As I was listening last night to some of the speeches at the republican
party convention the following vision and set of values began to emerge :
personal responsibility,family values, small government, less taxes,
capitalism/economic growth. I began to compare the logic of that vision
with systems thinking. One definition of systems thinking is that it is
about seeing the interrelationships among the parts, and the
interdependencies, as well as the whole.In my listening of those speeches
I hear an emphasis on
individualism/personal responsibilities on one side and the large
system/capitalism on the other,with the family in the middle, benefitting
in the middle from both the personal responsibility on one side and from
the other side from the economic growth of the system of capitalism.
So as an ideal it makes sense, However on this list many have questioned
capitalism as a system or context for learning orgs . I know Covey in his
work proposes that individuals develop from dependency, to independency,
to interdependency. So my question is if we observe and analyze the
republican vision/values from a systems thinking perspective what do we
observe ? what works ? what does not work ? What works for the nation ?
what does not work for the nation ? Senge, in his book the 5th discipline,
used the example of the arms race between the USSR and the USA to show
that issue from a systemic perspective. Given that we are electing
leaders,and visions to guide our nation, I thought the visions being
proposed deserved a closer observation.
[Host's Note: OK, but a "political debate" will be out of place here on
LO. Ditto for a debate on capitalism vs. other forms of gov't. But, what
would be fine, I think, would be a discussion of the systemic issues in
the larger picture. I'll justify that as "on-topic" because we'll be
practicing our systems thinking skills. Also on topic is the question of
why these topics are so difficult. ...Rick]
Manuel Manga
Organization Design Consultant
<0007015296@mcimail.com>
--Manuel Manga <0007015296@mcimail.com>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>