Management strategies in business changed organizational behaviour, and ultimately spilled out into governance. “Wicked problems” arise when individual actors (sometimes governmental departments) are unable to effectively resolve large issues, the solution of metagovernance “suggests that globalization and public sector reforms have given rise to hybrid and multi-jurisdictional practices of governing in which public, voluntary, and private actors work together in networks and partnerships.” (page 115, Governance: A Very Short Introduction, Mark Bevir) After this we find collaborative governance to be additionally effective - encouraging dialogue, interaction, and participation with citizens. These two forms of governance are to be balanced, as one might undercut the functionality of the other.
As policy change may be easier to effect in the short term (not saying it is easy to change just that…), we must start in neglect of the pressing concern of individualist culture - remembering that the original intent of the administrative state was “as a counterweight to democratic corruption and populist excess”. (Bevir, page 14) You may read (most of) my previous posts on this Substack as precursors in understanding more or less socio-culturally how we arrived to this largely financially incentivized setting (at least in North America).
The following are hopeful thoughts, at times possibly naïvely so, I will surely fumble in my understandings as well, however, the goal is to work toward more and more concrete understandings and calls to action for public servants and other key stakeholders of influence.
One major issue moving forward is what Ha-Joon Chang calls interlocking patents, or Joseph Stieglitz has called a patent thicket - “the most important input in the production of knowledge is knowledge, so if a lot of pieces of relevant knowledge are patented, it becomes expensive to develop new knowledge,” (page 59, Edible Economics, Ha-Joon Chang) We can turn to things like patent pooling (first used in 1856 - the Sewing Machine Combination), and prize systems on new technologies (like the award given to John Harrison in the 1760s for the marine chronometer). Such a prize system is arguably better than the current common form of patent enforcement which leaves owners of newly obsolete patents with nothing. Another suggestion on this topic from Chang is perhaps having “an international agreement to force patentees to license their technologies at reduced prices [or freely] if they are deemed necessary for developing public purpose technologies.” (page 61) As readers of previous posts will note, I believe some things are too important to be vectors for profit, or more specifically, what I deem legal profiteering.
Another major issue is housing. “Singapore has developed a unique housing system, with three-quarters of its housing stock built by the Housing & Development Board (HDB) and homeownership financed through Central Provident Fund (CPF) savings. As a result, the country’s homeownership rate of 90% is one of the highest among market economies.” (Asian Development Bank abstract for Housing Policies in Singapore, Sock-Yong Phang and Matthias Helble) Further, though the effect is often seen as effective for housing, the process has also helped Singapore attract “MNCs [Multi National Corporations] in high-productivity industries, by offering them good locations at reasonable rents.” (Chang, page 85) Like Ireland, the strategy here, attracting high-technology industrial players, benefits the host countries greatly in aiding development in said markets when coupled with strong public policy intervention. (This being a tangent, we will return to the Canadian housing context soon in NEXT UP Part 002 - when we discuss the development of progressive property law theory etcetera.)
Solutions for dealing with MNCs are many, some include only allowing them to operate only when engaged in joint ventures with local enterprises - encouraging knowledge transfer and co-dependency. “In key sectors, the share [… is] usually put under 50%, so that the locals have a better bargaining position.” (Chang, page 84) Required technology transfers to subsidiaries and royalty license ceilings are also effective. Mandating a certain amount of local employment, and local content requirements. Without regulating MNCs, host countries are liable to become enclave economies or banana republics. (For any intrusive, read silly, thoughts about “free market ideology” I implore you to check out Robert Reich’s Debunking Myth #2: “Government obstructs the free market”. And remember, forced free trade on less powerful countries does not benefit them.)
I need to take a moment to discuss productivity, firstly, the obvious King Kong of agricultural export is the USA, duh. Now guess who’s second, some people know the answer, and even why, so in order to stop others from moving away from this page and on to Google or Bing or whatever, let me tell you; It is the Netherlands. That’s right, a country 237 times smaller is the second biggest exporter of agricultural product. This is important, a lot of people have very unhealthy fantasies about “traditional” agrarian life. Such delusions require exceedingly large amounts of farm land, which is the main cause of deforestation, and are also very classist, as most people on the planet will never have the money to own large enough properties to make any amount of food to share, exchange, or even simply consume - let alone the time. If we really want to deal with world hunger, or even just national hunger, we need to do as the Dutch do, we need to stack up hydroponic systems and think about distribution.
Why give security to ordinary citizens? Kind of the same reason Bismarck did, for political stability. When people feel secure because there are social safety nets, they do not scapegoat one another and start self-destructing their own societies. We need better social safety nets, we need policies that allow people the benefits of the early Pink Tide, and additional policies that make sure Canada is not beholden to raw exports (not saying we are now, just policies need to shift constantly, government needs to more like tectonic plates under the feet of our working populace) - we need to pump more money into research and development, and we need better ways of dealing with patents and exploitative organizations. There is no “free ride” for the poor in a healthy welfare system, “even the poorest people who are exempt from income tax or social security contributions pay ‘indirect taxes’ when they buy things - value-added tax, general sales tax, import tariffs and so on.” (Chang, page 102) So free healthcare, even in this most rudimentary analysis isn’t anything more than “free at point of access” (Chang, page 102), which I would add, is also coming at the cost of participation in society that requires some sort of productive survival (the only people who don’t actually have to be productive are the incredibly wealthy - who might actually be considered the abusers of welfare systems as they exploit tax loopholes and use tax havens while paying employees less than living wages thus guaranteeing said employees’ dependence on an already overburdened and underfunded system).
“The point of welfare is that, as citizens (and long-term residents), we all get the same package of insurances at a lower price by buying in bulk.” (Chang, page 103) This is also what Canadians should expect with upcoming national drug plans. Collective bargaining, as always, is better for us all.
“Moreover, if designed well, the welfare state can make capitalist economies even more dynamic, as it reduces people’s resistance to new technologies and new working practices” (Chang, page 104), is this why Florida has just made lab grown meat illegal? I’m not even joking, they have literally decided killing fully sentient beings is somehow better than just eating what is essentially the same without the murder. Florida scares the hell out of me. (Interestingly, Singapore was the first country to legally condone the sale of lab grown meat - it hasn’t taken off or anything, still, interesting!)
“The validity of the principle of paying people according to their contributions has an important pre-condition. It is that everyone has the chance to try for the best possible jobs - namely, there should be equality of opportunity.” (Chang, page 108) This, of course, is complicated, as even with equal opportunity, we are not all of equal capability, in the U.S. 1 in a 1000 children are born with FAS (Fetal Alcohol Syndrome), this leaves them with an average IQ (intelligence quotient) of 70. Life is unfair, sometimes we can look to what precedes it for sequential explanation. What we can do as a society, is ensure proper nourishment (look back to the point about how we can feed people Dutch style), proper education (we might consider abolishing private schools, increasing standardization in cases that don’t involve the disabled and challenged, and we absolutely must make post-secondary free for everyone), codifying better labour laws and protections for workers (WSIB in Ontario, for example, is a joke and rarely helps anyone / sick pay is non negotiable, sick people need help not punishment). I have thought and forgotten many other things on this list, in the coming posts of this new series, I will be exploring in greater depth additional conflicts and solutions, philosophical and economic theory will continue to play a central role, further, I will be looking to more legal and policy based solutions both real and speculative, foreign and local. (Even now, I had planned to write significantly more, however, this post has been sitting almost a week, so here you have it, NEXT UP Part 1.)