When we think of positive and constructive change, we usually think of something that is directly connected to our life. Considering a 401K account at the end of a quarter, we would consider positive economic change in terms of the stock market increasing in value, which gives our 401K account a bigger value. It’s worth more. We assume its value has increased because the numbers below the bottom line are bigger that the starting value. The account is worth morerelative to its starting value. Our second assumption is the criterion for appreciating the relative positive change in value. We assume that the value of the dollar stayed the same from the beginning balance to the ending balance. The dollar value is the criterion that makes the positive change in valuation relevant.
Here’s a challenge for you. Now interpolate the situation above in terms of a national society over the course of a century. Such interpolation would need to address the three major functions of a sustainable society: social, political, and economic/financial. How would you measure the positive or negative, constructive or destructive change of a national society over the course of a century?
The first paragraph made visible what we had been assuming. Now made visible, we must
1) be able to assess the change of condition(s) at the beginning era of that century, and the ending era of that century for the whole nation and its societies.
2) We also need to know what criteria are needed to make the assessment in the beginning and end of the century — criteria that are valid for everyone, rich or poor, educated or illiterate, members of founding families or recent citizens.
Having none, we are unable to assess the relative improvement or worse condition of our nation at the end of the century. In fact, because we do not have stable, consistent, timeless, irreducible, and universally applicable criteria for estimating the relative change of conditions of our nation, and its people collectively and individually, we are unable to plan effectively for the changes that will engulf us as we move into the future.
If this nation or any other nation has any strategic intentions for the existence of future generations, with similar or improving conditions as the present, then all nations must begin using timeless, universally applicable, irreducible, and consistent criteria (read quality of life, growth, and equality) to assess social, political, and economic-financial conditions at the present in order to formulate social, political, and economic-financial policies to bring about positive and constructive change for the future.
I know of no nation that has a multi-decades and multi-centuries strategic planning process for assuring an improving quality of life, the potential to grow, and equality for their citizens. National, state, and provincial policy-makers, public executives, and administrators are simply flying by the seat of their pants hoping against hope that “SHTF”* does not happen during their term in office or in their career. Do you think Royal Dutch Shell CEO, Ben van Beurden, manages that huge corporation by the seat of his pants? Surely not! And do you think he manages Royal Dutch Shell in simple, short term eras of only four years? Surely not! Shell has multi-decade strategic plans to carry its assets and its commercial value far into many decades ahead. Here is a corporate truism that determines the longevity of any organization: The larger its assets, the longer future span of time that the organization must make plans for its future.
How is a corporation valued? How is a small commercial company valuated if the owners decided to sell it? By asset value, income, or market-valuation? To continue this example, what would it cost to buy all of Royal Dutch Shell? How much would it cost to buy Greece? Or the United States? If the United States or any other nation had the valuation of a corporation and managed as a corporation, it would be making plans not just for the next two decades, but for the next two centuries.
Do you see the point? The captains of super tankers do better planning for potential future conditions than the whole United States government plans for the future of this nation, its societies, and its people. Nations seem to be floating in a “sea of change” much like Columbus, Magellan, da Gama, and Drake were in their dinky sailing ships, knowing where they wanted to go, but having absolutely no idea of the conditions they would encounter along the way. They simply prepared as best they could and courageously set out hoping to survive whatever conditions they encountered. They had no GPS, NOAA weather forecasting, engines, and fuel to move ahead through the doldrums, or personal survival gear.
That is pretty much the situation of nations today as they set out into the future decades and centuries. It is laughably silly that nations worth hundreds of trillions of dollars, pounds, marks, or rand have no criteria for assessing where they are, no criteria to help them plan for the stability and good quality of life for future generations, and no means of assessing their progress if they did have any plans and actually had the moral fortitude to implement them.
Do you think our nations are sustainable? What most people know, even those who are at the top of the hierarchies, is that most nations are almost completely UNsustainable to survive the coming decades and next two centuries. Knowing that, their decisions are simply to get the most they can get today, live the best they can and not to worry about those who have little, and have no authority, control, and power.
As a humanist, I know that all of us will arrive in the future together: The few who are rich and famous, those who are poor and forgotten, and the many in between. What kind of society will they live in? Will it be as ours is today with its huge disparities of social justice, social equity, vast gaps of human rights for children and women? Will they know “what is fair” and be able to enjoy a “fair” existence as everyone else? If so, who will draw up the strategic social plans that bring whole societies peacefully into that future? Most importantly, what criteria will they use to know that their present is better for everyone who chooses to have a better life for themselves and for their society?
As I see the vast disparities of the present in our society and in many other “advanced and mature” democracies, it will be easy to measure the improvements. “Relative to What?” will be easy to measure when the three core values of social sustainability are used as the criteria for all social measurements of change and strategic societal planning.
*“SHTF” = “S _ _ t Hits The Fan,” typified by social, political and economic collapse due to cataclysmic geophysical events and/or human (in)action.
Here’s a challenge for you. Now interpolate the situation above in terms of a national society over the course of a century. Such interpolation would need to address the three major functions of a sustainable society: social, political, and economic/financial. How would you measure the positive or negative, constructive or destructive change of a national society over the course of a century?
The first paragraph made visible what we had been assuming. Now made visible, we must
1) be able to assess the change of condition(s) at the beginning era of that century, and the ending era of that century for the whole nation and its societies.
2) We also need to know what criteria are needed to make the assessment in the beginning and end of the century — criteria that are valid for everyone, rich or poor, educated or illiterate, members of founding families or recent citizens.
Having none, we are unable to assess the relative improvement or worse condition of our nation at the end of the century. In fact, because we do not have stable, consistent, timeless, irreducible, and universally applicable criteria for estimating the relative change of conditions of our nation, and its people collectively and individually, we are unable to plan effectively for the changes that will engulf us as we move into the future.
If this nation or any other nation has any strategic intentions for the existence of future generations, with similar or improving conditions as the present, then all nations must begin using timeless, universally applicable, irreducible, and consistent criteria (read quality of life, growth, and equality) to assess social, political, and economic-financial conditions at the present in order to formulate social, political, and economic-financial policies to bring about positive and constructive change for the future.
I know of no nation that has a multi-decades and multi-centuries strategic planning process for assuring an improving quality of life, the potential to grow, and equality for their citizens. National, state, and provincial policy-makers, public executives, and administrators are simply flying by the seat of their pants hoping against hope that “SHTF”* does not happen during their term in office or in their career. Do you think Royal Dutch Shell CEO, Ben van Beurden, manages that huge corporation by the seat of his pants? Surely not! And do you think he manages Royal Dutch Shell in simple, short term eras of only four years? Surely not! Shell has multi-decade strategic plans to carry its assets and its commercial value far into many decades ahead. Here is a corporate truism that determines the longevity of any organization: The larger its assets, the longer future span of time that the organization must make plans for its future.
How is a corporation valued? How is a small commercial company valuated if the owners decided to sell it? By asset value, income, or market-valuation? To continue this example, what would it cost to buy all of Royal Dutch Shell? How much would it cost to buy Greece? Or the United States? If the United States or any other nation had the valuation of a corporation and managed as a corporation, it would be making plans not just for the next two decades, but for the next two centuries.
Do you see the point? The captains of super tankers do better planning for potential future conditions than the whole United States government plans for the future of this nation, its societies, and its people. Nations seem to be floating in a “sea of change” much like Columbus, Magellan, da Gama, and Drake were in their dinky sailing ships, knowing where they wanted to go, but having absolutely no idea of the conditions they would encounter along the way. They simply prepared as best they could and courageously set out hoping to survive whatever conditions they encountered. They had no GPS, NOAA weather forecasting, engines, and fuel to move ahead through the doldrums, or personal survival gear.
That is pretty much the situation of nations today as they set out into the future decades and centuries. It is laughably silly that nations worth hundreds of trillions of dollars, pounds, marks, or rand have no criteria for assessing where they are, no criteria to help them plan for the stability and good quality of life for future generations, and no means of assessing their progress if they did have any plans and actually had the moral fortitude to implement them.
Do you think our nations are sustainable? What most people know, even those who are at the top of the hierarchies, is that most nations are almost completely UNsustainable to survive the coming decades and next two centuries. Knowing that, their decisions are simply to get the most they can get today, live the best they can and not to worry about those who have little, and have no authority, control, and power.
As a humanist, I know that all of us will arrive in the future together: The few who are rich and famous, those who are poor and forgotten, and the many in between. What kind of society will they live in? Will it be as ours is today with its huge disparities of social justice, social equity, vast gaps of human rights for children and women? Will they know “what is fair” and be able to enjoy a “fair” existence as everyone else? If so, who will draw up the strategic social plans that bring whole societies peacefully into that future? Most importantly, what criteria will they use to know that their present is better for everyone who chooses to have a better life for themselves and for their society?
As I see the vast disparities of the present in our society and in many other “advanced and mature” democracies, it will be easy to measure the improvements. “Relative to What?” will be easy to measure when the three core values of social sustainability are used as the criteria for all social measurements of change and strategic societal planning.
*“SHTF” = “S _ _ t Hits The Fan,” typified by social, political and economic collapse due to cataclysmic geophysical events and/or human (in)action.