Point of crisis... Changing the rules...

[Meg Salter]

Hello all - friends

Thank you for all your responses - somehow they all inter-link for me. >From a tuning fork perspective, it is SO important to be the change you wish to see. And massive environmental degradation, along with corporate and civic degradation is another face of limited perspectives. Or our "now" or "here" being too small, with a narrowly focused "me and mine"; my country not all countries, my short term earnings vs longer term sustainability... Ane while the process of self-organizing  is the same, the results that show up at different levels of being/complexity are different - and capable of greater integration.

Which is where Winston's comments come in about changing the way we keep score. And there is beginning to be some very interesting work done here. e.g. how do we change GNP to reflect non-cash items such as environmental impact, quality of life, and the value of  unpaid work (e.g. parenting!!) How can accounting reflect such intangible items as knowledge and innovation? Mostly this is about making transparent anc conscious that which has been invisible and taken for granted.

One really good book here is Hernando de Soto "The Mystery of Capital" - he's a South American economist who makes a solid case that the lack of legal, individual property rights  (i.e. the rule about owning property - which could include a shanty) is a driving force behind poverty. I don't know much about this whole area of "changing the rules", and would love to learn more. It strikes me as something useful that I/we could do (in addition of course to constantly opening space in self and others for healing and transformation to show up!!) To put in Ken Wilber 4 quadrant terms, this is some lower right, collective exterior work, in addition to the all important inner and process work.

Take care all!

Meg Salter

MegaSpace Consulting
416/486-6660
meg.salter at sympatico.ca
www.megaspaceconsulting.com

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Winston Kinch 
  To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU 
  Sent: Friday, June 28, 2002 9:03 AM
  Subject: Point of crisis... Changing the rules...


  Hallo friends:
   
  Whether we are at a "point" of crisis, or approaching one, or are already sliding down the hill, is moot.  But as some of you have pointed out, we do have the choice of how we respond.
   
  Something that has been rambling around in my mind recently is the old saying which goes something like "if you don't like the game, change the rules".
   
  My sense is that even well meaning projects/programs like "The Natural Step" - which attempt to educate and cajole corporate leadership into more "responsible" or "sustainable" or " restorative" behaviours - will fail as presently constituted because they do not pay attention to this axiom. And although I have only read excerpts so far, it seems likely that "Natural Capitalism" may also be guilty of this omission since it appears to approach the issue of valuation of natural capital but then bypass it in favor of programs like "radical resource productivity improvement" (I'm currently reading Korten's "When Corporations rule the World" so maybe I'll find all the answers there - but I doubt it...)
   
  It seems to me that a related possible winning strategy, which could be positioned as not inimical to anyone's interest, is to change the way we keep score: to work toward a situation where the environmental effects of our actions are not "off balance sheet" but are in fact mandated on the books of corporations and play a direct part in determining the bottom line - which in turn determines behaviour (put another way, I can imagine a "novum organum" in which debits and credits reach beyond the proverbial wall and window to include the whole outdoors!).
   
  I can further imagine a transitional world in which both "old" and "extended" sets of books are required (the old both/and) and where significant financial benefits (in particular) would accrue - say via tax implications - from differential, salutary environmental actions. What tickles me about this is that it seems as though... but I ramble... 
   
  Friends, I know this is not new stuff. But I wonder if any of you has pondered it as a way forward or might point me to recent writings/work/organizations active in the arena...
   
  Respectfully submitted,
  Winston
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