Growing a Systemic Reform Movement: A Call for Action
By Wade Lee Hudson
Human beings are social creatures. Their multiple identities are rooted in various communities. Interpersonal interactions are critical to their quality of life.
There’s no irreconcilable conflict between the individual and the community. It takes a group to change an individual and individuals to change the world. The more others thrive, the more we thrive, and vice versa.
With nonviolent communication, people identify specific offensive or irritating actions and report how they reacted. In this way, they avoid demeaning labels.
Institutions maximize peer learning, mutual support, client empowerment, self-development, and community engagement.
Actions
In the social arena, friends, family members, fellow activists, book club members, study groups, and others form small teams that affiliate with the movement. Members of this network share meals, deepen friendships, and enjoy life together.
At least once a month, these teams open meetings with a moment of silence for meditation, reflection, or prayer and a “holistic check-in,” during which members confidentially report on their efforts to control their dominate-and-submit impulses (which the System inflames).
In addition to this routine, many members engage in additional activities that enhance mutual support for self-improvement, such as the following.
Listening Dyads. Two people pair up, agree on how much time they have to be together, and take turns talking from the heart and listening to each other.
Open Topic Dialog. A conversation group based on the “talking stick” principle. Enter a safe, respectful space, speak from the heart, and express whatever’s on your mind. It’s an opportunity to talk, listen, learn, and brainstorm.
Spiritual Support Group. Three or more compatible individuals meet once a month for at least an hour. They rotate responsibility for selecting a topic and a brief reading.
Coffee Klatch. Members gather at the same time each week for an hour to drink coffee and tea, eat light snacks, and engage in open-ended conversation. Individuals come and go when they can.
Pot Lucks, Picnics, and Dances. Teams hook up with other teams for informal gatherings featuring potluck meals, outdoor recreational activities such as volleyball, and indoor activities such as folk dances from various ethnic traditions.
Social Service. Members of teams or whole teams volunteer in social service programs, such as food banks, meal programs, and homeless shelters, to address unmet needs.
Individuals are distinct, autonomous, and responsible for their decisions, which affect their inner experience and outer behavior.
Systemic reform movement members take care of themselves to better care for others, which requires balancing self-centeredness and compassion. Most people want to be a better person, less judgmental, and more compassionate. With a commitment to controlling their dominate-and-submit programming, members undertake self-improvement efforts on their own.
Increased self-awareness, self-examination, and self-discipline lead to positive changes that impact others. This personal growth is essential in the promotion of systemic change. For many people, these are spiritual matters.
Actions
Movement members use multiple methods to nurture self-development, such as the following.
Online Bias Test — The Implicit Association Test asks people to select from a list of possible topics, respond to questions, and (optionally) share their attitudes or beliefs about them. Members reflect on how to deal with the results.
Baratunde’s Recommendations — He suggests taking 15 minutes and
writing responses to his five questions.
21 Ways to Divest from the War Economy. The Local Peace Economy explores ways to reinvest your time, heart, and energy to create conditions conducive to life.
The Essential Skills for Being Human, by David Brooks, offers suggestions to incorporate into your life.
Breath Meditation. Technique(s) to connect with your inner self with moments of stillness.
Commune with Mother Nature. Let this powerful healer soothe your soul. Spend time outdoors, breathe in the fresh air, and appreciate the beauty around us.
Music heals. Let music lift your spirits and ignite your passion. Music can touch hearts, elevate emotions, restore, and inspire.
A nation’s culture surrounds, supports, and permeates its people. It’s so ever-present it can be invisible, forgotten, and ignored. Shared knowledge, arts, beliefs, and practices are part of a nation’s environment. A common worldview (including attitudes, values, morals, goals, and customs) stabilizes a society.
Understanding people requires understanding their culture. Words, images, and narratives matter.
The highest purpose of culture is to inspire wonder, curiosity, and compassionate action, often by awakening subconscious awareness. Movies, music, novels, and other arts introduce us to stories of people from different places and times, helping us see the world more clearly, respectfully, and deeply. They enable us to better understand others and ourselves.
Abstract ideologies divorced from reality reinforce friend-enemy divisions. Empathy and compassion help develop compassionate workplace cultures. Mobilizing people by pointing to concrete problems and solutions rather than arguing about broad theories works best.
Actions
To advance compassionate cultural change, movement members who are artists, writers, video producers, and other cultural workers impact audiences positively while facing painful realities and bolstering hope.
Families and organizations evaluate their level of compassion and empathy and grow greater emotional intelligence.
Members establish cultural centers that build democratic communities. These centers enable people to explore social issues, notice the suffering of others, and promote fairness.
Moreover, book clubs, study groups, and other gatherings enable members to reflect on and better understand works of art.
Liberal democracies organize competitive political parties, free and fair elections, separation of powers, and the rule of law. They balance the private and public sectors, regulate the market economy, provide public services, and ensure human rights, civil rights, and political freedoms. The government establishes laws and regulations, enforces them with police power when necessary, and excludes people who refuse to play by the rules.
The systemic reform movement supports liberal democracy, makes voting easier, pushes for lifetime equality of opportunity, and ensures that society meets everyone’s basic needs.
Everyone who promotes justice and compassion nurtures the Bottom-up System. However, when they discuss their actions as ways to change the Top-Down System, they expand awareness of how issues are interconnected and strengthen the movement. This long-term worldview helps sustain the movement over time and unifies diverse populations.
The network of small teams builds bottom-up hierarchies with lower-level groups selecting representatives to higher-level bodies. Members vote on whether to approve compromises, focus on winnable short-term demands, and realize no victory or defeat is final.
The movement promotes deliberative democracy, the official or unofficial use of randomly selected participants with equal power to recommend new policies on a particular issue. For instance, the Irish Citizens' Assembly regularly considers controversial, pressing questions, releases its report, and the government responds. “Deliberative Polling” invites randomly selected participants to review carefully balanced briefing materials on an issue, discuss them for a weekend, and then report on their opinions.
Actions
The Purple Alliance. Systemic reform members initiated the formation of the Purple Alliance. This million-member grassroots lobbying effort backs new legislation supported by majorities of the American people. The Alliance periodically calls for its members to communicate the same message to its Congressperson on a top priority and winnable demand, organizes local public support for the measure, and joins demonstrations targeted at those who haven’t backed it. When it’s viable, the Alliance calls for nationwide work stoppages to build support.
District Teams. The movement organizes self-governing teams with members who live in the same Congressional district. Team representatives meet regularly with their Congressperson’s local staff to become more informed about the official’s activities, recommend actions, thank them for support, and explore how the Congressperson might do more to support the movement. The team joins others to support alternate candidates in primary and general elections when needed. These teams regularly send representatives to regional and national meetings to evaluate their progress and decide on steps forward.
Community Dialogues with Elected Officials. District teams organize support for monthly two-hour community dialogues with local officials. A neutral moderator assures all participants honor the ground rules. Randomly selected constituents each have two minutes to make a statement or ask the official a question.
Taxes generate income for governments, enabling them to meet needs not met by the private economy.
Following the Great Depression and World War Two, corporate elites agreed they’d benefit from broad prosperity and strong unions. Since the mid-1970s, however, there’s been a significant shift in global socio-economic dynamics.
Laws in many countries undercut unions. Governments have increasingly withdrawn from social responsibilities, leading to a sharp rise in economic inequality. In wealthy nations, the most affluent individuals now pay less tax.
Offshore tax havens hold some 10% of the world’s GDP, costing countries billions of dollars annually in lost revenue. Countries attract foreign capital with lower tax rates and secrecy.
Democratic approaches to organizing the economy go beyond unfettered capitalism and state socialism and traditional liberal and conservative paradigms. The primary solution is moral: a commitment to promote the public good.
Actions
As the systemic reform movement becomes more powerful, it counters the growing concentration of wealth and power and establishes a more democratic economy. Society now ensures all workers have good, living-wage job opportunities, whether private or public. Americans trust they and their children can find good jobs throughout their work lives. These jobs give people enough leisure time to enjoy their families, contribute to their communities, and engage in creative activities that give their lives meaning.
The movement works to ensure that everyone has suitable housing, health care, education, and childcare. Seniors have a comfortable retirement. Disabled people work as much as they can and avoid poverty.
The movement backs the following structural reforms to help society ensure economic fairness.
Boost Unions. New laws increase incentives for workers to join unions, enable unions to reach agreements that cover whole sectors of the economy, and reduce incentives for businesses to oppose unions.
Employee Ownership. Employee-owned businesses benefit workers, are more stable and productive, and are more involved with their communities than are investor-owned corporations. With technical assistance and long-term, low-interest loans, governments support the growth of worker cooperatives and family farms, which boost rural economies.
Public Banks. City-owned public banks support projects driven by public interest. In July 2023, the L.A. City Council funded a feasibility study for a Los Angeles Public Bank.
Public Benefit Corporations. With tax breaks, governments encourage the spread of public benefit corporations whose charters require them to value employees, customers, vendors, communities, and the environment — to serve the public interest as well as make a profit.
Discouraging tax avoidance. In August 2023, UN Secretary-General António Guterres published a draft report evaluating options for a new framework for international tax cooperation under UN auspices to minimize the “race to the bottom” with tax havens.
The Care Economy. A shift toward the “care economy” more fully rewards and respects service workers such as teachers, childcare workers, nursing home staff, and drug rehab counselors.
Humanity’s relationship with its physical environment is complex and interwoven. How humans treat Mother Nature is reflected in how they treat each other; how they treat each other is reflected in how they treat Mother Nature. These dynamics reinforce each other. Even when impacts aren’t immediate, they often manifest later.
Humans have objectified and exploited Mother Nature for personal gain. They’ve disrespected and ignored the order of the universe that manages chaos. They have assumed they can do whatever they want with the natural world.
Many humans have worshiped the so-called “survival of the fittest.” They’ve used resources (and people) until they used them up, discarded them, and moved on. They’ve dumped toxic byproducts into powerless neighborhoods populated by people of color.
This short-term pursuit of profit has been destructive. The systemic reform movement is undoing these patterns by advancing a deep respect for Life, vital to a fruitful relationship with the environment. A positive-sum, win-win, harmonious relationship with the environment benefits everyone.
The life force that drives Nature is awe-inspiring and mysterious. The backpacker’s “leave no trace” creed is a valuable principle. Subsidies for solar and wind power and support for electric cars hasten the trend away from fossil fuels — and prevent the most catastrophic impacts of climate change. Support for green energy in rural areas strengthens local economies. More farm-to-market projects boost organic agriculture, which protects the environment.
The bottom line is respect for Life and constantly looking for ways to live harmoniously with each other and the environment. As humans partner with Nature, we find Nature herself can undo much of the damage we’ve done.
Actions
Members participate in numerous activist organizations that work to protect the environment with structural reforms. These organizations utilize various methods to address environmental issues, including grassroots activism, policy advocacy, scientific research, and public education. They leave no one behind and move toward a sustainable, renewable, non-extractive economy.
In addition, as individuals, members engage in the following:
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
Conserve Energy
Conserve Water
Use Sustainable Transportation
Buy Eco-Friendly Products
Plant Trees and Maintain Community Gardens
Educate and Advocate
Adopt Sustainable Lifestyle Choices
Reduce Meat Consumption
Donate to Environmental Organizations
Stay Informed
Vacation Locally
Choose Sustainable Tourism
Holistic and Systemic Reform
Interpersonal conflicts weaken activist organizations, social service providers, spiritual communities, families, schools, workplaces, and other organizations. These problems have a root cause: society inflames the desire to dominate and the willingness to submit for personal gain. The systemic reform movement envisioned here addresses these issues with new, egalitarian social structures.
Disrespect, arrogance, egoism, assumptions of moral superiority, elitism, dogmatism, lack of internal democracy, weak mutual support, scapegoating, demonizing, resentments, power struggles, inner turmoil, and other dilemmas are widespread. These issues don’t plague every group, but many afflict most, and they have the same solution: cultivate compassionate cooperation throughout society.
Our society weaves together our institutions, cultures, and ourselves as individuals into a single self-perpetuating social system — the Top-Down System. This system programs people to selfishly climb social ladders and look down on, dominate, and exploit those below — and submit to those above. Whether you call it meritocracy, rankism, elitism, or technocracy, this Top-Down System assumes that a select few with superior abilities should rule society.
Justified domination and submission, as with red lights, are means to a higher end: to promote the general welfare. However, when domination and submission become the goal (as is the current pattern), reform is needed to establish a Bottom-Up System rooted in compassionate cooperation that holds leaders accountable to those they serve.
Many individuals and organizations relieve and prevent suffering, and many movements challenge the elitist, top-down concentration of power and promote compassion and democracy. However, these efforts generally focus on particular issues in isolation, and campaigns tend to fade after they peak.
Suppose these change agents affirm their common ground, unite, more fully support each other, and sustain campaigns over time. They increase their effectiveness and help shift the System from Top-Down to Bottom-Up.
Members commit to the same mission — serve humanity, the environment, and life itself — and use the same two tools: at least once a month, they open meetings with a moment of silence and a holistic check-in during which they report on their efforts to unlearn or control dominate-and-submit impulses.
In these ways, reformers democratize society and cultivate mutual empowerment, self-improvement, and egalitarian communities. This systemic reform movement affirms everyone’s common humanity and equal worth and builds democratic hierarchies with representative democracies.
This holistic and systemic reform directs attention to the whole person and the whole society. Gains reinforce each other in a synergistic upward spiral, leading to a more harmonious society in every arena: social, personal, cultural, economic, environmental, and political.
Affirming that the System is our common problem unifies the movement and reduces scapegoating, a divisive distraction that undermines unity. Top-level administrators are replaceable. No one individual or group is in control. Everyone is a pawn in the game, and everyone is responsible. Everyone supports the System with their daily actions.
Wealth, power, and status are end goals in the Top-Down System. People seek self-serving top-down power and consider life a zero-sum struggle with winners and losers.
As we restructure society, power becomes a means to a greater end: to “promote the general welfare.” We humanize ourselves, communities, cultures, workplaces, and governments and establish harmony with Mother Nature. We shift from the Top-Down System to a Bottom-Up System.
Conclusion
This scenario imagines a massive, grassroots, multi-national movement based on shared principles and two simple tools: a moment of silence and a holistic check-in. This systemic reform movement cultivates a national community based on a coordinated network of autonomous local teams. The movement models the egalitarian society it seeks — grounded in mutual aid and respect for everyone’s equal value.
The hope is that individuals and organizations will engage in the actions recommended here to prepare the ground for this movement, and a strong, diverse group of community leaders will convene a conference to launch it.
We present these proposed principles and tools for the sake of discussion. As they get involved, the assumption is that members will consider modifying and supplementing them.
If enough people commit to a vision like this, we can advance holistic and systemic change throughout society while retaining the Top-Down System’s positive qualities. Society can become new in some ways — and remain the same in others.
Underneath our multiple identities, we’re all members of the human family. We’re interdependent, which requires us to aid each other. This perspective helps us to avoid both selfishness and self-sacrifice. Gains ripple through society with win-win solutions that benefit everyone. These positive-sum strategies reform the Top-Down System into a Bottom-Up System rooted in egalitarian mutual empowerment.
These reforms nurture holistic democracy, democratic equality, practical idealism, democratic leadership, mutual empowerment, and synergistic, holistic, systemic change committed to serving humanity, the environment, and life itself.
1/20/24