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Mother Pelican
A Journal of Solidarity and Sustainability

Vol. 11, No. 9, September 2015
Luis T. Gutiérrez, Editor
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Paradigm Junction - Envisioning 50 Years After Paradigm Change

Don Chisholm


This article was originally published in
Paradigm Junction, 19 August 2015
as part of
Paradigm Junction: Life 50 Years After Paradigm Change

REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION


0815.ParadigmJunction.Planet.png

The era of global tragedy of the commons ends.
The new paradigm begins when
Interdependent Regional Governments
unite to form a chaordic organization called,
The United Regions
Where coordinated expertise in Earth Science,
Human-Nature and Economics,
Provide Regional Guidance to Maximize Real Wealth:

Real wealth is a measurement of a robust ecology
and of the general health and happiness of the people!


This brief preliminary chapter provides preliminary reasons for developing the outline blueprint for Blue Planet Governance in its current form. Also it gives a glimpse of the social, economic and political conditions illustrating what life would/could be like 50 years after our collective transit to Blue Planet Governance.

The remaining chapters of Section 4 will provide greater technical detail on the dynamic interactive of levels of government and how an understanding of human-nature is a key element in the design of Blue Planet Governance.

Envisioning in Dynamic System Design

Whether designing a better model aircraft or modification to a civilization at the threshold of disaster, three preliminary steps are:

1. Assess key weaknesses of the existing model;
2. Explore new and proven concepts to supplant the weaknesses;
3. Envision the functioning whole including dynamic interactions to ensure the result will meet design specifications – the goal.

Step 1: Assess key weaknesses of the existing model

Within the complex dynamic system of human civilization there are three core categories of issues that are intertwined and interactive. There is a growing diversity of political initiatives, papers and conferences regarding the vitally needed transition toward a changed heading of our collective human civilization. However, not found among the proposed solutions, are proposals that deal with all three of the central core issues. This is like following a map with some key coordinates missing. When solutions are proposed that do not encompass all of the interactive central issues, these proposed solutions face the difficulties that define a typical wicked problem. This dilemma causes the paradigm paralysis that inhibits the world’s highest levels of governments or the largest NGOs from effectively altering our tragic trajectory into the future.

Core issue ‘M’ is the debt-based Money-creation systems of the world where nations have been forced to follow the lead of USA since, after WWII, USA became holder of the world’s reserve currency. The problem is that the structure of this economic system is such that it will collapse if economic growth does not continue in perpetuity. This one-way trajectory was orchestrated by rich bankers when the US Federal Reserve suddenly came into being – created in a surprise bill late December 1913. The Federal Reserve is a chaordic organization operated by, and for, the dominant commercial banks with limited oversight from the Federal government. To ensure that physical limits did not impede GDP (Gross Domestic Product) growth, in 1971 President Nixon caused the money creation system to abandon the physical commodity of gold, and thereafter, money became fiat – created out nothing – let it be! Every time a bank loan is made, the amount of the loan enters the money system.

Core issue ‘A’ represents Activity, the collective resources that we humans use, animal, vegetable and mineral along with our resultant pollutants. Human-Activity creates the imprint of our ecological footprint, now deficit spending Earth’s life sustaining resource base at an alarming and accelerating rate.

Core issue ‘P’ represents gross human Population, growing from 1 billion preindustrial-age enabled growth to over 7 billion today. Common wisdom tells us this fossil fuel enabled peak is more humans than planet Earth could sustain.

Core issues of today’s M & A & P in summary:

There is no apparent significant government or NGO effort underway that deals with the three interactive MAP elements. Therefore without a MAP approach none can succeed at finding a pathway to a sustainable civilization.

Physical realities appear to verify the ‘Club Of Rome’s Limits to Growth projections, first generated in 1972, are on target today, and that human Population will be reduced in our not too distant future, one way or another. Likewise, our gross Activity will also be reduced. It would be prudent to enable population to be reduced by civilized attrition: Changed lifestyles and goals could vastly reduce our gross Activity while likely improving overall human happiness.

Today’s human created system of Money was designed out of human greed and flat-earth mentality. Nevertheless, the short term wellbeing of you and me and our friends and neighbours depends on sustaining the current M while our politicians pursue the false hope that economic growth can last forever. At the moment, TINA, There Is No Alternate. Our longer term wellbeing is always trumped by our short-term interests. This aspect of our human-nature is well understood by the banker cartel:

“The few who understand the system will either be so interested from its profits or
so dependent on its favors, that there will be no opposition from that class."
~ Rothschild Brothers of London, 1863

The people of Quebec turned down their desire to be a separate state likely because of the short term uncertainty of their monetary future if they separated. The same scenario unfolded recently in Scotland. And more recently Greece capitulated to the demands of ‘M’.

The selfishness of humans is a central assumption of orthodox economics, where it is thought to lead to benefits for the economy as a whole. This effect is what the 18th-century economist Adam Smith described as the “invisible hand”.

We are moving into a period of increasing chaos. However, if there was a viable alternative perhaps some of us can begin building pathways toward it, so that when the existing economic/Money system finally fails, a lifeboat system could available to provide a level of stability, even if amid significant but manageable chaos. Human nature is not going to change and therefore it will continue to be individual and local self-interest that will be the main driver of widespread acceptance of the new system of M with the associated change to the ways we do some things. This general acceptance of the lifeboat proposals will indicate a general acceptance of a new MAP relationship toward a viable future. This could represent the needed change that psychologist Robert Orenstein proposed as, conscious evolution.

In dynamic systems terms, each of the three core issues of MAP, are largely controllable variables in that with a viable governance system for our small blue planet, humans could redesign M and implement civilized regulation of A & P. The money system is an abstract reality, like any game we play and intimately know. In a civilized country human procreation and population levels are influenced by decisions we make and one’s apparent wealth. Regarding the A of activity, there is little doubt that the resource throughput of rich countries could be significantly less without reducing overall human happiness - and likely increasing it. Our common goal would be to maintain civil order in order to become a sustainable civilization over time.

Besides MAP there are all of the other real issues to consider such as, energy demand and diminishing availability, a multitude of ecological impacts and also various aspects of human nature to consider. Each of these break down into dozens of named interactive follow-on issues. We must create a new abstract reality, a new game in which M & A & P are dealt with quite differently: And when we deal with them together as one common integrated issue, the wickedness of the overall problem is greatly reduced.

Stafford Beer, a socio/political systems designer: From his book, Designing Freedom,

I am proposing simply that society should use its tools to redesign its institutions, and to operate those institutions quite differently. You can imagine all the problems. But the first and gravest problem is in the mind, screwed down by all those cultural constraints. You will not need a lot of learning to understand what I am saying: what you will need is intellectual freedom. It is a free gift for all who have the courage to accept it. Remember: our culture teaches us not intellectual courage, but intellectual conformity.

Step 2: Explore new and proven concepts to supplant the weaknesses

The best source of such ideas can be found in today’s centers of power, corporations and banks.

- They have a central headquarters that monitors critical parameters in all branches;
- They utilize a deep understanding of human nature in their processes;
- They have a central goal and an administration system to ensure the goal is met;
- They are modular with largely autonomous branches, often doing quite different things under different circumstances within different cultures;
- Competitive corporations sometimes form chaordic organizations to act in their common interest.

A multinational manufacturing corporation works with hundreds of semiautonomous departments and branches, often in other nations. The common goal is to produce a quality product that will bring profits. A quality assurance system (QA) is used to govern the processes than ensures the system is functioning at optimum performance. A corporate QA system can be seen as a well-documented governance system that establishes goals, measures all steps along the way of the manufacturing process. Any measured deviation from written standards is corrected through positive or negative feedback. The system is regularly audited by a third party to ensure integrity.

This is a thumbnail description of a proposed dynamic governance system for our small blue planet. Our common goal will be to eventually reach a point where the human-activity of our civilization is sustainable within the Earth’s Gaian systems of nature.

Step 3: To envision the functioning whole including dynamic interactions to ensure the result will meet design specifications – the goal.

"To secure these [inalienable] rights [to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness], governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed... Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness." -- Thomas Jefferson: Declaration of Independence, 1776

The brief envisioned scenario below is described in significant detail in a web booklet called, Paradigm Junction (PJ). Thoughts from steps 1 & 2 above form the basis of ideas that went into developing the envisioned scenario ideas, along with a few decades of observation, study and exchange of ideas with many others. The scenario presented in PJ describes the nature of the sociopolitical scene 050APC, or 50 years After the chaotic Paradigm Change period, that we have entered.

Historically, to replaced barter a wide variety of means to exchange of goods and services, usually called money, enabled regional civilizations to grow and prospered: But soon complexity and size outgrew the limits of the ruler’s ability to govern and they collapsed. We have reached this point today, not because of increased complexity but because an inadequate monetary system cause us to deal with symptoms rather than the combined MAP issues.

The Money system of a civilization is both the glue and the lubricant that enables a civilization to exist. We notice that A (Activity) tends to be proportional to monetary affluence. But affluence may increase or decrease P (Population), depending on other conditions, such as the level of education and self-determination of women. For these reasons, monetary availability and flow rates will continue to be the master regulator of A & P. The most significant change in the year 050APC will be the nature of M – money, both the way it is create and distributed and other functions that it serves.

The remainder of this section is rather like a Q & A session to give brief explanation of the content in the following three PJ chapters that give details on the development of the envisioned life style that could be available to us within BPC – Blue Planet Governance.

Q 1: What is the United Regions of 050APC?

The UR (United Regions) is a chaordic organization that exists for the benefit of the collective of regions of the world. The executive branch members of UR are elected by the regions. The needed scientists, actuaries, psychologists and other specialists are appointed by the executive branch. The UR operates like the corporate headquarters of a global company. Every regional government is a UR shareholder.

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Core Purpose of the United Regions: [ref]

To develop a planetary management system capable of moving humanity toward a more harmonious relationship within Gaia.

Vision of the UR

The era of global tragedy of the commons ends. [Wiki]
The new paradigm began when Interdependent Regional Governments united.
Where coordinated expertise in Earth Science, Human-Nature and Economics,
Provides Regional Guidance to Maximize Real Wealth:
Real wealth is a measurement of a robust ecology and the
general health and happiness of the people!
– Penned by Riane Eilsler

Mission of the UR

Scientific and psychological knowledge will underlie the dynamically interactive social/political/economic system with a long term goal reducing the human ecological footprint until there is a synergetic balance within the ambient systems of life in our small blue planet.

Q 2: How large is a region?

They are as small as practical to have a regional government large enough to administer the functional needs of bureaucracy within the BPG – Blue Planet Governance. Envisioned regions vary in size, ecological bioregions sometimes form the borders, some are the same as small countries before paradigm change. Regions are small enough to have the advantages of ‘localization’, and to give individuals a strong feeling they can be an important part of local government.

BPG is an expandable model that can begin from the agreement of a few regions.

Q3: How does the new money system work?

The Bank of Gaia administers the world’s money. Global real wealth is the sum of the wealth of all regions. Gaia$ are a digital only. Gaia$ are a commodity based currency based on a package of commodities called Wealth Factors that represent real wealth, (… as penned above by Riane Eisler in The Real Wealth Of Nations).

Gaia$ can be exchanged freely within a region, but the Regional Bank of Gaia (RBoG) may limit interregional trade, because the Regional government is responsible for long term issues including the Region’s Wealth Factor per capita issues.

Each region measures the Wealth Factors within its borders. Here are a few examples.

  • A region’s ability to harvest flow-energy (renewable);
  • A region’s open spaces of untouched nature;
  • A region’s capability to produce manufactured goods;
  • A region’s capability to produce food;
  • The level of happiness of people in the region;
  • … and many more. The use of fossil fuels is a negative wealth factor.

The Bank of Gaia at the UN enables the digital money for each region based on the region’s wealth factor sum. For many regions loans will be necessary in the beginning to sustain an adequate flow of goods and services until feedback can lower the gross human-activity (HA) in the future in order to reach a sustainable wealth per capital ratio.

Both global wealth and regional wealth are always expressed as wealth per capita to highlight the point that a smaller population increases wealth per capita. The fact that the general wealth of all individuals within your region, including family and neighbours, is an important factor, especially where regional governments need to consider measures such as, one child per female.

The Gaia$ system of money is transparent. All Gaia$ transactions and personal accumulations are recorded by the Regional BoG, including any individual’s total accumulation – which has a limit set by the Regional government.

Q4: How can corporations function in this system?

There are a few other changes in human created rules, such as:

  • The regional government has full stewardship of the land and commons within its borders.
  • The idea of land ownership by individuals or corporations ends, but leases from regional government give access to the land.
  • Regional governments are the shareholders of all multi-regional corporations.
  • Farmers, merchants and cooperatives enterprises operate much as they did before Paradigm Change.

Q5: What about an individual’s income?

  • Everyone gets a basic fixed income from their regional government.
  • Governments acquire revenue from various sources such as by holding shares in profitable multi-regional corporations and land leases.
  • The highest paid individual can receive no more than 10 times the basic fixed income.

This is the outline of how a truly science guided biophysical economic system of M could regulate A & H. A dynamic system approach can provide the needed MAP to guide our progress into the unknown future!


ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Don Chisholm is a Director of the Gaia Preservation Coalition. He is a retired Engineering Technologist whose career path dealt with dynamic systems, maintenance, design, management and quality assurance auditing, generally related to the aviation industry. The past thirty years have been spent studying human behaviours, energy, and other areas related to the human predicament. For his complete biography and contact information, click here.


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