For an interesting 21st century bottom up alternative see liquid/delegative democacy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delegative_democracy and particularly http://www.brynosaurus.com/deleg/deleg.pdf
M -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Keith Hudson Sent: Monday, February 04, 2013 5:20 AM To: 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION' Subject: [Futurework] The coming democracy of power groups In politics and business -- and, indeed, in any organization of serious intent -- significant decisions are always taken by a small group at the top. It's a delusion to imagine that our much applauded one-person one-vote at general elections gives us a workable democracy. It doesn't. It gives us a political system in which most people are disinterested most of the time and will only vote for the party which can offer the best benefits to their particular class (or their particular job or income stream), not the country as a whole. Most people are only interested in politics in so far as it affects their tax rate or their welfare benefit. But, if democratic institutions such as the House of Commons or Congress don't live up to their original democratic expectations then, in a paradoxical way, small groups do. In today's complex society we have many quite powerful small groups who not only take decisions to benefit themselves but also try become as infljuential as possible in the private deliberations of the most powerful small group of them all -- the three or four individuals who comprise the small group which the are closest to the government's (or MNC's) leader. For example, in the UK today there are probably a dozen such small groups who are more or less in competition for David Cameron's personal attention and favour. These would include a small group of the most senior people who are judges or civil servants or media personal or food supermarkets or airport/plane or railways or farmers or oil drillers or armed services or sports or royal courtiers or ecologists or accountants or medics. Go back as recently as a century. How many small power-groups then? A lot fewer. Maybe half-a dozen. Go back another 300 or 400 years and we have a smaller number still -- for example: a small group of the leading land-owning aristocrats (all trying to angle their daughters into the royal family!), a small group of leading churchmen/monastics, a small group of goldsmiths, So let's go back further to pre-agricultural times, and further still to the earliest time when man's predecessors were thrust into the savannah from a rainfores. There we have the ultimate -- one group only, tne power group being only two or three. One small group containing, if anything, little more than one extended family. There'd be the grandfather with maybe his brother, his two sons and a daughter plus two or three other women who'd come over from other groups when they want to partner a male and raise a family. (Incest taboo in order to avoid in-breeding.) 'Democratic' practice as we have known it has nowhere to go now. There isn't the faintest chance that governments, we we know them today will ever be able to pay their national debts. However, as increasing number of specialized power groups develop then something resembling Athenian market square politics is actually taking place beneath the surface. Keith _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
