Tactic one for changing our political environment. Hmmmmm….. How about, as the first one, we refocus on strategy, not technocratic analysis?  Strategy requires thinking qualitatively – long and broad through connections.  Where are we wanting to go?  What are the factors, issues, etc. impacting

Rockwell Kent

positively and negatively on that idea of ‘good’?  What is a society?  What is an environment?  What is an economy?  How do they relate?  Know that each place and time is different, so build flexibility.

What knowledge systems do we need to be wise in this particular place, with these particular issues, where the people desire these particular goals.   Look to our place – the biophysical world with all its permutations and patterns.  Look to our people, with all their cultures and perspectives.

Know that the world is inherently uncertain and uncontrollable – not a machine – so what capacities do we need to build in order to cope with uncertainty and uncontrollability.

Know that you cannot separate community from land, or economy from community, that there is interdependence, and the ‘economy’ is the most dependent thing of all.

Know that there are root things (ideas especially) that make the proximate things – the symptoms – happen.  Know that any solutions must dig deep into those roots, and that the worst thing to do is blindly fiddle with the symptoms – the surface things (more crime? Build prisons! More poverty? Benefit cuts to create ‘incentive’ and tax cuts for the rich (to encourage speculation?)! , etc.), and add ad hoc epicycles to your pet theories to try and justify a suite of false ideas.

And look deep at ourselves – look deep into our past and our present and our future and give time to think about our place in the world, and the assumptions we hold so dear – as all cultures have held their assumptions dear.

…….. the nature of power and colonialism; the mechanical assumptions of Modernity – all prediction and control – the nature of uncertainty – the importance of cultural values and the spirit of people to how things function – how they trust, the culture of cooperation and caring, how they participate, how they see these lands and rivers and forests and fields and beaches and mountains and lakes to which they belong.  What meanings define them.

…….

I have not mentioned a measured thing.  Not one.  That is because you cannot justifiably delve into numbers until you create a framework of principles and goals.

And yet that is exactly what we have done for the last 32 years, since 1984 and the rise in position of a neoliberal cult that defines our world as resources, and price, and exchange within a framework that conflicts with thought and experience.

An example.  Many of us have argued for particular strategic positions for New Zealand based on dialogue about all these defining issues above.  There are once again no numbers.  They are qualitative positions, arising from that dialogue, to ensure that we have a better New Zealand for our grandchildren, whoever they may be; yours, mine, a neighbours’.  This is what the dialogue comes up with ….

1. We need to accept uncertainty and the nature of complexity, so build the capacities to take and hit and adapt within our people and the natural systems on which we depend.
2. We need to build decentralised and integrated social and knowledge systems that can face the truth and foresee and dialogue and learn and engage and be wise – not a hierarchy, a transdisciplinary system of knowledge integrating practice, local, policy and research.
3. We need to accept as Adam Smith (and Marx) argued so coherently, commercial power can be short-term, exploitative, and ultimately destructive – and so policies must focus on working for people and local enterprise more than for colonising mega-corporates, and especially their access to central and local policy making.  Don’t sell your commonwealth.
4. We need to go for diverse and high value, not monocultural commodity volume.  Look to the trends of the dominant and powerful buyers dropping real prices.
5. We need to rebuild our communities, because that is the essential function of democracy, and it happens to be good for environmental stewardship and the economy as well.
6. We need to rebuild our natural systems because that is the basis of life and meaning – yes, including the economy though neoliberals cannot seem to grasp this principle.
7. We need to look to the magic that can be created by rejecting the single-focus factory model of our lands, our towns, our designs and our infrastructure – replace it with multifunctional systems thinking; the win-wins, the synergies, the joys that create belonging, hope and spirit, and from them enterprise.
8. We need to never be a colony – so retain our ownership of diverse enterprise, build creative and never extractive economies, multiply value down long and local value chains that thinks more about ‘creating beauty’ than ‘processing a resource’.
9. We need to distribute the commonwealth so that our money flows around our people and between our firms – meaningful employment
10. We need to create an attractive place – our landscapes and townscapes and communities – so that we attract the creative souls that value the quality of people and land, those that would build the Shire rather than a Mordor of cheap Orcs and slag heaps.