HONG KONG – We live in an age of systemic gridlock, policychaos, and sudden-shock failures. How is it possible that Afghan securityforces – built and trained by the United States military at a cost of $83 billion over two decades – succumbed to a militia of fighters in pickuptrucks in a mere 11 days? How could America’s best and brightest intelligence expertsand military leaders have failed to foresee that the rapid withdrawal of US airsupport and reconnaissance would spell disaster for Afghanistan, and plan theirretreat accordingly? Are these not examples of systemic failure?

Look at almost any crisis, and you will see multiplecauses and drivers. That is as true for the situation in Afghanistan as it isfor the COVID-19 pandemic – another multi-dimensional crisis for which there isno silver-bullet solution. Even carefully designed policies, motivated by thebest of intentions, can fail to have the intended effect – and often exacerbateproblems in unexpected ways – owing to implementation mistakes.

The problem can be boiled down to a complexitymismatch. The various crises and challenges we face – such as terrorism,pandemics, and disinformation – have viral, entangled qualities, and complex globalnetworks allow locally generated problems to grow and spread much faster thansolutions. Yet the paradigm on which we base our policymaking is linear, mechanical,and “rational.”

This approach can be traced back to politicalphilosophers like Thomas Hobbes, who offered a straightforward, top-downapproach to governing human society, based on “universal” truths. The Newtonian-Cartesianparadigm that guides economic thinking is similarly mechanical, pursuing a timeless,one-size-fits-all Theory of Everything.

But, while such an approach might help us to understandor govern small states or communities, it is impractical in a highly complexglobal system. And yet, we remain committed to it. This leaves us blind to theobvious – including our own blindness – and vulnerable to conceptual traps and collective-actionproblems that perpetuate indecision, inaction, andinconsistency. Without a new approach that captures the true complexity of ourworld, we will continue to be blindsided by systemic failures.

We should look to nature. As the biologist StuartKaufmannhas pointedout, the eighteenth-century philosopher Immanuel Kant observedthat everything in nature “not only exists by means of the other parts, but isthought of as existing for the sake of the others and the whole” – that is, “asan (organic) instrument.” In other words, the whole is greater than the sum ofits parts, and both negative and positive feedback mechanisms link the various partsthat form – and transform – the whole.

If the Earth is a single living system, managing each componentseparately will not only be ineffective; it will have potentially disastrousunintended consequences. Likewise, in our broader global system, which includesboth living and non-living parts, policies based on zero-sum logic or siloedthinking will always fall short – or worse.

A superior approach, as the late Donella Meadowsargued, would be to focus on so-called leveragepoints in complex systems, “where a small shift in one thing can produce bigchanges in everything.” Problems are not nails to be hammered, but symptoms ofsystemic flaws that are best addressed by acting on a range of load-bearinginstitutions.

This could mean, for example, making changes to subsidies,taxes, standards; regulating negative feedback loops and encouraging positivefeedback loops; improving or limiting information flows; or updating incentives,sanctions, and constraints. Crucially, it could also mean changing the mindsetor paradigm from which system goals, power structures, rules, and culturearise.

Nobel laureate political scientist ElinorOstrom also offered vitalinsights for managing complex systems – specifically, escapingthe collective-action trap. As Ostrom explains, the trap arises from zero-sum,binary thinking. The key to avoiding it, therefore, is to create local commons comprisingshared ideas, property, values, and obligations. With our fates and interestsintertwined – and operating on longer time horizons – different parties are farmore likely to work together to avoid the “tragedy of the commons.”

Unfortunately, the male-dominated mainstream haslargely ignored Meadows’ and Ostrom’s insights. But their ideas do align withthe Chinese worldview of organic materialism, as articulatedby British sinologist Joseph Needham.

Like Meadows, the Chinese would “act on the underlyingtrend of forces” (顺势而为). And inthe spirit of Ostrom, the Chinese eschew the view of the Sino-American rivalryas azero-sum competition between Western democracy and Chinese autocracy, andinstead advocate cooperation on shared challenges.

China’s organicapproach reflects its long history of managing systemic collapse andrejuvenation. This experience has shown that while top-down mechanical planningis useful, it must be combined with bottom-up implementation and adaptation. Rigorouslymonitored two-way feedback mechanisms ensure that national, local, andcommunity goals are aligned, policy missteps are corrected, and micro-level behaviorsthat threaten systemic and social stability are checked.

When something is notworking, Chinese engineers and planners act on leverage points – or “key entrypoints” (切入点) – for example, refining standards, incentives,regulations, information, or goals. When direct or “positive” (Yang阳) interventions fail, indirect or “negative” (Yin阴) approaches are employed. It is this open, experimental approach –which recognizes that the economy is a complex adaptive system – that enabledChina’s economic miracle.

The point, as Meadowsexplained, is to “stay flexible.” After all, “no paradigm is ‘true,’”and “every one, including the one that sweetly shapes your own worldview, is atremendously limited understanding of an immense and amazing universe.” Whylimit ourselves further – and invite further gridlock and chaos – by clingingto zero-sum logic, binary thinking, and futile competition?