“The best leader is he who, when his work is done, the people look about and say, ‘Look what happened naturally.’” — Chinese proverb
Here’s the awful dilemma we face. The political and economic system we live and operate under is — in many ways — rotten to the core. It’s destructive of the environment; it harms the lives of ordinary citizens. But we can’t live without the damned thing. Nearly all of us are dependent on the system for our daily bread.
Yes, the system must be fundamentally changed and improved, but we have to go about doing this carefully — very carefully. If efforts to change the system cause it to blow up or collapse, the dying system will take all of us down with it.
What is to be done? To find a way out of this mess, we must proceed with stealth.
Stealth relies on:
- Social movements instead of political parties
- New tools instead of new laws
- Creative destruction of big, outdated institutions
- Entrepreneurs providing leadership through beneficial economic change
- Organic, bottom-up change instead of central planning
- Self-organizing systems, not hierarchies and elites
- Inspired tinkering by individuals and small groups to spur innovation