I wanted to title this something different, but worried that my chosen title might cause problems entering the United States in the future so this is the new title. It's the greatest title. No one has ever written a title better than this. (All titles unrelated to content).

Let me be honest. I am finding this difficult. Now, I like a challenge, a stretch, a bit of an obstacle course. “Write about the decline of the British Empire in the form of a narrative poem in which your protagonist is an artichoke” I read, and flex my fingers. “Write a haiku to evoke the sensation of sibilance using only the first half of the alphabet.” “Well”, I think to myself, “this should be fun.” But “write about a system that isn’t working”? A system that isn’t working? Now? In 2026? ONE system? My favourite system that isn’t working? The sexiest system that isn’t working? The one giving me the most angst day to day? The one giving me the most existential dread? I am, as I say, finding this difficult. I will own that I have contemplated writing a thousand words on why the steady “all on” setting on my fairy lights is the EIGHTH of seven options which must be sequentially activated to get there, because that is a system that some fool came up with and it definitely doesn’t work, and now who is paying the price, eh? But how can I write about my fairy lights when…. When…. When….

Okay, for a start, how do we define a system as non-working? Here in the UK in 2026, in my wardrobe I have enough clothes to manage the emergency evacuation of a mid-sized meeting of the Women’s Institute, assuming all members are roughly a UK size 10-12. In my kitchen, I have enough food that were those women in need of feeding as well as clothing, we could definitely whip up a sufficient soup. The point I am making, is that I don’t just have enough. I have excess. I wear four pairs of trousers. I probably own fourteen. I eat… well, I eat fairly constantly actually, but I still have food that goes to waste, bread going mouldy, cake growing stale.

I have excess, not ONLY because I never throw anything out, though that is, obviously, an issue. But because I CAN. I can afford to buy fourteen pairs of trousers. Trousers, at least the ones I buy, are fairly cheap, and I am, on a global scale, reasonably wealthy. I can have as many trousers as I like! So the system is working, yes?

Similarly, I can have strawberries and mango whenever I want, even in winter. If I wanted to, I could buy a chicken every Sunday, fish on Friday, and drink fresh cow’s milk on my cornflakes daily. There is no call for me to go hungry. Definitely, the system is working.

Isn’t it?

Good, so we can all agree the food supply chains are working and the fashion economy is working. How about education? Is education working? I can’t, in honesty, say that school was wall-to-wall enjoyment for me, but here I am, a rudimentary understanding of photosynthesis and several pertinent quotes from Romeo and Juliet easily to hand, being economically productive in society. So, evidence that education is working, right?

Health. Is the healthcare system working? Here in the UK, I have not died, even though I have had several infections which should have finished me off. So, working. Energy? I have a good stable supply. Working. Government? Well, all those other cogs are still turning, so it must be working, yes?

Possibly. And I don’t think any citizen of 2026 would be surprised to consider, possibly no.

So where is the line? The lights ARE still on, I AM still alive, I DID come out of school knowing more than I went in with, I CAN eat a varied and sufficient diet and I CAN affordably look hip to the groove while I’m doing it – well, I CAN. But I don’t. These systems all do work for me. Yes, they demonstrably work even better for some other people, but they do, largely, work for me. But I can see that these systems are not working every time, for everybody. I can see people being exploited, the natural world being decimated, animals living lives of suffering. I can see, with painful proximity, the education system damaging some young people and the healthcare system failing to meet needs. I am very aware of governmental systems which seem to work very well for their leaderships, and very much less so for the majority of the populace. But does that mean the system isn’t working? There are always winners and losers, right? Surely, if the general trajectory is towards betterment, then the system must be working.

Of course, I have been somewhat reductive for illustrative purposes. My life, I’m sad to say, is not a continuous bed of roses. Or perhaps it is. Beautiful, flagrant blooms in warm and sumptuous hues, black spot, downy mildew, and pernicious bloody thorns. However, what I can’t ignore is this. On a day-to-day basis I am relatively advantaged by global inequality. I am advantaged by policies which prioritise economic growth over environmental protections. I am advantaged by social systems prioritising individualism. I am advantaged, in the here and now, by ignoring the reality that taking advantage means, well, taking advantage.

Now I have a sense of social justice. Oh yes. I feel quite strongly about it, let me tell you. And I will gladly tell you. But am I willing to cede my advantage? Am I, for example, willing to pay for a pair of trousers made using ethical employment and environmental practices? You know what? I’m good for trousers actually. In fact, faced with the pricey pants, I may tell you that it is environmentally unjustifiable to buy new trousers at all when I already have trousers. Unless of course I DO need new trousers - a natural consequence of all that eating I have been up to – in which case, I may tell you that a bad job is better than NO job, and cheaper trousers is supporting disadvantaged women in developing nations. In fact, I will tell you whatever I need to hear. The systems are complex enough, intersectional enough, that there really are “alternative facts” available. Humans are innate story tellers, and we don’t let that talent go to waste.

And so here we are again, with our agile story making. How do we define a system as not working? Or perhaps the question should be WHO defines a system as not working. Is it the calf torn from his mother’s teat before his first day is out? No, it’s the farmer, and the farmer pays his bills with milk. Those who are disadvantaged by a system generally are only too aware that it doesn’t work for them, but more often than not the people who it DOES work for are the people who get to declare it a success, worthy of maintenance, or something to be re-worked.

We are fortunate, really, that many of us ARE willing to cede some advantage in the pursuit of a better whole. For many of us there is a tipping point beyond which a system that gives us what we want at the expense of our moral integrity will not be deemed a success. Even when empathy fails, there are some stories more dear to us than others, and we tend to want “I am a good person” to be more true than “I have twelve slaves and a lion-skin rug I shot myself”. However, the fact remains that if the system works for us, we are likely to be more advantaged as a result, and the more advantage we have, the more likely we are to have some sway in the fate of the systems that gave it to us. You see the loop. Socioeconomic systems empower those who have the power to define a system as working or not working. And this may be the common strand across systems large and small. Generally, however shitty a system is for one person, it’s working for somebody else, and that somebody is probably controlling the wheel.

So. Write about a system that isn’t working? I can’t choose ONE micro-system without recognition that each family of cogs turns and is turned by the others. And so I present to you this somewhat clunky “system for deciding what changes and what stays the same”, more nebulously perhaps “power”, the crank handle, the wheel, the switch that starts the gears. Do I have a solution? Of course not. Occasionally, in seeking a solution, I reach the conclusion that the achievement of systems which work moderately well for most people could only come about if the people who hold power are disinterested in the way in which their decisions impact themselves. But we all know the saying, don’t we. Power corrupts.

Perhaps, I think, one day our AI overlords will foster a fairer society. But then I remember who taught them. I can’t blame us. We are evolved to compete for resources and social esteem. We are exceptionally good at it. So am I cynical that we can ever move beyond concept and into operation of a system that can unanimously be defined as working? Absolutely. But am I cynical about us, humans? We are what we are. Fearful, socially-manipulative, resource-grasping mini-megalomaniacs, wired to survive. But some of the qualities that serve us so well there have a flip side too. We are empaths. We are thinkers. We are inventors. In a system with eight billion human parts alone, we really are never going to get it right. But dear Lord, just watch us try.