Connecting top down and bottom up; experts with people; the economy with society
Listening to “People Not Like Us”
In an illuminating presentation on “A New Economic Paradigm for People and Planet” at the Royal Society of Arts on 30th January 2023, David Sloan Wilson and Dennis Snower explain the science of biological evolution and the process with which new forms of cooperative organization emerge: a process of variation, selection, and replication. They map ideas from biological evolution onto the designs of economic and social institutions. They provide insights into the paradigm shift necessary for the evolution of cooperative forms of institutions governing human affairs to enable humanity to solve the systemic problems mapped across the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HI5tYwsoPKw)
Systems science
Wilson and Snower point to the science of “systems” which enables comparison of systems in different spheres—physical, biological, and social—and the transfer of ideas across them.
The prevalent model of an “economy” driving economic policies is largely based on concepts of complex systems (CS) in structural equilibrium, drawn from physics, in which internal tensions are removed by natural forces within the system. Such models of complex systems are used for developing technological solutions and designing complex physical machines and complex data management systems. In these models of complex systems, the human designer of the system is outside the system, objectively studying the system and designing it scientifically. Whereas biological systems which change their own forms from within by a process of natural evolution are complex adaptive systems (CAS).
Models of complex systems (CS) applied in the physical sciences, as well as models of complex adaptive systems (CAS) in biology, do not include the force of human intentionality as a force withinthe system. Biological systems adapt, responding instinctively to changes in their environment. Whereas human social systems are often changed intentionally to produce outcomes human beings want more of. This is the purpose of socio-economic policy. The power of human intentionality within complex adaptive systems has grown along with the paradigm of modern science that has emerged with the European Enlightenment since the seventeenth century. Francis Bacon (1561-1626), whose ideas were a guiding spirit for the Royal Society founded under Charles II in 1660, said science gives Man the power to “control unruly Nature”.
Complex Self-Adaptive Systems
The human being—biologically and cognitively—is situated within the system he wishes to study and change. Therefore, human beings cannot be detached observers of a system that is shaping their own minds and bodies. Human cognition is shaped not only by the design of the brain’s internal, physical, chemical, and electronic systems but also by cultural forces outside the human mind. Moreover, human intentions—what humans want the institutions governing them to produce for them, also shape the designs of social and economic institutions that govern their affairs. Social and economic institutions designed by humans, such as the system of electoral democracy and the legal forms of the business corporations, are systems designed by humans to serve the needs of society.
Unlike Nature’s complex adaptive systems (CAS), which can look after themselves without guidance by humans, the conscious intentions of human beings, as well as the limitations of their minds, are integral features of the architecture of complex self-adaptive systems (CSAS). In fact, humans’ limited understanding of the natural systems around them when they redesign them—such as dams, diversions of rivers, replantation of forests, etc.—often causes further degradation of Nature’s ability to sustain itself, rather than improve it.
Multi-level structure
An architectural feature common to all complex systems—CS, CAS, and CSAS—is their “multi-level structure”. In all of them, there is a hierarchy of ideas—broader ideas encompass ideas at levels below. At the top, is the essence of the “paradigm” with whose principles all ideas below conform. In CSAS, human intentions and limitations are an additional complication of complex systems at all levels—local, national, and global.
When a paradigm of ideas changes, change must happen at all levels of the system. Thus, to change the ways in which human beings live with Nature and protect Nature’s ability to sustain itself and sustain human life also, change must happen at all levels—in international and national policies, as well as in the behaviors of individual citizens. No level, by itself, can change the paradigm of the whole. All must evolve together for the paradigm to change.
At all levels, collective power, social and economic, must be applied to bring about change. The difficulty of paradigm shifts, whether in the natural sciences as Thomas Kuhn explained, or in socio-economic systems as Karl Marx and others have, is that, along with ideas, the power structure must be changed also. Those who have power, with their position, the resources they command, and the respect they are given within the present paradigm, will instinctively resist change. The force to change comes from the periphery in scientific paradigms and from below in political systems. If the centers of power resist change too long, revolutions from below and outside will force change.
Getting from Here to There
The motto of the Royal Society of Arts is “Crafting world leading ideas and turning them into world changing ideas”.
Summing up Wilson and Snower’s compelling explanation of a new paradigm of ideas in economics, Andy Haldane, the moderator of the RSA seminar, moved the discussion to how these world leading ideas would be changed into world changing ideas. This, he suggested, should be the subject of another seminar.
Some ideas for overcoming the resistance to change were offered by Wilson and Snower and other participants in the seminar. I will weave them into five propositions to accelerate the adoption of a new paradigm of socio-economic policies which has become imperative for humanity’s survival beyond this century.
Intellectual ideas have impact through movements of change. The challenge is to create a multi-level movement of change, in which change is stirred at all levels. All levels must move in harmony too, to move the whole system out of its present architecture into its new one. Change must be brought about from within the system’s current reality. And multiple changes, which may be well-intentioned, and presumed to be scientifically correct, should work in harmony and not weaken the system any further.
This is the challenge of multi-level institutional reform. We must cooperatively redesign and reform the airplane in which we are flying through turbulence while we are in the air.
1. Show it to me: don’t just prove it to me
Scientific proof is not sufficient to make people change the ways they think and behave. They want to know how ideas will work in real life and want evidence of their benefits.
In the physical sciences, hypotheses can be tested in safe-failing conditions, in laboratories and test-sites isolated from the rest of the world. Ex-ante tests of hypotheses in the social sciences cannot be carried out as simply. A social system is inherently more complex than a physical system. It is embedded in its history; it is formed by combinations of many forces—emotional, political, and social.
The scientific process used for learning in the physical sciences—of designing experiments, testing, and then generalizing the results—is an incomplete, even inappropriate, process for proving the utility of ideas in the social sciences. Indeed, an excessive reliance on narrowly bounded experiments, and bounded mental games, in which the variables are limited for the sake of precision of observations and measurements, is the weakness of the methods of learning that have become de rigueur in economics.
Evolutionary biology, unlike physics, is a study of history, not of the world as it is. It is the study of how species, and forms in Nature, became what they are now. Evolutionary biology looks backwards to find patterns, ex post, in changes in biological systems, then makes hypotheses of what may come next. It may behoove economists, who wish to guide the evolution of socio-economic systems, to adopt methods of learning used by evolutionary biologists, rather than over-using analytical methods of physics.
Wilson explained that the present, dominant paradigm of science is a product of the European Enlightenment. The time has come for humanity to break out of its dominance. He cited Joseph Henrich’s “The Weirdest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous” (2020). Henrich explains the social and political forces in Europe that shaped the ideas of individualism, rationality, and materialism, which have become the core of the paradigm of European Enlightenment.
The world has not adopted the “Weird” paradigm fully. Around the core of the “advanced” countries within the paradigm, are many who are not considered fully “developed” yet. Wilson proposed a search for and propagation of real examples of the alternative paradigm that he and Snower presented to accelerate its adoption. It is more likely that examples of the alternative paradigms of institutional designs in action will be found outside the core of economically advanced countries that constitute the G7 (who include less than 10% of the world’s people.)
Examples outside the core are not noticed by “modern” scientific experts, and when noticed are looked down upon. Whereas they should be looked at with respect, and with curiosity to learn how and why they work. Following the ways of Darwin, who found proofs of his hypothesis of evolution in remote islands unspoiled by modern civilization, searchers of proofs of a new paradigm of socio-economic institutions should look at developing and less developed countries for lessons, rather than trying harder to convert the institutions of those countries with solutions developed by their own scientific establishments.
Thought leadership for change into the new paradigm must be opened beyond the T7, and even the T20, to include the less powerful countries, outside the present confabulations of power and thought, as solutions providers rather than solution receivers. This will be hard to do. Those on pedestals in the present paradigm like being looked up to; they will be reluctant to get off their pedestals to be one amongst many. Fear of loss of power and status is the principal reason that paradigms of ideas and institutions are hard to change.
2. Top down must be harmonized with bottom-up
The present paradigm of global problem solving is “top-down solutions developed by experts in their disciplinary silos and executed by policy makers at top of governments and international institutions”. Whereas, as we shall see, complex socio-economic as well as environmental problems, that are manifest globally, require “local systems solutions developed and cooperatively implemented by communities”.
Underlying the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals that all countries have signed up for, and cutting across them, are systemic problems affecting everyone in different ways: from climate change, to persisting inequalities, and inadequate social security amidst economic and political shifts.
The 17th goal is to improve the quality of partnerships at all levels of the global system. Cooperation is also essential among the experts and multi-stakeholder teams operating in silos on separate goals. Because there will be little benefit in achieving a global goal for carbon reduction, for example, if the solutions for net zero carbon make goals for poverty reduction harder to achieve in many parts of the world.
Sadly, we have learned that solutions for saving people from dying from Covid alone can kill many more people from other conditions that are aggravated by the diversion of attention, and resources, to prevent deaths from Covid. We are also learning that communities that suffered the least all round during the pandemic were not necessarily communities with the most resources. They were often communities where stakeholders worked cooperatively, even voluntarily, to find solutions for all the inter-connected problems affecting them with the resources they had.
Every human body is unique, even though all human bodies are composed of organs with similar shapes and compositions: hearts, livers, lungs, brains, etc. Therefore, good general physicians, who are sadly becoming a rare breed in a world of hyper specialization, don’t jump too quickly to any conclusion about the problem to be solved. They try to understand what, “all things considered”, will be the best course of treatment for their patient. They know that all humans are not the same, and that even the same person’s condition changes over time. They know that “one size fits all” solutions, which may be prescribed for the sake of efficiency in healthcare, are likely to be wrong for many patients.
Every country in the world must improve the conditions of its society, economy, and environment. However, the shapes of complex socio-economic-environment systems are different in different parts of the world—even within countries. “One size fits all” solutions imposed from the top is a scientifically unsound approach to solving dynamic systems problems and building resilience in every country and every community.
Therefore, “local systems solutions developed and cooperatively implemented by communities is the solution to global systemic problems”.
It is essential that local communities have more responsibility, as well as more power and capability for solving their complex problems. However, ‘locals’ cannot solve all complex problems by themselves. Individuals must take responsibility for their own actions that harm “their commons”, such as their natural environment. Local communities must take responsibility for the circulation of energy and waste within them. However, forces changing the climate are not limited within local boundaries; air circulates across national borders, and hydrological systems cross the jurisdictions of states within countries, and even cross countries. Similarly, locals—cities and even countries—cannot improve economic systems which span states and nations by themselves. Multi-level cooperation is essential too.
Locals must think global; and global experts must think local
Locals must cooperate with each other to share resources which they should manage equitably. They must also participate in the governance of the system at a level above their own jurisdictions: individuals must participate in the governance of their local communities; states in the governance of the country; and countries in democratic international governance. Every local (or individual) must have equal voice in governance at the level above it. The break-down of the principle of democracy at the global level is the reason global problems, such as climate change and equitable sharing of the benefits of trade and scientific advances (intellectual property), are difficult to solve.
A change in the paradigm for solving complex problems is necessary. The prevalent paradigm of problem-solving is founded on the belief that common people cannot solve complex problems and therefore “experts” must solve their problems. Power must shift downwards, from the global “North” to “South” in international institutions. Within countries it must shift from experts above them towards the people with grounded local knowledge.
People below are knocking, asking for inclusion as equals in global problem-solving. India’s G20 presidency following Indonesia’s (and to be followed by Brazil) is giving them an opportunity. Resistance to change in paradigms always comes from those who feel they will lose power and status, even when they may accept, intellectually, the need to change the paradigm. They should not fear. They will remain an essential part of the new paradigm of complex problem solutions--thinking globally and acting locally, provided they develop their own capabilities to perform a new role, more supportive and less instructive, with more learning and less teaching.
3. Listen to the people
In the RSA seminar, a woman from the Catholic Church explained Pope Francis’s mission for improving catholic teaching values. Following his paper on People and Planet, he is changing the church to a “listening church”. Priests must listen more, preach less. Listening must happen in very small groups at local levels. Priest and people must listen to each other rather than debate with each other. They must reflect together and work together. What cannot be solved at local levels goes up to the next level, where too people must listen to each other and reflect together.
The United Nations, created after the World Wars in the last century for cooperative progress in all countries and to prevent further conflicts, has not been able to achieve its objectives. The UN Secretary General has presented principles for reforming global governance in “Our Common Agenda”, his recommendations presented to the 75th meeting of the UN General Assembly in 2021.
“Our Common Agenda” emphasizes the need for leaders in institutions at the top to listen to common people. Global institutions (and many national governments) are being run by people who are experts about everywhere, but who don’t listen to common people anywhere, even in their own countries. People wish to be heard and to participate in the decisions that affect them. Government by the people is the essence of democracy. The Secretary General has asked all governments to conduct exercises for “national listening” and for collectively envisioning their future.
4. Moving together in the same direction: shared visions, scorecards, dashboards
There is a wise old saying, “If you do not know where you are going you will end up somewhere else”. A dictum of scientific management is, “You manage what you measure”.
Purposeful change must be directed towards an aspirational goal. It is essential for people who want to change the institutional system in which they live together (the metaphorical airplane in which they are flying) to have a shared vision of what they want the outcome of their collective effort to be. A shared aspirational vision has emotive force. It pulls all within the system onwards, together.
Travelers also need an outline, though not the details, of what the new design of their airplane must be. They must also agree on a few critical rules of cooperation. The rules are like a compass to steer themselves into the future through unknown territory for which they do not have, and cannot have, a detailed map yet. Without (1) a vision of the goal, (2) an outline of the architecture, and (3) an agreement on a minimal set of critical rules to guide their cooperation while they design their airplane in flight, misalignment of their separate, albeit well-intended, efforts can make their airplane unstable and bring down all in it.
Scorecards are tools to guide travelers as they redesign their airplane. Quantitative scorecards cannot create the emotive pull that is required for aligning the hearts and minds of travelers on risky journeys of transformation. Measurement and management are means. They cannot define the ends. Numbers do not inspire: images and words can. Aspirational visions must precede, and guide the design of mathematical scorecards, not the other way around.
The emergence of a shared aspiration requires deliberations amongst diverse people who must travel together—experts and common people, leaders of movements and followers, and citizens with different perspectives. Willingness, and the capacity, for listening to “people not like us” is essential for the emergence of a shared vision and agreements about the critical rules to guide their cooperation on the journey.
Designs of summits and meetings must change to enable open-minded listening to diverse perspectives to understand the system of which each is a small part. There must be more room for deliberations that energize emotive energies for change, and are not driven by numbers and analytical presentations by experts. Numbers and analysis are necessary. However, they must be leavened into a process of transformation, rather than driving it.
Uniform scorecards serve a scientific purpose. They enable comparisons by experts of progress made by “locals”. They are not good guides for change at local levels. The weights assigned to diverse parameters in uniform scorecards (to facilitate objective comparison) will not conform with local circumstances. Local level weights must suit local contexts; they must reflect the needs of local communities (countries, districts, cities), which will vary, depending on their spatial context, as well as the stage of their own journey towards universal goals.
Locals need dashboards to steer themselves, not scorecards to evaluate them. The remarkable Indian “Aspirational Districts Program”, and its follow-on, the “Aspirational Blocks Program”, guided by the Prime Minister of India, and the National Institution for Transforming India (NITI Aayog), which has replaced the erstwhile Planning Commission, has connected the bottom-up aspirations and governance of local communities, at district and block levels, with support from the central ministries of the Government of India responsible for their many local needs—for education, health, infrastructure, etc. While these programs are being implemented, and as they evolve, tensions between top-down evaluation with uniform scorecards and bottom-up management with customized dashboards (derived from the universal framework) are surfacing and are being progressively resolved with the Prime Minister’s interventions.
Locals could be guided by suggestions from global experts about instruments they should have on their dashboards. The SAGE framework, and other “balanced” scorecards that have been promoted in the last twenty-five years are attempts to change the thrust of business policies and the measurements of progress of business corporations from profits for shareholders towards broader responsibilities for the condition of the planet and people and changing the thrust of government policies and measurement of progress of nations from GDP towards more attention to social solidarity and care of the environment.
Nations, cities, and local communities too, must build more solidarity amongst their own citizens. The starting point for this, everywhere, will be conversations amongst people “like us” and people “not like us”. We must listen to each other respectfully. Then we will find ways to live together to make the world better for everyone.
5. To Have or to Be
David Wilson pointed towards Eastern spiritual traditions for wisdom. Spiritual traditions in all religions, Eastern and Western, encourage humble reflection on our relationships with the world around us—with Nature and with other human beings. Philosopher Erich Fromm distinguished the “having” mode of living which is driving economic growth and the “being” mode of living in To Have or to Be: A New Blueprint for Mankind (1979).
Economics has drifted from its earlier moorings in society. It has become a science for satisfying consumption needs: means for producing more and having more. Mathematization of economics requires the stripping down of human beings into rational calculators selfishly promoting their own interests. In reality, humans care for others. Their aspirations are not only to have more, but also to be at peace with others, and with themselves too.
Though human beings are not inherently selfish, institutions designed by humans can be. For example, the modern business corporation has been designed to serve a selfish purpose: to create more wealth for its owners/investors, which is its purpose in law, and its governance is directed towards it. Corporations are granted the legal rights of human citizens—rights to own property, rights to free speech, and the right to sue other citizens for infringement of their rights. However, unlike human citizens, corporations are protected with limited liability. Corporations are designed to be selfish institutions, whose managers must serve them rationally to fulfill the corporation’s selfish needs.
Human beings are being conditioned by economic policies to want more and consume more to enlarge markets for businesses and investors and to enlarge the national GDP. This is the present paradigm. It must change to create more solidarity in society. Institutions at all levels, from local to global, must be reformed for lateral cooperation with others, rather than more competition.
The evolution of institutions for cooperation must be the agenda for global and national institutional reformers. The paradigm of global problem solving must shift from designing end solutions of various global problems to redesigning the process for cooperatively solving systemic problems. Trying harder to solve problems with the approach that created the problems is madness, Einstein said.
7th February, 2023