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02167: Re: [WDDM] Strategy

From: Doug Everingham <dnevrghm(at)powerup.com.au>
Date: Thu, 14 May 2009 16:54:11 +1000
Subject: Re: [WDDM] Strategy

Dear Fred, Jim and all,

I think the way to design and develop a transparent, answerable, less selfish/skewed system of administration involves spontaneous nested networks of relevant stakeholders with horizontal and vertical cross-membership liaisons.
Examples are dscussed in  http://www.sociocracy.biz and
http://ssrn.com/author=26239 (e.g. concerning the Mondragón Cooperative Corporation).
There is likely to be mutual support between such movements and  www.simpol.org.

–Doug Everingham
====
From:   fredgohlke(at)verizon.net
Subject: [WDDM] Strategy
Date: 11 May 2009 1:44:54 AM
To:   wddm@world-wide-democracy.net
Reply-To:   wddm@world-wide-democracy.net

Good Morning, Jim

Thank you for your letter.  Your outline of some of the failures of our current so-called 'democracies' is interesting.  Since you asked, I live in the United States and my country is not devoid of the problems you describe.  Indeed, none of us have exclusive entitlement to those ills.

Your letter and the enclosures put strong emphasis on Referendum and Recall.  They are excellent goals and I heartily applaud and encourage those who seek to attain them.

The Swiss Constitution you sent sets forth many noble tenets that no-one favoring democracy could deplore.  However, it also has several provisions that seem (to me) to be legislative issues rather than constitutional ones.  In any case, its biggest shortcoming, in my view, is in ignoring the fact that you cannot legislate morality.  If you do not have principled people in government, proclamations (as in Article 5, paragraph 3) that "State organs and private persons must act in good faith" are but words.  I found no provisions that fostered the election of the kind of people who can be expected to act in good faith.

In the Direct Democracy book you forwarded to me, the authors, Jos Verhulst & Arjen Nijeboer, describe the sorry state of nominal democracy in Germany, Great Britain, Belgium, and The Netherlands.  I have little doubt the list is much longer since no-one seems ready to address the role our tendency to pursue our own interest plays in shaping our political systems, or to accept the need to integrate a method of harnessing that trait.  A brief look at the inception of the system in my own country will illustrate the point.

The United States has long claimed the title of The Cradle of Democracy.  Indeed, at it's founding, it was called The Noble Experiment because of its break with the royalty-based systems of Europe.  Not many have any idea how that Noble Experiment was subverted, but it is quite easy to understand.

Although those who wrote our Constitution tried to avoid the partisanship that was rampant in the country at that time, politicians in a position to do so institutionalized their advantage by forming political parties and, in the several states (which retained all rights not specifically granted to the Federal government), enacting laws that gave parties the right to advance candidates for public office.  That simple, and, at the time, seemingly innocuous, set of circumstances laid the foundation for the ills we endure today.

The important thing to recognize is that those who instituted our present system did no more than any of us would do, if we were in their position.  What they did was not vile.  It is no different than seeking tenure or forming a union.  They simply devised a way to solidify their position.  I doubt anyone anticipated at the time that the upshot of their acts would lead inexorably to the system we lament.

With regard to your proposed "multi-pronged attack on the established political systems", I'd like to comment on the 'real alternative' you cite in your first item.  It is my feeling that we have not yet devised a real alternative.  There is no shortage of proposals, but I haven't seen one that gives any hint of how it is going to harness people's tendency to pursue their own interest.  This failure is a serious, indeed, in my opinion, fatal, flaw.

The question is not, "What rules can we make to insure democratic governments.", it is "How can we devise an electoral process that enables us to find the best of our people and raise them to positions of political leadership."

That is the crux of the matter.  There is no shortage of good, principled people in our society.  What we lack is a means of identifying them and electing them as our representatives.

I have developed several ideas along this line and have had the privilege of detailed discussions with a few people, most notably my younger brother who provided breadth and academic support for the concepts, and Roy Daine in Sefton, Great Britain and Kristofer Munsterhjelm in (I believe) Norway who provided significant enhancements to the concepts we discussed.  I could point you to some of the discussions, but believe we will be better served by jointly developing the concepts.  That will encourage a broader range of participation and challenges.

I've passed my 80th birthday and feel the pressure of time.  Maybe a few, very few, thoughtful people are the most we can ever expect to meet in our lifetime.  Perhaps I've already had my quota, but, given your insight into the evils of our current political infrastructure, perhaps you would be willing to consider the possibility that the real root of the problem is the poor quality of the people our political infrastructure allows us to elect?

Would you be willing to focus on conceiving an electoral method that harnesses our tendency to serve our own interest, even if we must acknowledge that we may not accomplish it in our lifetime?  We've been digging the hole we're in 200 years.  We won't dig out of it quickly ... or easily.  Even so, I believe we can, with careful thought and hard work, design an electoral framework that will produce representatives marked by their intelligence and integrity rather than, as at present, the reverse.

Fred Gohlke


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