The Hidden Power
Ed Straw and Philip Tottenham
Why doesn’t government work?
Is it the politicians, the civil servants, the political parties?
Or is it the system in which they all operate?
The Hidden Power goes behind the sporting spectacle of modern politicking to find the real villain.
This series of six podcasts, broadcast weekly from October 10th, provides both critique and answers.
Good government is entirely possible - but not in its current guise.
Hosted by Ed Straw, former chair of Demos - the cross-party think-tank on democracy, and producer Philip Tottenham.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Top 10 The Hidden Power Episodes
Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best The Hidden Power episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to The Hidden Power for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite The Hidden Power episode by adding your comments to the episode page.
Special Episode: The Doomed Career of Dominic
The Hidden Power
11/21/20 • 28 min
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02/13/21 • 31 min
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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
The Hidden Power
07/17/21 • 35 min
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):
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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Check 10 - 4th Separation of Powers - Feedback
The Hidden Power
04/10/21 • 35 min
"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...
Is God the Biosphere? - 6 - Sense-Making
The Hidden Power
06/11/22 • 32 min
Philosophy, famously, will not get the washing up done. And it will not fix the crises of climate and biodiversity. So what can I do? An individual amongst Billions?
In economics, a basic unit is - The Household. And while economics tracks the flows of goods and services, it is striking that both goods and services require energy and other resources. Therefore The Household is an important unit to think about in terms of how we metabolise - exhaust and pollute - the planet.
Confronted with countries and large companies, we all have recourse to wringing our hands - but the Household is a strikingly accessible unit for pretty much everyone.
So - having surveyed, in Series 1, Proof of Concept, just how effective Systems Thinking can be; having rehearsed in Series 2 Preflight Checklist the principles that would see us through the climate and biodiversity crises; having explored in Series 3 - Is God the Biosphere? - how making the Biosphere a central partner in our governance systems requires us to rethink our religious demeanour - what next?
Given our relative entrapment in what are in many ways systems of extraction and poisoning, what levers might be available to a Household to minimise harm while maximising the best life has to offer?
This episode is a call to action to all our listeners -
- Can you articulate your household constitution?
- Can you produce a suitable systems map of the flow of goods, services and ideas passing under your roof?
Send your household constitutions and household systems maps to [email protected] or tweet a link to Ed @EdAStraw - we are v excited to see what people have to show, and will set up a Google Doc to exhibit any responses.
Talking points:
Model of change in the 1850's
Convening as accessible - Systems convening event SCIO - t
Our innate Systems Sensibility, governance as adequate development and mental health
Religion, science, commerce, a moral code - and consumer power
The migration from past state to future state - in increments
awareness beyond the bin
The power of collective action - The Preston Model
https://www.uclan.ac.uk/articles/research/preston-model-community-wealth-building
https://cles.org.uk/publications/how-we-built-community-wealth-in-preston-achievements-and-lessons/
Family constitutions: some relevant points -
News media:
Preferential Lobbying (articles)
voting
Proportional Representation (podcast)
Ed @EdAStraw
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Is God the Biosphere? - 4 - Rituals
The Hidden Power
05/14/22 • 33 min
The late Ken Robinson, in one of his TED talks, tells the story of a child who was drawing with wild strokes. The teacher asked - What are you drawing? And the child replied "God". The teacher said, "But nobody knows what God looks like." And the child said, "Well. They will in a minute." Badum Tshhhh.
Last week we explored what people are talking about when the talk about gods. But for most people, this is a secondary aspect of religion - the primary aspect being the rituals. So what are rituals, and why are they so powerful?
In this episode we look at some rituals, religious, secular, useful, destructive, and start to imagine what rituals might help us to place the biosphere at the pinnacle of our aspirations.
Talking Points:
Listener Email - A moral revolution is possible
Rituals. What are they?
Ablutions, Jewish weddings, Christian signs of peace
Conscious and unconscious rituals in daily life: focus and distraction
Positioning the biosphere and political will
Rituals of nurturing and kindness
Waste is an affront to nature, not wasting feels good
Gods - conscious and unconscious
Addiction and deification
Human power - like a bull in a china shop
Possible futures
Possible rituals - the 12 step recovery process as a route out of the addiction system
When things change, we'll be happier!
Habits as the b-side of ritual - and their power
Getting past the Doom Bar - learning to love stress
Links:
Peter Oborne - the Triumph of the Political Class (review/Guardian)
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/sep/30/politics
Water and religion ( incl Ablutions) - BBC podcast "How Water Shaped Us" -
https://open.spotify.com/episode/5NURa5GgoD7PxTzJQNrjzG?si=0hgb5f6hQkuo4Oc_XbleqA
The 12 Step Program (Wikipedia) - main points:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve-step_program
Dr Alia Crum on mindsets
Excellent paper on the subject:
And podcast on mindsets in general,( 1:04:50 - The three step process: 1 Acknowledge; 2 Welcome; 3 Utilise):
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (Wikipedia summary):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_7_Habits_of_Highly_Effective_People
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Post-Crash Analysis and Preflight Checklist
The Hidden Power
11/14/20 • 25 min
For this final episode of series 1, I wanted to build on Buckminster Fuller's idea of our planet - our habitat and life-support system - as being like a spaceship - Spaceship Earth, as he calls it - and building on this idea to use two related models for our discussion: the post-crash analysis and the preflight checklist
First we look at the globally used post-crash analysis as a model for investigating governance - "It's important that they are not looking to blame someone," Ed says.
Then we get onto Ed's Preflight checklist - essentially a renewal of our global social contracts, or constitutions, as they are known, that would take into account the conditions necessary for our survival.
Finally we hear from Gerald Midgley, philosopher on human systems and founding father of systems thinking as an intentional discipline, spelling out with some excitement the impact of what in many respects has been his life's work.
Gerald Midgley:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Midgley
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_systems_thinking
Ed’s preflight checklist for planet Earth:
https://www.edstraw.com/principles-for-systemic-governing/
Eileen Munro (Episode 2 Contributor) advocating post crash analysis model to address culture of blame in child protection:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/nov/03/serious-case-review-child-protection
On checklists - great article overall, if you want to cut straight to flying fortress story go about 1/4 of the way in, paragraph opening “On October 30, 1935, at Wright Air Field in Dayton, Ohio...” https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/12/10/the-checklist
On October 30, 1935, at Wright Air Field in Dayton, Ohio, the U.S. Army Air Corps held a flight competition for airplane manufacturers vying to build its next-generation long-range bomber. It wasn’t supposed to be much of a competition. In early evaluations, the Boeing Corporation’s gleaming aluminum-alloy Model 299 had trounced the designs of Martin and Douglas. Boeing’s plane could carry five times as many bombs as the Army had requested; it could fly faster than previous bombers, and almost twice as far. A Seattle newspaperman who had glimpsed the plane called it the “flying fortress,” and the name stuck. The flight “competition,” according to the military historian Phillip Meilinger, was regarded as a mere formality. The Army planned to order at least sixty-five of the aircraft.
On the Psychology of Military Incompetence
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Psychology_of_Military_Incompetence
9 Lessons from the Blue Zones:
Thoughts on Purpose:
Listen to Why Cornel West is hopeful (but not optimistic) from Future Perfect on Apple Podcasts. https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/future-perfect/id1438157174?i=1000486452652
Welcome to the Anthropocene:
https://vimeo.com/anthropocene/shortfilm
Perspective, via some very interesting maps:
Check 3 - Biosphere and People: The Rule of Law
The Hidden Power
02/20/21 • 24 min
Anyone following current affairs will see how the rule of law is often stretched to its limit by autocratic leaders seeking to either evade it or bend it to their will - and while this has come to the foreground in the US and UK since 2016, it is a long-running theme in many parts of the world. However the rule of law is not only about holding the powerful to account, it's also about a fundamental feature of life under a functioning government - personal safety.
In this episode we delve into how it has emerged as a principle that requires clear articulation, what difference it makes and where we see versions of it in action.
Talking points:
- the rule of law replaces the rule of violence
- is an agreement as to how to live
- autocracies emerge where constitutions are inadequate
- need for independence in judiciary
- tension with business - eg with data
- international aspect a necessary element
- re. the biosphere
- Ireland, 13th C Wales, South Africa
- adversarial vs inquisitorial justice
- truth as therapeutic
- law as empowering
- law and norms
Great Wikipedia article on the subject:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_law
Stanford SU discussion on rule of law in Hayek:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rule-of-law/#Haye
The late Lord Bingham, who posthumously won the Orwell Prize for literature with his book The Rule of Law, speaks at the RSA in 2010:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlMCCGD2TeM
No busted pluggers - Aussies make it easy to follow:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0R20U9zkMmg
French TV series, Spiral, on BBC:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0072wk9
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Is God the Biosphere? - 2 - The Power of Nature
The Hidden Power
04/30/22 • 30 min
We left off at the end of the last episode wondering what might make the Biosphere a compelling object for our attention; this in the context of the all-too-human reality of our challenges - the tragedy of the commons, the addiction system, the psychological imperative of avoidance.
In listening back over this episode, I'm reminded of two things: one, Edmund in King Lear - "Thou, Nature, art my Goddess!" And the other, Fidel Castro: if he was to go through the revolution again, he said, he would select just twelve highly committed comrades - echoing, no doubt, the twelve disciples of Christian mythology.
In this episode we start to feel our way into our relationship with the Biosphere. In particular Ed takes a cue from Lynne White, who argued in the 1960's that Western religion was a root cause of environmental degradation, but - controversial! - a religious way of thinking might be the way out.
Talking Points -
Context: the Tragedy of the Commons, the Addiction System, Avoidance etc
We are an emergent property: nature is an absolute, there's no escape
But the relationship has broken down. How can we restore it?
Lynne White and Environmental Ethics, Human Ecology and Beliefs
What is religion?
Was there a good idea behind Christianity?
Earth Mother as a mind-set
Purpose and fly-fishing on the Danube
Nature as a hedonistic giver
Biophilic design
What should we give to nature? The two way relationship
Biomes
Purpose and change in organisations
Links
Article on Lynne White in Nature:
Original (pdf):
https://www.cmu.ca/faculty/gmatties/lynnwhiterootsofcrisis.pdf
Jesus - a Buddhist Monk - YouTube/ BBC
Kindness is the opposite of stress (Dr. David R. Hamilton)
https://drdavidhamilton.com/kindness-is-the-opposite-of-stress/
And podcast
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/a-scientists-case-for-woo-woo/id1081584611?i=1000548804097-
Biophilic design -
Wikipedia -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biophilic_design
Video 8 mins- sound cuts out between 0:45 and 2:05, but still interesting:
Fly-fishing on the Danube (BBC):
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0015qj3/earths-great-rivers-ii-series-1-2-danube
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Authorising Change at Ground Level with Julian Corner
The Hidden Power
10/24/20 • 27 min
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FAQ
How many episodes does The Hidden Power have?
The Hidden Power currently has 47 episodes available.
What topics does The Hidden Power cover?
The podcast is about News, Society, Leadership, Activism, Power, Podcasts, Politics and Government.
What is the most popular episode on The Hidden Power?
The episode title 'Authorising Change at Ground Level with Julian Corner' is the most popular.
What is the average episode length on The Hidden Power?
The average episode length on The Hidden Power is 30 minutes.
How often are episodes of The Hidden Power released?
Episodes of The Hidden Power are typically released every 7 days.
When was the first episode of The Hidden Power?
The first episode of The Hidden Power was released on Sep 15, 2020.
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