Dear Mr. President,

I hear your fervent plea for change and now begin to understand the direction in which you are proposing that we move. For me, some questions arise concerning the direction of that change. And I want to offer some observations that I consider relevant.

My name is the same as yours, just different language: Barukh. I am a septuagenarian from Canada and a lifetime admirer and student of The Spirit of 76: the vision, ideas, values and spirit that inspired and moved the signatories of The Declaration of Independence and drive the American experiment: life, liberty, pursuit of happiness… to which I further add égalité, and fraternité.  

This means that I am deeply troubled by the absurd mess that has become the American Dream and by similar events in so many other nations that embraced that same spirit. Beyond reasonable doubt, we stand at a very critical moment for society and civilization and for the future of our children and grandchildren. 

You have chosen to become the Admiral of a floundering American Ship of State. I sympathize with you. The task you have undertaken is monumental; the expectations that have been built up, immense.

My objective here is to articulate one side of what I envision as a Talmudic dialogue between us… a conversation focused more upon the underlying issues and causes of our present crisis than upon its symptoms; a perspective focused more upon questions than upon ready made or quick answers and solutions… a process whereby people who cannot see the forest for the trees and those who cannot see the trees for the forest can better understand each other and thus better understand both the forest and the trees.

I see the present crisis as an opportunity for all of us to learn and begin thinking outside the box in order to ultimately take a giant leap forward in thinking about our future. In other words, an opportunity for us to embrace that same spirit which emboldened the Continental Congress to take a courageous step out of the box in which they found themselves – the British feudal system - and into republican, representative democracy… government of, by and for the people.  

My challenge is to dare us to think of ourselves as preparing to take an equally giant leap in our time, to create a totally new actuality for the American Dream and the world... a more perfect union.

I have lived through the Dawning of the Age of Aquarius of the ‘60’s, the Greening of America in the ‘70’s, the Aquarian Conspiracy of the ‘80’s and the paradigm shift we have been talking about ever since. Dare we actually begin the process of transformation rather than merely talking about it?

Bear with me… if we look deeply, it seems obvious – at least to me – that what Wall Street and Detroit have conclusively established is that the present failures of our economic system are not merely aberrations, but the failure of capitalism itself.  

Why? In substance, because Adam Smith published his Wealth of Nations in 1775 to address a world and a practical, daily economic reality that was radically different from what ours is today.

The most essential difference between 1775 and 2009 can be summarized in a single word: complexity. Over the past 50 years or so we have experienced a process of extreme complexification in our personal and collective affairs while Adam Smith’s ideas about an economic system were designed and intended for a much more uncomplicated reality.

Indulge me:

                          Capitalism sat on a [street called] Wall.

                          Capitalism had a great fall.

                          America’s horses and America’s men

                          Cannot put capitalism together again.

Which is not to say private enterprise has failed, but that private enterprise operating on a capitalist structure or framework cannot address the problems and difficulties brought on by the fact of complexification.

And the failure of capitalism is not the only component in this mess. Our system of administration of justice is and has been in crisis for a much longer time. On the criminal side, the system convicts too many innocents and allows a colossal number of criminals to go free; on the civil side, it costs too much, takes too long and makes too many mistakes.

Why? The same reason: when Sir William Blackstone published his Commentaries on the Laws of England in 1769 he, also, was addressing a much simpler legal and social reality.

And, beyond that, our political system also is in crisis. The election costs for a person of integrity and committed to public service are absurd. And the system allows for the election of too many power hungry and greedy people whose first priority is re-election and hanging on to power, not public service. And power, too often, is exercised corruptly and abusively. More than that, there is a crucial flaw in the proposition that 51 fools can be relied upon to make more intelligent decisions than 50 sages.

Again, why? Complexity! Because there did not exist in 1776 a system of communications that could accommodate a more participative form of government to directly engage the people, but only a representative form of democracy.

The man who defined the word democracy, Pericles, said that this form of government is called a democracy because its administration is in the hands not of a few, but of the whole people. What we practice today and call democracy is, in fact, oligarchy: government by a select few, even if elected!

So, when I hear your calls for meaningful change, I am not so sure just what kind of changes you have in mind.

Surely it is not simply like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic? Nor merely patching up the holes in the hull, slapping on some paint and moving on? Nor just new engines and rudders?

For me, the question is what kinds of changes are required?

And, in my view, what is required is a totally new Ship of State, a Novus Ordo Seclorum.

And our first priority must be to understand, deeply, how we got into this mess, lest we risk the danger of making changes that only repeat the same mistakes. Further, understanding how we got into it may help us find the way to get out of it.

•     •     •

The fundamental problem is the drastic and immense changes that have taken place. We have become a Global Village interconnected by sophisticated digital communication systems. The difference that makes a difference is the fact of complexity and galloping complexification of society! Ours is an Age of Complexity.

 

Also, many of the most basic underlying facts and assumptions about our selves and our human rights have changed; and the living context for many of our basic ideas and values about freedom and liberty also has changed.

For example, the very idea of personal independence and sovereignty: Whether or not we were or became independent in 1776, the fact is that today we are interdependent. Interconnected, interactive and interrelated, too.

And what life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness means in the context of today’s realities is obviously much different from what it meant 233 years ago.

While our daily realities have changed radically, our basic strategies and the design of our legal, economic and political systems (“LEPS,” to coin a new acronym) have not. They have become outdated, antiquated and obsolete. We are trying to manage present day complexity with ideas and systems designed for a much simpler world. It is like trying to control a Ferrari at 150 mph with the crack of a buggy whip!

This disparity lies at the very heart of our current crisis.

And it is well to note that one of the principal reasons our LEPS have not changed, is a document called The Constitution.

Constitutions are, as if by definition, obstacles to change on the principle that the LEPS they establish are designed to be the guardians of those values they enshrine: in our case, life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, etc. 

But if it is obvious that our LEPS are not now able to protect these values, either we change the constitution and create LEPS that can protect them in present circumstances, or we reconcile ourselves to those values that our LEPS have demonstrated they can protect – those we have now: greed, deceit, abuse…

In the event that we need to remind ourselves, I am not talking about issues of mere choice, but about matters of duty, obligation and responsibility:

"... That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter it or to abolish it, and to institute a new Government, laying its foundations on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness..."

 

•     •     •

One of the cardinal principles of organizational cybernetics asserts that the complexity of the control system – in our case, our LEPS, our systems of government – must match the complexity of the system controlled – that is, the world outside, there.

The notion is self evident: to find our way around an unfamiliar city, we need a full and accurate street map. To control and manage the voyage of a space ship to a space station, a control center that is in touch with every detail of the mission is required.

This idea also applies to our systems of government and its institutions. Indeed, it specifically applies to governments because governments are managers of large, complex systems.

Another critical difference between the world today and the world of the 18^th century lies in our ability to communicate, to exchange information with each other.

When our ideas about LEPS coalesced into a vision about government of, by and for the people, our exchanges of information took place at the speed of quill pens, horses and sails.

Our ability to communicate with each other determines the extent to which we are successful at managing and coordinating our personal and collective affairs. If we can’t communicate at all, how can we possibly work together? And if our communications are very slow and/or poor, then to that extent our ability to coordinate is limited and ineffective.

What the Continental Congress had available by way of a system of communications compared to what we have available today was, at best, primitive. But that simple fact fundamentally shaped the structure of the system of government they created.

And that explains why the system is dysfunctional today. For example: the time lapse between an event and a response is too long. By the time an event is discovered, investigated, reported to an authority, a decision made and communicated to those who have hands-on responsibility to implement it, the facts on the ground have changed – often, so much so that the response is irrelevant or counterproductive.

Today’s communications technology makes time and distance practically irrelevant. We now have the ability to manage our affairs in real time, with an abundance of reliable information; that makes it possible for the decision maker to make intelligent decisions and timely implement them.

So, we have to totally redesign our LEPS to take into account the facts as they exist today.

We now have the ability to coordinate our affairs – large and small – in a manner that could not have been even dreamt of in the 18^th century. That means that the changes that we must make will have to be very deep. That is why the job you have undertaken is so big.

And on top of that is the urgency.

•     •     •

So, how do we get out of this mess?

I don’t have too many specific answers. Yet. Well, certainly one: not just by working harder or smarter at what we are doing. When in a hole, the harder we dig the deeper the hole gets.

Before I set out some of my observations and ideas I need and want to very transparently disclose my own perspectives and personal filters:- the lenses through which I observe. My biases. I don’t think any one should have to guess.

My thinking in these matters has been deeply influenced by Professor Stafford Beer, the man who created Management Cybernetics. If my namesake, Barukh Spinoza, was a God intoxicated man, I am drunk on Beer. Stafford Beer is to what I write what paint is to what an artist paints. And what dominates my thinking is this quotation from his work:

Man is a prisoner of his own ways of thinking and of his own stereotypes of himself.

His machine for thinking, the brain, has been programmed to deal with a vanished world.

This old world was characterized by the need to manage things – stone, wood, iron.

The new world is characterized by the need to manage complexity. Complexity is the very stuff of today’s world.

The tool for handling complexity is ORGANIZATION...

But our concepts of organization belong to the much less complex old world not the much more complex today’s world...

This mismatch lies at the root of our incompetence.

I rely on three essential propositions – which I am prepared to further elaborate and defend on another occasion.

First, I frame everything in terms of systems rather than as discrete “things” or “entities.” Indeed, as systems that contain or include subsystems or microsystems, within, and are themselves contained or included within supra-systems or macrosystems, without. Like a set of Russian metrushkas or Chinese boxes.

Second, I see everything in terms of information. The common denominator that all systems share – natural, biological, mechanical, social and human – is that they contain and exchange information. Not only internally between component parts and subsystems, but also externally with other systems and macrosystems. Information is the lifeblood of all systems.

Third, I consider that the effectiveness and viability of any system depends upon the ease, facility, fluidity and speed at with which it (i) records and (ii) organizes the data and information it receives, and (iii) accesses and (iv) transmits or shares the data and information it sends out (“ROAT” to coin another acronym). That is, upon the richness of information exchange and flow.

Information truly means in formation.

So, through these filters and in these contexts I suggest we think again about our LEPS because LEPS play the most critical role in determining the direction and state of the human condition and affairs.

•     •     •

We cling to our many concepts and beliefs about our LEPS because that is where we, individually and collectively, have invested a huge part of ourselves, our energies and our societies.

What our LEPS have in common is this:

·    their systemic architecture and structure is hierarchical: the familiar, two dimensional (x and y coordinates) pyramid structure of the corporate family tree, the armed forces, the Church, the government… which is patriarchic, authoritarian, autocratic and rankist: those above decide and those below obey,

·    the dynamics of the processes, exchanges and interaction between people and systems interacting with or within LEPS is adversarial and competitive – often, aggressive, antagonistic and destructive, 

·    people, organizations and institutions have the power to censor and withhold – indeed, manipulate data and information about themselves: they have “rights” to secrecy or privacy. 

Hierarchical structures, competitive dynamics and secrecy or the ability to censor and manipulate information are formidable hindrances that impede the ability and facility of LEPS to ROAT data and information.

That means they are not suited to the task of managing complexity. And the primary requirement of any new form of government must be that it excels at managing complexity!

•     •     •

So we are caught in a veritable “Catch 22.” Our LEPS are both the cause of, and our unwavering answer to this mess. And the only way out, methinks, is to change the way we think about LEPS so that we can build a just society for today.

There is something extremely useful and some very valuable insights about what we need to do that can be derived from the work of Ilya Prigogine, who was awarded a Nobel Laureate in Chemistry for his Theory of Dissipative Systems. Prigogine established that open or adaptive systems evolve by collapsing in the face of overwhelming complexity and then reorganizing themselves at higher levels of systemic or structural complexity.

That is what we must do with our LEPS: reorganize them at higher levels of systemic complexity so that they are competent to manage the complex reality that now exists outside, there.

And that may require a revolution because, so far, evolution has only increased our propensity to create and intensify messes. But unlike most revolutions in history, this one must take place in our hearts and minds, inside, here.

And I find inspiration and models to help us in this task – a design for a structure at a higher level of complexity – in Nature itself. It is revealed by a new science and discipline called Biomimicry.

Biomimicry studies Nature’s best ideas and then imitates or mimics its designs and processes to solve human problems. For example, it considers how Nature deals with pollution and then imitates that design and its processes to create systems to deal with our pollution.

Intelligently, I think, it follows that we should examine and understand how Nature deals with the facts of complexity and then imitate it.

And my premise is that we find an exceptional model for an intelligent, effective system that excels at managing complexity in our own human bodies. Our bodies are the most complex and marvelous systems that we know; our bodies are systems organized at a very high level of structural complexity and, therefore, competent to effectively manage complexity.

How does the human brain cope with the kinds of complexity that we face in our LEPS? The brain has exactly the same kind of predicaments in relation to complexity as those we now must consider.

The brain contains about ten billion (10¹⁰) neurons and we know that our brains eclipse the power of the world's most powerful computers.

Therefore, a very important question becomes what is really going on in the brain. Consider one neuron: it has an axon which fires or does not fire - that is the output of the neuron. It has coming into it thousands of dendrites from other neurons which comprise the input to this neuron; the neuron is a decision making machine.

Understanding that the brain is the result of millions upon millions of years of research and development by Mother Nature, it would be very useful if we could cash in on this R & D. 

•     •     •

The question, then, is what can we learn from the brain and nervous system that will help us in inventing more effective LEPS? Here is the link between neuron physiology and management strategies for complexity.

For example, we know without any doubt that the structure of the human body, as a system, is not hierarchical; it is a matrix or complex network. The dynamic of interaction throughout is not competitive; it is collaborative. And not a single component of the body has the ability to manipulate, withhold or censor information from the brain and nervous system. Information ROAT is clear and transparent.

So the human body describes both the direction and the nature of the changes that must take place if we are to resolve the mess and crisis in which we find ourselves.

We don’t yet know exactly what answers will serve us best because this has never been tried before.

But I see some fundamental clues reflected in some observations by Albert Einstein:

The world that we have made as a result  of the  level of thinking we have done thus far, creates problems we cannot solve at the same level at which we created them,

[Technology] has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and thus we drift to unparalleled catastrophes, and

A new type of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive and move towards higher levels.

Yet, as daunting as the task may appear, Stafford Beer’s lifetime work has made it that much easier for us because he has already done and published much of the creative preliminary work required to build the model: he has designed it, tested it and proved it.

What remains is the vision and imagination to begin implementing it; to take on the risk of making those awful mistakes that are often unavoidable when trying anything that truly is new.

And so it is that about 300 years after Alexander Pope first wrote it, it is ever more true:

“The proper study of mankind is man.”

Finally, allow me to paraphrase what Plato predicted and has certainly proved to have been extremely prescient:

There will be no end to the troubles of… humanity… until…  political power and philosophy… come into the same hands…

Yours most sincerely,

Boris G Freesman, Q.C.