The Golden Thread: Escaping Socio-Economic Subjugation: an Experiment in Applied Complexity Science

1

Introduction

T his is a true story of extensive applied research that focused upon the development of a systemic tool, based upon constructs from the body of complexity science. It covers more than ten years of research and development whereby theoretical constructs like self-regulation were applied in the real world of business and social systems (that is, society). The underlying motivation for the experiment was based upon my own attempts at making sense of the world and why the things are the way they are. Why, for example, do societies have such gross differences, boundaries, and categories which tend to centre around those who have and those who do not have various things like wealth, status, power? And why do the masses of people operating in all societies remain subjugated by the few?

Born into the apartheid social system, I have been curious about these differences since my earliest years. The phrase through a child’s eyes is often used to describe having a world view based upon patterns that are intuitive, natural, and without predjudiced or clouded perspectives. This phrase was also an expression used by Einstein to describe an unadulterated perspective of the world, when things are seen and interpreted with great instinct. My curiosity to understand what I eventually came to know as various social- and class-based distinctions, the most obvious of which are capital and power of varying types, and the general skewed distribution of these entities grew silently and steadily over my formative years. In hindsight, I imagine that my own social circumstance conspired to repeatedly ask the same questions in my head. In the heart of an apartheid social system, I experienced socio-economic subjugation based upon skin tone. The context I was born into will remain an intimate part of my thought processes. It was a highly divisive social landscape where, from childhood, you are meticulously and constantly reminded about what is good, bad, superior, or inferior and where you fit into these categories. The many laws and norms force-fed to agents in social systems implicitly also prescribe upon agents their general limitations in life. For example, during apartheid, becoming a teacher was one of the highest forms of power and status a non-white person could aspire to. All forms of government socially engineer and ingrain into the citizenry various forms of class-system rules. Members of a society consciously and subconciously prescribe to these rules, which in turn generate self-made barriers and limitations upon all agents operating within social systems. The norms are imposed and instilled over years, creating an innate and almost absolute belief in these systems of rules, so much so that agents in social systems create glass ceilings for themsleves. A glass ceiling, in this sense, implies the highest power or position a person is allowed to aim for in a social system. These thoughts fueled my sense of wanting answers to questions that I could not yet formulate.

I eventually found an opportunity to better understand a number of my early questions many years later, when I found a platform of expresion, albeit in a form I could never have imagined, the research and development work for my doctoral studies. The dynamic, chaotic processes of life itself afforded me this opportunity to study and test a number of questions that perplexed me for so long by applying a scientific method. This account can therefore be seen as my own little experiment with life. It may seem strange and far-fetched to make such a statement, but stripped to the core, this book recounts my story of trying to understand the divide between rich and poor, good and bad, and right and wrong and why masses of people remain stuck in poverty and hardship. This overly ambitious target was the broad area of my curiosity and served as a global basis to formulate my research question. Adopting a scientific view requires great effort and discipline, more so when you are new at applied research and development. In my case, it took a few years to ask the right questions before I could proceed. It is important to note the bias contained in all observation, refering to the impossible task of being an impartial observer in any experiment. This is an extremely important statement that serves two purposes; the first purpose relates to science and how scientists make sense of the world and develop theories. The core of the dilemma we face regarding experimentation and observation is best illustrated by quantum theory and, specifically, quantum entanglement. Even at the most granular level of matter, as observers of experiments, the atoms of our own bodies or of our equipment tend to interfere with our observations and experiments, details of which are revealed in later chapters. The second purpose, by definition, is infered by the first, meaning that the reflexion and account given by the author is invariably coloured by his perspective. This inherent challenge present in all scientific observation is also discussed in subsequent chapters.

This book was originally planned to be simply a story of my research and applied experimentation, which extended over a twelve-year period. However, during the latter part of my studies, I realised the sheer volume of research and real-life experiences that I had documented. There was such a vast amount that I decided I could complete this story of an average layperson seeking answers to questions that he himself was a part of. The journey of discovery is deep and appears to hold merit; since I experimented with life, as it were, I became so carried way with documenting results and interpreting data that I underestimated my own participation and entanglement in life and therefore in the experiment. The book then presents an opportunity to write about things that were omitted in my research because of submission limitations and the scope of the problem statement of my thesis. My own subjugation and deep-seated belief in the indoctrination that exists in a powerful apartheid regime had to be accounted for within the experiment since it undoubtedly influences my worldview. This introduction serves to provide an overview of the book and to caution readers that it drifts between the theoretical domain of science and real-life experiences. As such, it may prove a difficult read in terms of flow and connections. I also realised that my skills as a writer have weak entertainment value; however, the book is not about my literary skills but rather for providing insights about the innate human capacities to effect change and public good, which are deeply rooted within us all. As individuals, we constantly underestimate the sources of power we possess that can help us break free from our self-made prisons. The basis of my research was to: Develop a Systemic Solution Architecture, able to provide value in terms of integration and support from concept, planning to delivery, in any context and any social system. This was a very bold task which I did not originally appreciate fully, since the intent was to develop a solution architecture to serve as a guide for solving problems in social systems.

The theoretical solution was designed to be applicable to a person, a single vendor or shop owner, a business, a large organisation, a multinational, or a country, since these are all various forms of systems made up of social systems. The search for such answers naturally covered a very wide area of expertise and niche research, such as: philosophy, epistemology (knowledge itself), cognition, human behaviour, systems science, system dynamics, complexity science, and chaos theory, to name but a few. Fortunately, the excitement of live testing, or applied research and development, kept my efforts energised througout this extended period. To elaborate, the solution to the research question was proposed to be applicable to various conditions and to work across any scale and type of social system, be this public sector or private sector, since all social systems are composed of agents, or people, and agencies, or organisations. Together, these agents and agencies provide meaning and build structures, processes, and products through the dynamic interchange and interaction between and within other agencies and agents of social systems. The heart of the experiment was to design a theoretical solution or prototype and to observe how that prototype functions in real-world dynamics. Part of the experiment was to start a business wherein which the theoretical constructs were implemented in a live context; the essence was: to create an organisation, and specifically use systems and complexity science constructs to both, manage the organisation itself, and the delivery of its service and product solutions.

The model proposition was to see if complexity science constructs could provide better support and insights compared to traditional mechanical techniques of planning and managing social systems. At the beginning of the journey, the idea of completing my studies over-rided all other considerations; I didn’t know at the time that the very quest of my search would have me revisit much deeper social, psychological, and spiritual notions as well. Typical practical issues ranged from: how we, as individuals, think and make decisions; how groupings of people, more specifically managers, tend to hide self-perceived inadequacies and unwittingly co-create their environmental realities. The sociology of knowledge itself was also visited, to see the extent of how our various social norms, derived from our social structures, such as schools, religions, friends, collegues, and families both inform who we are and, to a degree, prescribe our individual behaviour and how we see the world.

That I was born in rural South Africa and predominantly informed by a farm-like upbringing, coupled with an inferior apartheid education, must be recognised as being part of who I am, how I think, and how I behave in tandem with accepted sociology of knowledge and its philosophical assumptions. Allthough my twelve-year experimental journey, confirmed much of the scientific and socio-economic constructs to be reasonably accurate, the real message of this book is that we can indeed obliterate the labels people use to describe us, and our single most important challenge is to escape our self-made image of who we think we are. Our minds can be our biggest asset, whilst at the same time, they can be our most hostile enemy. This experience speaks to our inborn capacity and connectivity to everything, which is a simple belief that has been known for thousands of years, expounded upon by many great leaders, scientists, preachers, and prophets. The essence of their teachings allow us to defy all labels and boxes that we and others impose. Chapters within this book give an account of our fondness of labels and how our absolute belief in these labels tend to hide our true potential as individuals and societies. Some researchers and contemporary writers refer to these labels as "glass ceilngs, implying that they are not firm barriers but self-imposed limitations.

The journey recorded in this book shares the process and lessons in the development of a theoretical solution, called the Business Architecture Tool (BAT), designed to release a person or a corporation from subjugation in its many forms. The logic for BAT is based purely upon providing increased capacity to help people, organisations, and social systems to navigate their turbulent landscapes in a more effective and efficient manner. The solution proposed and developed includes key constructs like self-regulation, emergence, adaptation, requisite variety, and innovation. All of the theoretical constructs and real-life experiences provided for the lessons and experiences documented in this book, initiated as far back as 1997, were formally undertaken in 1999 with the University of Cape Town (UCT), Engineering and Build faculty, for my PhD in systems science. I wrote the book for multiple reasons, all of which converge towards seeking answers to a number of general questions regarding how science can assist us in understanding notions of power, wealth, society, management, leadership, and innovation. This section clarifies the experiment as being part of my own search for deeper understanding of dynamic non-linear systems, often called complex adaptive systems (CAS). General systems theory (GST) provides the bedrock to obtain deeper and wider systemic understanding, by highlighting and uncovering patterns in instances where systems, such as an intervention, a project, a programme, a business, or a country, are too dynamic and complex to be understood in traditional mechanistic ways. Because of the grounding in systems theory a small detour is required to introduce systems vocabulary and to provide a basic understanding for newcomers to systems analogies and language. A chapter in this regard also seemed necessary to provide the reader with a sense of developing his or her unique escape trajectories from subjugation. The essence of the experiment was to start an organisation and test the hypothesis developed in a live business created for this unique purpose. The firm established was expected to compete in the free market, whilst applying the systemic principles to its operations, implying how it runs its internal operations and administrative support, and to the way it executes projects for its clients. These two application areas provided for a rich test bed, depicted in the figure below.

Figure 1.1 Testing the efficacy of the theoretical solution, or prototype, across two different

worlds, meaning the world of the designer and the world of the client

The dual test beds noted in figure 1.1 above were best executed through a qualitative method of scientific enquiry, especially since aspects that were reflected upon suited the dynamic nature of non-linear systems like businesses, organisations, eco-systems, and societies. The anticipated outcome was to present a prototype that is scale independent, so as to be applicable to any size or type of intervention and organisation. For example, it can be applied to a mundane task like grocery shopping, whilst it can also be applied to complex re-structuring of governments and corporations. The final outcome of the research was to offer a integrated tool that could maximise personal, organisational, and social outcomes in a manner that is complementary as opposed to conflciting. This consideration was vital, since traditional mechanistic approaches are embedded in competition, often at the expense of collectives and usually in favor of minority groups or the elite like shareholders or owners or.

It was not a key element of the experiment was to ponder what decisions and actions were to be taken in a theoretical, make-believe world; rather, the constructs were tested in a real context, where profit motives constantly put agents and agencies under direct pressure and risk. It may be critically argued that the profit motive is inappropriate and would adversely influence the experiment and taint outcomes, since perspectives and decisions taken when faced with risk of monetary loss may be selfish and have a tendency to be morally questionable. Contrasted to theoretical ideals, this may therefore disallow criticallity of argumentation, which leads to the debate of old regarding classroom or laboratory settings versus live-environment settings. My choice of a qualitative research model is supported by the fact that complexity science is exactly aimed at studying complex adaptive systems (CASs), meaning systems that constantly learn, evolve, and adapt in order to flourish within their environment. Since economies are effectively complex adaptive systems, it would be of some utility if theoretical constructs are tested in the actual field as opposed to a risk-free, ideal laboratory setting. Furthermore, a core criticism to the approach adopted will relate to the inability to remain as unbiased or truthful as possible. Whilst this is true, such critique should consider that an observer who is absolutely unbiased is impossible, and even in the strictest laboratory sense, this possibility has been proven to be a flawed assumption (quantum entanglement—see chapter on quantum mechanics). Real knowledge, or truth, remains a topic that enjoys heated debate from the earliest recorded time until now. The schools of thought that have evolved just from this single topic are very wide and deep in variety and have been given a chapter in the book.

As an example, Descartes and Bacon took a view that fundamental truths do exist and that we, as humans, must simply uncover them in the event that they are not self-evident. Spinoza, in this regard, is quoted as saying, "truth manifests itself, whilst Lock is known for his pronouncement that every man carries within him the ability to distinguish truth from appearances". This is close to the theory of Enamnesis, from Plato, which similarly grants each person a divine source of knowledge. In other words, there is nothing that our immortal souls do not know, even before our birth; thus, if we see truth again, we would recognise it. From this viewpoint, our birth is seen as the fall from grace, from divine omniscience to ignorance.

The similarities across all these views converge upon the destruction of prejudices so that we can increasingly see truth. Popper suggests that objective truths are composed of two core areas: Doxa—where we ourselves are fallible and prone to error and ignorance and Episteme—where our super-human part, meaning our senses and intellect, provides our sources of real knowledge. This is a more realistic interpretation since it invokes the adoption of a doxic attitude whilst recognising the consequences of sensorial sources of knowledge. Citiques against the reliability of our senses have been around for hundreds of years; for example, Descartes’s insights into physics. The unreliability of our senses’ perceptions in certain conditions has been documented from the days of Xenophanes, Permenides, and Heraclitus, who knew that our best attempts at knowledge are pure guesswork. Neither intellectual reason nor observations are perfectly accurate; both are indespensable, yet both are prone to error. The argument regarding knowledge itself, its orgins, and what constitutes it have become specialist areas in their own right; thus, for the purposes of this book, it would suffice to adopt the description from Popper, which is to say that we are not students of some subject matter, but students of problems.

The use of specialisms such as mathematics, geology, physics, and so forth are largely due to historical and adminsitrative reasons of categorisation. The distinctions remain relatively unimportant, especially since most problems we face cut across these niche areas and do not obey our categorisation in the neat manner we would have liked. For example, when we build a ship, we would require knowledge of physics, oceanography, and mechanics. Importantly, all theories we have tend towards a unified system (see in later chapter discussion regarding the theory of everything—TOE).

Returning from the above digression, the view that science and knowledge are always evolving and growing bears testimony to the foundations of knowledge whereby discoveries, theories, and models are all useful as they improve our understanding and movement towards greater truth and knowledge. It is only our arrogance that prevents us from seeing this; we need not be rocket scientists to appreciate that the languages, including mathematics, that we use to describe our environment are fallible; some are merely less fallible than others, such as when mathematics appears to be our most robust descriptive language. This great human arrogance infers that we, as mere specs that form a tiny part of the universe, expect a multi-billion-year-old complex and ever-changing universe to obey sets of laws and logic that we have derived over only a few thousand years. This is elaborated upon in a later chapter.

In applying the complexity constructs, it quickly became apparent that these simply stated concepts hide a great deal of contemporary issues confronting society. A typical example concerns what we judge as right or wrong and, indeed, if the choice would remain the same if the conditions are different, like making a decision in a classroom context that has no tangible risk and making the same decision in a real-life context, where hard-earned profits are put at risk. In the context of the experiment, a construct like self-regulation suggests that we tend to make different decisions and take different actions under specific test conditions. This was evident when considering a typical classroom context, wherein we often imagine our decisions and actions to be righteous, disciplined, and for the greater good. Yet when the same conditions are thrust upon us in the real world, decisions and actions appear decidedly different, especially when they impact us on a material or personal level. This fluid and selfish value system is a key factor contributing to our global socio-economic woes, whereby the rich tend to become richer and the poor become poorer.

Figure 1.2: Process of discovery and validation illustrated

This journey proceeds from our scientific bedrock and explores how our mechanistic throught patterns continue to shape our globally interconnected society. It raises uncomfortable questions in terms of why we continue on a path that is destructive, unsustainable, and extremely selfish. From a personal, experiential viewpoint, this thinking and behaviour was documented across the duration of the experiment, confirming our innate selfishness and greed, which are embedded in different kinds of fears, such as the fear of not having things, be it for tomorrow, next month, or next year. Fear drives us to build reserves at various levels of society, whether agent and agency or individual and corporation. This is typified in extreme real-life examples, wherein the fortunate few have numerous luxury homes, whilst the unfortunate many still do not enjoy basic shelter. We collectively produce sufficient food to feed every human being on the planet three times a day every day, yet we have thousands dying of starvation.

The journey reflects upon specific experiences and seeks to provide alternate models of thinking and operating our social systems in order to attain viability and consistency by reducing our insatiable desires to own and control different things like the environment and our citizens. As will be illustrated from a scientific viewpoint, absolute control can never be attained; from a personal and experimental viewpoint, it would seem that the desires to control and predict are largely due to our own individual failings that fuel concepts born from a highly flawed mechanical epistemology. Later chapters unpack this challenge in clearer detail, highlighting our obsession with control and predictability by using the findings of the experimental outcomes. The first half of the book provides some detail regarding the theoretical solution and the science that underlies it. The conclusions may not provide any solace regarding answers to our social and personal challenges; they do, however, provide insight as to why this comfort is so difficult to be realised. Could this, strangely enough, capture the essence of the answers we seek? Effecting change in organisational and social situations, particularly from a developmental economy perspective, is vital when looking at the globally emerging trends and the uprising from citizens in virtually all countries. Although the tipping points for the civil unrest are portrayed as being geopolitical, the underlying root cause touches upon institutional mismanagement and the abuse of public funds.

One of the most effective ways to emancipate ourselves is through self-development. Furthermore, when examining the work from academic and practical points of view, there seems to be a need to explore innovative ways of deploying accepted systems theory and complexity science constructs into the realm of self-development—and thus organisational development—by developing a greater capacity for understanding within all of us. If we, as agents making up agencies and society, are unable to relate to the systemic forces that drive our socio-economic systems, we will remain locked into weakened positions across the field of capital, perpetuating the mental and physical boundaries that restrain learning, adaptation, and self-development. Years of practical experience support this view, whilst the topic appears to hold greater significance for societies where traditional methods of planning and management are facing seemingly unsolvable problems such as job creation, local economic development, and basic service delivery. The theoretical solution sought to have a high degree of generality, so that its architecture is applicable, irrespective of the magnitude or vertical specialisation of the system. It is hoped that this will be useful to students, consultants, and clients as well as academic researchers concerned with the methods, effects, and challenges of developing an integrated, dynamic tool that allows adaptation and continuous learning. It can possibly help to clarify what could be done from a practical and research perspective and how this may be achieved; for example, if the insights relate to further academic research regarding questions and issues that remain unresolved.

2

Our Global Socio-Economic Challenges

I n general terms, governments in all countries have a very similar mandate from their citizens: the safety and socio-economic well-being of the population. So whether a state is classified as developed, developmental, or developing, the familiar mandate relating to the safety and prosperity of its citizens implies a steady increase in the intellectual and productive capacities of agents and agencies within these social systems. Further, the management of our social systems may be based upon a mix of a few political paradigms like monarchy, democracy, communism, socialism, or dictatorship to make up the formal governing structures. The elected or self-proclaimed governments, in turn, are supposed to create the most ideal conditions to attain their broad mandates; that is, the many laws, rules, and regulations which all agents and agencies are to abide by to ensure egalitarian societies.

Taking a more narrow view of this mandate and focusing it upon the African economies, South Africa in particular, was the aim of my formal research. Emancipation of the masses from subjugation by the few, a feature prevalent in all economies and quite pronounced in Africa, was at the heart of the research. Between 1929 and 1950, South Africa’s per capita growth was the third fastest among the twenty-three developing countries,¹ higher than the growth rates of industrial economies and catching up with the developed world.²

South Africa had robust growth from 1913 until 1950, by which time it ranked tenth out of thirty-one countries in GDP per capita. Then decades of relative stagnation and eventual decline moved South Africa down to eighteenth out of thirty-three countries at its political transformation in 1994. Over this period of decline, the country dropped out of the convergence club³ due to the long-standing hidden costs of apartheid⁴ like: basic education and productivity of black labour; shielding white labour from competition; reliance upon quota and tariff protection; separate development, and a host of inefficient homeland practices.⁵ All of these factors contributed to the long economic decline, culminating in international sanctions against South Africa.

Economic growth for the years since 1994 provided marginal improvements for the very poor, by far insufficient to maintain the successful political transition. Many sound policies and laws were passed, seeding prudent economic policies for stability and institutional reform for things like property rights becoming consistent and supporting an aggressive growth rate with open trade, investment regulations, and market-friendly business regulations.⁶ The unique history and structural challenges of South Africa makes for great debate expressed in the myriad of opinions. However, local structural elements include a society that is extreme in its heterogeneity with segmentation along both racial and income divides.

In particular, before the collapse of apartheid in 1994, the black population received a tiny per cent of the national income,⁷ whilst the spatial dimensions of apartheid implied that millions of South Africans were deliberately located miles away from jobs in urban centres. This was a result of inhumane and inefficient migrant worker systems, creating transport and other structural patterns that remain today. Discrimination in the provision of education and training opportunities meant generations of black South Africans were prevented from acquiring skills, disallowing the pursuit of productive employment opportunities. Despite such seemingly insurmountable challenges, South Africa has stood firm on key policy issues, creating a decent platform from which to build an egalitarian socio-economic system.

The structural duality of the South African economy impinged growth and employment, resulting in an uneasy coexistence of a modern economy with pervasive and persistent poverty. Economic analysts believe growth and job-creation models should appreciate that different production activities and technologies involve very different patterns of labour use and skill intensity. Equally important are the limitations imposed by resource constraints; no matter how attractive it might appear to expand labour-intensive activities, if crucial complementary inputs like capital and management capacity are in short supply, the potential for creating employment will be limited.

This is partly why the small, medium, and micro enterprise (SMME) sector in South Africa remains underdeveloped, constrained by inadequate demand and with limited access, high cost of capital, and relatively weak support and procurement programs from the government. Labour market inflexibility is often cited as a critical concern, but efforts to introduce change in labour legislation to offset unintended employment consequences proved contentious, illustrating difficulties in reforming institutions and practices. The South African agricultural sector is typical of structural reform that aims to accelerate rural development and dynamism but is hamstrung by administrative difficulties with land reform. On a regional level, sub-Saharan poverty is one of the most obdurate features of the world economy. For the entire period of the post-industrial revolution, Africa has been the world’s poorest region and its slowest growing.⁸ Debates suggest that factors frequently invoked to account for Africa’s poor socio-economic performance⁹ to cover areas including: legacy conditions—slave trade, colonial rule, and cold-war manipulations; dependence—on a small number of primary exports, causing trade decline and volatility; internal political landscape—authoritarianism, corruption, and political instability; economic policies—protectionism, statism, and fiscal profligacy; and social conditions—deep ethnic and religious divisions in African society, with low levels of social capital as variously measured. Geographic disadvantage has also been blamed for the slow development.

Figure 2.1, below, puts into perspective the magnitude of the challenges faced by South Africa and sub-Saharan Africa, highlighting challenges at three systemic levels: at the individual level—poor education, inexperience, limited leadership, lack of creativity, and entrepreneurship; at the national level—elements like cultural diversity, lack of national unity, separate legacies of development; at the international level—challenges like globalisation, uncompetitive practices, lack of innovation, and a limited manufacturing base. All of the above factors form part of the South African context.

Figure 2.1 National challenges impinging development and well-being of citizens

Add to this the promises made by newly elected political leaders, and the rich-picture dynamic reveals a number of root causes impacting socio-economic development for the country.

A key consideration, particularly at the individual and societal levels, is the notion of Habitus,¹⁰ which to me highlights the scale of the challenge and suggests that the escape trajectory from poverty for the masses of citizens in all countries is indeed system-wide.

The global trend whereby citizens in virtually all countries are rising up against their governments makes appreciating this rich picture vital. The preceding figure is a representation of the rich-picture dynamics at play in all economies; whether governments wish to admit to this is irrelevant, since people have realised the subjugation that the very institutions set up to liberate them from injustice have perpetrated. When incorporating the notion of Habitus¹ for the individual and society—covering the lack of education, undermined confidence, little innovation, lack of experience fragmented culture, class identity, and the added dimension of national developmental challenges—the rich picture provides for a daunting task. It is my view that these considerations are not planned or accommodated for in national interventions, resulting in divergent outcomes of strategic socio-economic objectives. It lays bare the question of why, despite sound policy environments in most countries, we still have severe challenges in development and delivery. In this sense, Bourdieu’s Habitus expresses the manner in which we become ourselves; that is, how we develop preferences, attitudes, and opinions and how we engage in practices.

The field of power, Bourdieu’s metaphor for how cultural fields conduct themselves and how individuals and institutions in dominant fields relate to each other explains how societies are regulated. The field of power is said to operate as a configuration of economic, cultural, and symbolic capital, whereby agents in the field adjust their expectations with regard to the capital they are likely to attain in relation to the practical limitations imposed upon them by things such as an agent’s education, social connections, and class position.

Figure 2.2: The field of capital, adapted from Bourdieu, to illustrate factorial aspects fuelling the subjugation of the masses

Agents or individuals having the least capital tend to be less ambitious and more satisfied’ with their status", leading to sustained symbolic domination, which reproduces the conditions of oppression.

There are rare cases that may be different, but Bourdieu insists that such gambling for improved capital by agents in the field is doomed to failure.¹¹ Although lower-class agents may strive to get their offspring educated, the Habitus of the children will, in advance, disqualify them from success; the children will subconsciously obey their Habitus, suggesting the children themselves more or less expect failure. Those who talk of equality of opportunity forget that social games … are not fair games. Without being, strictly speaking, rigged, the competition resembles a handicap race that has lasted for generations.¹²

This work adopts Bourdieu’s complete notion of Habitus to mean the social norms that agents and agencies tend to subconsciously obey. It tends to be anti-structuralist and wants to overcome the subjugation and rigidities of rules and norms, which, in turn, are at the heart of Bernstein’s notion of code. This concept, stemming from the work of Bourdieu and Passeron,¹³ clarifies cultural capital by referring to non-financial social assets like educational and intellectual capacities, which may increase social mobility outside of or in the absence of economic means. Bourdieu expanded the meaning of capital in The Forms of Capital and The State Nobility¹⁴ to include all goods, material, and symbolism representing themselves as rare, worthy, and being sought after in social systems.¹⁵

In The Forms of Capital, Bourdieu distinguishes between types of capital, and these distinctions are worth repeating here: economic capital—command and control over economic resources such as capital, cash, or assets; social capital—where access to individuals or groups of people provides relationships of influence and power; cultural capital—covering knowledge, skills, and education possessed by agents that provides them social status. Bourdieu later adds symbolic capital—honour, prestige, or recognition being used to increase an agent’s social status. Cultural capital has received widespread attention, with some scientists using it in the context of educational systems and other categories, building upon and expanding Bourdieu’s theory, whilst some attempt to disprove or discount his views. A small number, however, apply his theory to other inequalities in social systems, which is what my research argues for. The various forms of capital invariably affect the escape trajectories of agents within social systems, most notably in terms of the various inequalities that exist and how these are often subconsciously used to limit the middle class and poor, who form the bulk of populations. Work by Emirbayer & Williams¹⁶ uses the notions of fields and capital to examine the power relationships in the area of social services, regarding its value in terms of analysing inequality in any social setting. Stanton-Salazar & Dornbusch¹⁷ examine how students with cultural and linguistic capital in a school use it as social capital to transmit valuable resources to further their success in school; some aspects of these cases are reflected in this research, for example, situations wherein access to politicians is used as capital by the emerging class.

Another interpretation of Habitus comes from Dumais¹⁸ and shows how gender and social classes interact to produce different benefits from cultural capital. A further variation, proposed by Emmison and Frow,¹⁹ explores how information technology can be used as cultural capital; bourgeoisie information communication technologies (ICT), like smartphones, are seen as an additional form of cultural capital, or status, for their owners. Interestingly, for my research, the theory of cultural capital was used in a similar context to explore multiculturalism and racism in Australia, and the notion of whiteness³ was investigated as a form of cultural capital. The researcher noted that white is not about race but a shifting set of social practices.²⁰ The use of Bourdieu’s concepts of capital and fields provides understanding for how people of non-Anglo ethnicities may try to exchange the cultural capital of their ethnic background with that of whiteness to gain a higher position in the hierarchy; this is reflected strongly in the South African context as well, such as affirmative action and black economic empowerment, which seem to always contain white mentors, consultants, or business partners.

These aspects were evident in my research as well. We discovered the real damage caused by apartheid was not violent physical abuse but rather mental enslavement or symbolic violence accompanying the legacy class system, impacting the field of power of the entire South African population. This serves as the backdrop to the rich picture.

Systems, laws, structures, and categories of meaning and perception function effectively as Habitus if they are not thought of as specific sociocultural contexts.²¹ Anthropologist Appadurai raises the question as to the effect the forces of globalisation have on Habitus and suggests that the unregulated flow of cultural texts accompanying the continuous movement of peoples the world over work to quicken the absorption of the various forms of capital.²² The exportation of the perceived easy and abundant lifestyle propagated by Western and other developed nations is one typical example of this.

As such, national social engineering must be incorporated into the notions of Habitus like in South Africa where the legacy of apartheid impacted both psychology and body. The field of power and the reproduction of symbolic domination, where the realistic or fatalistic dispositions of the dominated class to put up with objective conditions that would be judged intolerable by agents otherwise disposed, actually help to reproduce the conditions of oppression by putting up with objective conditions that would be judged intolerable by agents otherwise disposed.²³ Such realities thus demand a strong doxic attitude, implying vigilance and asking scientists, scholars, and researchers to reflect on the social contexts, prejudices, and thought patterns that inform their worldview before making pronouncements.

Bourdieu’s view on doubt, called hyperbolic doubt, recognises this challenge and suggests a consistent disposition to question the wisdom, values, and logic that a field presents as common sense, along with the claims the field makes on behalf of itself; that is, we can never doubt too much. He promotes the development of a doxic attitude to guard against values and discourse that a field articulates as its fundamental principles and our unconscious submission to what is deemed arbitrary and contingent. Much of my own challenges are reflected in the passages above, importantly the views on Habitus and practice; these seem material to my South African heritage, wherein the mental enslavement or symbolic violence accompanying the legacy class system impacted the field and capital of the entire population. A variety of strategies emerge from Bourdieu’s analysis of the relation between people, social rules, and conventions:²⁴ firstly, the need to be self-reflexive of the person’s own position and resources within the field(s) or institution(s) in which they are operating; secondly, being aware of the rules, regulations, values, and cultural capital characterising the field of activity; thirdly, the capacity to manoeuvre, for example, by turning a particular rule to one’s advantage despite a deficit of cultural capital. An important aspect in the sociological toolkit is the ability to objectify one’s own position, or to de-familiarise one’s view of the world and guard against seeing and hearing what one expects; that is, to ensure objectivity. To describe the context as it appears, researchers have to deal with things that are complex, confused, impure, and uncertain, which counters the clinical idea of intellectual rigour.²⁴

Because of the inevitable flaws in research and especially the risk of bias, it seems that reflexive sociology must be practiced constantly. The essence of Habitus as explicated here is therefore directly linked to how agents and agencies in any social system perceive and perform core activities and functions like: their strategic orientation, meaning how agents and agencies execute various forms of thinking and planning; the average agent and agency views regarding their tactical arsenal, meaning the way they view and deploy core enablers like technology, people, processes; and how the agents and agencies fulfil daily routines, or activities, that is, their operational inclination. The agents subconsciously execute these higher-order functions in the context of their Habitus, which, because of legacy constraints, exclude innovative or new approaches by: having a strong mechanistic disposition towards planning for interventions; arranging their organisational enablers with a reliance upon only one of the core enablers, exacerbating the lack of integration; and, ultimately, executing plans through tactical configurations. These factors conspire in a systemic manner to yield distressed outcomes of vital socio-economic mandates.

3

The Systemic Nature of Socio-Economic Challenges

W hen adopting a systemic view of socio-economic development and basic service provision required by citizens, it becomes much clearer why, in general, leaders and managers are unable to improve their performance and rate of delivery; their Habitus informs their overall disposition regarding how they think about problems and how they plan for and implement solutions. The multiple concurrent reform activities and policy initiatives in most economies provide additional stress to leaders and managers when they are faced with rapid and tangible socio-economic improvements. The lack of systemic resource capacities of agents and agencies increase the pressure to deliver on core electoral promises like jobs, security, homes, and health. This view suggests elements of integration and interrelatedness are not appreciated, implying that the systemic nature of socio-economic challenges are not recognised as a key element to be incorporated into the planning and execution of strategic national programmes. The lack of systemic integration across sub-Saharan Africa suggests that the region does not have ironclad developmental barriers, while the success of African immigrants in advanced economies demonstrates the labour skills that are waiting to be called upon, given a conducive environment. Instead of this integration, schooling is low, capital flight is high, war plagues the region, and the Economist ²⁵ reports, nearly a third of the 42 Sub-Saharan countries, are embroiled in international or civil wars.

Local economic development is a discipline coming into its own, with competing strands of argument still generating conflict. The root of this conflict concerns whether traditional types of local strategies are working and generating pro-poor economic development, referring to the systematic capital accumulation at one end and underdevelopment at another, once associated with dependency theory and now seen as a more subtle conceptual approach in dealing with ingrained poverty and inequality.²⁶ Today, these challenges have surfaced as a global phenomenon, whereby the deceptions of the privileged class are increasingly exposed, resulting in the mass calls for fundamental reform across the world. The banking crisis is but a small example of the use and reliance upon Habitus to subjugate citizenry of all social systems or countries, where large corporations driven by an insatiable demand to grow shareholder value are used to spearhead such domination. In other words, the rules that the average person uses to eke out a living are not the same rules used by the large corporations; this creates continued subjugation. The ability of the minority to wield their power so as to manipulate rules and regulations in context of the field of capital is a core tenet that socio-economic theory does not seem to appreciate or readily admit too. Instead, the theorists and thought leaders in these fields are used to buffering and insulating the minority, perpetrating social terror and violence.

Using South Africa as an example, promises made in the 1994 election have largely not been attained, not from a lack of trying but rather because the systemic nature of socio-economics was severely underestimated. Even assuming sufficient resources to meet the ambitious developmental targets, successfully meeting them would still present a huge challenge since the institutional delivery capacity is lacking. There is a lack of requisite variety, covering the absence of local procedural, structural, and substantial variety,²⁷ implies deficiencies across well-designed processes, procedures, and the experience needed for efficiency in both public and private sectors. In fact, the global institutional gridlock is a major concern, and viewing such a challenge in a mechanistic fashion serves only to exacerbate the developmental challenges being faced by all nations today. Our leaders and managers have a preoccupation with being short-term focused as opposed to long-term focused,²⁸ coupled with mechanical views and fragmented, inflexible planning techniques. Furthermore, the obsession of looking at case studies of other countries alludes to seeking some form of perfect solution, even though each solution is unique and should not be looked upon to be replicated;²⁹ this focus further underscores poor planning dimensions. The importance of systemic planning is supported by the work of Ackoff’s interactive planning, leadership, and problem structuring.³⁰

From a global management and organisational viewpoint, the prevailing mechanistic and reactive type of designing strategic national objectives is one of the primary hidden costs of the collective national Habitus. It must be noted that the challenges cut across racial divides; for example, in the South African context, whilst black South Africans have been marginalised across education and experience, white South Africans have similarly been protected and given a false sense of superiority. This is an important implication from a practical viewpoint, since the expectation is that white South Africans should theoretically have better skills in management, entrepreneurship, and leadership.

From the experiences in the projects I conducted, this expectation is not entirely accurate; management’s reaction to the problems being faced is embedded in historical reference data, which are based upon an inward, protectionist heritage. Chris Argyris’s³¹ notion of skilled incompetence supports this observation, describing the difficulty of reflecting when imprisoned by dogmatic belief in one’s own truths to the exclusion of other truths. Research reveals that management education in general does not contain sufficient transformational and change capacity elements,³² a view that echoes findings of local research that notes MBA graduate deficiencies as: being impractical; lacking interpersonal skills; having low communication skills; possessing insufficient global thinking; and not working well in groups, among others.³³

The issue of problem-solving abilities is another reason for lack of delivery, as proficiency in this area leads to sound managerial decisions and success; thus, failure to instil such skills can lead to poor product and service mixes as well as turf battles, and it destroys the personal and organisational ability to compete.³⁴

Higher-order thinking allows individuals to consider multiple interpretations, accommodate uncertainty, and find order in chaos³⁵ attained through both convergent approaches, such as teamwork, and divergent cognitive approaches, such as individual abilities.³⁶ Critical thinking allows managers to act fairly and democratically, to take initiative, and to be aware of bias.³⁷ Organising and managing oneself is another key trait for managers, implying efficient time management, attention to quality issues, and goal setting³⁸ as well as good project management, effective personal workflow processes, and techniques for covering e-mails and telephone calls.³⁹ At a deeper level still, it requires personal mastery⁴⁰ and an enquiring mind to seek efficiencies. Organising and managing oneself requires applying basic management principles, organising, leading, and managing output to oneself.⁴¹ Self-management is thus about integrity, leadership, accountability, and trust,⁴² elements that have been highlighted in the rich-picture context of South Africa’s societal and individual Habitus (figure 2.1).

Another global trend relates to knowledge management and information technology, which have a profound impact on social systems because of their pervasive influence across drivers of business strategy⁴³ and will increasingly become a core competence for managers in the knowledge economy.⁴⁴ This point has a direct link to e-learning and the critical capacity to evaluate communications, which in turn will impact business decisions and strategies.⁴⁵ Managing information in this manner inherently requires reading critically.⁴⁶ It is thus vital to communicate effectively, using visual, mathematical, and language skills; whilst South Africa has eleven official languages, from a business viewpoint, the preferred language is English⁴⁷. However, communication is not only about using words carefully and having a solid vocabulary;⁴⁸ it includes non-verbal aspects, for example, tone, body language, and emphasis.⁴⁹ Consequently, misuse of these forms of communication may lead to someone hearing or sending the wrong message.⁵⁰ This specific challenge featured strongly in this research; there were seemingly simple issues, such as key people cancelling meetings at the last minute, and agenda items had to be repeated over multiple steering-committee meetings before decisions were made. The effects of these practices alone served to derail the best planning and attainment of milestones.

The pressure upon local authorities and municipalities to become more efficient hints towards a desire for alternative strategies that rely upon innovative and integrated concepts for development planning. This can be seen as a growing recognition of the importance of integrated planning that links to physical and socio-economic interests, particularly given rapid rural-urban migration, which sharpens the focus on local government and municipalities. The challenges local municipalities in South Africa face are well-documented, touching upon segregation, institutional weakness, service backlogs, and lack of finance. For these to be overcome, according to the local government white paper,⁵¹ Developmental Local Government, working together with local communities for sustainable outcomes and improvement is deemed vital because of the following institutional realities.

A history of discrimination—Municipalities played a critical role in enforcing segregation, dispossessing and impoverishing the black masses (through forced removals, land expropriation, restrictions on trade and employment practices), resulting in few or no assets located on poor land that is far from economic hubs.⁵²

Worsening poverty and inequality—South Africa is the world’s second-most unequal nation, with half the population living in poverty on just 11 per cent of the national income, and this impacts a quarter of all children there.⁵³ Between 1990 and 1994, the infant mortality rate amongst Africans rose from 48 to 54 per thousand, whilst for whites, it fell from 7.4 to 7.3, with the national poverty hearings reaffirming that life is getting harder for many of the rural poor.

Geographic segregation—South African settlements are deeply divided, often with a physical buffer zone between racial and economic groupings.

Rising unemployment—South Africa’s unemployment rate of 34 per cent⁵⁴ is one of the highest in the world, whilst employment in mining and manufacturing has declined for over a decade; private sector employment is shrinking at around 2.5 per cent per annum,⁵⁵ pushing up urban joblessness and generating a knock-on effect in the former homelands, where rural unemployment is around 50 per cent.

Service backlogs—A fifth of urban households in South Africa have no electricity, a quarter have no running water, a third make do without a flush toilet, and over half have no telephone.⁵⁶ Four-fifths of rural households have none of these services. The capital cost of providing an acceptable service to everyone (as defined by national government) is 5.3 per cent of the national budget; after the addition of interest payments for ten years, the cost is twice the amount allocated by government.⁵⁷

Persistent non-payment—Despite a campaign stressing the link between rights and responsibilities and a swathe of service disconnections and court cases, millions of residents still refuse to pay for services and other bills. The national rate of default was 23 per cent in 1997, rising and rose above 90% per cent in some townships.⁵⁸.

The total amount owed for normal rates and service charges increased from 26 per cent to 33 per cent between 1997 and 1998,⁵⁹ suggesting that many households can’t afford basic services.

Financial crisis—Over half of South Africa’s municipalities are known to be in financial difficulty. Of seventy-seven councils, a fifth of those responding to an official survey cited insufficient cash reserves to meet a single month’s wage bill.⁶⁰ National subsidies for municipal infrastructure have been cut, and central government has declared its unwillingness to bail out bankrupt authorities.

Pressure from business—The white paper promotes competitiveness and a warning to municipalities not to unduly burden local business through higher tariffs.⁶¹ Bernstein raises a concern in this regard: The white paper’s declaration that ‘provision of basic household infrastructure is the central contribution made by local government to social and economic development’ is worrying, since it neglects economic development and may commit local government to unsustainable needs-driven approach.⁶²

Restructuring—Hastily drawn municipal boundaries produced a system with impractical substructures but consolidated councils so that there were fewer than 300.

A key shortcoming in providing robust government and service delivery is thus embedded in society’s inability to see the integrated nature of extended value chains (EVCs), the strong relationships of accountability between and within agents and agencies across supply chain networks.

This is referred to the long route of accountability, as opposed to the short route, which is the direct accountability of providers to clients. Weaknesses in socio-economic development and service-delivery outcomes can be attributed to a breakdown in one or more of the links in the long route of accountability.⁶³

Figure 3.1: The framework of accountability relationships, adapted from Keefer & Khemani (2005)

Figure 3.1 explains the relationship between policy ideals which are geared towards the poor yet have less-than-desired outcomes, partly as a result of scant attention to various agents and agencies and specifically because of the misplaced behavioural assumptions across the long line of accountability.

This references the extended value chain (EVC) that runs from sound policy ideals aimed at things like alleviating poverty, through the vast public and private sector systems, to ultimately reach the targeted communities and recipients.

The divergent results relate to the misdirection, capacity issues, and poor governance throughout the EVC dynamics. This was evident in the experimental findings that revealed a backlog of housing in South Africa and the attempt to address this innovatively. The statistics from South Africa noted above are reflected in the current global patterns as well; leaders and managers remain locked into patterns by adopting the dated mechanistic solutions their advisors and corporations offer.

Figure 3.2: Extended value chain for typical national interventions cutting across multiple agencies

Figure 3.2 provides