The discussion of managed and good change points to a way forward. If we summarise it we get a challenging list of what has to happen. How it can happen is the subject of Part 4.

The list of things that have to happen is this: 

  • Find ways to overcome inertia and the growing social control that big power is beginning to use
  • Adopt measures that increase involvement. We have seen what these are; planning & organisational learning, involvement and commitment, facilitation, team work & problem solving with open communication
  • Build the ideas and culture which will support holistic political economy using the examples of where it already exists
  • Use open policy making that is pragmatic and evidence based. We need all people involved because they are citizens, this is a non-partisan and non-ideological endeavour
  • Develop a learning process - as we move ahead and consider the next steps, what has worked, what has not

The ideas and culture of holistic political economy will have a moderating effect on greedy, selfish and destructively competitive behaviour when they become the new Zeitgeist (as discussed in Part 2 Assess - Vision - How Different Will It Be?). I say moderate deliberately, we’ll never eliminate greed, selfishness and destructive competitive behaviour but we can certainly make it something to be ashamed off.

The vision itself will be refined and adjusted as we go but there will be no big changes with unforeseen consequences although systems theory says with a paradigm shift there can be big changes in relatively short timescales – so long as we are all on board: remember from the discussion of power, all actions cause reactions, we cannot coerce we have to persuade.

Now, let me say, the above is just a statement of the obvious, I just put a what in front of all the things I have introduced into the discussion of managed change. For sure these are things that have to happen, we need to go further and think through the detail of day to day activities.

The how matters just as much. We cannot just wish holistic political economy into existence because it would be nice it existed. We have to get into the nitty gritty activities of the initiation stage of the change process, into the detail of what measures we will used to know that ignition is complete and we can move into spread. Change will only occur if some people believe in it and start down the path. Change will happen one day at a time.

The interesting thing about even these provisional conclusions is that that they point to activity that the current political set up either cannot deliver or will have difficulty delivering. They don’t seem to say; get motivated to join a party and throw yourself into political activity Note: Personal Activism . No, they point instead to the need for a radical departure from current politics; these conclusions mean that, starting from a different philosophical place, having a different mindset and talking a different language we must act differently.

I maintain that different change is entirely possible, within what we can expect from human nature and what our knowledge tells us. I develop what this means for both the Strategically and Tactics needed to create a Holistic Political Economy in Part 4 Act.