2552. Draconian plan

Plan fifteen

We face an existential crisis with no proposed solution that is adequate to the scale. Most proposals further divide us. Such a crisis demands a coordinated response. Think of command economy. We used it un response WW2 to shift manufacturing to weapons and food (and hence home victory gardens) to the military.

The historian Polybius thought that each form of government, democracy, plutocracy, monarchy came is cycles and that the appropriate form of government should fit the key problems being faced by the society. Democracy is terrific when the problems are internal and needs to be worked out by discussion and compromise. A more centralized form is appropriate when the society is facing a conflict with something outside of itself. Such a situation requires a coordinated and shared response, not a division into factions.

So here is the proposal. We work to discover people inside of several major corporations at the middle management level, hence below the rider, that already know that climate requires a serious response and we're not getting it.

We would get them to network with friends and colleagues in several other corporations, I think five would be sufficient, and we think of three people in each corporation giving a total of 15, that think the same way. They would work together to clarify their position which would have to do with the need for draconian measures of scale on the draconian problems of scale. When they felt confident they would go to the CEOs or the boards of their corporations and ask that they join the group of 15 and hold a press conference telling the world that the systemic problems require measures that require systemic actions.

The key part of the proposal is that we must spend down our accumulated wealth in solving these problems and that our institutions will take major hits as well as careers of many people and that this is essential if we are to cope with the systemic crisis which affects everyone.

The group of now 20 would take on working for the details of such a demand economy. Such a group working together would be historically significant.

Most political talk acts as though there are two groups: workers and owners Much management writing after World War II argued (eg Drucker) that middle level managers were the new power in the system. Part of this proposal is to use the weight and power of that group to undertake the command economy we now need.