Ah, the ubiquitous Venn Diagram! The zenith of all complex systems thinking.
If it can be encapsulated in a Venn then you’ve really been doing some thinking and managed to capture your feedback loops and relationships within a few brief words and some overlapping shapes and can call it a day.
But, do I have a curve ball for you.
How about the nested diagram? Here, we can encapsulate the vastness of the economic problem and shrink it, effortlessly, to fit within the constrains of the environment. Voila! An economy that is right sized.
It looks a little like this:
Look at that! No longer do we need to struggle to balance a hungry economy with a finite planet or an exhausted and disconnected peoples. Instead we see that the economy’s rightful place is seated neatly within the context of good governance, which in turn sits within the context of good relationship, which in turn is comfortably homed within the confines of a limited, balanced and healthy ecosystem.
No longer are we, misguidedly, giving the economy an equal weighting of importance. No, without the economy governance, relationships and environment can continue.
Without people the environment will happily carry on, but the need for governance or an economy merrily vanishes. Snap!
Without the environment, there is nothing.
Now there may be some debate over whether governance is needed. In fact, I have read one champion of cryptocurrency declaring that part of the allure of cryptocurrency was its existence outside of the existing governance structures. That is all an experiment that I don’t feel qualified to comment on, however, my personal sense is that an economy requires some form of governance, as the economy in itself has just one value: more, which is not enough to maintain civility let alone propriety.
I would like to see the nested model overtake the venn model (does anyone remember the three pillars model? That was early sustainability talk. The venn took over and now the nest needs to succeed them both).
The test that nest is best is simply this: take away one element and what remains? If environment everything else distintegrates, if people well the environment happily continues on its way, and if economy why those ingenious people manage to find another way to exchange value. Weighting economy equally with both environment and society is old-school thinking. It’s time to put things in their rightful places.
Tulitha King 