Politics, Laws and Policies
Lucinda Garthwaite, ILI Director
Every time I read the news, even on a weekend like this past one when a swath of tornadoes devastated communities in five U.S. states, the headlines are dominated by politics, laws and policies.
Supreme court rulings. Gun-ownership and climate change policies. Which legislators are standing for what. It’s all critically important, of course. I’m not underestimating the impact of politics, laws and policies. It’s that they are not the only leverage points for liberatory change.
Anyone who has ever worked rocky soil to prepare for a garden knows about leverage points. I’m digging. I hit a big rock. I dig all around it. Finally I go get the big iron pry bar out of the shed. I dig and poke and dig and poke around that impossible rock until I find a spot on the rock that seems like it will work. I jam in the pry bar, lean on the end of it with as much weight as I can, and the rock moves. I lean harder, and it rolls right out of the hole and out of the way of my garden. This doesn’t usually happen fast. Often I need to stop, lean on the pry bar drinking a glass of water, and stare at the rock for a while. Eventually though, it moves (or I garden around it!)
In the academic field of systems change, and among those who practice systems analysis, the leverage point is a central tenet. Donella (Dana) Meadows’ 1997 article, “Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System” * has been published, re-published, applied and interpreted hundreds of times over, largely due in my view to the fact that it makes good sense. Leverage points are part of everyday life. Mechanics know them. Builders do. Even babies learning to stand will find a place against which to push, and find their feet.
But I have to keep my mind open about those rocks in my garden. I’ve gotten better with time at finding a good spot to pry. I know there are options for leverage points, and even the tools to pry with. As I get older I know I have to be a bit more careful about how I use my weight.
It’s the same with social change. There are many leverage points. There are many tools. There are many ways to use my weight.
The changes wrought by leveraging politics, laws and policies are prodigious bellwethers for good and ill. It’s arguably foolish, even dangerous, to ignore them. It’s just as dangerous though, I think, to ignore all the other leverage points for change.
Relationships, for one, in all their iterations: between friends, colleagues and strangers, in groups and networks. Creativity; making art that mirrors the world, or imagines a different one. Thinking and writing; the careful tangling and untangling of ideas. Commerce, working conditions, the things that get made and sold. The ways we lead. Strengthening community. Celebrating culture. Preserving language. Teaching history.
I’m just getting started on that list. The point is that there are many, many ways to move that rock.
Threats to justice and social justice are very real: the possibility of thriving, dignity, life itself, the life of the planet are mitigated and aggravated by politics, laws and policies every day. People who want liberatory change and have the wherewithal to become lawmakers, adjudicators, and policy-makers ought to, and will. Advocating and organizing using those leverage points is and has ever been an essential driver of change.
And not everyone can do those things, and systemic changes need to emerge from many perspectives in order to be, well, systemic. So the reason it’s dangerous to focus so much on politics, laws and policies as the most important leverage points for change is that they are not enough.
In 1997, Dana Meadows defined leverage points as, “places within a complex system where a small shift in one thing can produce big changes in everything.”
It’s easy to think of liberation as a finish line, the “big change in everything” that’s the reason for the work. But liberation is never done. That’s important to remember. It’s liberatory change I’m working for – an ongoing, never ending shift toward more social equity, less violence, more people thriving on a healing planet.
That kind of big change is very possible.
That kind of big change requires a whole lot of small shifts; which require many people working the tools they know in the places they understand. The more leverage points we recognize and value, the more hands will join that work.