Principles for Systemic Governance

Ed Straw
01 november 2021

Humans developed the capacity to walk x years ago. But without feedback we’d still be crawling. We would not have learnt from our stumbling mistakes. Can modern government work without feedback? Can any system?

This session is a combined presentation and co-production.Cybernetics is its theoretical basis and circular causality or feedback—that is, where the outcomes of actions are taken as inputs for further action. The gaping hole at the centre of every system of governing is the lack of adequate or usually any feedback, especially that initiating corrective action.

The session will open with a presentation of the proposals from The Hidden Power of Systems Thinking: Governance in a Climate Emergency, and specifically Principle 10:  A fourth separation of powers shall be incorporated in every system of government for the independent feedback of results through a Resulture. The second half will invite participants to consider the theoretical basis, where and how feedback occurs now in government, and how it could be developed both formally through a constitution and through more immediate civil society means.