Solid Base

What I enjoyed most about my introduction to Yoga in 2009 was the simplicity of the base. Swami Vishnudevananda talked about 5 key points. Proper exercise, breathing, relaxation, diet, and mental health (thinking and meditation). Whatever the challenge, there is a point of return. A first principle. Start from the basics. Slow things down. I think of this in the way I think of just how good my mother was at raising me. I am completely comfortable being lost in the grass while learning, because of the security of my base. I couldn’t have had a more solid foundation. She was that foundation. Returning there just requires closing my eyes. That is why I think individuals need a secure foundation more than they need to “know their place” (have a hand to mouth job). That place is fragile, their place shouldn’t be. I don’t believe in fear and wolves at the door as the ideal motivator. True creativity comes when people are secure in their place. That comes through getting the basics right. Starting from a point of strength. Then stretching into the chaos.

Key Person Risk

We live in a world where there aren’t enough jobs, and migration into rich countries is presented as a problem. This isn’t the way the world always is or was. Hut Taxes were introduced by British Colonialists as a way to force the required labourers into the monetary economy. Households had to send members to work for the colonialists in order to raise the cash to pay the tax. Liberia’s Hut Tax led to the Kru Revolt in 1915. The Bambatha Rebellion of 1906 pushed back on the British Employers in Natal (The Colony) when the Zulu people of the Mpanza Valley (now in KwaZulu-Natal) rose up. The challenge with a pass-the-parcel economy with globally stretched supply chains, and institutions (Nations and Companies) that have permanence and excess negotiating power is when a person’s “place in the chain” becomes redundant. Companies talk of “key person risk” but employees are the ones who live that risk. We live in a world where individuals don’t have the buffers of cash and capital of corporate balance sheets. Risk management starts from the bottom up.

Primary Zulu Language speech area (South African 2011 Census)

Start with Space

We live in a hand-to-mouth, pass-the-parcel, kick-the-can, pay-as-you-go economy. That has underlying assumptions and puts you at the mercy of feast and famine cycles. Creative destruction is both powerful and useful. For survivors. To survive, you need to build in a “margin of safety”. Meaning you have to leave space. To build space. The only thing you can plan for is that things won’t go according to plan. Hand-to-mouth means spending everything you earn. Pass-the-parcel means if your customers don’t get paid, you don’t get paid. Kick-the-can means spending now because you assume future growth will be able to pay for current spending. Pay-as-you-go means one generation pays for the next. Think of Pensions as the predecessor idea to Basic Income. The big question then was also how do you pay for it? The answer then? Working people pay directly to retirees. Retirees die, working people retire, and children start working. Merry-go-round. Until people live longer and people have fewer children. The way to build, is first to build space. Then build engines.

Survive

We know we have a debt problem. How it unravels without excessive pain is the million-dollar question. The less discussed question is the income obsession. The spending obsession. They are linked. You can mostly only borrow if you can prove you don’t need to borrow. Mortgages are a societal favourite drug. Income is the societal favourite syringe. We don’t have enough housing, so we push up the prices of the few houses we have (pressure cooker) and lend money to those who are playing the salary musical chairs game. Low interest rates. Long borrowing periods. Low deposits. In a world of feast and famine, the whole system is fragile if we don’t have buffers to support our required spending. To support the basics. Our foundation needs to be independent of our earning ability. Our buffers need to be independent of our productivity. People need to be people first, and productive assets second (if at all). You can’t just wave a wand for that to happen. Wealth is built consciously, over time, through a separation of who we are and what we do. We will have moved forward if the question “What do you do for a living” is permanently separated from survival. When we solve problems, rather than creating problems to survive.

Reverse Hut Tax

Hut Taxes were used by the British Colonies to force people out of subsistence lifestyles after the Anglo-Somebody wars. In South Africa, this led to the Bambatha Rebellion in 1906, which galvanised the post-war identity of the Zulu people. If you need to pay taxes, you need money to pay it. This means problem solving needs to have a number put on it. One way to think of a Universal Basic Income is as a “Reverse Hut Tax”. It allows people to reinvest in the basics. To have sufficient money to have parcels of time where they don’t have to think about money. To rebuild a base, that allows them to survive periods when a hand-to-mouth, pass-the-parcel, economy is not functional. To build basic competencies (that get outsourced when you are just one link in a fragile value creation chain). We can be seduced by specialisation. Just doing the one thing we are good at. That is fine, until it isn’t. Winters aren’t a surprise. Creative Destruction requires periods of unlearning and rebuilding. Without endurance and resilience, creativity can have no roots to draw sustenance from.

Bambatha

Complex Web

What you see is not all there is. Even if you know more than the average bear. No one understands. No one can. We live in a complex web of relationships, where every action has knock-on effects and unintended consequences. In a pass-the-parcel economy where we live hand-to-mouth, there is reduced capacity to pause. The strength of a business to survive isn’t evident in the size of their offices, and the image of success presented by their sales staff. You have to look at the Balance Sheet. The Cash Reserves. The Cash Flows. The Pipeline of Sales. The endurance and resilience of their suppliers, customers, competitors, and regulators. The laws can change. The technology can change. The people involved can change. Sustainable Creativity doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It starts by shifting from a consumer mindset to a custodial one. How do you maintain awareness of a complex environment? Gentle trial and error with fire breaks and retreats for when you misstep. A balance of conserving what you love and chipping away at obstacles that aren’t completely understood.