ℹ️ About this episode

Why does nothing seem to change, no matter who we vote for?

In this episode, John Bunzl makes the case that the economy has gone global while governance stayed national — and that this single mismatch drives a "destructive global competition" in which no country dares to act first on climate, corporate tax, AI, or financial regulation for fear of losing out.

His answer is SIMPOL, the Simultaneous Policy: citizens give strong voting preference to politicians who pledge to implement agreed global measures simultaneously, so that no nation loses out.

The conversation moves from the prisoner's dilemma at the state level to subsidiarity, world government vs. world governance, multi-issue agreements, declining birth rates as a possible trigger crisis, and the developmental shift from nation-centric to world-centric thinking — making destructive competition an object we can finally act on.

🎙️ Guest – John BunzlJohn Bunzl is a businessman and global political activist who, in 2000, founded the International Simultaneous Policy Organisation and launched the SIMPOL campaign. He is a passionate and lucid speaker on global consciousness and global governance. Co-author of The SIMPOL Solution (with Nick Duffell).www.simpol.org

🔴 Topics

• The core mismatch: economics always runs ahead of governance — today the economy is global but governance is still national (the "200 referees on one football pitch")
• Why our votes feel meaningless: every government must keep its economy internationally competitive, narrowing real policy choices regardless of who wins
• The origin story: John's 1998 "altered state" insight at a family lunch — climate action would have to happen simultaneously — leading to the founding of SIMPOL
• How the SIMPOL mechanism works: citizens pledge strong preference to candidates who sign the pledge; no downside for politicians, since nothing is implemented until enough nations are on board
• The "domino effect": getting one candidate to sign pressures rivals not to put themselves at a competitive disadvantage — turning competition against itself
• Destructive global competition vs. healthy competition, and which problems it blocks: climate, corporate tax, AI regulation, financial markets, nuclear weapons, environmental standards
• Charlie Munger's "show me the incentives and I'll show you the outcome" applied to the global system
• Declining birth rates as a possible trigger crisis — and why funding pronatalist policies may require taxing multinationals globally and simultaneously
• Why the UN can't solve global problems: it's nation-centric by design, with no authority over its member states
• Why activist NGOs often miss the point — blaming politicians who can't act rather than the incentive structure
• The "subject vs. object" reframe: SIMPOL lets us make destructive competition an object we can see and act on, instead of being unconsciously driven by it
• Subsidiarity built into SIMPOL: only policies that can't be implemented unilaterally qualify — which actually enhances national sovereignty
• World government vs. world governance — "simul-culturalism," unity in diversity, and the cell/DNA/cancer biological analogy
• "All or sufficient nations": thresholds vary by issue, plus multi-issue package deals that allow trade-offs and compensation (e.g. a climate agreement funded by a global currency-transaction/Tobin tax)
• Why no concrete policy is defined yet: it must be developed democratically, once enough "pearls are on the string"
• The cognitive shift from nation-centric to world-centric thinking — and why even integral-minded people can lag on the civic/political line
• Conscious evolution: at every prior level an outside threat forced cooperation; at the global level there is none, so we must choose it deliberately (John Stewart)
• Where SIMPOL stands today: 100+ UK MPs signed (~20% of Parliament), plus MPs in Ireland, Germany, the European Parliament, Australia and Canada — achieved by a tiny team
• The closing call: real global citizenship means actually using your vote — check out simpol.org and sign the (free) pledge

🔗 Links & Resources

• 🌐 Simpol – official website & pledge
• 📕 John Bunzl & Nick Duffell – The SIMPOL Solution: A New Way to Think about Solving the World's Biggest Problems (2018)
• 🗣️ John Bunzl at TEDx Berlin: The Political Prisoner's Dilemma
• 💚 "The Global Politics of Love" – John Bunzl's 10-part series
• 📜 John Stewart – Evolutionary Manifesto (evolutionarymanifesto.com) (
• 🎧 Daniel Schmachtenberger – on the "Moloch dynamic" / generator function of the metacrisis
• 🎧 Nate Hagens – The Great Simplification podcast
• 💡 Stafford Beer – Viable System Model
• ☯️ Barry Johnson – Polarity Management (managing polarities vs. solving problems)
• 👊 Ken Wilber on SIMPOL: "the best thing we have, at this time, for anything resembling a genuine and functional world governing system"
• 🤑 Charlie Munger – "Show me the incentives and I will show you the outcome"

👥 Hosts

Dennis Wittrock – freelance trainer and consultant for collaboration and self-organization, certified Holacracy Master Coach, co-founder of the Integral European Conference, and former managing director of the Integral Forum Germany. Author of the book "Understanding Holacracy. Criticism - Research - Practice"

Tobias Klose – Consultant and facilitator of collaboration, conflict resolution, and organizational transformation. He connects the development of inner and relational maturity with resilient, effective structures. With a business background, founder and integral-systemic Agile and Holacracy Coach. 

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🇺🇸 This podcast is bilingual with episodes in German and English.
🇩🇪 Dieser Podcast ist zweisprachig mit Folgen auf Deutsch und Englisch.

🌍 www.denniswittrock.com and www.tobias-klose.de