The missing voices

6 min readJul 18, 2016

This may be a little premature, given that only around 40% of the people in the world have an internet connection — but here goes.

I’m sure I don’t have to spell out the details of how the world is in a mess. As for why, I have my views but generally I think the jury is out.

Links to some of the people, concepts and models etc.. are in the reference list at the bottom of this article.

Is it fixable?

For a while now I have been somewhat entranced by the movements for change, centred around the workplace; Teal, Holacracy, U-lab, Sociocracy and so forth. Finally I could see a methodology that was fairer, kinder and more fun but also pragmatic, and being pragmatic might have half a chance of working — and in many case clearly is working. It’s perhaps no surprise that many others have grasped these straws in the rough seas in which we find ourselves.

The more I looked into these seemingly up-coming changes, the more I saw related models in other areas. Areas such as economics, governance and production methods, all of which appear to promise a brighter future, unshackled from the oligarchs and corporations which have an unhealthy propensity to dominate our world and which also seem to be the source of much of what looks like ruin.

From this morass of, often reactionary but mostly positive, new ways of thinking and doing, a pattern began to emerge. The various fields of endeavour seemed to fall neatly into three “fields”.

In my enthusiasm, I felt driven to synthesise this “discovery” into a “grand unified theory” which I then gave the also (intentionally) grand title — The Three Pillars of Wisdom.

A simple version of the model is People-Process-Policy

• People: How we interact/work with others

• Process: How we interact/work with the material world

• Policy: Our guiding principles

There are many emerging (version 2.0) models in each of these Pillars which can now be easily contrasted with the old (version 1.0) models.

For example under People: Command and control (1.0) versus Self-organisation (2.0) or under Policy; Neoliberal Economics (1.0) versus Economics for the Common Good (2.0). It’s something of a simplification but the structure works well and I find it a useful way of making sense of our possible trajectory.

Whilst many of the version 2.0 examples are still in beta, alpha versions have been shown to not only work but work extremely well. So things look hopeful but I have some doubts.

Something was missing

My biggest doubts though are at a more fundamental level. All these movements appear to be peopled by the confident and comfortable but kind-hearted (and mostly white and western), the querulous or merely disgruntled. The truly disenfranchised have little interest and those who do know of these movements, and are still uninterested, probably have good reasons. The vast majority of the disenfranchised however, may not be aware that any of these potential change agents even exist.

And that, I think, is the key.

If, whatever change happens, is going to work and work well, without the old hierarchies and inequalities reasserting themselves, those of us with a voice must find a way to help those without — the unconnected, the stateless, the meek, the shy and the simply speechless — find an equal voice.

All change

Perhaps more importantly; this time we really don’t have a second chance. That we must change is a fact. In all probability, we must also eschew Conventional Wisdom and shun the Status Quo. We must be aware of the mistakes that other counter-cultural revolts have made and do it right. Maybe Ulrich Beck’s Emancipatory Catastrophism is the spur we need — to think different. As Beck says, talking of Climate Change, “Faced with catastrophe, we can change”. If we don’t, others might, and it probably won’t be pretty.

The good news is that this time around, we have something different. We have the internet, we are sufficiently connected — or at least enough of us are, to get the ball rolling. This time we have access to data and therefore knowledge. This time we have access to each other, and this time, “we” includes a large number of the disaffected and disenfranchised. The internet has also disinhibited some that were previously inhibited which is potentially, but it’s clear not always, good.

It isn’t Democracy

The problem with democracy is that it gives a platform for sociopaths. The coy don’t get heard, the tutored, the polished, the glib and the strident do. It looks like the least bad option as Winston Churchill opined; but he had no concept of such a thing as the Internet, which has changed the dynamics completely — and now we can see that the protocols of democracy are just plain wrong. Maybe we needed Brexit to show us that. If Brexit didn’t then a Trump should do it.

And — just maybe — we have been asking the wrong questions.

It is time for something different but not just anything — and I don’t have the answers but I have some suggestions.

• The models in the Three Pillars (version 2.0) seem to offer some hope

• A global plebiscite might be good — but with a fairer voting system — maybe on the Systemic Consensus Principle.

• Perhaps we could find a way to truly disengage from the standard token of exchange — money — and rejig our transactional process so that whatever token we use cannot become a commodity in and of itself. Unless we do, those with vested interests will subvert any change that occurs, as they have done countless times in the past. They will do this by out-bidding or via the media at best, but by force of law or the law of force if they feel the need. c.f. Kevin Dowd

• Look again at some old concepts that were before their time, such as the Global Commons and Universal Basic Income

• We need to talk, and not just about Kevin but all the other new thinkers. We need to find a platform and to bring the quiet to that platform.

That we, the voiced, have a duty to share and enlighten may also be true — without hectoring from on high but with clarity — we really are all in the shit and the boat together.

I feel I need to say it again; we must include the missing people not just by asking for their vote but by asking and helping them to speak. If we fail to help the disenfranchised have an equal voice, they will make their voice heard — one way or another. That voice may come in a truck or a bomb or just by refusal to join the game — but we will hear it.