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Hierarchies ... always tend toward centralization of control ... emergence of cliques and ... an aggrandizing clique. In the case of a hierarchical government, that means we end up being ruled by an elite clique,
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[[[Centralization is occurring in your local groups to a varying extent. Someone will keep minutes. Someone will answer a phone, Someone will chair a discussion or draft a motion. Someone will put on the kettle or sweep the floor. From our totally helpless infancy where we survive only with others' help we accept or dispute leadership and hierarchy as part of the inevitable division of labor among individuals in any society.]]]
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... . The US Constitution defines a very devolved (holon-like) society.
..."Those powers not granted specifically to the federal government are reserved to the states, or to the people...". Ever since then more and more power has been abrogated by Washington, ... the Constitution itself has been all but abandoned.
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[[[The cliques controling Washington do so by ensuring they control whatever most voters think is more important than the Constitution and controling how many voters think.
Your cooperative groups ar part of the Opposition -- quasi-cliques but less coordinated, more loose canons than cliques, increasingly involved in coping with seeking consensus on local, specialized or diversionary [clique-(enemy-)contrived] issues. I suggest the most steadily (tho slowly) growing coordinating movement for the Opposition may be SimPol, www.simpol.org , worth joining (free of charge) and, the moment it starts to be taken over by a clique, replacing by a more genuinely grass rots movement. ]]] .
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... Holon systems are simply hierarchies ... to make sure the holon rules are followed, we must centralize the policing..., the central holon ends up with the potential power to distort the system so as to enhance its power further. ...always will.
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[[[and your local small groups work like holons.]]]
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I suggest that the best way to address that problem is to begin ... at the local level:... direct democracy, without delegating decision-making authority to any mayor or council?"... There are 'consensus creating' tools, dialog processes, that have proven their effectiveness in small-group settings. ... beyond adversarial thinking, ... solutions that take everyone's concerns into account.
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[[[Agreed. Outstanding examples to my mind include sociocracy www.sociocracy.biz and the Mondragón Cooperative Corporation.]]]
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I am currently involved in several collaborations, seeking to make use of these dialog processes in various local communities. ... with the 'microcosm' concept. If you gather twelve 'random' people, ... give them an opportunity to 'dialog' together creatively,... are likely to resonate in the wider community.... we believe a 'sense of the community' will converge ... continue to refine and evolve that 'collective consensus'.
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[[[Agreed. But the bigger the social unit planning, managing, coordinating its constituent individuals, specialties, regions, projects, programs, levels of organization. the more imperative it is to have nested networks, not just of randomly empaneled citizens' think tanks or juries but incorporating liaison between related funcions and adjoining levels of administration. SimPol can help to the extent that it coordinates use of the most clearly surviving remnant of democracy in the US system -- a citizen's right to vote. ]]]
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