Leverage Points
In order to craft a response to contemporary madness, you have to understand how ‘they’ see the world. And as General Systems Theory is well represented through Sustainable Development, the Ecosystem Approach, One Health, the Circular Economy, Planetary Health and - especially - the catch-all term, ‘Spaceship Earth’, consulting their own writings might be a good place to start.
And that’s where we encounter a work by Donella Meadows; ‘Leverage Points - Places to Intervene in a System‘1.
I’ve written a fair big on General Systems Theory in the past. Perhaps not quite enough, but it’s a fairly large, complex field -
What’s of more interest is the general term, used by many, popularised in the 1960s.
Why she’s important is because she was the partner of Dennis Meadows, both of whom were intimately involved with the Club of Rome2 and their early work, ‘The Limits to Growth’ on which she was the lead author3. She further worked with Jay Forrester4, the inventor of system dynamics5.
It’s an interesting document, which thankfully is also somewhat short; 21 pages, of which we can skip the first 2. She starts off, discussing the magic of what may more commonly be known as ‘silver bullets’ or ‘miracle cures’. However, in systems theory, these are kown as leverage points and they ultimately represent points of power.
Donella carries on, outlining how Jay Forrester when asked by the Club of Rome on how to solve the issues of poverty, environmental destruction, resource depletion and so forth, he delivered a single, yet simple verdict - Growth -
‘Growth has costs as well as benefits, but we typically don't count the costs… the whole list of problems we are trying to solve with growth! What is needed is much slower growth, and in some cases no growth or negative growth.‘
Oh did that get your attention? It continues -
‘Another of Forrester's classics was his urban dynamics study, published in 1969, which demonstrated that subsidized low-income housing is a leverage point? The less of it there is, the better off the city is— even the low-income folks in the city.‘
… and yet, they are obsessed with building ‘affordable housing’ in the UK. Regardless, according to Forrester, these drive unemployment, welfare costs, and despair… which of course is obvious, but don’t you dare even suggesting that to one of those nose-ring sporting blue-haired trust fund babies busy shouting about ‘fairness’ while ensuring your lateness for work.
She carried on, outlining 12 places to invervene in a system, which are detailed, point-by point, having first having established a suitable example.
A given system has both inputs and outputs, and the outputs depend on the input, plus the internal state of the system. And by reading the state of said system, you can determine if output is as expected, and if not, regulate said system. If this sounds confusing, don’t worry, an example is coming up. It does however related to adaptive management, and resilience thinking.
Should you wish to take a hot bath, you need to run the water. And the first problem to solve is how to reach the correct level of water - which will obviously take a period of time. Running the water is done through adjusting taps (both hot and cold), but if you let the taps run for too long, then the system overflows, but conversely, not long enough and you won’t be able to take your desired bath either. If the temperature is too hot, then you need to add cold water - and vice versa. And from this fairly simple example, the 12 rules can largely be explained.
Running in reverse order (from least to most impactful), point number 12 relates to the parameters of the system. And in our example above, these would be the taps, dictating flow. But in more complex systems, these could be the deficit (determining the national debt), or air quality standards (determining annual forest timber production - an interesting example for sure), the amount spent on AIDS research, the minimum wage, or even the amount of land set aside for conservation (which is yet another interesting example).
But the trouble is - in contrast to traditional belief - these typically are not great leverage points, because even when changed significantly, systems typically have a capacity of circumvention and self-balancing that rarely lead to desired outcome. An example given here is Los Angeles with its strict air pollution standard still not cleaning the air, just as spending more on police won’t make crime completely disappear.
Consequently, it’s the point of least interest, though interestingly, it’s where the lions share of attention is typically paid by politicians and businesses.
Point number 11 relates to size of buffers, which can help stabilise a system. Trouble is, of course, that these are not frequently an easy place to make an effective intervention, in part because of cost of implementation, but also because businesses over the years progressively came to eliminate these as it was found to simply be cheaper to factor in the occasional shortfall through just-in-time policies.
Point 10 follows, which is another neigh-on-impossibility to fix, which is the layout of the system. Because although structures are crucial, changing said can border on the impossible. The best solution is to design the system properly in the first place, and then work around its limitations.
Point 9 follows, and it addresses the delays in the system, with that bath tub being used as an example. Should you adjust temperatures, only for this to take a while to feed through, it can be very, very hard to fill yourself that enjoyable bath. Ultimately, examples are given how this can lead to completely inflexible system, which will not survive in the long run.
Point 8 is where it becomes interesting, becase it deals with negative feedback loops, which in our present system frequently act as stabilising entities, allowing systems to self-correct. And point 7 carries on in the same vein - this is where positive feedback loops enter the stage.
An example of the latter is given through self-reinforcing systems like population growth, and former could then hypothetically be the spread of diseases causing high mortality, or lack of food, of course.
The real power related to negative feedback loops relates to slowing these down, thereby stopping the system from self-adjusting. And allowing positive feedback systems to run riot, can lead to chaos. But further - ‘Reducing the gain around a positive loop - slowing the growth - is usually a more powerful leverage point in systems then strengthening negative loops, and much preferable to letting the positive loop run‘
A few additional comments are then added, including -
‘Democracy worked better before the advent of the brainwashing power of centralised mass communication‘, which I suppose was true when this was written, but then the internet came along, smashing those monopolies.
‘The power of big industry calls for the power of big government to hold it in check: a global economy makes necessary a global government‘
Um, yeah, of course that could also be addressed through ensuring their power never reached an ungovernable state.
Point 6 relates to the availability of information. Delivering information to new places in the system can lead to new loops, causing different behaviour. And this then extends to the lack of feedback -
‘Missing feedback is one of the most common causes of system malfunction. Adding or restoring information can be a powerful intervention, usually much easier and cheaper than rebuilding physical infrastructure‘
It finishes off by establishing that we, humans, tend to avoid accountability for our own decisions, which is a classic instance of a missing feedback loop.
Point 5 continues with the addressing the rules of the system, which is taken to mean laws, policies and regulation. And this then also relates to lobbying, outlines the Supreme Court being more powerful then congress, and culminates with a theory fairly similar to how Schumpeter foresaw the end of capitalism.
Point 4 adds the ability for the system to self-organise, for it to recognise undesired output, and correct its own actions. This, in fact, is recognised as the strongest form of system resilience., not least because any system which longer can self-evolve will eventually be doomed.
Described as a smorgasbord of information used as raw material enabling an evolutionary development, plus a willingness to experiment, for risk taking. It then tails off, suggesting that allowing species, science, or even human cultures to go extinct is a crime against the system.
Point 3 comes down to the goals of the system, which doesn’t necessarily mean what the stated objectives revolve around, but rather what the system can be observed doing.
Point 2 relates to the system mindset or paradigm, which really is quite the interesting point, because it relates to the general impression about how the world works. And… a curious thing in that regard is that the accompanying text is somewhat indicative as to where Donella’s sympathies lie. Because she clearly does not approve of private property, nor like Ronald Reagan much (revealed in point 3). It’s… a somewhat accurate reflection of contemporary elitist attitude.
And finally, point 1 - the power to transcend paradigms. Which is yet another reflection of contemporary elitist attitude, because it in short describes not subscribing to any set of standards, but rather, see those standards - or paradigms - as vehicles of expedience, enabling you to pick and mix.
A few points of note are finally thrown in - exceptions exists to every point, and the higher the leverage point, expect more resistance. Because though magic leverage points do exist, they’re typically not easily accessible, even if we know where they are an in which direction to push them.
I can’t say I yet master this topic, in fact, I will probably have to leave it to settle for a few days - but it’s been a very, very interesting introduction. Not only because of the strong ties into contemporary ideology and policy-making, but also because it goes a long way explaining the purpose and actions of a number of companies setup for sakes of monetising ‘systems change’ - it even explains the utterly shamelessly delivered lies repeated so often. When they in point 1 outline paradigm shifts, what they also in effect do is implicitly accept that the message delivered will change. And that, in turn, explains how contemporary politicians again and again, can just stand there and lie to the people, with absolutely no feeling of shame nor remorse.
Which then explains Biden’s State-of-the-Union address only earlier this evening.