We are at an enormous crossroads.  And the stakes couldn't be higher.  

On the one hand, the old epoch that rewarded the narcissistic ‘strong man’ playbook is coming to an end, but not without a fight.  And on the other, the masses — long controlled and kept ‘too broke and too busy’ to complain — are demanding change.  

A growing number of members of the public are demanding that the inequality changes, that the corruption and that the manipulation of the systems by the power-hungry ends.  And not just change in their own living conditions, but change in the way the world is run and how the elites profit off the ‘rigged systems’ (political, educational, financial, legal, media, religious, etc.), enforcing inequality everywhere.  

Innately, humans know that all humans are equal and deserve equal rights.  Increasingly, people are beginning to feel the same way about animals and the planet itself.  Providing (and ensuring) those rights has been ‘problematic’ for the power-holders to ensure, because, well, they would have to give up their privilege in order to provide it.

The reason we are in this situation is that the world’s systems reward those with an under-evolved mindset.  And so that mindset ‘rises’ to the top of those systems and acquire the power to retain control.  But why?  Why would the systems want to provide for and encourage an under-evolved mindset to rule everyone?

An ‘Under-Evolved’ Mindset

Across the world, we have seen the political polarisation of recent years that has been about ‘me’ or ‘we’, with the ‘me’ camp largely belonging to the ‘under-evolved’ camp and the ‘we’ camp largely belonging to the ‘more-evolved’ camp.  See a previous blog on the Three Milestones of Human Evolution (in terms of consciousness) for a more full explanation about what those are and how we all move through them.

An example of the mindset in the ‘under-evolved’ camp can be found around the issue of gun control in the United States.  The U.S. experiences a significantly higher rate of gun-related deaths and injuries compared to other high-income countries and accounts for 31% of the world's public mass shootings, despite having less than 5% of the global population.  Yet, despite these harrowing statistics that are obvious threats to public health, the law still allows for easy gun access.  Why?  Because there are those who say ‘I care more about me being able to buy military grade weapons more than I care about school shootings’.  In my opinion, this is an ‘under-evolved’ mindset.  This mindset is so driven with resolve, that “Active-Shooter Drills” are now a common exercise for 6-year-old kids in American schools.  

Where is the sanity in that, for future generations of Americans?  Kids from a young age are normalised in gun culture.  Where does that rabbit hole go, when society feels threatened and under siege?  This week we saw the shooting to death of a far-right conservative influencer, close to Trump, while speaking at a rally at a university in Utah.

After the shooting, President of the United States, Donald Trump, appeared on the Fox News show, Fox & Friends, and talked about the shooting.  Co-host, Ainsley Earhardt, asked the President, “How do we fix this country? How do we come back together?”  Trump replied: “I tell you something that’s going to get me in trouble, but I couldn’t care less.”

In another interview, when asked if he had a message for other “conservative influencers who might be targeted”, the US President said, “We have to be brave” and that “there are radical left lunatics out there and we have to beat the hell out of them.”

This mindset is ‘under-evolved’ because it is not inclusive and it is narcissistic and conscience-free.  

The election of Trump, or someone like him, was inevitable.  He is the embodiment of the narcissistic, small-minded, power-hungry, egotistical, greedy, delusional mindset that separates people from each other and breeds hate that the systems reward.  Any why do the systems reward that mindset?  Because the hierarchies that the systems exist within are designed by elites to enslave, to corrupt and to create division, because by so doing, the elites retain power and wealth and accountability against them is elusive.

So, how do we get change?  Either the systems reward more-evolved mindsets, or those with power need to evolve, in order for effective change to happen.

We Can’t Force People to Evolve

We can’t force people to evolve.  For one thing, there is free will.  But also, under-evolved people have to come to their own conscious awareness and comprehension about the consequences of their actions and have compassion around that, on their own.   

Evolution of the consciousness of humanity is not dissimilar to the evolution of the physicality of humans.  We evolved physically through adaptation and growth, with the most critical acceleration happening between around 100,000 and 50,000 years ago.  What we term “behaviourally modern humans” developed at this time, when art, symbolic burials and long-distance trade occurred.  The significant shift in our physical and behavioural evolution happened culturally, with the key component being our social evolution that helped us to advance.

It was when we connected, and became inter-connected, with each other that a huge leap in evolution occurred.  The same is true of consciousness.  Intellectual and physical growth can happen in isolation, but growth in consciousness happens when we aspire to connect, to build communities and hold each of us as equally valuable within those ecosystems.

We usually do this over many lifetimes, through the process of ‘being in the other person’s shoes’, being the recipient of oppression after being the oppressor, seeing the ‘self’ in the ‘other’, seeing another’s pain and being moved by that.  It is when we do this, that we become inclusive and honouring and compassionate.  That is how the evolution of our consciousness occurs and it can take time.  But there are things we can do to help it along.  As individuals, we can restructure incentives, environment, and feedback so that empathy becomes the easier, more rewarding, and socially reinforced choice.  But that won’t change the systems.  That will take a different approach. 

Systems need to be designed to structurally incentivise empathy, collaboration, and egalitarian outcomes across governance, business, media, and society.  We will look at systems-change for business, media and society in future blogs, but what would a change in Governance and Political Systems look like?

Governance & Political Systems

A new ‘success metrics for leaders’ needs to be codified into our systems.  This means that leaders would be evaluated not only on economic growth but on wellbeing, equity, and social trust (such as the ‘Wellness Budget’ that Prime Minister, Jacinta Ardern, introduced in New Zealand in 2019).  Metrics could include mental health, poverty reduction, environmental sustainability and civic engagement.  Annual “Wellbeing Scorecards” can put these metrics into measurable statistics that would be made public, creating accountability and social pressure.

Participatory structures, such as citizen assemblies, participatory budgeting, and deliberative councils can be established to ensure policies reflect broad societal needs.  Policies will need to be co-designed with the communities most affected, forcing leaders to internalise diverse perspectives. 

Institutional checks will be required, such as with ‘ethics boards’, with enforcement powers that would oversee leadership decisions.  Transparent reporting of decisions, budgets, and outcomes would prevent self-serving practices and anti-corruption measures and public audits would ensure accountability.

Technology & Feedback Systems

Real-time ‘consequence tracking’, using AI-powered dashboards, could track policies and business strategies and the economic, social and environmental outcomes of decisions, so that leaders and companies can see instantly how their actions create measurable social impact and affect societal well-being. 

There could also be a system of “social credit” or reputation systems that would reward positive contributions in transparent ways.

Outcome

The outcome of implementing these models would be that they would attract a different kind of political candidate, the person who wants to be empathic because equality is its own reward, the altruistic who believe in a more evolved system for all, would want to support this work, rewarding society as a whole.

The culture of society would come to value inclusion, cooperation and ethical behaviour, and see the values of those, thereby creating a positive feedback loop.

Crucially, narcissism and self-interest would no longer be structurally rewarded and selfish behaviours would carry social, economic and political costs.

And long-term societal flourishing, the underbelly of society that has historically been ignored, abused and denied, would be supported to add value to society and a rich, diverse, inclusive society results, becoming the central “currency” of success.

Equality in Operation

New Zealand’s “Wellbeing Budget” (first introduced in 2019 under Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s Labour government) was motivated by the idea that traditional economic measures like GDP don’t fully capture people’s quality of life. The intention was to reframe how government sets priorities and allocates resources, with a stronger focus on long-term human and social outcomes.

The motivation for the shift a GDP model to an holistic well-being model, was that Ardern’s government recognised that a growing economy doesn’t guarantee healthier, happier, or more equitable lives. The budget sought to measure progress using indicators like mental health, child welfare, environmental sustainability, and social cohesion, saying that governments should act as caretakers of collective health, not just economic managers.

New Zealand had high rates of youth suicide, mental health struggles, child poverty, domestic violence and environmental degradation. Approximately NZ$1.9 billion was invested in the “Take Mental Health Seriously” programme, with many of those funds spent across multiple agencies.

The budget targeted these areas explicitly, signalling a commitment to tackling root causes rather than short-term fixes, with the intention of embedding empathy in governance, putting people’s well-being at the center of policymaking.

The idea was also to encourage a cross-agency collaborative approach, where, instead of departments competing for funds, the Wellbeing Budget encouraged agencies to work together on shared social outcomes (e.g., housing, education, and health ministries collaborating on child well-being).

While it has achieved some successes—such as increased funding for mental health services, social support programs, and climate resilience— it fell short in addressing structural inequalities, housing affordability and long-term systemic change. 

Challenges included translating high-level wellbeing goals into measurable outcomes, balancing fiscal constraints with ambitious social targets and ensuring that wellbeing metrics influence all policy decisions rather than merely remaining symbolic.  Crucial to the limited impact was also the nature of political cycles that undermined the sustained investment in those social programs. 

Lessons Learned

The lessons from the initiative are that while reframing government priorities around wellbeing can guide more holistic policy-making, meaningful impact requires robust measurement, structural reforms and long-term commitment across the political spectrum.

What this tells us is that wellbeing budgets are a strong idea, in that they shift the frame of what governments should care about, away from just economics towards human flourishing.  But the rhetoric needs to match the systems.  Good data, precise outcome measures and capacity to track, evaluate and course correct are needed.  Without those, spending can happen without clarity on what is actually improving.  The difficulty with implementation is that, if done poorly, belief in the idea will waver.

The other major issue was that many of the social problems targeted (e.g. child poverty, mental health) required many years of consistent effort.  Short electoral cycles, crisis events (including Covid), and budget constraints made it difficult to maintain a momentum for the project.

The project showed that institutions and societal norms must change alongside the initiative, that change won’t be guaranteed with just one budget.  Also needed are rules, legislation and culture shifts, so that future governments are also committed to wellbeing.  When the formal mandates were weakened, the reforms decayed.

However, what mattered was that the idea was raised and attempted.  Hearing what went wrong helps the next initiative, possibly elsewhere in the world.  Because the implementation was difficult within the models didn’t mean that the idea was wrong.  

And the world needs new models for how we run it, because as the old epoch dies out, a new way of running the world that won’t repeat the old mistakes that reward privilege will be necessary.