Every Mao needs a Chou En-Lai in marriages, institutes, and societies

Holling, C.S.

International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)

On Making a Marriage, an Inst., or a SocietyHolling, C.S.IIASA Working Paper 1973Holling, C.S. (1973) On Making a Marriage, an Inst., or a Society. IIASA Working Paper. WP-73-010 Copyright © 1973 by the author(s). http://pure.iiasa.ac.at/36/ Working Papers on work of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis receive only limited review. Views or opinions expressed herein do not necessarily represent those of the Institute, its National Member Organizations, or other organizations supporting the work. All rights reserved. Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage. All copies must bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. For other purposes, to republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, permission must be sought by contacting repository@iiasa.ac.at ON MAKING A MARRIAGE, AN INSTITUTE, ORA SOCIETYC. S. HollingNovember 1973 WP-73-l0Working Papers are not intended fordistribution outside of IIASA, andare solely for discussion and infor-mation purposes. The views expressedare those of the author, and do notnecessarily reflect those of IIASA.On Making a MarriaEe, an Institute, or a Society1. LeadershipThe ingredients of leadership require a mix of thephilosophical and practical not easily found. We areused to labelling these as strategies and tactics, butthat division is scarcely fine enough. At the least,there are two kinds of tactics those required toinitiate a modified vision of the future within presentrealities and hostilities, and those required to con-solidate this vision in order to make this future thepresent. The strategy and the two kinds of tactics re-present three different styles or talents which have notgenerally been comfortably accommodated in one person.A flair for strategy is not measured by ｷ ｩ ｮ ｮ ｩ ｮ ｾ orlosing. That is the yardstick for tactical success. Noris it measured by the gradual disappearance of problemsas solutions are evolved. Every solution, good or bad,will generate new problems, just as every increase inunderstanding reveals new unknowns. A strategy, then,is a success of the solutions devised lead to new problemswhich are more tractable and more simply resolved.-2-China now seems to be one country which has carefullycrafted a strategy. One facet of this strateey is self-sUfficiency, but it is not expressed directly in termsof the nation. That would be mildly interesting, but thekey wrinkle is that this goal is proposed for social unitson small spatial areas. So it is a goal of self-sufficiencyfor the village (the production brigade) or for thecommunes which are collections of contieuous villages.From this specific addition to the goal flow the mostprofound social consequences.There is a tea commune near Hang Chow which occupiesthe most productive tea growing land in China. It is ascarce crop of high quality which generates a very highyield and return. Despite this, when new land was brourhtinto agricultural use, the land was not planted to tea butto lower yield, lower cash return crops like rice, wheatand market vegetables. In a national sense, it is theheieht of inefficiency not to concentrate on tea. But itmakes great sense if the goal is for that commune to beself-sufficient in food. It makes great sense for acountry which has historically been so shaken by famineand war.Not ｾ ｲ from Shanghai there is another agriculturalcommune with over 20,000 people occupyinr 688 ha. Now,and in the past, this commune has had diversifiedagriculture, and the expression of self-sufficiencyhas taken a different form. It can now no longer bedescribed as a simple agricultural community, but asan integration of agriculture with light industry.The light industry has been triggered by various spe-cific needs of that commune. And so, one sees smallfactories innovating, developing, and ｭ ｡ ｮ ｵ ｦ ｡ ｣ ｴ ｵ ｲ ｩ ｮ ｾharvesting machines designed for the particular needsof that agriculture. Household equipment is manufactured,as well as the objects more traditionally thought of ashandicrafts. There is even a factory producing light-bulbs, partly for commune use and partly for export.Again, from Western eyes, a factory producinr lirht-bulbs on this small scale seems folly. There are noeconomies of scale and it is bewildering to imaginethe replication of these small factories throughoutmajor parts of China. But again, the roal is not economicadvancement, but self-sufficiency of a small unit. And toimplement that goal, there must be great diversificationof activities,and hence of experience,within the communityconcerned.The consequence of that strategy of self-sufficiency,at that scale, is diversification within the community,close recycling of material, internal experimentation andinnovation, and independence. For the society as a wholethe cost of failure of anyone of these communes will havevery little consequence, even though the probability ofsuch failure might be high. In the West, our strategywould lead us to decrease the probability of failure evenif when a failure occurred, the cost were lmmense. Re-member the blackout in the Northeastern United States?But in a social sense, the strategy is of evengreater consequence. For when the inevitable problems ofthe community emerge, they are detected by the samepeople who have the experience and the power to resolvethese problems. Because of the emphasis on small spatialscale, there is not a spatial separation between the sourceof the problem and the source of the solution. And forthat reason, there is intense, personal motivation.A counter-example is found in the history of otherdeveloping countries. Edgar Snow speaks of the intro-duction of English land ownership laws into Burma priorto the Second World War. Traditionally, land was under theeffective control of a village, but with the new temptationof temporary wealth, over fifty percent of the best ricepaddies ultimately fell into the hands of absentee landowners. This was less of a strategy than a happening, butit led to an inflexible system which could not respond tothe emergencies of drought, or, generally, to the needsfor change. And it could not respond because the peasants-5-(read: institute staff or wife) who lived the problemwere not the landlords (read: administration or husband)who could resolve theM. The option of the village it-self resolving by joint sharing and experimentation wasforeclosed.True strategic failure occurs when solutions lie inother, isolated hands. That is the route which leads tosystems analysis as the panacea of the world's ills --glue for the unglued.The successful strategy then makes possible theeasy exploration of alternate tactics. One importantset are the tactics of initiating a fresh concept anddirection within a system which by definition resistschange. And these tactics must dance between the ex-tremes of dictatorial fiat and subtle deviousness, bothof which are seeds for disaster.The tactics of initiation can make or break theconsolidation and day-by-day operations. Allende con-ceived and initiated a grand strategy for Chile whichwas successfully established through an even more uniquetactic of initiation within existinv, institutional andlegal frameworks. But it led to tragic disaster becauseof unrealistic preconditions for consolidation.ｾＶＭAll effective tactic of initiation must of coursehonor the concept and strategy. But the eenius comeswhen it is structured to reduce not the number of futureproblems, but the cost of those problems in human terms --in short, a resilient structure.Nor 1S this division into strategy and tactics adivision between idealistic and praematic as our presentbreed of politicians would contend. That particulardualism leads to the barren denunciation of idealists aswoolly-headed (remember Lester Pearson?) and prafmatistsas evil (remember Truman?). Both strategy and tacticsmust be equally infused with the ｩ ､ ･ ｾ ｬ and with thepractical.But grand strategy and sensitive tactics of initiationbecome subverted without the quite different tactics ofconsolidation. And it is equally necessary for thesetactics to have both a philosophy and a technique of day-by-day operation which, in this case, prevents the idealfrom being smothered by detail. Or from beinE attenuatedby time. It requires a sense of the need, not for stability,but for flexibility within persistence.The bureaucrat's dream of stability might make hislife sane, but it turns an ･ ｮ ･ ｲ ｧ ｩ ｺ ｩ ｮ ｾ ideal into a boringideology, It becomes a wisp that can be seen but notgrasped. The tactics of consolidation are tactics ofdesifned instability which capture and lead that naturalrhythm of enthusiasm, eXhaustion, boredom, and renewedenthusiasm experienced by all individuals, institutionsand societies.But where are these talents? We certainly see areasonable number of individuals with excitinv, humaneand well articulated strategies -- but they lack the senseof the ｴ ｡ ｣ ｴ ｩ ｣ ｾ to initiate and operate. We probably donot find as many individuals with superb talents forinitiation - - but when we do, they often do not know whatthey are initiating. The commonest talents are those ofconsolidation -- but in their drive for stability the in-dividuals having these talents destroy the substance.Perhaps no one person can ever blend all three talents.Perhaps the best our poor world can expect is the happyappearance of individuals with a blend of two of the three.But if that is the case, any grand enterprise must have twoleaders -- one a strategist-technician and one a tactician-strategist. Every Mao needs a Chou En-Lai in marriages,institutes, and societies.C.s. ｈ ｯ ｬ ｬ ｩ ｮ ｾNovember 1973

On Making a Marriage, an Inst., or a Society

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