Taking Democracy from Households to Neighbourhoods
By John Taylor; 2009 June 26, Rahmat 02, 166 BE
Everybody spouts unqualified, uncritical praise for anything to do with the word "democracy," yet there has been pitifully little research and active experimentation on how to improve it. A couple of years ago this Badi' Blog proposed an LBC, or Local Broadcasting Cooperative, in an essay called, "Cosmopolites for a Local Broadcasting Cooperative." (2007 Aug 01, http://badiblog.blogspot.com/2007/08/lbc.html) Here I suggested that every locality have its own broadcasting network spanning several media (radio, television, local theaters, internet) that would not just publicize local initiatives and activities but also offer a forum for face-to-face consultation and a forum for artists, playwrights and other performers. Such an open, public broadcaster would encourage expression in an area that is now a cultural and political desert.
My latest thinking is that I was being too vague when I spoke of "local." Now that I have gone over Comenius's master plan, the Panorthosia, I realize that we do not just need stronger local government, we actually could add onto the existing setup several more levels of governance below, starting with household government, proceeding to neighbourhoods and in urban areas perhaps going from there to several higher levels of government as well. This would be based on a general formula based on population and geographical distances that would determine where each new level of local organization is erected. For this I am contemplating a new form of democracy called "household democracy."
In a household democracy, instead of individuals voting on, say, the neighbourhood level, its constituents might be entire institutions. A neighbourhood government would be based not on "one man, one vote," but "one family, one vote." And instead of leadership by individuals, households might lead as well. Here is one idea on how it might work. Say there are fifty households in a neighbourhood. Every few years an election is held by secret ballot to choose the neighbourhood's "first family." This first family would work with career civil servants to administer the neighbourhood.
If problems arise, measures can be invented to keep strong individuals from dominating households or ambitious families from having undue influence. The problem of tyrannical individuals might be reduced by a "super-secret ballot," that is, not only an individual's vote within the family is confidential but the entire family's collective vote is kept secret as well, even among family members. Social pressure can be used not to talk about who voted for what. That way, after the voting only the final result of the neighbourhood election is released to the public. Nobody would know which families voted for or against the first family.
Several techniques might alleviate incumbency, where one or more families form a compact or dynasty by winning several successive elections. One way would be to make the same family ineligible after more than one or two terms of office. Another idea is to alternate elected terms with a rotating term. For example, families in a neighbourhood might vote a first family in for a three year term, then the family at the top of a list of those that had not had a recent chance at serving as first family would take over for a second three year term. This way there would be an election only every six years, and plenty of chance for voters to compare various new and alternate familial styles of administration.
At this point, I want to return to what the essay I referred to at the beginning was intended to help solve, the problem of the obscurity of local governance. I have lived in a small town for twelve years, and still I know only the Mayor, Marie Trainer, by name. There are several regional counsellors under her who remain anonymous in my mind, in spite of the fact that they are notoriously contentious (their confrontations with native protesters in Caledonia has been given nation-wide publicity over the past decade). Although I am theoretically allowed to vote them in every few years, from any rational point of view my vote is useless. How can you vote for somebody you do not know from Adam? In what sense are you making a choice?
The solution to this that I proposed before was to institute an LBC, a local media outlet to shift the focus of information sharing away from the center towards the periphery. In this essay, I wrote:
"We require a local identity far more than a national one. We need local contact, more, I daresay, than a world identity. A local broadcaster should be built into of the infrastructure of the local fact, it should be considered every bit as important as roads, sewers, electric wires and telephone and broadband cables. It should cut across all media, radio, television, the internet, covering live events, presentation and other productions in parks and theatres."
I also suggested that the reason that elite, spectator sports have become so popular, sophisticated, specialized and over-developed is, for one thing, that there is plenty of scope for the amateur on the local level. Every male in this culture is expected to have some involvement in amateur sports. There is no such expectation for what I call the Comenian Bird, politics (the bird's head), religion (one wing), and science (the other wing). There is no expectation for local, amateur political involvement, and this has been worsened by the decline of the family as a socio-economic force. There is no such expectation for religious involvement (one result: in the U.S., suicide has ousted murder as a cause of death) or for scientific investigation. I wrote:
"We are missing out on an entire dimension of human culture, the amateur. The amateur level can only thrive at the local, neighbourhood level. We have ample amateur sports, we make sure to involve young people at all ages in participatory sporting events (but, sadly, not older people), but when it comes to the avocations and professions that interface with the public, well, you are either a professional or you are nothing, you are either big time or a no-time wannabe. The local, amateur level is sparse, struggling, and unsupported... Hollywood and big media broadcasters bleed billions of dollars, and all the talent, away from the local level."
Every dollar that we spend on a video game, Hollywood movie or cable broadcast is money that could support cultural activity on the missing levels of governance, the family and neighbourhood, and the obscure levels of governance, town, city and regional. It is true that these sums, staggering as they are, are dwarfed by individual vices like graft, betting, drugs and alcohol, and by collective vices like armaments and lobbying. As these vices are brought under control, we should see to it that the monies they have leached out of peoples' pockets are directed back to vivifying several layers of local and amateur activity.
I have mentioned several alternate ways to organize democracy on the household and neighbourhood level. If we strengthened local and amateur cultural activity, money would start to flow into these fledgling institutions. As they learn to fly, their wings, religion and science, would need to become stronger.
Religious groups could improve their effectiveness in bolstering the spirits of their members and displaying spiritual values for all on the local level. They would prime us all for long-term growth in virtue for the next life. They could animate charitable activity and remove problems like poverty and disease.
Like religion, science can do a great deal to bolster the political structure. Investment could be directed to research which of any number of types of democracy is most productive. I mentioned a couple of possibilities for this at the start of this essay. Local and amateur scientists might well ask questions like:
What jobs should be left to appointed experts and what need to be elected by general vote? Should experts be appointed, or elected, and if so, by the general population or by their qualified peers? Which of the many possible types and variants of democracy would work best on the local level? Answers to such questions would be very useful in organizing both households and neighbourhoods.
John Taylor
email: badijet@gmail.com
blog: http://badiblog.blogspot.com/
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