As I was born DURING the second-world war, I strictly don’t qualify as a “baby-boomer” since those were born in the more optimistic period just after the war but, in all respects, I belong to that generation - with all the sense of disrespect if not entitlement we brought with us….
In trying, in the past few
years, to write something I call “Dispatches
to the Next Generation” from a selection of my blogposts over the past
decade, I have found it developing into
·
a
critique of the degeneration of the initially successful post-war economic and political systems; as well as
·
an
attempt to understand the mistakes my generation made; and
·
an
exploration of what we have to do to avoid the fate that seems in store for us
all
Nor is it easy to pin a
political label on me – although I did spend 22 years of his life as a senior Labour
councillor with responsibilities for devising and managing unique strategies
for opening up the policy process and for developing social enterprise in what
was then Europe’s largest local authority. The subsequent 22 years I spent as
an adviser on institutional development to ministries in central Europe and
Central Asia
In its present form, the book has both a short and long version and I realised today that it has a combination of formats and elements which make it fairly unique –
· The booklet I have just uploaded is actually a taster to the longer book (300 pp) which is not yet satsifactory enough for uploading
· The taster version now has a narrative and is long enough (150 pages) to be read as a stand-alone version
·
It is available in the top-right corner of the blog and is called Dispatches
Taster and contains hyperlinks to more than 70 short essays - each of which
you can access by a simple click
·
A few
of these are contained as samplers in the relevant chapter
·
The
annexes contain a guide to some 200 books published in the last 60 years which
have been specially annotated to give the reader a sense of their significance
Indeed that book guide is of one the highlights – and should probably not be relegated to the final section of the book!
What you will find in each of the booklet chapters
Chapter
Title |
Thrust
of chapter arguments |
Supporting
theories |
1. Critical junctures identified |
History is written by the victors. Events were often
finely balanced. There’s too much fatalism around |
|
2.Trespassing encouraged |
Most leaders of organisations are in the grip of
groupthink and need countervailing mechanisms of accountability to help them
see new realities |
Janis, t’Hart, Syad |
3. Economics relegated |
Basic model is badly flawed and needs urgent reinvention |
Steve Keen, |
4. The Blind men probe the Elephant |
Talk of capitalism and post-capitalism is too loose. Are
we really clear what the core and marginal aspects of the system are – and
can the beast be reformed? |
Brian Davey’s ”Credo” |
5. A new social goal is sought for the commercial
company |
Shareholder value ignores other dimensions Cooperative and social enterprises employ more people
than we think – but have to struggle for legitimacy |
Paul Hirst Colin Mayer Ed Mayo |
6. Lessons of change explored |
So much protest fails and few social enterprises have a
multiplier effect. How do we ensure that there is real learning? |
Robert Quinn |
7. Change agents and coalitions sought |
Progressives are good at sounding off – and bad at
seeking common ground |
?? |
8. Bringing it all together |
countervailing power social enterprise |
|
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