We live in times of high political turbulence. Surveying flailing governments from Spain to the United States, it seems a good moment to face up to the evidence of system failures that face us. Millions going to food banks or unable to afford decent housing in the richest countries in the world reveals a systems failure. An epidemic of mental health problems reveals a systems failure. An inability to deal with climate change reveals a systems failure. A constant anger at government and at the institutions of government, channelled – largely ineffectually – through ballot boxes, reveals a systems failure.
What is visibly failing is management of large scale societies, management of us, by those who seldom fully understand our problems, management regimes too big to adapt as needed. It is not stated often enough that we live in a heavily managed society. Yet people instantly understand what is meant by this: they have experience of being managed. Sometimes we are managed well, sometimes badly, but at some point in a large system, the former state will always give way to the latter. Eventually a sense of lost control comes over us all. We must take back control, we feel. It is hard to know how, hard to know who to target, for no leaders or parties seem to return power to us. [Read more]