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What makes a government “sustainocratic”?
A sustainocratic government is one that is willing to participate in purpose driven local multi-disciplinary teams without any more authority than facilitating regional development of sustainable human progress. For many governments today this would mean an overall transformation by stepping into the pack instead of the old dominant regulatory role. This transformation is necessary to pick up the challenges that human kind faces and that are shown through the appearance of all kinds of crises.
This is the comparison between traditional (current) and sustainocratic governance:
Transforming from one governance to the other needs others to become participatory too.
Most governments today are of the traditional type. In a money driven society the institutional interests have become so fragmented into isolated self-interests that all pieces of a society live a life of their own. This results local social consequences that need to be attended by the local governance in a reactive way. Local government uses taxation and debt to finance itself. Such governance feels powerful in its regulatory and controlling authority with a risk avoiding service to its population. This type of governance has become very vulnerable due to its disconnection from an evolutionary reality which develops beyond its control due to open borders and globalization of financial interests. Just the measures that fit the local consequences are within its span of control at the expense of its limited sources of financial income. This is explosively dangerous. Governance has nothing else to draw from then regulation, financing the growing consequence driven government dominated institutions (health care, police, expensive infrastructures, etc) through distribution and consumer growth while watching its society deteriorate.
Urgent need for change
In an open border, globalized world, such governments are vulnerable for any influences from elsewhere. Self interest does not lead to any partnership among governments as all search ways to keep up their necessary level of income at the expense of the others. Since local government income is dependent on levels of local consumption the stimulus is concentrated on keeping this in tact and growing, either through volume (automotive, food, energy, clothing, retail, logistics, etc) or through speculation (housing market, fashion, shortages in commodities, etc). This situation is unsustainable, resulting a ever growing public debt, internal instability, reduced government maneuverability, etc. Although powerful in regional regulatory dominance the governance has become ineffective, reactive and out of control. Such governance unavoidably leads to war and chaos, unless sustainocracy is applied.
The above suggests the urgent need of renovation of governance in an evolutionary sense. Sustainocracy is such next step in which regulatory dominance is transformed into facilitating partnerships through regional multi-disciplinary co-responsibility on human well-being issues. Key here is that governance assumes a territorial role of purpose driven technological and social innovation focused on sustainable local human progress instead of global competitiveness.
Self sufficiency
The most significant purpose of any community is to be as self sufficient as possible. Self sufficiency reduces the vulnerability due to the reduced dependence on others. Self sufficiency also requires the intense involvement of all local participants that shape and give content to the community. This is essentially what sustainocracy is all about: awareness, responsibility, participation and local wellness.
On paper this is easy to explain but how would one change a traditionally dominant regional governance into a facilitating sustainocratic partner? The logic maybe understood by local executives but the system is based on risk avoidance, regulation and control. Even if the executives wish to partner up in a sustainocratic processes they still face the need to involve their institutional structures too. Such structure is steered around the compliance of rules not bending the rules for progress. Executives run the risk of becoming non-compliant to their own systems of law. It is not simply a re-positioning of a business or letting a state go bankrupt. It means a totally new way of organizing society including jurisprudence. In a democratic society this can hardly be done because consensus is needed in a majority to make such drastic changes and such majority will never be found unless the society is in war or chaos already. Before that the conservative voices promising continuation of the past will always win from those who promise a better future.
Step by step
Governance cannot transform organically from traditional to sustainocratic. It would have to take the seat in the center of a sustainocratic process, relinquishing all its dominance. That is impossible to conceive in today’s reality. When government is willing to step into the pack with its territorial responsibilities and commitment, the pack will need to step up to take co-responsibility too. In an environment where the other social components have been living an independent, individualistic, self interested life, this is a new complexity to deal with. None of these parties can take over because it would make them dominant in the relationship which is not logical either. Co-creation and sharing responsibility hence needs to be placed with the context of a new, modern cooperative entity. This entity is independent and represents the purpose of the venture. Various purpose driven entities can be established in this way uniting the influence and authority of the four pillars of society (government, business innovation, science/education and the local civil population) around a single complex purpose for local self-sufficiency.
Experimental starts
In Holland I started sustainocratic ventures like that on a local for local basis. The first one is AiREAS, using air (environmental) quality measurements, related directly to human health, as trigger for social and demographic innovation. This is unique in the world. In the process of setting up this cooperative venture we needed to attend all the above transformative challenges. It is only succeeding because of the commitment of highly qualified people at the center with me and within the institutions that need to be involved. The intensity of the process from fragmentation to holistic cooperation is huge and vulnerable along the entire way because of the negative forces of individual institutional self interests fighting it continuously. It is a chicken and egg situation where partners are willing to join if governance is willing to step down and join the group based on equality rather than dominance. The only way governance can do that is by letting go of its financial control system over public means, providing cash to the sustainocratic venture with a demand (reciprocity) of shared result driven responsibilities.
Investing in change rather than maintenance
The financial commitment of using public funds from local taxes to invest in purpose driven ventures with the local population as beneficiary in wellness, is of course common sense. Yet traditional governance invests billions in maintaining an obsolete system, neglecting the building up of local for local self sufficiency. With only a fraction of all the investments that have disappeared into sustaining banks and bankrupt governments sustainocratic ventures would have already changed risk into sustainable local stability.
It is of course in the interest of a few people to keep a financial dominance out of self interest but common sense, and the availability of sustainocracy as new way of solving key human issues, will get a bottom up movement going starting primarily in the smaller urban centers where human interaction between institutional powers and civil entrepreneurship is still fairly close. State governance will change bottom up, peacefully if central governance is willing to let go of its financial dominance and dependencies, allowing things to happen for the sake of long term stability. Else populations will demand attention forcefully like they did in Egypt, Libya, etc. This is not necessarily done through acts of war or civil uproar. It can equally be done by demanding liabilities and responsibilities through the wisdom of the crowd and claiming constitutional human rights where they are being violated by money based governance that causes inequality, poverty, hunger and criminality. Social media are becoming a strong alliance of people demanding openness and transparency from governments. In many places in Europe and the rest of the world we see governments giving back regional development to their own people. In this peaceful process we observe that population can perfectly well carry the responsibility, especially when ventures are co-creative and partnered up by institutional interests together with creative local entrepreneurship focused on local wellness.
“Can do” needs the freedom of purpose driven ventures without the burden of old financial blockage. Taxation creates no value, creativity does, especially if directed at common human interests with involvement of all.
AiREAS is the first sustainocratic venture in the world
Failing constitutions
Most constitutions around the world have been drawn up for the first time somewhere in the 18th or 19th century. They were concieved to govern a country based on basic human rights. This was needed because industrialization and human issues created enough conflicting complexities, such as the need for health regulation, education, poverty policies, fair division of wealth, etc. The level of humanistic idealism in those very first constitutions reflected a sincere focus on humanitarian balans.
A friend (Henrick Fabius) shared recently his draft university promotion paper with me in which he analyses the development of the Dutch constitution from its first edition in 1798 all the way up to now. He worked out four cases: education, health care, economy and democracy. He confirmed in his paper what I had already detected and written about through my living experience and subsequent awareness development: our State today is constitutionally failing.
It was a great relief for me to see such extremely well documented paper that backed up my own emotional and rational practical awareness. Even though his paper concentrated on the specific case of the Dutch constitution, I could easily draw the line internationally. The dates and local circumstances may vary but most countries have now failing constitutions and States, a problem that goes far beyond a financial crisis. In fact they are both very strongly related now.
The orginal constitutions show remarkable wordings that basically place the human being at the center of attention. The wordings had been carefully chozen back then in the late 18th century as to avoid misunderstanding about what the constitution was really about. Subsequently, as governance was formed accordingly, the constitutional revisions started immediately and introduced wordings that reflected the gradual replacement of the human being by a system.
When for instance the very first constitutional concern was public health (clearly a challenge because of the highly polluting factories that affected the health in all developing cities back then) the constitution was gradually changed into “health care”. That is a huge difference. The first was proactive (health first) the latter consequence drive (systemize the curing of illness). This change would have a huge impact on the development of a society. The same occurred in every point of government attention.
The system introduction was nearly immediate, starting only years after the first constitutions were drawn up, reflecting a worrying gradual tendency of governance to develop the desire to control and regulate rather than to take constitutional responsibility. It was a very slow process that over time got to the explosive situation of today. A recent study of various commissions of state, that have the responsibility to control the functioning of the State itself, agreed that the current governance has grown very distant from the human being. In fact, current systems of laws and policy-making deal with issues that have nothing at all to do with human progress, on the contrary, they even block progress systematically.
This is a very serious matter. When the constitutional rights do not protect the human rights anymore what do they protect? The entire discussion is now about money and the working of the system of power and control of financial and economic systems. Back in the 18th century the original debate was necessarily about human values, now, 200 years later, it should be again. We still find those old values back in the books but they have been surrounded by money and control based dependencies and priorities that take the attention away from the original humanitarian purpose.
Even though democracies have established systems of control to evaluate the working of the State it is the first time we are confronted with the serious failing of our governance and constitutions. How do go about that? Can you fire your own constitution or governance? Or put the country on hold until a new one is formulated? In the 18th centuries the people involved started from scratch but now we have a globalized structure of dependencies and systems of power that are reluctant to let go. The current governance is lead by financial crises and economic interests, not by humantarian needs, yet it has the power to rule a country from which it is disconnected.
Two worlds have been created, the unreal world of the financial based system, governed by those who have control over it (banks and governments). And the real world of the every day human being which sees how this unreal world destroys all its sustainable securities, socially, ecologically and even long term economically. There is a new governance growing in the streets and city quarters where people get organized against there own systems, claiming their rights to develop a living starting again with basic needs, not even consumer luxus.
This is a dangerous situation. The system wants to uphold itself but the populations demand freedom to experiment with a new progressive society. The points of stress are showing around the world as pressure builds up against the system. Money has reached a glorified status that many still worship but those who have nothing to eat or place to live get organized to obtain what is really valuable to them: their original basic constitutional rights. If the system does not let go to place the human being again where it belongs the public claim will become confrontational and severe. We have reached a state of chaos that is unprecented caused by 200 years of undermining political processes against constitutions through systemizing regulations and modifications. No one seemed to notice until now. Now the big challenge is, how do we put things right again?
With sustainocracy I give it a try but get (logically) blocked often still by pure fragmented financial power positions backed by legal structures. Change occurs bottom up in society itself and can go much faster if the system starts allowing it to happen. I ask people who have institutional leadership positions a direct question “what responsibility do you take? What you were hired for? Or what your own human consciousness expects from you?” They need to anwer this for themselves often still finding backing and reward by the system’s wrong constitution.
It takes guts to address the system from within as an executive, if you know you may loose your job by doing so. Yet we, independent citizens, have nothing to loose and can take responsibility by asking those who are in power to be brave and use their authority to transform their organizations. I do so by taking a responsible independent sustainocratic seat among them, asking them first to join me from a human consciousness point of view. Then I ask them if they would challenge their institutions too, to take responsibility too for human progress.
Institutions are invited to “save the human world”. Not everyone joins.
In AiREAS (environment, human health and city development) I managed to get local government, certain business leaders and scientists to shyly take a position with me. By doing so and asking for commitment in which human interests are placed at the center, we find all legal system impediments that block us to do so. I take then the opportunity to challenge the system, all the way up to the constitution to eliminate these obstacles for the sake of human progress.
We find 200 years of system develop that needs to be revised and modified. Using sustainocracy we can do it in practice, with arguments, bottom up, involving law students, universities and individual people to do what the big power system itself is not capable of doing itself: redesign our own constitutions and with it the governance of human society of the 21st century.
Capital injections don’t work – end of phase 3
When I traveled to Madrid this week (june 2012) to present AiREAS as a sustainocratic solution for the city problems with air polution the very first reaction of government executives was the traditional and classic public negation. “We have no air polution problem!”. This was interesting because I had just landed in the dense smog of the city and have information that Brussels threatens with sanctions if certain norms are not complied with in 2015. I also know that the local government has been trying to do its best to address the problem but that the issues go beyond the complexity of government regulatory authority and consequence driven measures.
The problem most government officials have is that they are so used to cover up their impotence around truly complex issues, publically claiming that they are in control and things will get better somewhere in the future, that they feel automatic resistence when someone walks in with a new proposition. This we see also in the world of finance. The traditional blind negation of an economic bubble, ignoring it until the bubble blew up in everyone’s face in 2008, was exaactly the same. When negation is not posible anymore because of undeniable proof the next psychological phase is entered: the one of disbelief and urgent correction. Then the negation continues. A quick massive capital injection should solve the problems overnight. 4 years and many billions of money later we all see that the problems continu.
When I got home from Madrid I watched financial analists on TV explain for the first time why the capital injected was only pushing the problems forward but not solving them. This remarkable first announcement of acceptance was a great relief to me. Of course, all huge capital injections had given the rats to cash their risks and leave the ship befor sinking, but still. It indicated to me that the phase of resistance to change and negotition for recovery of lost financial stability was ending.
The next phase (following my own model of cyclic phases of awareness and human development) is the one of fear. The large financial institutions had recovered their long term loans against public debt so that the institutions would not go broke. The citizens only had democratic rights and fear. A few 10K extra debt per person was institutionally acceptable. Of course, the public itself was never asked. It is all a game of big financial interests and liabilities played over the back of unaware masses of people. Institutions now need not fear anymore. Their power play is now over the civilians which hardly get organized to oppose and which can be submitted still under the pressures of financial law of debt.
Then the acceptance of the crisis and need of total renewal is opened. This openess is what I have been waiting for as it announces the total culture change needed to address the shaping of a new paradigm and corresponding new complex social structures such as sustainocracy. The crisis is reaching the general public now definitely. Capital injections saved the speculanting institutions but not society. The problem of greed was resolved and now poverty could stand up and protest.
But in Spain, from a sustainable progress point of view, the government executives were still hiding between their wall of negation. This will be the case in every government around the world. Reluctance to let go of old authorities and structures is largest when no alternative is know.Experts are consulted from inside the system only. Expertise from outside, like the one’s I am offering, are not recognized let alone taken seriously. One will fight against change simply because one does not know where to change into. When I presented sustainocracy in Madrid the first reaction was defensive but the seed has been planted. Before my presentation they had no choice, now they do, just like the population. Just like in Holland before, it will do its psychological work (like this blog), and some time in the near future the officials will lower their defences and accept shyly the hand that I reach out to them from the new world.
We are reaching the natural point of a psychological break through, because resistence does not seem to work but also because an alternative shines through at the end of the tunnel. I hope to find enough executive interest to join me in a world changing congres on 12.12.12 to let the crisis behind us and definitively open up to sustainocracy around the world. Sustainable human progress is more important after all than keeping up artificial, obsolete systems, even if they are called politics or banks. Capital injections did not bring back stability, it just saved some banks for some time.
Sustainocracy, the new democracy 