💾 Archived View for retrace.club › ~draoi › posts › 2022-05-24-leverage-points.gmi captured on 2022-07-16 at 14:26:34. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
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Around a decade ago I read a paper that stuck in my mind, and really changed the way I think about how human systems change. If I remember correctly, a friend posted it on Facebook with a comment about how it changed their thinking. So I downloaded it, read it, and filed it away. The ideas stuck with me but I didn't re-read the paper. Eventually I misplaced the pdf. I searched for it periodically based on what I remembered of it, but could never find it. Until tonight the word "leverage" popped into my head. A couple of quick searches later and I had it: Leverage points by Donella Meadows.
https://www.donellameadows.org/wp-content/userfiles/Leverage_Points.pdf
In this paper the author describes 12 points where systems can be changed, starting from the easiest to implement but least effective and moving to the most difficult and most effective:
12. Constants, parameters, numbers (such as subsidies, taxes, standards).
11. The sizes of buffers and other stabilizing stocks, relative to their flow.
10. The structure of material stocks and flows (such as transport networks, population age structures).
9. The length of delays, relative to the rate of system change.
8. The strength of negative feedback loops, relative to the impacts they are trying to correct against.
7. The gain around driving positive feedback loops.
6. The structure of information flows (who does and does not have access to information).
5. The rules of the system (such as incentives, punishments, constraints).
4. The power to add, change, evolve, or self-organize system structure.
3. The goals of the system.
2. The mindset or paradigm out of which the system—its goals, structure, rules, delays, parameters—arises.
1. The power to transcend paradigms.
There is a lot to look at here with respect to how our current systems work, how they can change, and how change is resisted, both actively and passively. Too much to go into tonight, but I'm delighted to have found it again.