Hello, and welcome back to a better world.
This is your host Mitchell J Raven, and we're very glad
you're - again today today we are with the author of this
book, you can change the world dr.
Ervin Laszlo. He is hungarian-born and is
internationally known for his work in systems theory.
He's written many many books. Dozens in fact, he has consulted
to government's prime, minister's United Nations
everywhere. There are troubles where people
need to see straighter and understand more from a systemic
point of view. You what it is that's going on
well this has led him to a very in-depth study of the
environment and social systems and that is very much the
subject of this book as well as an idea and a prompting of what
we as individuals we down on the ground can do to make this world
a better place and in fact, not just a better place but quickly,
so we're very glad to have you as a guest today, dr.
Les looks very nice to be here. Good.
Have you so I know what inspired
the book because of your deep feeling about what's going on on
this planet. What are some of the statistics?
I think that could help to awaken people a bit.
One of the actual statistics of where we are sitting on the
precipice today of, really environmental and social
collapse. Well, on the one hand, we have
social and economic division in the world, which is not
sustainable, because more and more people are being pressed
into really abject poverty. We now estimate that about half
of the world's population, just about 3 billion people living on
less than five dollars a day and about one and a half billion
perhaps on bond dollars. But these are statistics, are
not very reliable. It will be very much more also
and perhaps It's even less but likely to be optimistic at this
point. So the spread of inequality in
the world is enormous and of course it's highly visible
because Wells and power is distributed is all over the
world, it's just not distributed evenly but it spread everywhere,
right? So on the one hand, you have
this enormous problems of how people have access to resources
and have access to wills and can live If I just survived a
vegetated, what do you Economist say about this?
I mean they see the disparity and they're spinning off
theories of world growth and the like all day long.
I mean is there not any consensus among them that
suggests that the so-called global market system as is isn't
really functional. Well depends on whom you ask it
is of course economists Of the classical schools even called
neoclassical economics, would trust to the market system.
Sometimes call this is Market fundamentalism in believe that
the market system will cure all ills, eventually it will spread
the wealth and everybody will be better off.
All you have to do is play the market.
Now, other people point out that the market system, the market
itself Works. What's Works only when what,
what is known as the Playing field is level or in other
words, everybody has the same chances more or less than turn
on the market. When some people to use a mix
similar have owned all the chips, and you have others are
very few than those who have the great majority of the chips.
When they play the market, they are likely to end up the winners
much more so than the others. So the rich get richer and the
poor get children. And that is still my mother
raised me on that phrase. Yeah, that is still the case by
a large The world. And the hope is a Pious, hope
that if you just become wealthier eventually, we also
will trickle down but it doesn't recall for a number of reasons.
Also, because poverty is self-reproducing.
It's a lot of people are logged into a vicious cycle, right?
I don't have access to any resources, they can't help
themselves, and they just try to survive from day to day.
Of course, the over overwhelming, also their
immediate environment before us Testing the citizens is Giants,
citizen the third world and over overloading the carrying
capacity of the lens. Also, polluting a great deal.
It's not their fault and this is just happening because there's
alternative of course, they pollute per capita per person,
lost less than than the rich people.
Also called rich people. Nice bathroom still.
As long as we have 20% of the world's population having 86%.
Of the consumption is right now just to go back to the
economists view for a second economics is considered a social
science and based on what you just shared with us, it shows
that the current systems as they're operating Ardis up
functional, they're not working. And so from a scientific basis
they've actually got the evidence of the dysfunction.
So we've gone from Theory, a free market Enterprise, and
maybe slight regulations, or, or if playing field, flat, and even
to this, current state of affairs isn't this enough and
ample evidence to to show to disprove the validity of those
theories? Not really, you know, because as
the saying goes, statistics can be made to support anything.
Especially statisticians, as they say that the flex is that
you Play around with numbers, you can show that education is
making inroads that actually. People are spending more are
saving more. They are all kinds of ways you
can package this. I see but the fact you can find
the silver lining. Yes.
Even acquisition regulation is growing you see now if it
wouldn't be growing there would be a lot different kind of a
ballgame. You could probably then hope
that gradually as higher levels of Education coming hyah laughs
hyah life. Of styles and quality of life
will come about. But as it is is growing and the
growth occurs primarily in the poor parts of the world is still
growing near not quite but near 90 million persons a year and
edits to the world population. That's quite a quite a size
efforts relative to world population control having any
kind of measurable effect, classic remotes of controls
don't work and they are very arbitrary and Very dictatorial,
telling people that they can't have more than the number of
children are trying to sterilize people, Etc, don't simply don't
work. The only way that can work is by
raising the level of Education of people raising Social
Security. So that for example families
will not be needing large numbers of Offspring in their
old age, to support them or not believing even during their they
are adults life to support them by working on the Undefined, you
know, so all these kind of persons are actually producing
an effect the backlash. So that's right now we can
expect that poverty is research, regenerating cells are
generating to scientist. NE you just simply don't reach
the poorest segment and there are exceptions.
Of course they are. We means of ways and means of
reaching the poor populations. The best example for that is.
So so called micro When people who don't qualify for any kind
okay I guess I can still get an amounts.
You know, 70 80, 100 $120, a whole group is usually
designated as being responsible for each other.
So they don't offer any guarantee any collateral but
they have each other's word do something.
And these people then buy a cow set up a little stand on the
street do something, you know, that we have an idea by a
screenshot Act. Fatigue of some sort engage in
some kind of economic activity. And if success of this movement
has been phenomenal, the repayment rate is higher, and
the micro credits, than in the commercial credits by the
batteries. So it shows if you trust people
to do something to say, pull themselves up by the bootstraps,
if you give them, the means they will do so and you don't operate
on the Standard Market System. Basically, you have to start the
process. Yes, exactly.
Exactly. Now From an environmental point
of view. What do you see and what can we
do? Well, and environmentally be
know that the carrying capacity of the planet, in terms of its
biological productivity, terms of the lens and the fisheries.
And then, the sees all these what is being produced on the
planet is being over. Loaded, you know, verse we take
out more from the planet than it can regenerate.
Rate, the exact figures are available in the sense that we
know what the so called. Ecological footprint.
Yes, of an individual should be 2 point 2 hectares per person if
people would not consume more than the produce of 2.2 ha from
the productivity or years right here.
Yeah. And that's why they would be
relying the productivity of that area, you know?
And then add the This productivity could regenerate so
that year after year, people could draw on this much
biological resources and that's based on the total world
population is that's the population.
Diversity, get the total productivity of the earth and
divided by the total population. Then you get the per person per
capita how much you can use, you know.
Now it turns out that the average is 2.8 ha insert 2.2
almost a third higher and the over The over charged the
grizzly could overshoot, right? Is debt is much greater there
would appear because we only get to this.
Seemingly, they still still an overshoot but still similar.
Your mother's figure of 2.8 hectares per person because
people the poor countries are on the Run.
Ha Bangladesh is a half a hectare so that we can have in
the US the average footprint be 12 and a half dollars in Sweden,
being 6 hectares in I'm going to eat ha and Japan, Etc, similar.
So the average is out to fairly low.
But clearly you have at least six times of the of the use of
the biological resources, the planet in the so-called rich
countries, then what would be sustainable?
So, what since its this is real, this isn't like having your hand
on the manufacturer in the printing, press for money and
dealing with dead. In that way, this is actual
material that sustains life or no longer sustains life.
How long can this out of proportion scenario last before?
There's an actual dive? Nobody knows you see there in
the in it. Be mathematically figured to
some stance. No, even mathematically.
Cannot be figured because we can't that working
probabilities. These systems are not
deterministic and not mechanical.
We don't know when it reaches the so-called Tipping Point, the
point of collapse, we know that is bound to reach it but how
just how soon we don't know. Because we don't know when a
relatively piecemeal wave of Change is Going to shift into
so-called abrupt mode, but if you hold all variables constant
based on today's proportions. You could make, you know,
granted it's it's not a real number, but it would at least
give some indications and putting aside a moment, the
abrupt, you know, precipitous reality of a Tipping Point, even
with things out of proportion as they are, I'd imagine that the
future isn't all that far. We are already at the breakdown
point, it's not breaking down on a global.
Well level because there are an awful lot of vested interest and
they all become compensating, a seemingly compensating on the
level of putting in more money Capital, applying newer
Technologies and Technologies can sometimes correct for
things. Yes, right?
It's sort of like somebody who has a bad eyesight and it's
really cold coma and something. Seriously wrong with the eyes
and the lips wearing eyeglasses stronger.
Stronger eyeglasses and says, well look, I'm seeing seeing
pretty well so much for nothing wrong.
And I think given time comes when the school 21.
Correct? Yeah.
So we have already reached the point where it's not
sustainable, when it actually reaches the point where a global
level of collapse comes a kind of a chaotic situation.
We don't know already. We are Global level of stress,
behold, terrorism, and War situation, and the fear and all
that is actually a manifestation, a see.
Symptom of the stress in the system, people wouldn't be with
the less frustrated, feeling less marginalized.
Obviously, they would not be ready to sacrifice their lives
for what they consider to be a Cause, right?
Sure. Sure.
Well in the talk that you gave yesterday that I attended at the
UN at the church Center, you, you made a point about what what
would it be too? What?
What you were talking about, what we can do essentially to
individually correct. The situation and I was
wondering if you would just address that and you see be
expect and the everyday logic that somebody is in charge.
Somebody, we're going to do the things that are necessary are
used to that from childhood on. There's always a teacher the
government is supposed to. Yeah.
At my, your child is a teacher and I know your parents when you
grow up then you think oh, that is the state's administrative.
Ation there is the government or perhaps that some people in
business will know how to manifest, how to manage after
their managers. You know, sometimes somehow or
other the the world will be kept going because somebody is taking
care of it. Well, this belief is turns out
to be incorrect because nobody is actually in charge.
Nobody even knows exactly what is to be done.
Plus the people who are really have a greater power.
They also have the greater The interests.
So they are the least likely aside from some people with
really creativity and commitment and morality, you know, there's
always exist but on the whole people of the most vested
interest in maintaining the status quo, are those who profit
more from this, from the present system.
So therefore they are fear actual change.
They want to oppose change, the Reverend dude, the recognize
that change is inevitable but But they hope that they can keep
control of the chain. So they stay on top of the wave
really system. Systemic change of the kind,
which is really becoming a new world, a kind of world which is
truly sustainable and Humane. It would have very different
forces operating in it and material possessions and money
and the concentration of power and wealth would not be the main
driving forces. What was the IMs?
What would Was other forces he referring to.
I think you know human nature is not necessarily so programmed
from birth. That we are only happy.
If we are more and more material possessions, in fact there have
been some studies made on the physiology of the brain
recently. Which showed that people with
more material possessions actually are exposed to more
stress. So, the happiness factor is not
really connected with how much you own that is such a thing as
the quality of life, which is not the same as the City of your
material living standards. How much resources you use?
How much energy, you consume, etc?
Etc. It's a different kind of thing.
You can have a very high quality of life.
This somewhat more modest consumption, more modest use and
more recycling. More ways of using that you
regenerate the resources that's entirely possible.
And people who do that actually lead healthier lives, have a
better quality of life. Many of the things that I really
are, beautiful are satisfying in the world money cannot buy, is
this a money? Can buy resource, you know, I
just came back from India. Dr. Laszlo.
And I saw people who were working in the fields and
honestly, they don't have many Rupees to their name, and I saw
not in all cases, but in many cases enough to make mention of
it, a sense of peace and a sense of ease with their lives.
That the westerners that were walking around the same place
did not possess. Well, this is a fairly common
experience that I've had in traveling and so-called third
world countries, were not only interestingly enough and
ironically enough, our people at greater ease and they have a
different entirely different relationship to time, but
they're also more generous than most people.
I know of the moneyed classes here in the United States.
Or they have a different sense of living.
It's a more longer term way of looking at the world in a Dia,
father's forefathers have left. This is the way they expected to
be the a part of nature. They see the cycles of Nature
and human culture, is somehow something has a long
perspective. Yes.
Exactly. A deeper deeper root.
That's right. And we believe that there is,
there's a spiritual Dimension, which is not necessarily How
much you eat it? People will tell you in this
poor country says, I'm sure they told you that you can only eat
so much anyway in a day, you only need to basically one good
bed to sleep on, you know, and why do you need all that?
So it's not and that's true. The question of sacrificing, I
might know, this is not your cutting back, you have to make
do without what you make do without is it is Superfluous.
So then if you don't need what, In the current situation, close
to the Tipping Point, where we see that global patterns have
already changed relative to whether it's not a maybe it's an
already. What can the ordinary citizen
do? Is there something he or she can
do and on what level can he or she participate in kind of
taking control where our so-called leaders have not the
ordinary person? Is the key this world is made up
of ordinary persons and by the ordinary persons who live in the
so-called Rich, part of the world, have a choice.
Whereas some of those people that you talked about where they
have lived in a traditional way, it was a few rupees a day or
whatever currency they use. They don't really have much
choice, they have to do what they are doing to maintain
themselves and then away happy often doing that unless they
live in the big city slums and really land and Artificial
environment is depressed, but as long as they lead them, allow
them to live traditional Lifestyles, they happy.
But those of us who live in a world that is that so-called
industrialized world. We have a choice, we can't lead
different. Kinds of lives is a very simple
test, very simple question. Each person can ask himself or
herself is the way I live possible for all people on this
Earth. It's not as though everybody
would have to leave. Same kind of life live the same
way, but do I, for example, consume food in a way that
literally would make it impossible to feed our people.
Very simple example. If I find myself eating, red
meat, or the level, which is a typical consumption of red meat
in America, and in some parts of Western Europe and in Japan,
which has came, it was vegetarian.
Before and I was heavily meet oriented.
Now, if you have to do that, the the amount of agricultural
produce you would have to come up with Worldwide to feed the
cows, with have to double Universe.
We need another planet, the size of the Earth, just to be able to
feed all the cows, to be able to provide all people on Earth,
with that amount of meat. So it's simply not eight, not
not capable. That kind of diet, you cannot
maintain. You cannot free spread to six
and a half billion people. Many of these things are like
that or material energy consumption.
Particularly are non renewable materials.
Fossil energies is such that if you attempted to say, could all
people consume line test, you would say no.
The planet just isn't big enough for that.
But even if people did that, it seems to me that at this point,
So called pull in the waist. Is that really going to be
sufficient enough to tip the scale in the other direction?
It the large multinationals remain utterly and completely
intact. Even if you know, 20 million
mean, one thing that might get affected as the cattle industry,
that would be a good thing. But is that going to be
sufficient to literally save us from this Tipping Point?
From this point of environmental collapse around meet your first
and psychological collapse, I will Say two things about this.
First of all, this is not a question to ask you.
Well, has to do once you 31 lives and the present time on
this Earth and you have to do the right thing.
Yes. And if you do the Right Moves
with oneself, happily, we have, whether it works or not, you're
at least you did what you could. And this is the satisfaction,
you can draw from living, you cannot control this large
processes, but the second thing is this, you have to recognize
That ultimately, the individual x.
A critical amount is what decides, but businesses produce,
what political systems decide on, because we do not have a
top-down system basically. Basically, we have a system
that's in the economy is driven by the consumer, by the demand,
mmm-hmm, by the client, we have in the political systems that
driven by voters and popularity of the decision.
Curves in most parts of the world.
Certainly in those parts of the world where we have real choice.
So if we not only live the right way, I mean a responsible way,
but we also communicate how they live shorter.
Others, and example, provide an example, these examples can
spread very fast. Yes examples.
I mean, I'm in fashion in blue jeans, spreads very fast.
It could also spread the responsible living.
And in fact, sorry, Indications are going to serve is that in
the u.s. adult population. There may have been about 10
years ago, three million people, who live on this responsible
way, the so-called cultural creatives about 10, 12 years ago
and now they are 49 Millions, if not more.
So it's spreading and spreading in Europe and in other parts of
the world we have to join that wave.
Eventually that is Will stabilize the system.
Yeah that is no other way because there's nobody And do it
from above from the outside. People themselves must do it.
Do you suggest people be politically active in terms of
let's say letter-writing campaigns or many ways we can be
active in your probably why the internet the way you live in
your communication, you communicate on the internet
visual congress with man and Cetera.
You try for example, suggesting a pledge of sustainability to be
taken by your Alexis politicians that they would devote primary
attention to questions of longer.
Term sustainability, locally and globally.
You know, you can participate in becoming for example, members of
shareholder associations was very little money.
You can buy a couple of shares. We will that you can, then raise
your voice and know exactly and V anything enough people start
doing that, you know, you can really have an influence many,
many ways you have the choice, you can do it.
And if people start doing it, then this world will stabilize
itself. The Humane and peaceful way and
if people just pass the buck Denver had to all the Holocaust.
Well, thank you for your encouragement and support in the
right direction. Thank you very much for this
conversation. So we need to thanks.
We've been speaking with you author of this book, The
renowned dr. Laszlo and reading, this will
help to inspire you to do the right thing at this very
important point in time. Thanks so much for joining us.
This is your host Mitchell, J Raven.
We look forward to seeing you all next week.