Method and Approach

My progress to the positions advocated in this ebook has been long, sporadic and tentative. This is a work of synthesis and I use a lot of secondary sources. In developing the ideas to the point where they become a coherent argument I have used a number of tools and techniques. 

Problem definition

It seems reasonable to start with why write this ebook. For me the key issue is not that the current system is broken (it might be, but it has also delivered a lot of good), the big problem is that the way we think, conceptualise and justify it, the stories we tell ourselves about it, are out of fit with what we actually know and our persistence in the telling the wrong stories is now a danger to us. Put simply we still think we can exploit the world, that we are separate from the rest of creation and that we are driven by competition - when we were only a few million we got away with it, in a crowded world or 7 billion and rising, this is a recipe for disaster.

After completing my MBA in 1998 one of the things that stayed with me was that there was a lot of management literature that spoke to the good or improvable side of human nature. This was particularly evident in some of the behavioural science underlying Training, Development and Change Management. I was more and more struck by no only by the fact that organisations require cooperation within even as they compete but by the (to me) glaring contradiction that the practice of politics disobeys the prescriptions used in business for getting the best out of people at almost every level. In the trade of politics it is widely accepted that briefing against people, lying, and bullying are legitimate tactics. In many cases, because these tactics do not involve actual physical violence, they are embraced as part of the necessary realpolitik. We often here that politics is a rough trade, not as a problem but as a statement of fact. Precisely by reinforcing division and argument theses normalised political tactics make it harder for us to do what is needed vast amounts of energy are expended just arguing. We see little of the supposed dialectical process - thesis, anthesis, synthesis, we don't seem to reach a conclusion 

Root problem

So the root problem I am tackling is this;

How do we expect politics to work, let alone deliver a better society, when it is based on institutions and processes that encourage and reinforce unhelpful behaviours? If we want good governance we should use what we know to bring out the best in people (we could learn from the business literature). The day to day behaviour employed in the trade of politics is reinforcing exactly the wrong sorts of behaviour to deliver good governance. 

That started me down a number of tracks, as a result the scope of my study got wider and wider. What is politics for? Do we have to carry out politics the way we do? It is often defended on the least idealistic grounds that it is a way of resolving issues without violence. Is this enough? Is the political system so intrinsically different to the rest of life, that its a no go area for what we know about getting the best out of people? 

I also had to decide if I was dealing with politics, economics or society as a whole? In the end I choose to say I am dealing with political economy. Macro-economics has values embedded within it and politicians are nominally in charge of many aspects of macro-economic policy even though (very recently) central banks have been granted independence. 

Subsidiary related problems

Once I settled on political-economy I still had to address a range of related topics which went into some very fundamental areas. 

To what extent is human nature violent and competitive? If it is inherently violent and competitive I’d be on a fools errand imagining a better politics or society. Pessimism would be justified and we should count ourselves lucky to have the politics we do.

Are we right to justify the economic competition in our culture by analogy to the competition we see in the natural world? Known as Social Darwinism when it first emerged, it is still a powerful, albeit often tacit, assumption. It does have a massive pull however as we can see in idea that “there is no alternative”  Note: Anthropomorphising Competition .

How do we deal with power, both the power needed to affect change and the incumbent power, which will be opposed to change? Without addressing the practicalities of power any appeal to, or call for, a new politics must be also risk being wishful thinking.

If current political economy is not working what would an alternative politics look like? Can it be described? Can we find examples so it’s not just abstract theory? How would its practitioners behave – what strategy and tactics would they adopt? If you cannot articulate the alternative and show how it would be better you might as well give up. 

Hypotheses of holistic political economy

For what I define as holistic political economy I have developed what are essentially a number of hypotheses.

• I found it necessary to re-conceptualise both politics and business so that I could use a new paradigm against which change could be evaluated.
• The definition I have used is, in summary, to enable all citizens to realise their full potential within sustainable global limits, using a politics that is a quest for good governance, and business that seeks to increase the common-wealth
  • This is in contrast to what we have now. Poverty (material and of the spirit) is tolerated, politics itself is a competition to capture control of the state and much of current business simply aims to make much money as possible regardless of any wider consequences.
• Any political endeavour can be measured against whether or not, and how much it will contribute to good governance and increase the common-wealth.
  • Against this new definition framing the argument would be different, there would be much more debate about what good looks like, the nature of political activity and leadership together with governance and oversight would need to change
  • Implicit within this is my own view that politicians of the left have given up on the articulation of an alternative. As a result they tackle the wrong areas, with the wrong priorities and find it difficult to win support
• The ends and means of politics need to come into balance - if the end is good governance, increasing commonwealth with more cooperation and collaboration then competitive means, at the very least are out of step with the end. The means need more participation, more active citizenship and more critical executive oversight.
  • Implicit here is an observation that to advocate cooperation whilst practicing competition is at least unlikely to succeed, if not blatantly hypocritical. 
• Parliament and party politics are not the be all and end all of political activity, a lot of progress can (and needs to) be made outside of current politics. People are already collaborating and cooperating; this can grow until it becomes an alternative cultural paradigm with its own supporting power structure

As I went deeper into human nature I ended up with some even more fundamental hypotheses: 

• A large part of Human Behaviour is an emergent property of aspects of the Human Activity System over which we can exert influence.
• Any changes to that system will change behaviour to some extent (within the limits imposed by us being primates with a certain physiology and intellectual limitations)
• What we think and the culture we build are the key areas we can make changes
  • Things need to be on the agenda that are not there now; for example we should consciously design systems and processes that encourage people to behave collectively and collaboratively 
• We need better mechanisms to ensure the dissemination of what we know if we want what we know to drive the search for good governance 
• It is possible to design a, lowest common denominator, set of values which support the endeavour to make a better society
  • The key to this is enlightened self interest supported by the view that all people have an equal right to exist and by exiting should have an equal chance to fulfill their potential
  • This is a choice that not everyone will make, but more people will make if it is advocated and explained with the confidence that comes from the examples we have of it working all around us

Knowledge, Values and Assumptions

I take knowledge to be well founded belief. However knowledge is incomplete, and provisional until proven and it is open to mistakes of interpretation. Because I am working at the highest level of system description possible, looking at the emergent property of behaviour, there will be debate about how much of our behaviour is capable of modification and whether or not it can make the difference I think it can. I will point out however that a lot of science is reductive so that

• It is an insight that behaviour is an emergent property and just like a murmuration of starlings it cannot be derived from looking an any individual component in detail
• It is necessary to consider the system as a whole, as I have tried to do, to see the emergent behaviour at all

According to Joseph Schumpeter “Analytic work begins with material provided by our vision of things, and this vision is ideological almost by definition”  Schumpeter  so here are the ones I am using. I set off to derive a new or alternative vision of politics and political economy from first principles; if we based political economy on what we know how would we design it so that it suited people?

Lets unpack the values and assumptions behind that statement;

• When I say “based …on what we know” I actually mean knowledge based on what we are learning from science (including the importance of systems thinking) and that I think we can do a lot better the we do now by systematically applying it, so I believe its possible to make progress
• When I say “so that it suited people” I actually mean that is designed to bring out the best in them (or at least encourage the right behaviours) and allow people to thrive – so I believe that people can improve. Conversely if some people, in receipt of enough resources to to live well, choose just to enjoy life that is a price worth paying. Its going to be cheaper than any means tested rules and regulation regime. In any case social pressure will exist and with selection by lot, everyone (without exception) may be required (at any time) to do civic chores

In addition there are some core values that support the positions I advocate. They are as follows (in soft systems terms they form the weltanschauung for the model of the human activity system I have developed)

• The ends do not justify the means; this applies to political action and is much bigger than just rejecting the use of violence (although it does that as well). For progress to take place change must be additive or cumulative; there must be two steps forward and only one back. Imposition takes many forms from being coerced by terror right along the spectrum to just achieving compliance (as with the losers of an election). However all actions cause a reaction, so in the end any form of imposition will cause a reaction. The reaction will come from those who suffered the imposition.
• All people are of equal value and have the same rights and responsibilities towards each other; that the golden rule should be applied (do unto others as you would expect them to do to you) as the most promising way to avoid conflict, in short the essence of enlightened self-interest. It follows therefore that politics should be inclusive and democratic, our representative form of democracy has run its course, it is time for the next great step forward, bringing in more people

These values can be derived from first principles and that is what I try to do where they are needed to make the case, see The Human System - The products of mind - a universal ethic?

Although I strive to make the derivation of a basic set of values from first principles logical they will not work for everyone. Even if they follow my logic they may disagree with it. For example one can take a view that, faced with a short existence in an indifferent universe, we had just better look out for ourselves; individually, familialy, tribally, or name your group allegiance of choice. In the end I concluded that the ancient idea of yin-yang was as close as I could get, the alternative I depict is a truth in dynamic tension with the current zeitgeist (of competition).

Human Activity Model

Development of the human activity model

The development of models is common within business IT as a way of mapping out the scope of computer systems  Note: Modelling . My reading suggests that those who study human behaviour do take multiple factors into account but I have not encountered this model. I hope it has some general utility.

The steps that I went through to develop it were:

1. Define the elements that influence human behaviour – initially this was represented as a relationship diagram
2. Define the diagram by grouping the elements together into broad areas

The elements and the way I grouped them

There are very many broad generalisations in the above, in particular the division between reductionism and systems thinking is a caricature. I have used this as a shorthand for the fact that we have to deal with more and more complexity and we are increasingly finding that multi-disiplinary teams are needed and that systems thinking is very powerful. 

The human activity model as an explanatory tool

I am aware that a model is just a map; it therefore shows what is important to the mapmaker and navigator (for now that may be just me). However that does not invalidate the map, nor does it mean that the map cannot cannot capture part of the truth. No model can capture the whole truth.

From the start I conceived the model as that of (the) human activity system. I wanted to strip out as much as possible to get at the essentials. It should be noted that

• There are many instances of human activity systems within the overall system, political economy is but one of them
• All instances of specific human activity systems have all the elements of the overall model present within them

For example if we are considering an institution such as the NHS we will get specific instances for all of the individual elements; the artifacts will include all the medical paraphernalia and systems, there will be a set of norms and beliefs (code of ethics, rules for patient confidentiality, in general the way people think about their work), a body of knowledge (both medical and procedural) covering the way individuals and groups act and interact.

I did not, at first represent human behaviour itself as an emergent property of that system but worked within the broad areas. The individual elements of the the Human System, looked at on their own, are an insufficient explanation of the complexity of human behaviour we see all round us. But they do provide a starting point, here are mine:

• The rationale? of human of classical economic theory does not exist – here I was especially influenced by Daniel Khaneman
• Behaviour has a chemical (emotional) basis as well as rational self explanatory one – especially influenced by Robert Sapolsky
• Culture, in particular political economy could be seen as an artifact and that meant we could change it by design to something better – I come to this view from my general reading of history – it shows just how different cultures can be.
• People embrace change when they are involved, go on the journey and have a stake in the outcome – I learned this during my MBA from training and development and change management literature
• Small changes can build up over time into something that now looks radically different – derived from change management but also positive feedback in systems

The nudge unit (now privatised, for goodness sake) troubled me because it implies top down manipulation, even though it is also evidence of the realisation that small changes can be effective. Perhaps my reservation was the fear that this was just government becoming as sophisticated at manipulation as big advertising.

It was only when I put the model together and started it use it to explain things that I grasped the full implications. I had to rediscover Thomas Kuhn and also go back to Donella Meadows; the critical enabler of change appears to be paradigm shift (mindset change, change in weltanschauung). Suddenly some intractable political problems could be addressed. For example it is widely known that regulations can be gamed (we might say subverted) by those who oppose them. With a paradigm shift we can squeeze out the behaviour by creating a new norm. The paradigm shift needed is one that moves from competition to one of co-operation.

Epiphany; If there are two truths in dynamic tension (yin-yang, competition vs cooperation), the job of those who support the truth of cooperation is, above all, to stay true to it; something we have lacked in recent times. Left politics failed because it accepted the prevailing paradigm (of competition) and lost faith in the possibility of a cooperative alternative. If that is true it really does need the development of an alternative. That epiphany freed me up from conventional political thinking and enabled the main hypothesis to be developed. I ended in a place I didn't foresee.

Developing a vision holistic political economy

In order to use the model as an explanatory tool I developed a model of the way the explanation would work.  Note: Additional Hypotheses . Because it is described elsewhere I have reduced the Human Activity System itself to two subject areas in order to show how the vision of political economy is developed from it.

The boxes represent subject areas; collections of facts, evidence and when it deals with the future projections. The lines show relationships between them. The diamond shape at the end of the line represents plurality. The words against the line allow it to be read in conjunction with the subject area. Reading top down - pick a subject, find the text on the relationship above or to the right of the line and add the name of the subject at the end of the relationship.

Examples reading top down

• History evolves into Present
• Human System has emergent Properties
• Properties (implications) make possible a grounded Vision

Reading bottom up - pick a subject, find the text on the relationship below or to the left of the line and add the name of the subject at the end of the relationship.

Examples reading bottom up;

• Present emerges from History
• Properties are emergent from Human System
• Vision is possible by being grounded in Properties (implications)

To envision a different political economy is just one way the model of the Human Activity System can be used.

Other useful models

In using “everything I have ever learned” I have come at political economy in a way that will seem unusual to political theorists and activists. I find a lot of what I learned doing an MBA and through practicing as an IT consultant/project manager useful.

I also make use of the following – freely adapting them to my purposes - full references are given where they are used

• Porters competitive forces
• Gap analysis (as-is compared to to-be)
• Maturity model (my introduction to this idea was via CMMI)
• Balance Scorecard (Kaplan)

Knowledge Survey

Up to retirement my reading would be described as serendipitous. What I have attempted to do is bring my scope under control by fitting it to the model I have developed and extending my reading in a more organised was as a result. The main areas I have been exploring are; Economics, Human Behaviour and Evolution bringing in other topics as needed such as history, management, political philosophy, strategy and power. I make no claims to have conducted anything like a methodical literature survey.

If I look back on this it seems I am trying to use everything I have ever learned, checking it is (still, was ever) true and looking at the counter evidence. Always refreshing my knowledge and adding to it based on the scope I have set.

• My first degree is in History and Politics – the history included Modern Europe, War & Society and the Industrial Revolution, whist the politics included Strategic Theory, Revolutions, Foreign Policy and Political Philosophy.
• My second degree, an MBA, provided a mass of insightful material in the subjects I covered; Strategic Management, Financial Control, Employee Relations, Business Environment, Training and Development, Management Information Systems, Marketing, Organisation Behavior, and Change Management.
• My professional skill set was IT related systems analysis, project and portfolio management. Along the way I became a Chartered Management Consultant (CMC) in the Institute of Management Consultancy (MIMC) – now part of British Institute of Management.

The Bibliography contains what I have taken from the books, and sources that I have used in the main argument, but I have not listed all the very many Business and IT Systems books I have used 

Systems Thinking

I have summarised systems thinking in a separate appendix. I wanted to apply systems thinking and analysis so far as I could because it’s a core skill from my professional life, I ended up using a lot from strategic planning see Appendices - Systems; an overview, additional sources are listed at the end of that article