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This is not a blog which opines on current events. It rather uses incidents, books (old and new), links and papers to muse about our social endeavours.
So old posts are as good as new! And lots of useful links!

The Bucegi mountains - the range I see from the front balcony of my mountain house - are almost 120 kms from Bucharest and cannot normally be seen from the capital but some extraordinary weather conditions allowed this pic to be taken from the top of the Intercontinental Hotel in late Feb 2020

Thursday, December 17, 2020

Do we have Agency – or not?

I have never understood those who used the language of revolutionary change – they seemed to live on another planet. I was actually a young Fabian – even before I learned about Karl Popper’s falsification principle and read his “Open Society and its Enemies”.

My theory of change was once expressed as a simple “pincer” one – “get them from both above and below” but then moved to that of the “windows of opportunity” expressed initially thus -   

• “Windows of opportunity present themselves - from outside the organization, in crises, pressure from below
• reformers have to be technically prepared, inspire confidence – and able to seize and direct the opportunity
• Others have to have a reason to follow
• the new ways of behaving have to be formalized in new structures.

And then developed a more detailed formulation which put more emphasis on the individual, moral responsibility – 

“Most of the time our systems seem impervious to change – but always (and suddenly) an opportunity arises. Those who care about the future of their society, prepare for these “windows of opportunity”. And the preparation is about analysis, mobilisation and trust.

·         It is about us caring enough about our organisation and society to speak out about the need for change.

·         It is about taking the trouble to think and read about ways to improve things – and

·         To help create and run networks of such change.

·         And it is about establishing a personal reputation for probity and good judgement 

·         that people will follow your lead when that window of opportunity arises”.

I am not a fan of Malcolm Gladwell but his popularisations have included the important notion of the Tipping Point -  where he suggested (in 2010) that there were three key factors which determine whether an idea or fashion will “tip” into wide-scale popularity - the Law of the Few, the Stickiness Factor, and the Power of Context. The “Law of the Few” proposes that a few key types of people must champion an idea, concept, or product before it can reach the tipping point. Gladwell describes these key types as –

·         Connectors,

·         Mavens, and

·         Salesmen.

(And a maven – in case you didn’t know - is a trusted expert in a particular field, who seeks to pass knowledge on to others. The word maven comes from the Hebrew, via Yiddish, and means one who understands, based on an accumulation of knowledge).

But I have never been able to get my head around complexity and systems theory – perhaps because it offended by sense of human agency. I have never been able to accept the fatalism that seems embedded in it. I certainly agree that effective change doesn’t come from the “ya-boo yo-yo” system of adversarial power blocs of the UK and USA – it comes from a combination of sustained dialogue; coalitions of change; and grassroots activism and protest.

And, often, it starts with an experiment – rather than a grand programme…Take, for example, what is now being called the Dutch model for neighbourhood care – started by Buurtzorg a few years back which is now inspiring people everywhere. That is a worker cooperative model… which, quite rightly, figures in Frederic Laloux’s  Reinventing Organisations.

I last wrote about this a couple of years ago – when I had pulled titles from my library (real and virtual) which appeared to deal with the issue. These, I emphasised, didn’t claim to represent anything except the vagaries of my purchases and interests. They do, however, seem to reflect important stages in the very slow understanding which has overtaken us in the past half century that we have allowed a perverse linear/mechanistic model of society to occupy our minds…….

The date of the first book is 1967……. That’s 50 years ago….a long time for an idea to gestate and develop….

 

Titles from 1967

Clarity Factor

Significance

full book?

The Costs of Economic Growth; EJ Mishan (1967)

2

The first time an economist warns of this – accessible here

yes

The Limits to Growth; Club of Rome (1972)

2

The book which made the warning global

The Sane Alternative – a choice of futures; James Robertson (1978)

1

“Small is Beautiful” (1973) was seen as partisan, if not extreme. James Robertson’s book put the case in more balanced terms

Yes

The Whale and the Reactor – the search for limits in an age of high technology; Langdon Winner (1986)

2

Amazingly prescient book -

Yes

The Fifth Discipline; the art and practice of the learning organisation; Peter Senge (1990)

3

Made the concepts of systems and of “the learning organisation” fashionable

The Development Dictionary – a guide to knowledge as power; ed W Sachs  (1992)

2

A powerful challenge to “the western view”

Yes

The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook; Peter Senge 1994

2

The sub-title says it all - strategies and tools for building a learning organisation

The Web of Life Fritjof Capra 1996

4

A well-intentioned presentation of systems thinking – but tough going

Deep Change; Robert Quinn 1996

2

Quinn’s first draft of what became the superb “Change the World”

Leadership and the new Science – discovering order in a chaotic world Margaret Wheatley 1999

2

An early classic in the attempt to present a new world of complexity

Dialogue and the art of thinking together; William Isaacs (1999)

3

One of many focusing on dialogue…

Change the World; Robert Quinn (2000)

1

I simply don’t understand why this book is so seldom mentioned….perhaps because it makes a moral case?

The Ingenuity Gap – how can we solve the problems of the future? Thomas Homer-Dixon (2001)

1

A fascinating book which focuses on the complexity of the contemporary world – with a powerful narrative

Towards Holistic Governance – the new reform agenda; Perri 6, Leat, Seltzer and Stoker (2002)

4

Cooperation in government is an important topic but is dealt with in an over-confident and technical manner by these academics

Systems thinking – creative holism for managers; Michael Jackson (2003)

4

Very comprehensive but – at 378 pages – not immediately user-friendly….

Yes

Critical Mass; Philip Ball (2004)

3

A popular attempt to look at systems issues which probably tries to cover too many areas

Building the Bridge as you walk on it – a guide for leading change; Robert Quinn (2004)

2

Note quite as good as his “Change the World”

yes

An End to Suffering – the Buddha in the World; Pankaj Mishra( 2004)

1

A delightful idea and easy read

Presence – exploring profound change in people, organisations and society; P Senge et al (2005)

3

A conversation between 4 friends which reflects their uncertainties. Just a bit too self-indulgent and self-referential

The Dictionary of Alternatives – utopianism and organisation; ed M Parker, V Fournier and P Reedy (2007)

3

A nice idea – which I have still to read

Accessible here

yes

Thinking in Systems – a primer; Donella Meadows (2008)

2

the discussion about “leverage points” is an immensely important one. The early pages are a delight to read –

Yes

Exploring the Science of Complexity; Ben Ramalingam et al (ODI 2008)

5

Almost incoherent – but see “Aid on the edge of Chaos” below

Yes

The Master and His Emissary – the divided brain and the making of the Western World; Iain McGilchrist (2009)

4

Apparently a very important read but, with more than 500 pages, too big a challenge for me….

Deconstructing Development Buzzwords (2010)

3

Clever…

Yes

Power and Love; a theory and practice of social change; Adam Kahane (2010)

2

Most authors would avoid a title like this - but Kahane’s south African experience makes this a great story, read here  

yes

The Dance on the Feet of Chance; Hooman Attar (2010)

4

A bit too technical – but honest

Mastery; Robert Greene (2012)

1

An important topic, nicely presented by a craftsman of his trade. Read here

yes

Aid on the Edge of Chaos; Ben Ramalingam (2013)

3

A very comprehensive treatment of the various strands but ultimately (at 450 pages) indigestible

Embracing Complexity – strategic perspectives for an age of turbulence; J Boulton, P Allen and C Bowman (2015)

1

At first glance, wonderfully clear

How Change Happens Duncan Green (2016)

1

With its focus on the marginalised of the world, this may not immediately attract but it’s one the best discussions of change…

Yes

Can We Know Better?; Robert Chambers (2017)

1

What could be final reflections from the development scholar who wrote “Whose Reality Counts? putting the Last First”…

Yes

Doughnut Economics – seven ways to think like a 21st century economist; K Raworth (2017)

1

Didn’t seem part of this discussion – but the clarity of her exposition of how certain ideas first came to be developed blows you away!!

Commanding hope – the power we have to renew a world in peril; Thomas- Homer-Dixon (2020)

1

One of the first books which takes the environmental crisis as a given and concentrates the discussion on the reasons why people resist the message – or don’t follow thro in actions

yes

 

2 comments:

  1. I think its necessary to examine the development of dominant ideas from a materialist perspective - the whole issue is dealt with extensively in the series on Lenin's critique of the Narodniks that I have been running.

    In other words, if we put this in the language of Darwinian Evolution, why is it that some species prosper and become dominant, and why is it that new species develop? We know now its not "survival of the fittest", but survival of the best adapted, and given that environmental factors change, the definition of best adapted changes over time.

    The same with the evolution of social systems. The Narodniks thought that Capitalism in Russia was unnatural, and explained the existence of capitalists on the basis of them being cheats, swindlers and so on. They explained the dominance of capitalist ideas, and their pursuit by the state as being down purely to the intelligentsia having adopted false ideas that took Russia down this unnatural path.

    But, Marx, and, here, Lenin - the same ideas being found in Gramsci - explains that the reason certain ideas become dominant at one time rather than another, is again down to the fact that these ideas are consonant with the material conditions that exist at the time, in the same way that certain environmental conditions favoured moths that were darker in colour, and at another were lighter in colour.

    Capitalist ideas did not come to dominate accidentally, but because the material conditions favoured the development of capital and capitalism. Capitalists didn't prosper because they were cheats and so on, but because capitalist relations favoured those that were best suited to that role, best adapted to the new material conditions.

    This is the material basis of human agency.

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  2. As a non-Marxist, I don’t really understand these references. On the subject of determinism, I prefer the sharpness of AO Hirschmann’s observation (in his ”The Rhetoric of Reaction”) about the three arguments conservative writers use to dismiss the hopes of social reformers:

    - The futility thesis argues that attempts at social transformation will be unavailing, that they will simply fail to “make a dent.”
    - the perversity thesis holds that any purposive action to improve some feature of the political, social, or economic order only serves to exacerbate the condition one wishes to remedy.
    - the jeopardy thesis argues that the cost of the proposed change or reform is too high as it endangers some previous, precious accomplishment.

    But such fatalism offends my sense of what we used to call “free will” (and now “agency theory”).

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