The Hidden Connections

It is 25 years since I first crowded into a room overlooking Trinity College Gate in Cambridge to hear a talk by Fritjof, who had published The Tao of Physics the year before and who was then working on The Turning Point. Fritjof's books are always thoroughly researched and well written – this new one is no exception. Here he takes the thesis of his earlier book The Web of Life and applies it to societies and our current global situation. This makes the book politically engaged in a way that goes further than his earlier work.

The first part takes another look at the nature of life, mind and consciousness, and social reality. This means beginning with a review of the nature of living systems using the theories of autopoiesis and dissipative structures. His discussion of evolution includes symbiosis as well as mutation and gene trading in a way that reflects the work of Brian Goodwin and Richard Strohman on the importance of the epigenetic network. Fritjjof's treatment of mind and consciousness takes the Santiago work of Marturana and Varela as a starting point for a process approach to consciousness and its evolution, balancing internal organisation with external interaction. A key insight in this section is that living systems cannot be determined, only disturbed. There are fascinating expositions on the origin of language, communication with chimpanzees and the way in which our bodies influence our conceptualisations in terms of a container theory – like the body, things are either inside or outside the category. The spiritual dimension is seen here as an experience of belonging to the universe, a sense of unity that transcends all separation. Social reality is then analysed in terms of structure, process and meaning, drawing on insights from Anthony Giddens and Jurgen Habermas. This leads on to a discussion of power with an input from John Kenneth Galbraith on three kinds of power: coercive, compensatory (offering incentives or rewards) and conditioned (changing beliefs through education or persuasion). The second part considers a variety of 21st century challenges: the nature of leadership in organisations, networks of global capitalism, biotechnology at a turning point, and how to change the 'game'. Fritjof's basic thesis is that we have two competing networks: the first is the 'top-down' system of global capitalism, with its flows of information and finance. The second is represented by the 'bottom-up' World Social Forum and is the network of which most of us are a part – based on the primacy of ecology over economics. The two approaches are based on fundamentally different – and incompatible – value systems; and, at present, it is the system of global capitalism that predominates, with its discredited 'trickle-down' wealth creation theory that was defended in The Financial Times only last weekend. Organisations, he says, may look powerful but they are subject to the turbulence of international markets which can neither be completely predicted or understood – these markets embody the 'self-organising criticality' analysed in Mark Buchanan's Ubiquity. The other principal stress factors are global competition, corporate mergers with rapid structural changes, increasing workloads and 24/7 availability. Organisations need to understand themselves in terms of formal structure and informal processes. As Fritjof points out, they need to maintain their web-like patterns of organisation even while undergoing structural changes. His discussion of the various metaphors used to describe organisations – machines, organisms, brains, cultures and systems of government – is especially interesting. He recommends a shift from 'managing companies to optimise capital to managing companies to optimise people'. In practice this means balancing the needs of shareholders with those of stakeholders, and moving away from domination towards participation and partnership.

Fritjof's chapter on global capitalism is highly informative, with his deconstruction of the free trade mantra – it leads to 'social disintegration, deterioration of the environment, increasing poverty (inequality) and alienation'. He bases some of his key ideas on the three-volume work of Manuel Castells, which he says provides the first systemic account of the new economic globalisation. The new IT systems are embedded in systems that are by definition complex and unstable. But the mainstays of the system – the World Bank, the IMF and the WTO – are designed to maintain its current structure, which involves huge annual flows from South to North. To the extent that the network is machine-based, it is beyond immediate human control and embodies only the values programmed into it – maximising monetary gain.

Some of the consequences of this analysis are quite startling: the criminal economy is an integral part of the current system, not something apart from it. Its existence is promoted by the features of the system which create huge zones of social exclusion and marginalisation. Much of the criminal economy is driven by illicit drugs, so a fairly major reorganisation would come about simply by legalising drugs, whatever the moral arguments for and against. Moreover, the logic of cash crops for foreign exchange depletes natural resources and dismantles local production in favour of trade – meaning more transport and more global warming. It also dismantles traditional and self-sufficient communities and ways of life and reinforces the trend to dependency. Environmental destruction is actually built into the current system, with countries like Taiwan and South Korea enjoying huge rates of economic growth and corresponding ecological degradation.

It is within this context that Fritjof moves on to discuss the biotechnology revolution and its implications. This is a first rate critical introduction to the field and shows how science has become embroiled in commercial considerations that can compromise its integrity. He sees a gradual shift from genetic sequences to metabolic networks, from genetics to epigenetics, from reductionism to systems thinking. This means that many of the current problems, as Sydney Brenner has recently admitted, are not solvable within the paradigm of genetic determinism. Moving on to agriculture, Fritjof gives a good overview of the current situation and its prospects, pointing out that world hunger is as much a political as an agricultural problem.

After all this it comes as something of a relief to move on to the optimistic developments described in the last chapter. Changing the game means changing the basic principle or value that making money is more important than democracy, human rights or environmental protection. This in turn means changing the current institutions, but turkeys won't be in a hurry to vote for Christmas! It will take major dislocation to bring about a fundamental change. However, at the same time, NGOs, ecological and social networks are becoming more coherent through the web, which will increase the power of communication by taking advantage of modern technology. On the economic side, Fritjof reports encouraging developments involving Zero Emissions Research and Initiatives with a recycling example from Colombia, and the rapid development of the hypercar. He might also have mentioned the growing support for a global ethic. Lenin used to say of Marxism that he was only helping bring about the inevitable. It seems to me inevitable that our current global system is unsustainable and will collapse, but the new shoots need to be coming out of the ground before this. Fritjof's new book is both an indictment of the very basis of our current 'civilisation' and a sign of hope that the new is already on the way. The old system of fear and control is ultimately self-defeating and will give way to a new system where participation, trust and partnership play a larger role.