Second Tier Money

As Clare W. Graves predicted, the world is in the transition to second-tier human existence.  This is not another colour shift like Blue-Orange or Orange-Green.   There is a change of Values for sure, but something else besides.  It is a shift from the fear-based individual Survival strategies of the first tier into the level of Being.   The challenge to our survival is not the simple physicality of Beige.  Its echo in Yellow is now more existential and collective.  Our future as a species depends on our ability to blend and balance the first tier Values so that in Yellow, we can recognise our interdependence with the planetary ecology and with each other.   In Turquoise we may even aspire to recognise our oneness.

The Orange world has brought global interconnection which touches even the societies which are still predominantly living from Red and Blue systems.   The Green overlay has brought an element of social care arising from our common humanity, something beyond “charity”.   The size of our cities, our global industries and our economic interdependence all exhibit a complexity that we can barely manage, and all operate using systems that were established from first tier thinking.  Our world is unable to assess risks and our organisations lack the meshed intelligence that will be adequately responsive to rapid and complex change.

This transition cannot be accomplished using the thinking systems that arose from first-tier Values perspectives.   Just as second tier requires a science that gets beyond the battle between Orange materialism and Blue religious dogma; it requires a fundamentally new view of economics.   First tier money is based deeply in fear – fear of lack and fear of exploitation.   Our current economic situation is visibly an outcome of Orange overbalance into greed.   Our thinking about money needs to rise above fear and greed.  It must transcend the battle between money-first capitalism and Christian or communist impulses towards alms-houses or egalitarian ownership.   None of these are adequate.

In recent months, Rachel, Ian and I spent several days in Holland working on the development of MeshWORKS together with Don and many others, particularly from the Dutch group.   The embedded intelligence of MeshWORKS and the Organisational Design capability which sits at the heart of the mesh will be a critical need at every level as we move forward.   As Ian says elsewhere, conversations are underway with people in the Finance sector connected with their need for improved risk and complex scenario management.

It is also apparent that the requirement for cultural change will be on the agenda.  Hector Sants is current chair of the FSA and designated head of its replacement function within the Bank of England which will in the future be responsible for regulatory mechanisms for the finance sector.   In a recent conference speech he stated the following:-  “So at the least, I would assert that regulators have an obligation to consider the question of whether they should have a role to play in relation to the ethics and culture of the firms they regulate.” If there is to be a new approach to corporate culture, you might question as I do who is in a position to facilitate such a change?     I know of very few other organisations or approaches which have the comprehensive view of culture change that SDi can bring or the sense of direction that will be required to help people orient themselves within it.  We should be prepared.

More personally, I am feeling very strongly about the need for a fresh consciousness around money as we enter second tier.    To my own surprise I found myself writing a book on the subject, and the first draft is complete.   Titled “Future Money” and with a strapline “A manifesto for surviving Global bankruptcy”, it has messages for both our personal change and that of our culture and systems.   The bankruptcy is not speculation.   It is a statement of an existing reality, where the $600 trillion plus of global debt represents 12 to 15 years of our global production (approx $50 trillion).   That is like you and I carrying mortgages of over ten times our annual salary.    “Deficit reduction” does not deal with this situation where our money has no relationship to physical reality and cannot sustain.

The future will require different personal attitudes that are beyond both Orange and Green Values systems.   Recognising the planet as a stakeholder goes way past carbon trading schemes.    Future money systems will have to deal with the imbalances of power which repeatedly bring climate change conferences to collapse, which propel political instability and terrorism and which threaten in a prolonged recession to cause internal social unrest resembling that of the 1930’s.     The personal changes and the systemic ones will be interdependent and both are essential.   Our Dutch colleagues are taking a central role in the climate and ecology conversation.  We see CHE-UK as taking a parallel and equally essential one in supporting both the corporate and the cultural shifts that this time demands.

Jon

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