Friends, There's been a lot going on since I got back from my tour. There are some very promising initiatives underway, regarding community democratic processes, some of which I've mentioned in posts and some I haven't. It's been hard to keep up. There are some very useful email dialogs going on between process innovators and community organizers in various places. There's even been some favorable interest in the proposal I posted earlier, the 'Community Empowerment Project' (http://cyberjournal.org/show_archives/?id=1222&lists=cj) In the course of these conversations, I've had to reformulate (and refine) my ideas, based on who I've been communicating with. I'd like to share one particular 'formulation' that I posted to a democracy-theory list (edited slightly since). rkm --- From history and from other observations I've learned that hierarchies cannot be tamed. Hierarchies have certain innate dynamics, and they always tend toward centralization of control, self-perpetuation, and aggrandizement. Part of this process involves the nature of organizational politics, and the emergence of cliques and networks within organizations. Within the aggrandizing organization arises an aggrandizing clique. In the case of a hierarchical government, that means we end up being ruled by an elite clique, overtly or covertly. Such has been the story of civilization for its entire 6,000 year history. The US provides a perfect example of these aggrandizing tendencies. The US Constitution defines a very devolved society. The individual states are very close to sovereign, with the powers of the federal government strictly limited..."Those powers not granted herein specifically to the federal government are hereby reserved to the states, or to the people themselves". Ever since then more and more power has been abrogated by Washington, and now we've finally reached the point where the Constitution itself has been all but abandoned. This is why I cannot go along with those who advocate 'holarchy' as a solution to hierarchy. Holon systems are simply hierarchies that we hope will behave in a prescribed way. In order to make sure the holon rules are followed, we must centralize the policing of those rules. Hence, the central holon ends up with the potential power to distort the system so as to enhance its power further. And so it goes, always has and always will. The core problem of democratic theory, in my view, is to find out how we can eliminate the need for hierarchy altogether. I suggest that a good way to approach that question is to begin by asking it first at the local level: "Is it possible for a community to govern itself by direct democracy, without delegating decision-making authority to any mayor or council?" If the answer to this question is 'No', then certainly direct democracy is not possible on any larger scale either. In that case, there is no way to eliminate hierarchy. Our only course is to try to tame it, and do a better job of it than did the Founding Fathers. I have considerable reason to believe, however, that the answer is 'Yes', that direct democracy is possible at the local level. There are 'consensus creating' tools, dialog processes, that have proven their effectiveness in small-group settings. These 'harmonization' processes enable ordinary people to move beyond adversarial thinking, and work together collaboratively to find creative and wise solutions that take everyone's concerns into account. I am currently involved in several collaborations, seeking to make use of these dialog processes in various local communities. We believe it may be possible for these processes, used appropriately and inclusively, to awaken an ongoing sense of 'We the People' consciousness, where the community as a whole will be able to set its own agendas. One of the mechanisms we are using has to do with the microcosm concept. If you gather twelve 'random' people -- a cross section of the community -- and give them an opportunity to dialog together creatively, the ideas and proposals they come up with are likely to resonate in the wider community. Using this and other mechanisms, over an extended period of time, we believe a 'sense of the community' is likely to converge out of the harmonization processes. More important, once achieved, the dialog processes can continue to maintain and evolve that 'collective consensus' over time, serving as the policy-making process for the community. The process of electing city officials would naturally be transformed under such a regime. Elections would become a matter of selecting people to administer the policies determined by the people themselves, on an ongoing basis. I believe these are very important experiments. If they fail, then we will learn something useful about the obstacles that stand in the way of achieving a democratic society. If they succeed...the mind boggles at the potential consequences! If such a self-governing community came into existence, in a modern society, I expect there would be lots of interest from community activists all over the world. Certainly the experiment would be repeated, in at least a few places, and the chances of success would be much higher with an available 'working model' to look at. The more successes, the more widespread interest, and so on... a positive feedback loop. All the while, of course, our collective understanding of how to 'do democracy' would be evolving. The positive feedback loop would be accelerated by another dimension of this process: the enlightened initiatives we can expect from self-governing communities. As a 'collective consensus' emerges, that consensus is around sensible, creative solutions to important community problems. When we look at places in South America where consensus processes have been used successfully, we often see cities that receive international acclaim for their urban quality of life, and their innovations. Not only would individual communities transform themselves in creative ways, but such communities could be expected to network and to collaborate in creative ways as well. One can imagine direct relationships between urban areas and agricultural areas, benefiting both economically. Regional transformations would become feasible, with all the synergies that brings with it, and mechanisms would evolve for achieving regional democratic governance without delegation of power, without hierarchy. Earlier I said: The core problem of democratic theory, in my view, is to find out how we can eliminate the need for hierarchy. I believe that in this case the theory will be written after the fact, unless you can call my few paragraphs above 'a theory'. In any case, I believe that hierarchy can only be abandoned by creating democracy from the ground up -- one way or another. I have faith that it is possible. I think it is an idea whose time has come. rkm -- -------------------------------------------------------- Escaping the Matrix website http://escapingthematrix.org/ cyberjournal website http://cyberjournal.org subscribe cyberjournal list mailto:•••@••.••• Posting archives http://cyberjournal.org/show_archives/ Blogs: cyberjournal forum http://cyberjournal-rkm.blogspot.com/ Achieving real democracy http://harmonization.blogspot.com/ for readers of ETM http://matrixreaders.blogspot.com/ Community Empowerment http://empowermentinitiatives.blogspot.com/ Blogger made easy http://quaylargo.com/help/ezblogger.html
