Alternative Editorial: Don't Follow The Leader
While August was only five short weeks, there was plenty of movement in the socio-political field. The UK got a new Prime Minister (same as the old Prime Minister) but based on the votes of Conservative party members, who represent only 0.03% of the national electorate - a new low in the democratic deficit. So low that we are tempted to project ourselves into the future, and look back at this moment as the rock bottom that caused a turning point in the UK's fortunes. Maybe.
But another image also comes to mind, prompted by a series of startling facts. As we move towards Winter, the UK's energy bills are the worst in Europe; the gap between rich and poor is the largest in Europe and the UK's overall growth forecast for 2023 will be the worst in the G7, the grouping of the world's top economies. The UK is like an iceberg breaking away from a crumbling glacier, and floating off into the distance.
The state of our flagship institutions, the source of Britain's soft power - like the National Health Service, the BBC and the Royal Family - are sadly in decline and unlikely to compensate for the general decay. Although the new record for spending in a single day set by the English Premier League might cheer up the lads among us.
With Europe itself perilously vulnerable to Russia's control of fossil fuels, maybe our look back from the future would note the beginning of the end of the European Dream. Or even the end of the American Dream, given the part America has played in taunting the Russian Bear while forced into its own rearguard action to fight off fascism. Are we seeing a real challenge to Western Civilisation from within? See here for some competing views.
In the midst of this nervy and uncertain drama - with none of us knowing quite what plot line we are trying to follow - one of the indisputable and globally historic figures of the 20th Century passed away last week. Mikhail Gorbachev was the architect of a radical new culture (glasnost) and structure (perestroika) that led to the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Berlin Wall. Yet his legacy is ambivalent: his innovations have also been blamed for the break up of the USSR soon after.
For many outside of Russia, Gorby had it all: vision, courage, emotional resonance. And to some extent he came from the 'other side' to break down the Wall (literally, in the case of Europe) so many on this side wanted to see fall. But like the goalkeeper that leaves his own half to try and score a goal, he created a dangerous exposure to the tactics of the opposition that proved fatal.
While Gorbachev was making the most of his new status in the West - signing a nuclear non-proliferation deal was only one of the celebrations we applauded - the free marketeers were scoring goals at the other end. We won't share an analysis of the journey here, but what happened as a result of 'freedom', and the decentralisation of power, was the serial move to independence of fifteen republics of the former Soviet Union.
Keeping his focus on occupying the wrong half - playing with the Western liberals - meant that Gorbachev could not control what was happening at home. He was literally arrested while abroad and eventually succeeded by a champion of neoliberalism.
Some would still say that shift was good and necessary. However, even today we are seeing the ramifications of that rapid collapse and re-organisation of Eastern Europe by global capitalism. Putin's military appeal is to 'make Russia great again' by reclaiming former territories and re-establishing Russia's opposition to the Western world.
Only this time he's beating them at their own game - hoarding the fossil fuels on which capitalism depends. As we speak, the very location of Gorby's breakthrough - Berlin - is at the heart of a European energy crisis.
But why are we drawing attention to this pattern of events, at this time? Because while Gorbachev's initiative was radical and welcome, as a breakthrough in an outdated and dysfunctional system, the conditions for its success were not there. The Russian people had lived under an overly controlled, very restricted regime for too long: there were no pathways towards self-regulation within each constituent part.
Worse, there was no structure for the sharing of tools and practice as the citizens emerged out of their official “socialist” bubble and into the glare and chaos of the wider global sphere. Instead, when 'freedom' was touted, it spoke to everyone: each republic wanted their own direct access to the world, and the break up - and demise - of the Soviet Union became inevitable.
Of course, hindsight can be misleading. There may have been no other way to break the spell of the Cold War other than to act as the leader of a centralised bureaucracy, without seeking consent or preparing the people. And, while the major cities may have had a creative underground culture, the vast majority of Russian people themselves had no autonomy, no mechanisms for self-organisation. Little to prepare themselves for the onslaught of capitalism which would destabilise their very identity.
According to the films of that time (from within the communist bloc) there was next to no social fabric on which to depend as new economic experiments became necessary. Now people were suddenly invited into a relationship with the world via the internet - which was not supportive but ravenous. No wonder there was a desire to 'take back control', at the level of former-republics-turned-democratic nation states.
We might find the same problem in other failed breakthroughs: the Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street, the rash of new political parties that sprung up accross Europe in the early 21C. Although the uprising was strong, desired by many and inspired by charismatic figures, there was not enough systemic awareness to anticipate the next steps.
The goal was to topple the current power structure and let something 'better' step in - without any preparation, as if self-organisation would come naturally and well. Too often, those in the movement expected to be the innovators of a new socio-economic-political system themselves - but quickly fell prey to disagreements and the tyranny of structurelessness.
What could a party of the parallel polis get up to?
But that was then and this is now. We are well into the fourth decade of the internet revolution and our collective ability to 'see each other', gaining access to short and long term solutions to the major crises we face, has developed significantly.
At the same time, every person with a mobile phone or more has opportunities to #findtheothers - people who experience life the way they do, who share a common narrative and emotional resonance. All of us can test our thoughts in the public space and gravitate towards bubbles of belonging and shared purpose.
Springing up in multiple locations globally are microcosms of the kinds of ecosystems that might, properly interconnected, shift the dial on our journey towards socio-ecomomic transformation. They are cosmolocal - working seamlessly between both the grassroots, and the virtual worlds of global intelligence.
These structures act as containers, capable of incubating and integrating diverse forms of agency - from entrepreneurs to social justice actors, to educators and care providers. They are ingenious - using technology and artificial intelligence to design participatory governance systems, invent new currencies, solve wicked problems.
They are much less inclined to think they can do everything on their own (collaboration is highly prized). They are more likely to reach for available wisdom (from elders and indigenous peoples). Yet they’re still hungry for 'the new story' of unprecedented ingenuity in the face of extinction.
However there is a gap between this fractal possibility and any visibly available system. Are we ready to step into action, if the moment arrived? Like pregnancy, we may be somewhere on the road to birthing something new, but if the baby came early, our overnight bags are not packed and ready to go. To extend the metaphor, we haven't even cleared the rubbish out of the room we're hoping to use as a nursery, let alone painted it.
The idea and image of the baby is broadly powerful - in that we can see its antecedents, in the 'brothers' and 'sisters' that came earlier. Mondragon (see our blog this week) Transition Towns, Ecovillages, Neighbourhood Parliaments are all from the community agency network (CANs) family. But they were born over ten years ago (Mondragon much further back, but coming into its own in the current crisis).
This new baby will appear, pre-adapted to these times, with capacities their siblings wll be marvelling at. Civic Square, Bioregional Weaving Labs, Onion Collective, 1000 Landscapes: each is an island, intent on developing its own sustainability for the future. But they are not yet ready to see themselves as part of a generic movement that scales itself through virality. Yet they carry the data and models needed for towns and cities all over the world to take on multiple crises; giving each citizen the space to discover their own agency.
To some this sounds like science fiction—it may well remain that way, if we don't now apply ourselves to bringing 'the baby' to term. It's no small programme of actions, each needing a different kind of sensibility to 'make real'. Just like any birth, requiring doctors as well as midwives, nurses and nutritionists, painters and decorators, taxi drivers and mobile phones!
The emergence of this new socio-economic-political system will need the full gamut of creative operators. In particular, right now, we need the facilitators to design and hold all forms of space; the tech designers to join the spaces up to each other; the narrators to tell the new story within the cosmolocal media system.
More important is that within this broad emerging system, each actor or agent has the emotional capacity for listening, imagining, co-creating, speaking up, enduring. There are always leaders, but the movement will depend more upon self-leaders than followers. In that sense, the self-development teachers might be the most important change-makers of them all.
At The Alternative Global, our observation is that there are more people in business, the arts and communities that can see this ecosystem emerging, than in governments. And the leaders will appear from within that parallel polis rather than in political parties.
Even so, politics may provide a missing piece. Imagine the first fully independent political party whose reason for being is exactly this enabling of - and partnership with - the self-organising, loosely constituted parallel polis. What could we get up to?