue and its complexity, or we are acknowledging our enthusiasm for perpetuating conditions where the human population is divided into a wealthy elite and an underclass of serfs.

If we are to have any hope of solving the problem of extreme poverty, we must first reconceptualise and redesign the structures and systems that are at its root cause: namely the energetic extraction of commonly managed assets to service financial elites. The urgent need for renewal is slowly being recognised by ordinary citizens - exemplified by the various social uprisings around the world as well as the anti-austerity stance of new political parties in countries like Spain and Greece, for example - who are waking up to the injustice of their plight. This comes on the back of a growing appreciation that the only way 99 per cent of the world’s wealth can be owned by just 1 per cent of its citizens, is for the majority of the human family to be kept chronically poor.

The only way we can overcome systemic flaws on such a scale is by acknowledging them as such and then cooperating to engineer them differently in the future. The manner in which we address endemic poverty is not a trivial matter. It is a measure of how civilized and mature as a species we really are. The fact there are at least 1.4 billion of our fellows living in extreme poverty should be reason enough for reinventing the way we deal with this problem. So what can be done?

Ultimately the major constraint underlying pervasive poverty is one that resists being transformed by foreign aid or charity: it is an economic orthodoxy that trashes the prosperity we should all share, while utilizing tools like compounded debt and the dogma of continuous growth, to extract wealth from a majority who are obliged to produce it and funnelling it to a minority who are in a privileged position of being able to spend it.

Before we extract more aggregate wealth we must change this single factor. It is not a complicated matter. Simply by reversing economic flows to direct capital from the rich to the poor, instead if vice versa, we can create a more equitable society. Just imagine an inclusive and participatory system of shared well-being where poverty has been consigned to history. This is not ideology – it is the pure logic of systemic design where the all-encompassing intent is greater equity and comfort for each and every member of the human family.

It simply requires those who can muster commitment, who can provide inspiration and integrity, and who have the capability – in other words those who, in the past, we might have referred to as leaders - to come together in devising an alternative paradigm to that which allows poverty to take root and proliferate. This would be a world-system in which ecority and equality are embedded. A paradigm informed by abundance and empathy, rather than scarcity and fear. A paradigm that offers itself as an alternative aesthetic through which to view global socio-economic imperatives.

But there’s the rub! Ingrained resistance to paradigmatic change seems to be hard-wired. Why, many of our leaders argue, should we change something that is working so well?

Normally we might consider this a fair question. But until we admit the truth about the causes of poverty and become discomforted by that; until we use measures that are fair, that make sense, and do not try to disguise or gloss over the facts; until we can put one-dimensional ideologies aside, finding ways to transcend the current system without the need to constantly find scapegoats to blame for its outputs; and until we can comprehend more clearly the benefits of renewal; it is likely we will remain mired in situations that purport to be improvements but that, in reality, are merely covering up the truth.

I have taken the liberty of quoting liberally from this brilliant article - without the authors' permission. Dr. Jason Hickel lectures at the London School of Economics. Joe Brewer is culture editor for This View of Life. He is a complexity researcher, experience designer and serial social entrepreneur who applies insights from cognitive science to social change. Martin Kirk is head of strategy for The Rules - a worldwide network of activists, artists, writers, farmers, hackers, spiritualists and dreamers, linking up to push the global narrative on poverty and inequality in a new direction.

The Heritage of Poverty

The late Helder Camara, Catholic Archbishop of Recife in Brazil, famously asked, Why is it that when I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist? He also posited, in a little-known monograph called Spiral of Violence, that the poor are not the raw material for your salvation. Really? Has anyone told George Soros, Bill Gates or all those state governments that habitually outsource their social programs to the whims of the super wealthy?

Originally the term philanthropy signified a love of humanity. It told of a willingness to care for, nurture and enrich what it means to be human. Regrettably much contemporary philanthropy - including even well-meaning aid and development offered by reputable global institutions, but in stark contrast to that used simply as a device for tax avoidance - has divorced itself from such intentions, succumbing to the deceits of social media and the public relations machine. In an age when literally anything under the sun can be portrayed as being of benefit to us, many public personalities are using the "look-at-me-doing-good" mantra to help sustain the veracity of their personal brand and manipulate public opinion in their favour.

In the meantime, as philanthropy is institutionalised and public social programs progressively privatised, the media focuses our attention on sensational tales and trivia, hungry for gossip and images of celebrities among the destitute and starving.

The corporate world, too, refuses to be left out of this most lucrative game. To be known as "a force for good" has been a brilliantly effective marketing strategy adopted by some of the most destructive and cynical of today's corporations as a lawful means of seeking additional respectability for their products. With a few notable exceptions, they care not a jot for the environment or for people. This is simply another way of maximising profits. Moreover, the corporate attitude concerning any kind of moral or social contract, most commonly assigned to those responsible for Corporate Social Responsibility is, at best, one of dispassionate pragmatism.

All of this is alarming. It results in pop idols and movie stars being hailed as protectors of the poor and companies being regarded as industry game changers when their business models are clearly anything but that. But there are also far more serious consequences to consider.

Charitable foundations established and funded by the super wealthy present us with a range of problematic issues - especially in terms of their functional systemic design. So, for example, by consenting to the removal of the general public from crucial decision-making processes, we undermine the legitimate obligation of the state to provide relevant social programs for its citizens. When "we the people" no longer determine what programs are needed or where, how they can be funded, and how they should be managed, democracy itself is compromised.

The incongruities inherent within the relationship between the state and private foundations are also quite bizarre. Consider this. When governments cut social spending the tax burden on the well-to-do is also reduced - in essence providing both affluent individuals and companies with a direct financial benefit. Moreover the super wealthy in our society make their money not through income, like most of us, but through dividends based on stock ownership. The tax system has been constructed in such a way that dividends attract far lower rates of tax than income. But that is not the end of it. Individual obligations can be minimised still further, through tax write-offs, by making donations to one's own foundation. In effect whether or not to pay tax or to pursue a specific philanthropic cause aligned to personal values has now become a choice available to the wealthy.

While it is dangerous to make rash assumptions about the motives behind any individual's charitable acts it is clear that this system can be manipulated and abused to whitewash the sins of those who may have acquired their wealth through exploitation, stealth, coercion or other dubious means. In effect it enables almost anyone with money to purchase false legitimacy.

Allowing wealthy people to donate to their pet projects, when they are already minimising the amount of tax they pay in general, raises three fundamental questions vis-a-vis the intentions and performance of the philanthropic system. Is it plausible that the wealthy be given such freedom of choice as to how they use capital that would otherwise be collected in tax? If it is deemed acceptable, to what extent should they be required to give back to the society from which their wealth was derived and should this be on their own terms? If these terms favour the status quo, how should we then deal with the gaps that could potentially open up in the welfare system where certain groups of people are less-favoured and therefore exposed and vulnerable as a consequence?

There are no simple answers to such questions. But when important matters such as these are taken out of the hands of government the effect is tantamount to a new aristocracy engaging in its own distorted form of noblesse oblige.

Which brings me to a startling yet perverse truth. It concerns the design of the current system - a system that from my perspective conceals unpalatable ironies concerning interpretations and practises.

The principal capitalist notion of putting the economic means of production in the hands of private ownership is simple yet brilliant. It has brought astonishing benefits to many people, including a quality of life that was barely imaginable just decades ago. But it has also caused untold misery to millions - misery we now seek to alleviate through a mix of philanthropy and government regulation. So explain this to me. How can we tell the poor and the disadvantaged that the economic system which created their misery is now the system they should trust to save them from that misery? Won't they simply see through such propaganda for what it is?

By and large so-called democratic governments no longer adequately represent citizens. In some jurisdictions government has merged with private sector financial interests to the extent they are no longer distinguishable from one another. Indeed in the US the locus of power is now so obviously on Wall Street and not in Washington. The Occupy movement did not just give voice to a sense of economic injustice and corporate greed, it threw a spotlight on the failure of political representation and the inadequacies of the current system of wealth-creation and preservation. On one level this puts the wealthy in a privileged leadership position. But it has reciprocal (mostly undesirable) consequences. In psychology this unhealthy condition is called codependency. Within our philanthropic context the wealthy depend on politicians to maintain control of their corporations while politicians rely on the wealthy to keep the economy ticking over. Those deprived of the capacity for happiness and financial independence are marginalised. They are the discarded serfs in a neo-feudal world. But sooner or later such a system has to collapse. It is not viable.

It goes without saying that the majority of those who create foundations, give to charity, or work in developmental organisations, are well-intentioned people who care passionately about those less fortunate than themselves. Generally speaking they do not regard the poor as raw material for their own salvation. I know this for a fact as I have many well-to-do friends I admire and respect. They worry about the state of the world and the capacity of poverty to retard societal progress, and are expressing their most deeply-held values through charitable works.

Arising from genuine compassion and the need to make a difference, a new school of thought has arisen over the past couple of decades that may well alter philanthropy in a number of profound ways. Focused on "socially responsible investing" as well as ventures that have measurable social and environmental impact rather than on the maximisation of profits, these are too few in number at the moment to know whether they can help eradicate the root causes of endemic poverty. My guess is that they could. But we are still left with a political problem that is not going away anytime soon.

Letter to a Young Social Entrepreneur

This Letter to a Young Social Entrepreneur was written by Liam Black. Liam is co-founder of Wavelength. You can contact him via thesamewavelength.com or via Twitter @LiamABlack. The piece was first published at PioneersPost.com and is reprinted here with permission of both the author and the publisher.

Dear Jude

The great and the good of social entrepreneurship gather in Oxford this month for the annual Skoll love in. Heathrow arrivals teems with inspiring people from all over the world lucky enough to get an invite only ticket. Bright shiny Harvard graduates pluck their luggage from the carousel alongside grizzled old veterans from Africa and Asia and impact investors from California with great teeth.

Seminars will be run, panels will be convened, invite only dinners will run late into the night in ancient college banqueting halls and much gossip (and some bodily fluids) will be exchanged in bars and hotels across the city of dreaming spires.

The social enterprise awards culture has been fascinating to watch develop over the years. I picked up the very first Social Enterprise of the Year Award in the UK - when the prize was a bag of crisps, a quizzical, lukewarm round of applause and you didn’t even get your train fare paid. With the arrival of the Skoll and Schwab big bucks, those who are elevated to the ranks of fellows receive substantial cash – and a world of C-suite access and connectivity opens up.

The social entrepreneur PR industry grows all the time and is hungry for content and personalities. This is dangerous and results in people being hailed as saviours and game changers when their business models are nowhere near proven – still less the damaging, unintended consequences known and understood. 

The recent collapse of the Create Foundation is a sobering example for you Jude. Multi award winning – a Big Society exemplar no less – and yet it went down like a house of cards because of flaws in its business strategy, which I’m sure David Cameron wasn’t briefed about. 

Skoll et al have brought many great things to the sector and their contributions to the developing eco-system are huge. But the creation of a super league of A-List celebrity social entrepreneurs, networking, dining behind the VIP curtain is not without its contradictions and problems.

Certain of those A-Listers are bullshitters and narcissists whose mission is themselves. I have looked behind the scenes of a few of their ventures and the mismatch between rhetoric and reality is stark – as is the misalignment between personal lifestyle and public stance about the poor and oppressed.

Jude, beware of setting anyone up as a hero. Putting someone on a pedestal is one of the worst things you can do to them. Heroes are like the human body – the closer you get to them the more flawed, messy and complicated they are.

Each year the socially entrepreneurial Cirque de Soleil sets up its big tent at the World Economic Forum at Davos. Champagne is sipped whilst corporate CEOs, Russian oligarchs and Arab potentates ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ at the miracles being performed by the social entrepreneurs. The Occupy movement activisits on the other hand are kept a long distance away and canapés are not put out for them. Their diet is tear gas and police truncheon. 

Power, class – especially class – and entitlement are three subjects nowhere near high enough up the agenda of Skoll and Davos. It is very fashionable at such gatherings to hear mainstream politics trashed as unable to compete with the whizzy, sexy, genius social entrepreneurs. Yawn, party politics. How boring. How last century.

But ask yourself this: without political backing where will your idea get? What has had the biggest impact on well-being in this country in last ten years? Eden Project? Big Issue? Jamie Oliver? Divine Chocolate? Or the government’s decision to ban smoking in all public places?

Politicians are flawed and politics a dirty, compromised game but at least they must submit to democratic elections. Jeff Skoll's big money – like Gates and Omidyar – gives him big influence but to whom is he accountable? A democratic society is committed to the equality of citizens - but are foundations the voice of plutocracy? Rob Reich asked this question in a fascinating recent essay.

I hope you will win lots of awards, Jude. But just be clear about your motivations. Why do you do what you do? Doubtless a large dose of bloody-minded, rock solid self-belief is a must have. There may be no “I” in team but perhaps inevitably there is a hell of a lot of “ego” in “social entrepreneur”.

If you’d asked me in my twenties and thirties what my driving motivations were I would have said a strange hybrid of leftie politics and option-for-the-poor Catholicism filtered through the liberation theologicans of Latin America and the inner cities.   

No doubt these were important and, my god, what passionate debates there were around all that stuff in the '80s. But looking back I can see clearly that a core part of what drove me was the seeking of approval of an absent father (long story) and a huge enjoyment at the attention which came with being in the vanguard of the UK social enterprise movement. It feels very good to be talked and written about and even better if there are awards and baubles. And yes, of course, I am having my cake and tweeting it by writing this blog.

There is a need for a large dose of skepticism about middle class European and American social entrepreneurs who think they have the answer for the problems of Africa or know what the youth off the housing estates need.

And I am more than skeptical of so-called faith based social enterprises whose motivation is at its core: "I'm doing this becuase Jesus wants me to and it's how I might achieve redemption." As Helder Camara once said: “The poor are not the raw material for your salvation.”  This should be inscribed over the doorway to the Skoll Centre and at receptions in all social businesses.