The Hidden Power

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Sovereignty - we've heard a lot in the UK about both sovereignty, and "taking back control" - but this taking back of control in the context of leaving the EU has so far barely extended to us as citizens. Why and how is the current UK system so paternalistic? What are the roots of the widespread and long-standing political apathy in the UK? What alternative models can we look to for inspiration?

In this episode we examine how the UK's First Past The Post system creates, not least in Boris Johnson, but also Tony Blair and Margaret Thatcher, rulers that are effectively sovereign monarchs, and a citizenry of disempowered subject-consumers. And we explore what it would take for us to assert our sovereignty more effectively.

Talking points:

• The planet is ideally sovereign, but to be practical it's people who are doing the doing
• Who actually exercises power in the UK?
• Centralisation leads to bureaucracy leads to powerlessness
• The Welfare System as a case in point
• Think Tanks vs. Thinking Tanks
• People are perfectly capable, regardless of background
• Switzerland's consensual democracy as exemplar
• Fragmentation of the UK as an opportunity for this
• Hangover of Empire in the current administration
• Challenges to active participation
• Leadership model in Amazon
• Scientific Method, falsification and Karl Popper

Bonus Links:

Sovereignty boffin and Brexit campaigner Claire Fox celebrates the engaging effect that the UK's leaving the EU has had on democratic participation in the UK, and that this is only the beginning - neatly illustrating that for some, Brexit is a gift that keeps on giving, even if for others it is a night - long, dark, damp, and cold - with no promise of morning. Brrr.

Pioneering paediatrician and psychotherapist of family systems D.W. Winnicott's 1949 essay exploring the question of maturity in individuals and society, strongly anticipating themes of systems thinking.

From the In Our Time History Archive - now pieces of history in themselves:

Long history of psychoanalysis and democracy (2002)

Thoughts on the Nation State (1999) - prescient and rather Brexity in retrospect.

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Check 21 - Governments - Tax: Too much is never enough

Everyone pays their taxes.

The deceptive simplicity of this principle belies the fact that, obviously enough, not everyone pays their taxes - quite the contrary, and the leaders of the G7 group of the world's richest nations are attempting to address this by imposing a global corporation tax of 15%. Whether this is enforceable remains to be seen. As things stand the global monetary system is set up in such a way that, on the one hand, nations are in a race to the bottom on tax costs to make their countries attractive to multi-nationals, under the delusion that such winning such a competition will benefit them and not harm them; and on the other, their funds are secreted through tax havens to evade contributing to the various infrastructures they benefit from. So instead - these costs fall to us, the citizens.

But if we step back from the whole issue of Making The Big Guys Pay - do we need to pay taxes at all? What does this practice really mean to us, as citizens? How might it become more meaningful?

In this episode we place these questions in three key contexts - the citizen, the national economy, and our bio-physical world - the biosphere.

Talking points:

Why do we pay taxes?

"Rent", surplus and the common good

The tax planning industry: not bad people, but in a bad system

It's about fairness - why are we paying tax and not vast corporations?

Nailing down the wealth extractors, rampant individualism, and the fault-lines

Global taxation vs global tax competition: The G7

National taxation vs local taxation: efficiency

Centralisation, opacity and local power

Transparency and accountability - Sweden’s public tax returns

The UK’s hand-maiden economy

Deadweight taxes - thinking back to Adam Smith

A society of rent-seekers vs a society of wealth-creators

Efficiencies in tax expenditures: hypothecated taxes, mutual insurances

Compassionate communities and cost savings

Carbon taxation is a muddle

End-to-end producer responsibility vs the planet as an economic “externality”

Links:

Interview with Fred Harrison (audio interview, 30 min):

https://www.prosper.org.au/2021/01/we-are-rent-with-fred-harrison/?fbclid=IwAR1zkII88E7f2TKLXQOa9-wppO-27fwDoEz9Bt0JDTpLSTz5MchioDXSjvE

Nicholas Shaxson on Britains Second Empire (...of tax-havens - article):

https://taxjustice.net/2019/09/29/tax-havens-britains-second-empire/

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All lifestyles are accepted – within the constraint of not harming others or the biosphere.

Rather than restate what we have been hearing, our focus here is on the logic of diversity from a governance standpoint - why blind-spots are self-destructive and the embrace of diversity is so enriching.

Talking points:

• Pluralism and truth
• Neoliberalism and consumerist monocultures
• Roots of logic of diversity in need for resilience
• Tribal societies and settled societies
• Diversity of capitalist model - Co-ops and Quakers
• Global monetary system as de facto governor
• Unity in diversity - not liking someone is less important than burning to death
• It's a value - the richness of pluralist societies
• Leadership, certainty and diversity of perspectives
• Humility: disconfirmation of beliefs as the root of all wisdom
• Diversity in forms of feedback (language, media etc - vs truth as such)
• Monoculture in Chinese politics centred on fear of the leader = pandemic
• ...and culture of target-setting
• Liberty, Equality, Fraternity - and Swiss National Service
• ...as a way of escaping our media bubbles
• ...and developing network of consensus on eg. climate action
• Listening to people you don't like

Pluralism as a political philosophy

• on wikipedia

Ibn Khaldun - Berbers and the Maghreb (14th C! Not 10th;)

• on wikipedia
• In Our Time Episode

Successful prison experiment in Norway

• Bastøy Prison

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

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

Would a business survive these conditions?

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

Talking points:

The Separation of powers from Montesquieu

The centralised nature of these powers and opportunities to respond

Systems Thinking, Cybernetics: responding to reality

The political class - unaccountable and uninformed

Wastage

Business as a model for government and its limits

Feedback on Social Purpose

Myths and perceived credibility about the centre

Broadband now and the 1984 privatisation of BT

Cybernetic feedback as non-political: Something just happens.

Law-making - spectacle vs value

Messianic transformation vs gradual improvement

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

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

...and the Global Financial Crisis

A mechanism to take feedback decisions out of politics

The contradiction at the heart of politics

Existing feedback institutions, their limits and potential

Abandonment powers for laws that don't work

The cost would be a fraction of the benefit

The building of a body of knowledge about specific circumstances

Links:

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

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

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

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

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

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

In Our Time - Montesquieu (podcast - 50 mins)

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

List of supreme audit institutions :

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

UK’s National Audit Office:

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

Reading List:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nyhan, B. and J. Re...