The Hames Report

My Pact with the Devil

For us billionaires it was always about playing and winning. Winning is the main game. And money - that goes without saying. While winning is our passion, money is our addiction. An adrenalin hit. We are good at winning, which is very fortunate for you. Although most of us inherited our wealth, you profited from how we used our capital to stimulate growth. Naturally our drive and acumen worked in your favour too. Let’s face it - you had an easy ride on the back of our generosity.

We discovered way back in the dark ages how we could win and keep on winning. The idea was astonishing in its simplicity. Those of us born into wealth very quickly worked out that the best way to control you, the earning classes, was to keep you happy. By producing all the material needs you could possibly want, and promising you even more, we lulled you into a false sense of bliss. I don’t wish to be rude, but the rest was a walk in the park.

By convincing you that you were free to live your dreams, most of you felt no need to object to those things my lot craved – like power and affluence. You overlooked our misdeeds - including tax avoidance practices we felt compelled to use now and again, and dodgy investments in media, weapons trading, drugs and gambling. Some very smart marketing campaigns even convinced you that we shared the same goals and were all in this for the same things. With hindsight that was a masterstroke.

It was how we got you toiling so assiduously while demanding more and more stuff you didn’t actually need or want. Increasing productivity became your goal, and capitalism the means of achieving it, simply because we told you this would fulfill your every desire. After that you were so distracted - busy looking to wherever we pointed - that nobody thought to challenge the illusion.

It didn’t occur to you that we were spinning a yarn to get us what we wanted. We knew trickle-down economics could not possibly work. But that was irrelevant as long as you believed us, and were able to wait patiently for your situation to improve, which you did. Similarly, the sum total of human activities cannot be compressed into a single measure. Think about how ridiculous that is. Yet you embraced the totally implausible notion of GDP being a suitable gauge of both wealth and wellbeing. You were easily hoodwinked.

It was not always that simple of course. Especially when smart-arse radicals like Karl Marx and Mao Zedong advocated more socialist views, pacifists like Gandhi opted for peaceful civil disobedience, and reformists like Mikhail Gorbachev threw a spanner in the works. It became even more difficult when some of you noticed our methods were crooked, our products made you sick, and that the economic arrangements we had so carefully devised and ingrained within your psyche, actively prevented you from becoming as wealthy as us.

But we managed it. We played upon your naivety, ignored or snuffed out your pathetic protests, surfed the zeitgeist with the help of our media baron friends, and kept repeating the false mantras of capitalism, like endless growth, for example, over and over again until anyone who deviated from the official narrative was regarded as a fool or a heretic.

In the end we won. Our system was adopted en masse, the world over. Even in the most unlikely of countries like China. The ruse was to make our takeover look like a seemingly benevolent and beneficial model of statism, while rejecting and stoking fear in people’s minds about alternatives. Any alternatives!

It is true that a few of you, led by activist Naomi Klein, academics such as Shoshana Zuboff, and progressive philanthropists like Tom Steyer, have been keen to point out flaws in democracy, together with capitalism’s more predatory nature. Cries for reform were something we have had to refute on an ongoing basis. Capitalism tricks people into slavery by lauding comfort, security, safety and the illusion of freedom, followers of Klein liked to claim. They were correct of course. Thankfully you failed to act on such assertions. The revolution was in your hands after all. But why would you incite rebellion when we kept telling you the economy was booming and almost everyone was deceived into believing us?

Over decades of testing, developing and refining the economic model, we had learned one very important fact. Societies are mostly comprised of compliant, idle, yet decent individuals like you, who are unmoved by political deceit and corporate fraud. As long as you are safe and secure in your immoderate comfort you do not care about government policy - or much else come to think of it. Indeed, you far prefer the certitude of psychological shackles over the stress that comes from real autonomy.

Once we had worked that out a variety of dubious tactics helped advance our cause. By adopting the manipulative advertising of Edward Bernays we persuaded you to buy stuff you did not want. By persuading you to trust us, and to turn a blind eye to the anomalies inherent within representative politics, we were able to bend democracy to service our needs rather than yours. By acquiring the support of influential economists, buying a few self-serving politicians, backing the state with our wealth and declaring that state sovereign (by forcing people to consent to its law and order, no matter how perverse, unjust, or violent that law and order might be) we were able to grow our considerable wealth and power, unconstrained by those of you who might have had the gumption to bring us down.

That was how we won. And over the past decade we have begun to wallow in the luxuries true wealth affords. Tax as an optional extra. Trust funds, think-tanks, family offices and PR advisers that further our own interests. Private extravagances, and a lifestyle a majority of people like you cannot begin to imagine. We are the mega-wealthy. The one per cent. And we own the world.

Do not be tempted to tell us we have it all figured out though, or that we have all bases covered. On the contrary, we failed to notice one vital factor that could soon be our undoing: the unforeseen consequences of our growing affluence.

In spite of our private jets, ocean-going yachts, and lifestyles that eclipse yours many times, we did not pay attention to the inferences of a world in which the gap between the cream of society, of which I am a part, and the vast majority of citizens like you, was widening into a chasm. Deceived by our own propaganda, but blind to your true circumstances, only now are a few of us beginning to fathom out how economic inequality could threaten everything we have created.

As you can imagine all of this came as something of a surprise - so quarantined had we become from the reality of a shared existence. Working tirelessly on feathering our own nests often meant letting our relationships with family dwindle. We missed out on a lot of fun you take for granted. We hurt just like you. We are racked with self-doubt just like you. Our kids still get sick. We don’t have any real friends and we suffer anxiety and feel sad - just like you.

The biggest shock derives from the fact that having more money, faster cars and bigger homes, has not made us happier than you. So please do not tell me we had it all worked out. Only now are we starting to appreciate that no amount of money can prevent us from becoming old and dying. Worse still, the world we built is facing unprecedented challenges on so many levels. If I sound fearful it is because I am.

Until recently we deliberately tried to maintain the very delicate balance between production, consumption and wealth creation. We have been resisting any kind of adaptation to new realities, pumping trillions of dollars into maintaining the status quo instead. This has kept the major banks and large corporations afloat. It also bailed out high-net-worth individuals like me. Sadly, these self-serving tactics have done nothing to help you, or to change your fragile situation. Within the context of the current pandemic the economy will continue to contract leaving many more of you high and dry.

In the past I would not have given this a further thought. But now it is not tenable. The world of finance has become disconnected from reality to such an extent that we are all part of a worldwide financial casino. For now, I am on the winning side. But tomorrow could well see me lose everything that brought me pleasure. The financial instruments I have used to increase my wealth are perfect for those wanting to bring on a financial end-of-the-world scenario. And that is exactly what they seem to be doing.

Of course, I can hang on longer than you will be able to. I have my own bunker and can hole-up until the dust settles if the 5 billion or more poor people on the planet should ever decide to bring my dream run to an end through revolution.

But what then? I confess I had not thought that far ahead – I employed others to do that for me, but they only asked me about cash flow, the balance sheet, investments. If I manage to cling on and survive, with my considerable wealth all but gone, and the financial world I used to inhabit consigned to history, what then? If others see how I helped hasten the destruction of our civilisation with my self-serving attitudes and noxious products, in what stead will I be held with a reputation in tatters?

The future of wealthy people like me is by no means assured. Like power, material wealth can be fleeting. If you are able to survive the coming crises of geopolitical upheaval, socio-economic disruption, and a heating climate, people like you might even be in a better position than me. You are the makers - the true creators. There can be no viable future without ordinary men and women like you. I, on the other hand? I am one of the takers. My fortune was built on stealing the future from your children while extracting your goodwill, labour, and gullibility. That makes me expendable in tomorrow’s world. I am sorry I did not understand that before today.

How can you ever forgive me? More pertinently, after everything I have done, and consciously not done, how can you believe this confession now? Will you leave me behind, or take me with you as you fashion a world without such inequities? It is possible that only my children and their successors will know the answer to that question.

Whispers Borne on the Wind

Whispers Borne on the Breeze - Intimations of Mortality from Katowice 2018

Stop what you are doing. Pause your tedious routines for a few brief moments. These tasks cannot be so important. Your distractions are amusing you to death

Please be still for a while. Be quiet and listen

Do you hear what I hear? Do you hear the sighs in the wind’s breath?

Like autumnal leaves, the fluttering wings of a hummingbird, or a quivering heartbeat? Yet a tormenting tinnitus are those whispers borne on the breeze today

You hear nothing? Perhaps you cannot bring yourself to trust what it is that you hear. Only those with open minds and open hearts can sense such menacing murmurings as these

You need to return to your countries and your business? Time is money? So be it

But heed the warnings. Gentle flurries today are but the ennui of what is to come. The howling storms our gandchildren will inherit will not wait too long

By then your deafness, and dumbness, and blindness, will be held up to ridicule by those you call children. They will be outraged that you chose not to hear them. That you chose not to act

But it will be far too late. Possibly even for them

After the ice has melted, and the earth is scorched; when you gasp for oxygen, choke on the dust of our crumbling civilisation, and are deafened by the roars of tortured souls...

remember this...

Your vain hopes, your sad prayers to a non-existent deity, your irrational distrust of data, your incessant hand-wringing, your bureaucratic follies, your agitated denials, your wilful ignorance, and your unrestrained foolishness, were all motivated by ego and conceit

Perhaps, on the altar of devastation that you are creating, in your final moments, you will admit that you were wrong. That you were not fit to lead.

Perhaps, too, you will concede that your sense of entitlement, your delusion of being in control, and your fear of being found to be a fraud, resulted in the greatest loss of all

Your humanity. And our home

 

Reflections on Offensive Behaviour

Speaking as a panellist last year, on the subject of democracy and personal freedoms, I was momentarily side-tracked and mentioned the damage I believed some aspects of radical feminism had done to men generally, explicitly in terms of our identity and role in society. My remark was instantly leapt upon by two of my fellow panellists - one of whom was a long-term friend. Politely, but firmly, I was verbally punished for my indiscretion.

Although I had intended no offense, indeed my remark was calculated to reinforce a point which had already been made, it is clear that making politically incorrect asides can easily upset people.

According to common law, offensive behaviour is conduct calculated to wound the feelings and arouse anger, disgust, or outrage in the mind of a reasonable person. With such a broad definition it becomes almost impossible to say anything of a substantial nature without offending somebody somewhere.

A case in point… Last week I wrote a piece examining the difficulties organisations face because of the tendency to approve of alpha-male characteristics in those we appoint or elect to positions of power. The title, The Sociopathic Condition We Still Call Leadership, was intended to offer a clue to the more astute reader that to label someone a leader in no way implies that leadership will necessarily ensue.

During the course of this essay I deliberately avoided any reference to gender – except in one short paragraph, where I observed that organisations we tend to laud as exceptional cultural models – those that deliberately set out to avoid qualities of ruthlessness, hubris, dispassionate manipulation, and psychopathic charm, for example - are well disposed to having young people, many of whom are women, at their helm.

Apparently, this was offensive to one of my readers who commented: The implication that women are innately compassionate and humble is problematic. Sex difference is a heated and ongoing discussion. Women can be sociopaths too of course. I would advise the author to develop his understanding and address his underlying benevolent sexism.

I thanked the reader, wounded and finding it hard to keep my composure, assuring her that I had no need to look up benevolent sexism as I had already encountered this term when reading a critique of Cordelia Fine’s book Testosterone Rex, an eloquent expose of several gender myths. I took exception to my reader’s contention that this was somehow my underlying impulse.

My response was a mixture of curiosity and quiet exasperation. Curious as to how anyone, even the most accomplished of psychologists, could diagnose my personal inclinations, or perceive an underlying sexist impulse, from just one word. In one sentence. In an essay of over one thousand words. An essay that had no reference to gender other than that one word. Irritated by the premise that my disposition was therefore the problem, rather than the reader’s interpretation of my writing.

I am exaggerating my umbrage of course. The key point here is not that I was irked by such comments. When you publish online you must expect across-the-board advice, criticism, and commentary. Indeed, initiating a robust exchange of views regarding such substantive matters is central to my mission. I was untroubled by her attempt to analyse my motive from a distance, and without knowing anything about me. This, after all, has become a common occurrence in today’s social media. Most people have opinions that range from the sensible to the wildly ill-informed. Nor was I bothered that her conjecture spoke volumes about her own inhibitions rather than mine.

What does disturb me, however, is that truly provocative ideas, however inadequately expressed, can be disparaged in ways that imply the character of the writer is flawed and, in this case, that I needed help, or even therapy, in order to be able to see the reality of my disorder. Such calculated obfuscation is not simply an attack on scholarship – it is nothing less than a smart-arse attempt to persuade others that any challenging analysis should not be taken seriously. Without wanting to be overly dramatic, this reminds me of the Soviet gulags and Chinese laogai where artists, scholars, and activists were sent for re-education, often on the most trivial of pretexts.

My work is to think and write about contentious ideas in the context of reframing some of our most deep-seated, yet often perplexingly obsolescent beliefs. My intention is not to offend, nor to hurt somebody's feelings, but to expand our civilisational ecology of mind by examining alternative theories and models located outside of traditional norms.

Of course, any such challenge to the status quo intensifies when revelatory pragmatism becomes intrusive and shakes the foundations of our personal beliefs.

While I do not shy away from the possibility of causing offence, experience indicates that those most offended by the sheer potency of unfamiliar ideas, of the type I explore in my writings, are so deeply in love with their own set of comforting platitudes, that almost any statement, even mildly provocative ones, can be interpreted as a personal affront.

A related difficulty, which I encounter over and over, is an insistence by purists that no tract or thesis is worthy of serious attention if it fails to follow strict guidelines of the kind propagated by the academy. Indeed, I recall one vice-chancellor criticising my book The Five Literacies of Global Leadership as being lightweight by virtue of being insufficiently dispassionate. Yet, with the exception of scientific discoveries, finding any indisputably exciting or breakthrough ideas emerging from university campuses is likely to set one on a wild goose chase. A random thought. Perhaps we should be offended by the accidental irrelevance of much post-graduate work these days, rather than minor stylistic details in meaningful projects.

How is it possible, in an age of such political rectitude, for us to challenge notions that are causing the world to fracture (without being accused of offensive behaviour) if all we can do is remain polite, bland and innocuous? How can we transcend current theories-in-use, especially when they are adopted as a form of guiding philosophy, that have their origins mired in questionable hypotheses and a tortured logic that ultimately leads nowhere?

Clinical research, like that undertaken by Cordelia Fine, proves quite convincingly that any perceived differences between men and women are fundamentally cultural in nature. But where does that take us? How does it change anything? For all the effort spent on gender studies, for example, has any useful insight transpired that would encourage a reframing of the male-female nexus? If so, does it provide us with a more profound appreciation of the issues than, say, matristic lore[i] as practised by the Origine peoples of Australia? And if so how might we use this wisdom to redesign schools or take that information into account when recruiting people into the workforce?

At a time when those with autism or ADHD are valued in organisations for their innate skills, the tendency for men and women still to be stereotyped into specific gender roles is nonsense. Likewise, the disparity between what we value, and how we reward, men and women is utterly absurd. The numbers of women on company Boards in comparison to men is also ludicrous. But what are we really doing about it?

Affirmative action introduced into public services decades ago was eventually seen to be the farce it was – but only because men with authority chose not to take it too seriously. Lip service, after all, is a relatively easy thing to fudge, especially in a large organisation.

I recently found myself in the position of having to convene a Board of Custodians for the Centre for the Future. It was obvious to me, as it was to my colleagues, that as the future will be owned by today’s youth, the Board would need to be young - both in spirit and in actuality. The fact that I ended up with four women and two men, myself included, was not deliberate. It did not even occur to me that I should strive for gender balance. What did drive me was the need to ensure diversity of experience and to find the very best minds for the job. As it happens, having ruled out the usual suspects, along with a few who badgered me to be included, it was far easier to find capable women that it was men.

Does this make me a benevolent sexist? Possibly. But my quest to find the best people for the Board was protracted, methodical, calculated, and took many factors into account than is normally the case in situations where possible candidates are typically chosen from a very small gene pool.

Perhaps such an admission will offend some people. That is fine. I will just have to learn to live with behaving offensively.

 

[i] Matristic Lore is neither patriarchal nor matriarchal. Instead it is derived from the ancient nomadic traditions which honoured both sacred masculine and sacred feminine for their own essential qualities.

The Victim, the Quisling, and the Wayfinder

If your penchant is to understand humanity there is plenty to be distracted by these days. We are all getting worked up into a dither of indignation and disquiet about what appears to be occurring in every corner of the modern world. Indeed the levels of provocation are reaching a breadth and an intensity that is unprecedented.

Propaganda produced by corporate media barons like Rupert Murdoch is unambiguously aimed at preserving social compliance. It does this by stoking confusion, anxiety and fear. The foil to this emotional clutter is spectator sports – and plenty of them. We are induced to watch melodrama posing as news and celebrities behaving badly, and are beguiled by the dross of reality television. All of this is cynically marketed as evidence that everything is just fine, that crises like global warming are fictions, and that our love for money should be on the same footing as the love we have for our sons and daughters. Interpretation? We should stop fretting and complaining, allow business to mind its own business, and leave those we elect to public office to get on with the task of governing the rest of us.

This seems to be functioning like some sinister clockwork. It diverts our attention away from the failure of the neoliberal economic machine that is in a state of collapse wherever we look. The show is dazzlingly spectacular when all is said and done - a mesmerizing, Cirque du Soleil kind of performance, where the music is louder and more raucous every moment that passes, and the antics of a few crazy clowns cause the crowd to gasp in spellbound wonder in anticipation of the next daring act. Few people want to ponder existential problems in that kind of environment. But that is a massive problem.

Objective analyses point to Donald Trump’s presidential posturing as brash buffoonery. Such games are dangerous nevertheless and, in this case, also cast a spotlight on the worrying lack of unity in the “united” states of North America.

It doesn’t stop there of course. For this entertainment is a wildly inclusive spectacle. It embraces everything from the juvenile follies of Kim in North Korea and the irrational utterances of Prayuth in Thailand, to the narcissistic hashtags of the twitterati and voyeurs who scour social media looking for any evidence that will prove we are all prisoners of an advanced intelligence or characters in some kind of digital simulation game.

Add to that already volatile cocktail Geert Wilders’ flop in the Dutch elections, which was actually another example of how activism can work to preserve the will of the people, the idea of Marine La Pen winning in France, the trauma of the UK’s Brexit continuing to signal an imminent breakdown across the “united” kingdom, Greece’s continuing indebtedness, and politicians of all persuasions now openly embracing lies and corruption, and we can only sit back in amazement and wonder what is left that can possibly surprise us!  

Extreme ideologies are running amok - which possibly also denotes their demise. The ultra-wealthy are doing everything in their power to protect their money. Central banks are playing manipulative games with their currencies. The technocracy continues to be seduced by its own narcissistic magic. And shining like a stuttering laser beam through all of this is an incumbent elite convinced of its own prowess and wisdom, constantly patching up the present, yet failing to address even the most basic psychological and spiritual needs of the human family.

In truth it seems as though we have opened the lid on a Pandora’s box from which every single evil has been released.

If we try to look away we will accept this farce at face value, most likely becoming anxious or depressed, and convinced by the sheer weight of an indoctrination that subsumes all rational thought. We will begin to accept everything we are told and invariably start to blame each another for causing such a distressing state of affairs. The mantra of religious extremism will take hold of our senses. We will conceive of and inflate the most innocuous traits of those who worship different gods or who wear garments unlike our own. The only trends we will notice are the alleged rise of fascism, racism and nationalistic xenophobia. This will generate hate while reinforcing ingrained prejudices and, above all else, incite an impulse to compete and fight back. To look away is the choice of the victim.

If we look down, in an attempt to ignore or moderate events, we may succeed in escaping the more extreme sensations of despair and anguish. But to disconnect in this manner will anesthetise our feelings and stifle any ability to resist. By looking down we rely on hope – the hope that things are not as bad as they seem, hope that the world can return to some semblance of normality, but without our direct involvement. To look down is to slink into the silence of shadows - to pretend that this is none of our concern. To look down is the choice of the quisling.

But if we look up we may begin to discern patterns that make sense. We might interpret all of the current confusion as part of an inevitable evolution from one kind of society to another – a transition from the serf-powered colonial empires of industrial capitalism to a more universally empathic, ecologically resilient, post-capitalist common wealth.

Looking up we might regard with some disparagement the unsettling nature of the rotting cadaver that passes for authentic leadership, yet garner hope from knowing that the opaque curtain concealing the lie of orthodox economics has been lifted - displayed like the Wizard of Oz for all to see and to mock.

Once the illusionist's fabulous trick has been explained it is impossible to be deceived. There can be no retreat for humanity now that the secret of predatory capitalism has been discredited and is out in the open. A world that works for everyone must be our path now. But we still need to navigate that path. To look up is the choice of the wayfinder.

Doing Something

With thanks to Steve who suggested doing it

The challenge came out of the blue. It could not have been more stark: You have spent the past 25 years thinking, talking and writing about the future. So why don't you stop talking and actually do something?

We all have opinions. Thinking about what needs to change in our lives is undoubtedly the most normal inclination shared by all of us. At times, if we get really frustrated or annoyed about the absurdity or unfairness of life, we might go so far as to complain to our friends in the pub about the scoundrels in government, greedy bankers at the top end of town, my wife's psychopathic boss, or that moron of a referee at the game last Saturday.

Sometimes we might find an opportunity to take a more calculated stance and whinge about the same things from the vantage point of a pulpit, the steps of Parliament, or some other forum with a captive audience. But apart from the random intense longing to take things into our own hands, most of us do very little to change the status quo or our own lot in life. In the end it is just too difficult.

As for me it's not as though I'm lazy. There simply aren't enough hours in the day to hold down a job, relax a little, do the daily chores, and follow up on every single grievance or unfair rule that happens to irk me - even less the chance to track down others who share similar opinions. Most of the time we just live with aggravation, put up with fools, and shake our heads in disbelief at the latest human folly. We can always stroll down to the pub later and have a whinge.

So the challenge to get off my bum and do something is dismissed with the contempt it deserves. For a start it implies that I haven't actually done anything prior to this moment. Nothing useful at least. It infers I am incapable of action - that my life is full of bluster and little else.

How dare he? He obviously does not really know me!

Surely a few strangers in my audiences would have gone away determined to change something in their lives after hearing me speak? Doesn't that count? What about that bloke who tapped me on the shoulder just last month at Beijing Airport and told me that my latest book, Heresies, had changed his entire outlook on life? And what about the many clients I have advised and cajoled after spending hours of analysing their problems and attending to their woes? What about all the proteges I have emboldened. Heavens, they spend their entire lives doing stuff as a result of bumping into provocateurs like me!

I readily admit that the majority of my career has been taken up with writing and talking - in each case the inherent loneliness prolonged by thinking. Deep thinking mind you. Not your casual one-dimensional musing! But that doesn't mean I can't be useful. Or practical. It certainly does not mean I need to do something else or more or different in order to feel appreciated and valued.

How dare he! Best to ignore it I suppose. Perhaps he thinks I'm incompetent when it comes to action. How dare he....

Damn it. I think he might have a minor point though. If the task of the thinker is to expand our knowledge by speaking broadly to the transcultural dimensions of human existence, then a moral purpose must be evident. If the writer's occupation is to connect ideas in the search for meaning, then there is a responsibility to find the truth. And if the orator's role is to motivate and inspire, there must also be some kind of personal evidence that makes the message credible.

After so many grand ideas, so many words spilling off the page, so much stimulus to reach for the stars, purposeful action becomes vital. If there is no action then there is nothing. All the talk is empty bluster. So his challenge does carry some weight I suppose.

Come to think of it, he's got a few good points. Thinking is totally safe. Thoughts can be kept secret and under wraps for as long as one likes. There is no reason to divulge them to others unless pressed to do so. If they are aired publicly then others can choose to ignore or dismiss them. End of story! I don't want to be considered innocuous. So my thinking must inevitably lead to something else. I get that. But my preference is for communicating ideas through writing and speaking. And that just gets us back to where we started.

How dare he!

Actually writing too, it must be admitted, can be something of a sheltered occupation. It matters not what format a writer uses. Books, articles, essays, screen plays, editorials, opinion pieces, academic papers, blogs or theses all have one common factor - they are a relatively safe medium to hide behind. Our modern aversion to the printed word and the dumbing down of society also play into that. The written word can be so casually shunted aside in favour of imagery or a live performance.

Speaking is a little more hazardous of course. It is hard to get away with a mediocre performance when a live audience is ready to clap in unison - invariably a sign that you have committed a sin in their eyes - heckle vociferously, or carry you out on their shoulders in mock triumph. So much depends upon creating a bond with the audience. Without that relationship it is possible to die a slow death - a result ranging from bored yawns to the need to escape the scene as rapidly as possible in order to avoid physical injury. And that doesn't even take malicious questions into account. Questions that so easily can sound more like declarations of hostility: I must take issue with your reasoning. That diagram is just wrong - and so are your sources. But you claimed the opposite of that in your last book! I don't think you really know what you're talking about! Oh yes. I've had all of these, and more. Public speaking can be very damaging to one's health.

But nothing is as dangerous as taking direct action. Especially when that action is an attempt to realise one's personal ideas and dreams, previously only accessible in written or spoken form. Action takes ideas and makes them meaningful. And that takes courage and determination.

Okay I guess he has more than just one valid argument. Damn it.

Could I really have been playing a little too safe all these years? Many of my ideas have yet to be tested in actuality. And even then they might not easily translate into different cultures, or scale-up to the extent that I often say is necessary. So how can I really claim to be a philosopher-activist, or a futurist, or any of the other exotic labels I've been given over the years?

Speculation is all very well. But if he is saying I should actually do something, what is the thing I should do? I am already doing as much as I can fit in. Besides I have always said there is too much doing and not enough reflection. He will no doubt counter that by saying reflection doesn't necessarily lead to doing anything. It exists only in the mind so it cannot be doing.

Doing something... What could I do that feels right and that grows out of my thinking, writing and public speaking? A business based upon creating desired futures perhaps? An entrepreneurial futurist? Now there's a thought. A going concern based upon two roles usually considered to be mutually exclusive! Most practitioners of foresight teach futures studies, consult using a suite of classic futures tools and methods, or draft hypothetical scenarios for large corporations and governments. Others, usually connoisseurs of three word catchphrases who manage to convince themselves and others that the future is simply an extrapolative synthesis of present trends, we can safely disregard. They are bubbles that pop almost as soon as they have materialised.

In all three former instances real-world projects designed to tackle the flaws within our most life-critical systems are avoided. That's fine. They would invariably require massive resources and a willingness on the part of those with potentially deeply conflicting belief systems to cooperate. So risk is a major factor. Let's face it most of the ideas arising from futures workshops are so fanciful that they would court disaster from the very beginning. World peace, eliminating poverty, global nuclear disarmament and feeding the world are generally considered unattainable illusions best left to the super rich or the clinically certifiable.

On the whole futurists do not seem to make very good entrepreneurs. They might be innovative scholars or inspiring speakers. But entrepreneurship? Hardly. Those that do venture into starting a business where they are not the centre of attention are usually commercially very astute with a technological bent. They see a market niche and capture it with a cool product. Think Steve Jobs or Elon Musk. But these individuals always seem to avoid the mantle of futurist - possibly because of an unfortunate association with bureaucratic process and what that would then do for sales!

Not that I have ever called myself a futurist. But the numbers of that ilk who go into the business of making the world work more effectively - by reinventing the thinking and doing that is clearly detrimental to human life and to the biosphere of our planet - by prototyping that design and then scaling-up on a global scale, can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Richard Buckminster Fuller comes to mind. But then I pause. Who else?

So perhaps that is it. I will do something worthwhile. Things I have spoken and written about on many occasion. I will start a business to make the world work better for everyone on the planet. This business will reinvent systems that are failing the majority of the human family, surface opportunities to prototype the new design and then, assuming it is better for the health and well-being of most people than the incumbent model provides, find individuals and institutions to help scale-up this design around the world.

Now all I have to do is convince people that I am neither wealthy nor mad!

How dare he!

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  

 

Waves of Distractions

World leaders probably chat to each other on a regular basis, read the morning newspapers, take selfies for posting on their Facebook pages, attend each others’ funerals (and the obligatory annual love-in at Davos), use their iPhones to send text messages to loved ones, take kickbacks from a high net wealth individual or two over dinner, and breakfast on the cereal we can all buy from the local supermarket. I even get the impression some of them might watch repeats of Seinfeld or Last Week Tonight with John Oliver in their pyjamas.

They are only human after all and soon, quite possibly very soon, politics being what it is, they will leave office and have nothing left - other than to bask in any success that happened to come their way, or make millions from repeating the same sad story ad infinitum on the public speaking circuit.

Imagine then a situation where, starting tomorrow morning, they begin to awaken to their worst possible nightmare: the increasing probability they will need to deal with not just one but a series of existential threats to humanity – a perfect storm of emergencies converging on global civilization. Each one a seemingly unique threat to their complacent, comfortable routines. Each one a challenge to their ego, their credibility and their status.

Suppose these world leaders begin to appreciate that the sheer scale and impact of these crises could be more terrifying than anything they have ever seen in a movie? And suppose that although there is clearly an urgent need for decisive action there are no real plans in place to deal with this looming situation. None at all. What might they believe and do?

Let’s be rational, they might reasonably muse. The kids still go to school and sit for their exams. Retail stores open each day, focused on convincing us to open our wallets and buy their latest goods, even if we don’t actually need them. Cities continue to buzz with the overcrowded energy of millions of ordinary people going about their daily chores. The nightly news on television is full of trite tittle tattle and inconsequential trivia we have come to expect from the stables of wealthy media barons. Bank bosses still take us for a ride, making obscene profits but hoping that we won’t notice. Meanwhile we are fascinated by the latest gadgets from Samsung or Apple and are absorbed by the latest scandals to hit Hollywood or our local club.

So let’s try standing in the shoes of our illustrious leaders once again. They might be genuinely anxious. Fearful even. More likely they are persuaded that most so-called warnings of impending doom are not as serious as the more melancholy Cassandra’s predict. I can imagine their internal dialogue going something like this…

What crisis? Issues like famine, poverty, peak oil, pandemics, global warming and water shortages were proclaimed crises over 25 years ago (or more) and we’re still here aren’t we? There hasn’t been much obvious deterioration that I can see. Besides my most trusted advisers from the world of business assure me there is nothing to be concerned about. There is still plenty of oil and coal left to burn. And all the disquiet seems to be coming from a few left-wing intellectuals stirring the pot. Naturally scientists can’t be trusted. That bunch are always finding new theories to replace the old without so much as a backward glance. All things considered the best policy is not to rock the boat. There is no need for action if my colleagues are unconcerned. Besides there aren’t many votes in climate change or solar energy.

Okay, okay. That’s enough of such barefaced cognitive constipation. Put your own shoes back on quickly before you, too, become befuddled by the farce.

But seriously… What can be causing such collective myopia – other than a highly toxic virus that infects only the brain functions of leaders? Could a surfeit of sport coupled with celebrity gossip be distracting them? Perhaps their voice coaches, staff advisers, political strategists and party apparatchiks have baffled them sufficiently to have lulled them into a false sense of self-admiration?

Or perhaps the reason they pay such little attention to public outrage, or to the overwhelmingly pessimistic scientific evidence as our most life-critical systems enter a state of collapse, is simply because they are out of their depth. Perhaps they just cannot comprehend the dynamic complexity of it all and, in the final analysis, have not the faintest idea what to do even if they did understand what was going on?

They must surely notice that society is fraying at the edges? After all to recognise the signs of decay and to do something about it is why we pay them. So what is their strategy as leaders? To do absolutely nothing might be deemed impotent, or worse. So that is not an option. No wonder some call it the age of stupid. I will offer you my own theory based upon what I would do if I was inept, utterly out of my depth, and had only my vested interests, deep pockets, big ego, and a few creative minds, to keep me interested.

Distractions. Not just one. Lots of them. Waves of distractions. You know what I mean. Just like in that movie Wag the Dog.

I loved George W. Bush's smirk as he tried to keep a straight face while goading people into a pre-emptive strike on Iraq based upon a lie. George was the master of distraction - although he did have very fine teachers in his father, his close friends the bin Ladens, and Benjamin Netanyahu of course. Bibi always was a dab hand at deception.

But no one could match George Dubya at the peak of his powers, especially as he was also a maestro of standup comedy and deceit. Not even Tony Blair at his most cringingly popular could keep pace with Dubya - although he did try very hard bless him. And I bet young Jeb has a few tricks up his sleeve if he can save up enough money to become the Republican nominee for the US Presidency. 

An effective distraction these days would need to be far more carefully constructed than his brother's war mongering stunts of course. The older sibling and his cronies might still get their just deserts, what with the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights in Germany intent on indicting Bush, Cheney and an assorted variety of their henchmen for war crimes. But there is another important decision to consider. Having decided that waves of distractions are the way to go what theme could we possibly use to create the most commotion in order to deflect attention away from my own deficiencies as a leader?

Among many possibilities I would probably opt for a strategy capable of instilling the most fear and panic worldwide. One must be bold in circumstances where one’s leadership skills are in doubt. Timidity is for the weak. But now I am faced with a dilemma. Whilst acknowledging that war has always been needed to gain power, wealth, and control over the daily affairs of citizens, the general public has a tendency to oppose armed hostility. What to do? Any good strategist knows the answer to this one.

The solution was found decades ago and is still used successfully today. I will create an enemy so terrifying that the masses will beg my government to go to war. With good fortune and careful manipulation of the media I might even be able to persuade the people that this is a holy war to be fought over decades. Awesome!

Other design criteria will be just as explicit. Firstly, my war will need to receive arms-length support via a covert operations infrastructure and a web of half-truths and intelligence propaganda. Secondly, it will need to be marketed as an evil threat in contrast to my own inherent righteousness. Dualism such as this can hardly confuse those in society who cannot spell the word aggression. Thirdly, it will need to be used as a tool to justify war in those parts of the world that cannot strike back at me. Or, to be more precise, that any such strike, whether real or fabricated, could be seen as a reason to pour even more resources into fighting evil on behalf of the innocent. Always a vote winner that one. And that would do I suspect.

The final step would be to choose a really easily-remembered, melodramatic name that would appeal to the press. An alarmist headline - like Islamic Command - would do very nicely. But that label is already too close to one we’re already using and its not good to be too repetitive. It might give the game away.

I think my strategy is too good to fail. It’s based on sound military theory as well as an innate human wariness of those who choose not to share someone else's beliefs. It has the potency to sway public opinion in my favour and to support any decision I care to make about the need for immediate action. It also provides a compelling pretext for other leaders - colleagues and friends who share my dilemma you understand - to cooperate in joint interventions around the world.

The industrial military complex will smile on me and my administration. And by manufacturing a domestic threat of this nature, taking away a few civil rights from my compatriots while increasing community surveillance should be a breeze. Voila. That’s a full house! I am already confident of yet another term in office.

Hey do you boys in the military want to see some action? Have you ever been to Syria? Iraq? What do you mean, you don’t want to go back there? Am I not a great leader? (applause)……

With gratitude to Edward Snowden and Julian Assange but insincere apologies to George Bush Snr, George W. Bush, Jeb Bush, Dick Cheney, the CIA, Mossad, the Bin Laden family, Benjamin Netanyahu, John Howard, Tony Blair and Tony Abbott. 

 

 

A Hollywood Spoof

So US officials have proof that impoverished North Korea is behind the recent damaging cyber attack on Sony Pictures. Yeah right! Like they have also discovered that Santa Claus is not a fable but a real person using an advanced, highly secret, teleportation device to deliver his parcels.

Naturally we should take these statements from respectable officials and their expert advisers very seriously. After all to know about such things is their job. They dedicate their lives to the pursuit of the truth and to finding out about these matters. They know much more about what is really going on in the world than us mere mortals. Their track record is unblemished and their motives are absolutely pure. Again, yeah right!

These are the people you will recall who provided “intelligence” to President Nixon persuading him that he should bomb a peaceful Cambodia into oblivion. These are the specialist sleuths who convinced George W Bush, British PM Tony Blair, and the puppet PM of Australia John Howard, that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and could launch a nuclear attack on the West at any moment. They told the CIA it was just fine to oppress those from Afghanistan or Iraq or Syria and then use material gained from torture to support even greater acts of barbarity - as long as they hold different cultural or religious beliefs of course. These are the people who find scraps of disconnected data that commit their country to a seemingly endless series of justifications for waging war in the Middle East, for stirring up fears about China’s ambitions, and creating fantasies about the threat of Islam. And they are the same paranoid psychopaths who declare Alexander Putin to be a rogue despot and Israel to be an innocent state on the verge of being mauled by an offensive Iran.

And where is their proof that North Korea is behind these attacks? Apparently the hackers' methods and “other clues” led these experts to that conclusion. A key piece of evidence is the fact that the hackers erased data from the computers, something many cyber thieves do not usually do. Oh well that’s conclusive then! North Korea must be telling fibs.

Fiction seems to sell as well in Hollywood as it does in the Pentagon or the Department of Homeland Security. The undeniable fact is that North Korea is an almost destitute state. It has so little Internet usage that it is essentially a black hole in cyberspace. Yet these attacks showed high levels of hacking proficiency and sophistication – the kind regularly used by the US in covert operations around the world to disrupt innocent people’s lives, intimidate and sway corrupt despots, destroy competition, and focus attention away from significant domestic issues.

In this hollow nation, which modern America has become, the exploits of movie and TV celebrities complement everyday absurdities in the Senate, entertaining citizens while keeping them rabidly nationalistic. In a weird twist the Kim Kardashian’s of this world appear to play a role very similar to that of the Kim family in North Korea. It is all just smoke and mirrors…

Meanwhile back to the topic in hand. North Korea has offered to take part in a joint investigation, and to offer evidence they possess, to prove they were not behind the cyber attack. This invitation will be refused as the US is not interested in the truth. Besides US credibility would plunge yet again if the truth of the matter ever emerges.

And so the Obama administration’s publicly stated position will be one of contempt. This has many advantages, not the least being they can now opt to believe that North Korea has embraced cyber-terrorism as its new weapon of choice for making political points and extorting new concessions out of the United States and its allies. This "fact" will be used as the basis for providing even more reasons for the US to screw this part of the so-called axis of evil.

The real tragi-comedy in all of this is the way many US senators and their ideological allies continue to believe such immature foolishness. When will they grow up and stop using fictions and lies as the basis for their foreign engagement policy - especially as it continues to fuel their self-righteous and explosive megalomania?

This is not an easily answered question. And it is made all the more problematic by the inexorable shift of power and moral authority away from the US empire to Eastern nations. The wounded bull fights back the only way it knows; lashing out at all and sundry until it collapses, exhausted, in the heat and the dust. Overstretched militarily, culturally, psychologically and economically will this be the ultimate fate of the land of the free?

A Carnival of Trivial Ideas

Compere: This week we proudly announce the winners of the 2013 Thinkers50 Awards. Break open the champagne, raise your glasses. Ladies and gentlemen the toast is the world's top 50 management thinkers - their inspiration and the valuable contributions they continue to make to our society.

Cynic: (Interrupting the proceedings) Excuse me. Did I hear you correctly? You mean to say that this gang of academics and consultants who earn their living from touting banal fictions concerning human enterprise, who trip over common sense and rebrand it as innovation, who help their clients manufacture growth via greed, are getting accolades? That's a bit rich. Is this some kind of joke? It's a hoax right?

Compere: Au contraire my tiresome friend. The world at large is indebted to these ideas pioneers. It would be pretty mean-spirited of you to deny the impact these celebrities have had on business today. Why our largest and most successful corporations would be totally different were it not for these gurus. You of all people should know that.

Cynic: Oh, I am not doubting their impact for one minute - just the nature of the results. From what I have seen the consequences from their ideas disrupt business, often pointlessly; connect only tenuously with the real world; perpetuate myths that are clearly flawed; and act as an intolerable burden on most of humanity - even in their own backyard. Besides, their popularity, though happily on the decline, is almost exclusively the result of gullible senior executives who are too lazy to think for themselves.

Compere: My, my. You are such a misanthropist. I don't see why I should even bother to argue with you. You appear to have such a jaundiced view of thought leadership! Can you not at least appreciate their originality and good intentions?

Cynic: Now I 'm convinced you are in jest. Thought leadership indeed! Show me the tiniest crumb of originality. Explain to me how any of these ideas help create a better world for anyone other than an elite group of fat cats. Tell me how they give hope and create a new sense of purpose for people living in rural Cambodia, Bolivia or Zaire - or Spain for that matter. As for their intentions, surely their only goal is to make more money - for themselves and their clients? I do not necessarily impugn such goals. Money makes the world go around, right? But let us be absolutely frank. Setting aside the few authentically innovative concepts that have revolutionised the field of management, like Deming's slant on Quality Control, for example, or Stafford Beer's Viable Systems Model, most new management ideas are either recycled fads or petty scams: designed to have a limited shelf life they hoodwink organisations into believing they must keep on changing, so as to keep on growing. But hello! The world does not need more growth. Nor does it need greater wealth - at least not in developed countries. The lack of genuine inventiveness displayed by these Top50 management thinkers is pitiful. They publish their claptrap because they need to satisfy the protocols of the academy. If they do not publish then they do not get promoted. But if they were in any other profession they would be held up to ridicule. Lacking any sense of a deeper social responsibility they enable the persistence of a monocultural business ethos, nearly always expressed in embarrassing cliches, that has lost all meaning - a belief system that has brought our civilisation to the brink of collapse. Perhaps a more relevant toast would be "to the successful extinction of humanitarian ideals in business!"

Compere: Bunkum. (Turns to audience, a few of whom are beginning to fidget uncomfortably in their seats) All this talk about civilisational collapse is just a scare tactic conjured up by socialist renegades and anarchists like yourself. You're unsettling our audience with such talk. I assume you also believe in all this commons guff, shared value and ethical capitalism? Now there's a fairy tale if ever there was one!

Let's get back on track. (Confronts Cynic angrily) You have disrupted these proceedings long enough. Will you at least concede the veracity of the management ideas you seem to despise in context? We are mostly indifferent to the developing world here. Without exception all the greatest advances in management have come from the US or Europe. Countries like America, England, Germany and Sweden, for example, where the entire economy is based upon the implementation of these ideas, have benefitted massively from our Top50 thinkers.

Cynic: Indeed they have. And look where it's got them. Disaster capitalism spreads like wildfire in old empires already addicted to economic growth. Driven by a mix of scarcity and greed, the enduring impulse of most Western corporations in these countries remains the creation of obscene wealth for absurdly small numbers of people. And bugger the rest.

Compere: (Protesting) But they really are the best. We scoured the world to get this ranking you realise. Most executives in this room could not possibly agree with your reasoning. Are you a communist Sir?

Cynic: (Giggling hysterically) How do you have the effrontery to call your Top50 awards "the best management ideas in the world"? I had not realised Europe and the US had colluded to re-assign themselves as such. Where are the voices representing Brazil, China, Australia, Singapore, India, South East Asia or even Japan for God's sake - not to mention the entire continent of Africa? All the best ideas come from Harvard, Stanford and Oxford. Is that what you are asserting?

Compere: Don't be silly. There are no original management ideas coming out of the countries you name, with the possible exception of Indian academcs who have been educated in the US or the UK. They invariably copy ours. Africa? Brazil? Are you crazy? Let's be sensible please. Besides, the US is still pre-eminent in management innovation.

Cynic: Is that so? Tell me then why the US economy is moribund. Why is 80 per cent of the population living near poverty or below it? Why, with 3 per cent of the world's population, does this nation have almost 25 per cent of the world's convicted criminals? Explain to me why Western corporations domiciled in these nations are still attached to ideas that defy gravity. And how is it that I throw new management texts by your superstars in the trash after reading barely a few pages because they are so predictable and corny? I admit that in the late 20th century a few interesting notions were the drivers behind much corporate change. But in truth nothing really changed. Today, creativity and invention in corporate life has been replaced by the industrial military complex and the arrogance of Wall Street. These days America is lacking in transparency, collaboration, empathy, and even resourcefulness. Meanwhile these gurus you sanctify by putting them on a pedestal incite consultants, who then advise Boards, who then preside over a domestic economy in decline. America has had its heart ripped out and trampled on by policies aimed at favouring the wealthy and marginalising the poor. Even the middle class, the traditional engine of productivity, is suffering. What terrifies me even more is that America is still hell bent on the cultural colonisation of the developing world by exporting its corporate ideology of rampant growth, consumer excess and selfishness to the rest of us. And nobody is game enough to stop it.

Compere: Stop it. We have heard quite enough. By denigrating the winners of the 2013 Top50 Thinkers in this manner you are also belittling our advisors and sponsors. (Points to people sitting at the front table) That is petty and mean. I strongly suspect your unwise critique is driven by sheer envy. Furthermore....

Cynic: (Interrupting but choking back laughter) Come off it. On your website you state that these ideas have the power to change the world. When will that happen? Let's be candid for a change. I'm sure your sponsors and advisors cannot be as naive as you claim. I know where they work. Any fool can see they have vested interests in promoting the ideas of your so-called gurus - whether through books, academia, public speaking or consulting; the method matters not. Sales is the goal. So they are not innocent by any stretch of the imagination. Complicit actors in helping you conjure the illusion you are perpetrating, their role in decking out cognitive compost as intellectual treasure is undeniable. Don't pretend to be so shocked. You must be familiar with the children's fable of the Emperor's new clothes. Voila! When all is said and done your sponsors are just endorsing a carnival of trivia. Your Emperors are naked. I realise you are only the compere, but I'm not sure how you can keep a straight face at such blatant shenanigans! (Cannot control his laughter any longer)

Compere: Perhaps you had better leave before I have you ejected. You are a disgrace Sir!

Cynic: (Stumbling out, the tears streaming down his face) Perhaps I should at that!

With sincere apologies to any friends or colleagues likely to be offended by the caustic nature of this piece. Also to those few genuine thought leaders who are not charlatans, who recognise the truth when they hear it, and who are wise enough to reject what they think on a regular basis for fear of becoming too pompous and plain wrong!

 

Three Thoroughly Thoughtless Thinks

I will be uncharacteristically brief. This topic does not merit an extended argument. I have no time to waste on inanities. Yet neither can I remain silent. I am piqued. Outraged actually.

The object of this outrage? Lengthy, obtuse, academic texts - I hesitate to label them essays as this usually denotes a semblance of intelligent flowing prose; documents I found in my Trash folder today. Three of them. All published in highly respected peer-reviewed journals. And all of them pure bunkum. Unintelligible drivel authored and sponsored under the guise of scholarly erudition.

After scanning the first piece, with the pretentious title A meta-analytic review of leadership impact research: Experimental and quasi-experimental studies, a total of 21 pages of sheer twaddle written by a quintet of individuals from institutes in the US and Singapore who should know better, I rationally concluded this must be a prank - especially as I am unsure how I got hold of the wretched things in the first place. Had I received them on April Fool's Day? I mused. If so then I probably tipped them into the Trash instinctively. Perhaps they contained malware or a virus...

At that point I noticed two similar specimens. I looked for some clues as to their source. Evidently they had been sent at the same time. Actually they could have been identical were it not for the claims of different authors on the covers. The abstracts offered no hint as to their authenticity as all three were utterly unintelligible. Indeed this actually increased my suspicions that I was the unwitting victim of a hoax.

Still partly incredulous, I skimmed the contents. In each case the paper had been concocted by a pair of individuals hailing from equally prestigious establishments as the first. But these two essays had even less to commend them than the first. I returned all three to the Trash and deleted them instantly. And then I started thinking!

I will not dwell on the circumstances that allow such vacuous, self-referential efforts to clutter up and waste our time, shrouding invalid abstractions in arcane nonsense and parading trivia under the pretext of scholarship. After all it seems to be a thoroughly modern dilemma that so many untalented individuals can avoid being productive members of society by holing up in our universities. I apologise if this rant sounds as though I have metamorphosed into an extremist right-wing radio jock!

But what really amazes me is that genuinely smart people, including the majority of highly regarded scholars who have contributed so much of value to the expansion of human knowledge, can sit idly by, condone, and be hoodwinked by such hogwash. Seriously!

Although I profoundly oppose the mechanism, I do twig that the corrupt system of academic patronage requires students to cite the work of their instructors and their peers, especially if promotion or tenure is in their sights. But where is the discrimination that should immediately expose the truth of such dire and inconsequential work? Endeavours that invariably insult our intelligence? Efforts that add nothing to human wisdom or discourse?

Surely it is the responsibility of universities to enact some form of quality control and rule against those who would perpetuate ignorance and folly? Surely they should vet their graduates' work more meticulously? Surely they should insist that a few universal criteria be applied to dissertations of any kind before being let off the reservation?

One would have thought originality must unquestionably be the prime criterion. It is not useful to replicate stuff we already know. Yet even the reputation of some well-known Harvard dons has been founded on their knack of discovering commonsense and rebadging it as innovation.

Contribution should surely be another? The investment we all make in education, through the taxes we pay to the state, must result in some kind of productive value for society - even if that value is philosophical or aesthetic in nature.

Clarity, too, is essential is new ideas are to be communicated effectively. Knowledge has no way of gaining traction if insights and discoveries are constantly wrapt in turgid, self-indulgent, tracts that obfuscate and confuse. Again that is simply game playing. It is of no value to anyone whatsoever.

That is all....

A Solemn Declaration:

I solemnly declare that I am not affiliated to any educational institution, and that I do not have any financial interests in, or enjoy any other form of allegiance with, any academic entity whatsoever - including Harvard University in Boston, the Elf School in Reykjavic and the Charles W. Howard Santa School in Michigan. This declaration notwithstanding the fact I narrowly avoided a near-hit just recently. Okay, okay. I am just a slow learner I guess.

Furthermore I declare that I will continue to avoid any such relationship in the future so as to ensure I retain my sanity for as long as possible given my advancing years.

I also declare my bias in these matters. I am not the most suitable person to be praising modern academe, although as an outsider I am not entirely comfortable criticising it. Woops. I just told a lie! I do admit a preference for learning organisations and the liberation of transformational knowledge rather than of dogma conveyed through instruction and bigotry within bureaucracies that do everything they can to constrain their communities from stepping into new epistemologies. I will leave it to you, dear reader, to decide in which camp that places me. No prizes offered - just go and submit your thesis today if your answer is "Unsure".

After an early stint as a lecturer in aesthetics, one of the most enjoyable periods in my life yet also a time when I began to achieve a level of expertise in the hypocritically clandestine and self-serving nature of tertiary education, I tried to avoid the scene altogether. I failed. Vanity persuaded me to relent twice - accepting invitations I ultimately had cause to regret. On the first occasion I was forced to resign for misleading Council - a cunning conspiracy I should have seen coming and one that precipitated my premature mid-life crisis. On the second occasion I was "strongly urged" to resign, which I did out of concern for my personal safety - this time for telling unpalatable truths to those who refused to acknowledge what seemed to be self-evident to everyone else.