The Tools we Need: Raising the Collaborative Commons with Resilience Strategist Michael Haupt
Jul 10, 2024
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Resilience Strategist Michael Haupt shares a transformative vision for a collaborative future, emphasizing sustainable practices over greenwashing. Topics include: transformative visions, systemic change, legal personhood for natural entities, coordination for positive change, shifting to stewardship models, and shaping a positive future through storytelling and collaboration.
Transitioning to a sustainable future requires new paradigms and collaborating with businesses for resilient solutions.
Exploring mutual credit systems and values-based initiatives can help shift societal structures towards indigenous values.
Promoting stewardship over ownership and fostering cooperative networks can lead to a harmonious and regenerative way of living.
Deep dives
Building Resilience and New Infrastructure
To craft a path forward towards a more sustainable future, it is essential to acknowledge that the current system is crumbling, and new paradigms are necessary. Initiatives like creating mycelial links between businesses are vital in shifting towards a more resilient and purposeful model. Experimenting with trust systems and mutual credit approaches can lead to a values-based infrastructure that supports coordination and progress.
Challenges in Transitioning to a New System
Transitioning from the existing system to a new one requires coordination, experimentation, and rethinking societal values. Initiatives in rural communities and decentralized experiments, such as commitment pooling based on mutual credit systems, are seen as steps towards shifting away from class-based structures and towards more indigenous value-based approaches.
Emerging Solutions for Cooperative Systems
Efforts to create cooperative systems that foster values like interconnectedness and mutual support are gaining traction. Collaborative networks, inspired by successful models in places like Taiwan, aim to address issues on a national scale. The focus is on building decentralized and community-driven structures that promote resilience and sustainability.
Shifting from Ownership to Stewardship for Sustainable Living
Shifting mindsets towards stewardship rather than ownership can lead to more sustainable practices. Instead of owning resources like land and livestock, viewing oneself as a steward promotes a deeper sense of responsibility towards the environment and community. This model encourages a symbiotic relationship with nature, emphasizing the interdependence of all living beings. By transitioning from a transactional mindset to one focused on cooperation and mutual benefit, individuals can contribute to a more harmonious and regenerative way of living.
Fostering Parallel Systems and Narrative for Societal Transformation
Creating parallel systems alongside existing structures can facilitate gradual yet significant societal transformation. By ensuring incentives align with regenerative practices, such as corporate initiatives supporting local stewardship, a shift towards a more sustainable future becomes possible. Emphasizing storytelling and sharing narratives can elevate the visibility of positive changes and inspire collective action. Encouraging diverse networks to collaborate and innovate can contribute to building resilient and interconnected communities on a local and global scale.
We know by now that the old system is crumbling, that the old paradigms are no longer fit for purpose and we need to take part in the birth of something new: this is what this podcast is for. But what are the tools and how can we begin actually to build something relevant and useful within the strictures of a system that is still trying to cling onto legitimacy and power?
Michael Haupt was a key figure in the widespread introduction of mobile telephones to South Africa ahead of the first all-race elections in 1994. He was head-hunted soon after and the next decade saw him working around the globe in 16 cities on 6 continents. He was in Thailand, taking a year out when he had a vision - an actual not-expected, not-planned, not-drug-or-meditation-mediated set of visions - that showed him how the world could look and feel like if we manage to craft a route through to what he calls the Transition Phase of our evolution.
This moment was pivotal in his life. Now he's a 'Resilience Strategist' bridging between those businesses that are switched on enough to know that corporate greenwashing is no longer useful, and agile enough to find what is. He's building mycelial links to others who are working in this area and he's thinking deeply - so deeply - about where we could go and the actual logistics of how we might get there. I've been holding a lot of conversations on the back of launching Any Human Power about how we could build a future that is fit for purpose, where the human and More-Than-Human worlds flourish on a thriving planet. Thanks to Audrey Tang and Glen Weyl, I can see some of the routes through to political and technological change. Thanks to the Gaia Foundation, the Sustainable Food Trust, the million and one permaculture organisations around the world, I can see a way to mending our totally broken food and farming system. I can see ways to shift transport and power generation and city design. What I have lacked, until now, is the ideas that might bring the great behemoth that is the corporate world on board in a way that's useful. And this is what Michael is doing. As ever, this was a wide, deep conversation and it pushed the edge of my thinking, but it brought me to a place where I can more clearly see a few more steps forward. I hope it does the same for you.
00:00 Introduction: Reconnecting with Nature 01:19 Welcome to the Podcast 01:40 Michael's Journey to Resilience Strategy 02:14 Load Shedding in South Africa 03:49 Understanding Resilience Strategy 04:52 Michael's Life Journey and Worldview 07:40 The Vision on the Beach 12:15 Potential Futures and Human Coordination 15:22 Cycles of Civilisations 18:12 Class-Based vs. Values-Based Societies 20:19 Emerging Consciousness and Systemic Change 22:01 The Role of Currency and Mutual Credit 27:25 Coordinating for Systemic Change 28:55 South African Elections and Corporate Responsibility 32:10 Legal Personhood for Natural Entities 35:12 The Mycelial Network and Future Coordination 38:28 Encouraging Systemic Change 39:13 Resilience Strategies and City Exclusion 40:12 Rural Experiments and Human Purpose 41:12 Challenges of Implementation 45:27 Local Currencies and Community Commitment 50:50 Ownership vs. Stewardship 53:22 Rediscovering Connectedness 57:26 Emerging Incentive Mechanisms 01:09:35 Forking Governance and Parallel Systems 01:16:25 The Power of Narrative
