Viewing Message #6
Time : Mon 18-Jun-2007
From :
Subject : Simpol-NZ Newsletter No 4
Message :
17/06/07
Dear Friends,
Another month has passed and Simpol-NZ continues to make slow but steady progress. Progress was however interrupted by Chris and I taking a long-planned, ten day break in Fiji.
The past month has seen me make a visit to Wellington and to Auckland and the next will see me visiting Wellington, Auckland, Christchurch and Nelson. I am still at the stage of meeting NGOs. Soon I will be extending my contacts into Academia and, through their NGO charity arms, into the faith-based organisations. To-date, the reception to the Simpol proposal has been almost universally favourable. I have only had two outright rejections from people who say they are not prepared to help in any way. (One, because they saw us as competition for MPs’ attention; the other because, having worked in government, they “knew” that no MP would ever accept such a proposition.)
At this stage I am not advancing any strong request that people Adopt. A few have Adopted, but most are going to wait and see how we get on before actually committing themselves to Adoption. I have little doubt that they will join once they are invited to and can see good cause to do so. Several NGOs have offered me space in their newsletters.
The most important of these is The Pacific Ecologist. www.pirm.org.nz
If anyone wants to keep up-to-date on our regional ecology this is the journal to subscribe to. It is an excellently produced quarterly and its content is both interesting and often, but not always, disquieting. The editor is of the opinion that Simpol offers one of the best, and possibly only, routes out if our dire situation. I attach the full-length article on Simpol planned for the Spring issue.
I hope you find the article informative as it contains a full exposition of the case for Simpol.
Warm regards,
Hugh
“I am pleased to confirm to you my interest in endorsing the SP campaign and to be as active in its support as I can.” Jose Ramos-Horta, East Timor, 2002.
This article describes the activities of an international political lobby group, the International Simultaneous Policy Organization (ISPO – or “Simpol” for short) that commenced its activities in the UK about four years ago. Its agenda offers a possible political solution to the escalating global problems facing the Pacific Forum nations – and, indeed, all other members of the international community.
Many of the nations of the Pacific Forum appear to be exceptionally vulnerable to the threat posed by the primary symptoms of rapid climate change. Such obvious symptoms include rising sea levels, heightened temperature and drought impacts on food supplies and increased exposure to exceptional weather events. Though these primary symptoms will adversely affect the livelihoods of all the people of this region, it is the secondary symptoms that will prove the most dangerous.
Should global governance continue along is present anarchic path, among other disasters that almost inevitably will impact on the nations of this region in the coming decades, are the destruction of their fisheries and other food sources, waves of desperate eco-refugees from densely populated nations, the breakdown of the global economy, increased militarisation of the wealthy nations as they seek to preserve (or continue to enhance) their living standards at the expense of the poor, and the consequent, insurgencies, conventional and very possibly, NBC (Nuclear, Biological and Chemical) wars that will follow.
The fundamental impediment to the taking of effective action to counter these threats, is the fact that though the world economy is now globalised, there is no parallel, globalised political mechanism to control it. The basic political structure of the world has remained unchanged since 1648, when the Treaty of Westphalia ended Europe’s Thirty Years War. Under this fragmented structure, each nation is fully sovereign. As there is no higher, international political superstructure that has authority and equal control over all nation states, the global community operates as an anarchy in which the economically and militarily strong take first pick and the Devil takes the weaker.
The United Nations, through its agencies, might act as a Band-Aid for the citizens of those nations injured in the struggle. However, at the highest level of the veto holders on the Security Council, the UN represents nothing more than a device designed to preserve the status quo so favourable to the victors of WWII. As things stand, the world’s salvation will not come from this quarter.
Under these circumstances, those leaders of nations that are chosen through democratic process, and those many other leaders of nations that are less than full democracies, but who, nevertheless, are exposed to pressure from public opinion, have no choice but to treat all other nations as competitors rather than collaborators. Global problems obviously require global solutions – but how can such solutions be found in a world in which the survival of each nation’s leadership is dependant on their being able to demonstrate short-term success in their competition with their neighbours? Put in practical terms as an example; the first nation to implement regulations that imposed the carbon emission curbs required on a global scale to bring runaway climate change under control, would experience an exodus of capital and industry to more “business friendly” neighbours. The economy would suffer and the next elections would see the demise of the politicians responsible.
In 2001, a London businessman, named John Bunzl, published a book called “Simultaneous Policy.” The book was based on two insights: what he termed “first-mover disadvantage” and a system, using existing political mechanisms, by which, it could be overcome. It was on the strength of this book that the International Simultaneous Policy Organisation was established.
In the first instance, Bunzl argued that there were many practical steps that could be taken by individual nations in order to control the adverse effects of economic globalisation. Of these, the consequences of man-made rapid climate change are probably the most threatening, but others would include the systematic and growing impoverishment of nations, the growing control of un- and often anti-democratic corporates over the domestic policies of democratic nations and the already evident conflicts for privileged access to the globe’s fast diminishing resources.
However, as outlined above, no national leadership dare take the first move to implement such urgently needed policies, lest competing nations take advantage of the initiating nation’s exposure. Bunzl saw that such first-mover disadvantage could only be overcome by an agreement between all, or between an overwhelming majority of nations, to implement such policies simultaneously. However, the long drawn out, multilateral negotiation of treaties to achieve the goals required, has consistently proved beyond the capabilities of politicians elected to see the triumph of national interest over the interests of other nations. There is no reason to suppose that this situation, so evident in the past and present, will change in time to make the difference to the future that is required to ensure the future survival of modern civilization, and possibly of the human species.
Bunzl’s second insight was as to how such collaboration could be achieved. He argued that economic globalisation has resulted in a steady erosion of the ability of national governments to decide on their own courses of action. Their options are limited by the constraints of global competition. Thus, no matter what a political party might say it intended to do, once elected, its policies would be almost indistinguishable from those of its major rivals. As a consequence the electorates tend to become increasingly disillusioned with the electoral process. So severe has this problem become, that in the USA, the point has been reached where less than half the electorate bother to cast a vote.
As a consequence of the above, elections tend to be won or lost by the narrowest of margins. It is the swing vote that decides and, by the law of statistics, the swing vote will tend to be equally distributed among the major contenders. Bunzl saw that were it possible to insert a small bias of as little as one or two percent into the swing vote, that bias would be able to exert enormous leverage over the outcome of the election and of the subsequent policies of the elected government.
Bunzl proposed achieving this desired bias by a simple electoral mechanism. Members of the electorate were asked to “Adopt” Simultaneous Policy (SP). They would sign an agreement to cast their votes in preference for any “reasonable” candidate or party, which had committed itself to the implementation of SP measures. Likewise, candidates for election and their political parties would be invited to sign a “Pledge” that they would implement SP measures – but only once the point had been reached where there were sufficient SP committed governments in power in sufficient nations to ensure that SP measures could be implemented without any single nation risking a competitive penalty. Though it is made clear in the pledge documents that politicians and parties are free to rescind their pledges whenever they so wished, such public withdrawal would obviously entail a political cost in the same way that the initial making of the pledge would entail a political gain.
Bunzl envisaged that, though the implementation of SP would carry with it the sacrifice of a certain amount of national sovereignty when it came to international policies, this would be more than compensated for by the benefit in terms of the practical implementation of desirable national policies both at home and in other nations around the globe. The obvious question remains: what should those SP measures be: how should Simultaneous Policy be formulated?
In current national political systems, the citizens may or may not participate in the formation of their government. Once the government is formed, except through very occasional referenda or by their actively participating in organized lobby groups, they generally have no further say in the formulation of policy until the time comes for a new government to be formed. At this point, in the selection of its successor, they can express their approval or disapproval of the previous government’s performance.
Bunzl proposed that any citizen who had “Adopted,” or politician who had pledged to implement, SP, would be free to propose SP measures and participate in their formulation. Given that there was no cost involved in the Adoption of SP, there would be no barriers to participation and the system would be utterly democratic. As a final safeguard of democracy, it was written into ISPO’s founding document that prior to implementation, each SP measure would have to win approval at the level of a national referendum.
So much for the theory; how is it working out in practice? Simpol-UK, the first of ISPO’s national affiliates, was incorporated in 2004, in time, despite its extreme youth, to be active during the UK’s 2005 General Election. In that first election, a total of thirty-six candidates signed the SP pledge and twelve of them were elected to become Members of the House of Commons. In several, tightly contested electorates all the major candidates had signed the SP pledge so as to ensure that a rival’s signing of the pledge did not bias the outcome against them.
Currently, there are twenty-three UK MPs who have signed the pledge. They are drawn from all the major parties. Many of them join, not so much because of a wish to benefit from the Simpol bias in the swing vote, but because they genuinely believe in the urgent necessity for an improved system of global governance such as Simpol is proposing. When their constituents put to them the question “What are you doing about the escalating problems facing humanity as a whole?” they can honestly answer that they, as individuals, have taken the practical step of pledging to implement SP, even though, for the reasons of international competition already given, it is impossible for their parties to take the required action.
It is not envisaged that Simpol will ever be a mass movement. Its message is far more complicated than “Save the whales” or “Ban the bomb.” However, to develop the capacity to effectively insert a small percentage bias into the swing vote, Simpol does not need to become a mass movement. What is required for its success, is that SP should be Adopted by relatively small and articulate groups of people in each nation and that these Adopters should be fully aware of the issues involved and motivated by the knowledge of the consequences for humanity should effective action fail to be taken.
Noam Chomsky’s comment, when learning of the Simpol project was “It’s ambitious and provocative. Can it work? Certainly worth a serious try.” Now that Simpol-UK has demonstrated the practicality of the project and that it clearly can work, it is time to set about giving it that very serious try. The embryonic global SP movement is already beginning to take shape. There are now Adopters in more than seventy countries. National Simpol movements have been incorporated in the UK, France, and New Zealand. Simpol organizations have been established and are moving towards formal incorporation in Australia, India, Brazil, the USA, Canada, in most of the major European countries and in several African states.
As with the movement itself, so it is with the actual formulation of SP. It is clearly several years and several catastrophes away before there is going to be any chance of the first SP measures being implemented. In the meantime, the first indications of the future development of SP formulation are appearing on the Website of Simpol-UK. It should be emphasised that Simpol itself as a movement has no policies of its own. Its interest is merely in the establishment of the machinery by which other individuals and organizations can initiate and ultimately realise the SP measures that they see as desirable. It is envisaged that, as the global Simpol organisation fills out, such proposals will be initiated at national SP organisation level and, having been debated and refined both at local meetings and on the national Website (using software currently being developed for the purpose,) will be forwarded for further discussion and refinement (or rejection) at ISPO level.
The next milestone towards the implementation of SP will be when the first SP pledged government comes to power in any of the nations of the world. It is to be anticipated that this trail-blazer will be a small and relatively insignificant nation on the world stage. Nevertheless it will provide a role model and an inspiration to all those working for the establishment of a successful new paradigm of global governance before the clock strikes midnight.
More detail on Simpol can be found at www.simpol-nz and its links to other Simpol organisations.
Dear Friends,
Another month has passed and Simpol-NZ continues to make slow but steady progress. Progress was however interrupted by Chris and I taking a long-planned, ten day break in Fiji.
The past month has seen me make a visit to Wellington and to Auckland and the next will see me visiting Wellington, Auckland, Christchurch and Nelson. I am still at the stage of meeting NGOs. Soon I will be extending my contacts into Academia and, through their NGO charity arms, into the faith-based organisations. To-date, the reception to the Simpol proposal has been almost universally favourable. I have only had two outright rejections from people who say they are not prepared to help in any way. (One, because they saw us as competition for MPs’ attention; the other because, having worked in government, they “knew” that no MP would ever accept such a proposition.)
At this stage I am not advancing any strong request that people Adopt. A few have Adopted, but most are going to wait and see how we get on before actually committing themselves to Adoption. I have little doubt that they will join once they are invited to and can see good cause to do so. Several NGOs have offered me space in their newsletters.
The most important of these is The Pacific Ecologist. www.pirm.org.nz
If anyone wants to keep up-to-date on our regional ecology this is the journal to subscribe to. It is an excellently produced quarterly and its content is both interesting and often, but not always, disquieting. The editor is of the opinion that Simpol offers one of the best, and possibly only, routes out if our dire situation. I attach the full-length article on Simpol planned for the Spring issue.
I hope you find the article informative as it contains a full exposition of the case for Simpol.
Warm regards,
Hugh
“A Simpol solution to Pacific Problems of the 21st Century”
“I am pleased to confirm to you my interest in endorsing the SP campaign and to be as active in its support as I can.” Jose Ramos-Horta, East Timor, 2002.
This article describes the activities of an international political lobby group, the International Simultaneous Policy Organization (ISPO – or “Simpol” for short) that commenced its activities in the UK about four years ago. Its agenda offers a possible political solution to the escalating global problems facing the Pacific Forum nations – and, indeed, all other members of the international community.
Many of the nations of the Pacific Forum appear to be exceptionally vulnerable to the threat posed by the primary symptoms of rapid climate change. Such obvious symptoms include rising sea levels, heightened temperature and drought impacts on food supplies and increased exposure to exceptional weather events. Though these primary symptoms will adversely affect the livelihoods of all the people of this region, it is the secondary symptoms that will prove the most dangerous.
Should global governance continue along is present anarchic path, among other disasters that almost inevitably will impact on the nations of this region in the coming decades, are the destruction of their fisheries and other food sources, waves of desperate eco-refugees from densely populated nations, the breakdown of the global economy, increased militarisation of the wealthy nations as they seek to preserve (or continue to enhance) their living standards at the expense of the poor, and the consequent, insurgencies, conventional and very possibly, NBC (Nuclear, Biological and Chemical) wars that will follow.
The fundamental impediment to the taking of effective action to counter these threats, is the fact that though the world economy is now globalised, there is no parallel, globalised political mechanism to control it. The basic political structure of the world has remained unchanged since 1648, when the Treaty of Westphalia ended Europe’s Thirty Years War. Under this fragmented structure, each nation is fully sovereign. As there is no higher, international political superstructure that has authority and equal control over all nation states, the global community operates as an anarchy in which the economically and militarily strong take first pick and the Devil takes the weaker.
The United Nations, through its agencies, might act as a Band-Aid for the citizens of those nations injured in the struggle. However, at the highest level of the veto holders on the Security Council, the UN represents nothing more than a device designed to preserve the status quo so favourable to the victors of WWII. As things stand, the world’s salvation will not come from this quarter.
Under these circumstances, those leaders of nations that are chosen through democratic process, and those many other leaders of nations that are less than full democracies, but who, nevertheless, are exposed to pressure from public opinion, have no choice but to treat all other nations as competitors rather than collaborators. Global problems obviously require global solutions – but how can such solutions be found in a world in which the survival of each nation’s leadership is dependant on their being able to demonstrate short-term success in their competition with their neighbours? Put in practical terms as an example; the first nation to implement regulations that imposed the carbon emission curbs required on a global scale to bring runaway climate change under control, would experience an exodus of capital and industry to more “business friendly” neighbours. The economy would suffer and the next elections would see the demise of the politicians responsible.
In 2001, a London businessman, named John Bunzl, published a book called “Simultaneous Policy.” The book was based on two insights: what he termed “first-mover disadvantage” and a system, using existing political mechanisms, by which, it could be overcome. It was on the strength of this book that the International Simultaneous Policy Organisation was established.
In the first instance, Bunzl argued that there were many practical steps that could be taken by individual nations in order to control the adverse effects of economic globalisation. Of these, the consequences of man-made rapid climate change are probably the most threatening, but others would include the systematic and growing impoverishment of nations, the growing control of un- and often anti-democratic corporates over the domestic policies of democratic nations and the already evident conflicts for privileged access to the globe’s fast diminishing resources.
However, as outlined above, no national leadership dare take the first move to implement such urgently needed policies, lest competing nations take advantage of the initiating nation’s exposure. Bunzl saw that such first-mover disadvantage could only be overcome by an agreement between all, or between an overwhelming majority of nations, to implement such policies simultaneously. However, the long drawn out, multilateral negotiation of treaties to achieve the goals required, has consistently proved beyond the capabilities of politicians elected to see the triumph of national interest over the interests of other nations. There is no reason to suppose that this situation, so evident in the past and present, will change in time to make the difference to the future that is required to ensure the future survival of modern civilization, and possibly of the human species.
Bunzl’s second insight was as to how such collaboration could be achieved. He argued that economic globalisation has resulted in a steady erosion of the ability of national governments to decide on their own courses of action. Their options are limited by the constraints of global competition. Thus, no matter what a political party might say it intended to do, once elected, its policies would be almost indistinguishable from those of its major rivals. As a consequence the electorates tend to become increasingly disillusioned with the electoral process. So severe has this problem become, that in the USA, the point has been reached where less than half the electorate bother to cast a vote.
As a consequence of the above, elections tend to be won or lost by the narrowest of margins. It is the swing vote that decides and, by the law of statistics, the swing vote will tend to be equally distributed among the major contenders. Bunzl saw that were it possible to insert a small bias of as little as one or two percent into the swing vote, that bias would be able to exert enormous leverage over the outcome of the election and of the subsequent policies of the elected government.
Bunzl proposed achieving this desired bias by a simple electoral mechanism. Members of the electorate were asked to “Adopt” Simultaneous Policy (SP). They would sign an agreement to cast their votes in preference for any “reasonable” candidate or party, which had committed itself to the implementation of SP measures. Likewise, candidates for election and their political parties would be invited to sign a “Pledge” that they would implement SP measures – but only once the point had been reached where there were sufficient SP committed governments in power in sufficient nations to ensure that SP measures could be implemented without any single nation risking a competitive penalty. Though it is made clear in the pledge documents that politicians and parties are free to rescind their pledges whenever they so wished, such public withdrawal would obviously entail a political cost in the same way that the initial making of the pledge would entail a political gain.
Bunzl envisaged that, though the implementation of SP would carry with it the sacrifice of a certain amount of national sovereignty when it came to international policies, this would be more than compensated for by the benefit in terms of the practical implementation of desirable national policies both at home and in other nations around the globe. The obvious question remains: what should those SP measures be: how should Simultaneous Policy be formulated?
In current national political systems, the citizens may or may not participate in the formation of their government. Once the government is formed, except through very occasional referenda or by their actively participating in organized lobby groups, they generally have no further say in the formulation of policy until the time comes for a new government to be formed. At this point, in the selection of its successor, they can express their approval or disapproval of the previous government’s performance.
Bunzl proposed that any citizen who had “Adopted,” or politician who had pledged to implement, SP, would be free to propose SP measures and participate in their formulation. Given that there was no cost involved in the Adoption of SP, there would be no barriers to participation and the system would be utterly democratic. As a final safeguard of democracy, it was written into ISPO’s founding document that prior to implementation, each SP measure would have to win approval at the level of a national referendum.
So much for the theory; how is it working out in practice? Simpol-UK, the first of ISPO’s national affiliates, was incorporated in 2004, in time, despite its extreme youth, to be active during the UK’s 2005 General Election. In that first election, a total of thirty-six candidates signed the SP pledge and twelve of them were elected to become Members of the House of Commons. In several, tightly contested electorates all the major candidates had signed the SP pledge so as to ensure that a rival’s signing of the pledge did not bias the outcome against them.
Currently, there are twenty-three UK MPs who have signed the pledge. They are drawn from all the major parties. Many of them join, not so much because of a wish to benefit from the Simpol bias in the swing vote, but because they genuinely believe in the urgent necessity for an improved system of global governance such as Simpol is proposing. When their constituents put to them the question “What are you doing about the escalating problems facing humanity as a whole?” they can honestly answer that they, as individuals, have taken the practical step of pledging to implement SP, even though, for the reasons of international competition already given, it is impossible for their parties to take the required action.
It is not envisaged that Simpol will ever be a mass movement. Its message is far more complicated than “Save the whales” or “Ban the bomb.” However, to develop the capacity to effectively insert a small percentage bias into the swing vote, Simpol does not need to become a mass movement. What is required for its success, is that SP should be Adopted by relatively small and articulate groups of people in each nation and that these Adopters should be fully aware of the issues involved and motivated by the knowledge of the consequences for humanity should effective action fail to be taken.
Noam Chomsky’s comment, when learning of the Simpol project was “It’s ambitious and provocative. Can it work? Certainly worth a serious try.” Now that Simpol-UK has demonstrated the practicality of the project and that it clearly can work, it is time to set about giving it that very serious try. The embryonic global SP movement is already beginning to take shape. There are now Adopters in more than seventy countries. National Simpol movements have been incorporated in the UK, France, and New Zealand. Simpol organizations have been established and are moving towards formal incorporation in Australia, India, Brazil, the USA, Canada, in most of the major European countries and in several African states.
As with the movement itself, so it is with the actual formulation of SP. It is clearly several years and several catastrophes away before there is going to be any chance of the first SP measures being implemented. In the meantime, the first indications of the future development of SP formulation are appearing on the Website of Simpol-UK. It should be emphasised that Simpol itself as a movement has no policies of its own. Its interest is merely in the establishment of the machinery by which other individuals and organizations can initiate and ultimately realise the SP measures that they see as desirable. It is envisaged that, as the global Simpol organisation fills out, such proposals will be initiated at national SP organisation level and, having been debated and refined both at local meetings and on the national Website (using software currently being developed for the purpose,) will be forwarded for further discussion and refinement (or rejection) at ISPO level.
The next milestone towards the implementation of SP will be when the first SP pledged government comes to power in any of the nations of the world. It is to be anticipated that this trail-blazer will be a small and relatively insignificant nation on the world stage. Nevertheless it will provide a role model and an inspiration to all those working for the establishment of a successful new paradigm of global governance before the clock strikes midnight.
More detail on Simpol can be found at www.simpol-nz and its links to other Simpol organisations.