Hi Thomas,
I'll summarise this thread by quoting part of my original posting:
(KH)
> My contention is that we need a policy forum type of political system which
> will engage all who are interested and that the present sort of
> mass-voting, politician-showman type of democracy is on its way out. It
> will certainly reach the end of the road when the present 18 - 30-year old
> generation reaches middle age and is then followed by another alienated
> cohort. This decline is likely to stabilise when only the middle-middle and
> upper-middle classes bother to vote�20-25% of the electorate?�in order to
> keep their privileges going.
You replied with:
(TL)
<<<<
Right on Keith. One of the singular things that we need and has become
apparent as a possibility is the engagement of ideas within a policy forum.
I shudder to think what might happen to politicians and bureaucrats should
that have to expose their thinking on Lists like this for scrutiny by
intelligent and concerned individuals who are outside the normal flows of
power. And yet that is what is needed.
>>>>
And then you continued with a wry description of a "government list set up
by a
Crown Minister and a number of 'experts' who invited Canadians to give input
on work, work related issues, philosophy, etc." which actually turned out
to be a glass wall from which nothing emerged from the government side.
I don't envisage that most policy forums (if they develop as I conceive
them) would be net-based. Many of them would develop at local level and
deal with local matters, even to the extent of having executive power --
for example, deciding on contracts for the collection of local household
waste, and then assessing the quality of the work. But many of them would
also deal with national policies and the net would be a useful medium for
much discussion.
My suggestion for policy forums doesn't follow from some underlying
'desirable' principle, such as 'small is beautiful' or 'subsidiarity' (oft
quoted by EC politicians and bureaucrats), but from the fracturing effect
that already seems to be gathering pace in modern society.
The increasing complexity and diversity of modern life means that the 19th
century concept of a pyramid-shaped government elected by a mass electorate
and, usually, having to deal with only one or two predominant matters of
policy at any one time, is not functioning efficiently any more.
Traditional goverment, with its hierarchical, up-down channels of
information, is becoming increasingly unable to cope with the sheer volume
and complexity of information that is generated from below and from all sides.
Because the occasional single vote of a citizen no longer has value or
effect, we have seen the emergence of powerful interest groups which are
more able to attract the attention of the top politicians. It is the
arguments from these which are increasingly guiding the decisions of
governments.
Some pressure groups are visible, many are not. Some are corrupt, because
they secretly give money or promises to government politicians (for their
private use, or for their parties), many are not. But, whereas hierarchical
information flows are clogging up, lateral information flows (including the
medium of the internet) are not. Increasingly, even the most secret and
devious interest groups are being exposed by the net, the newspapers, and
television.
It therefore seems to me that interest groups themselves will be forced to
become democratised in due course, not because of government edict, but
from sheer competition as interest groups vie with one another for public
attention. So this is where I see policy forums coming from.
However, the big problem with all this is that only a proportion of the
'public' will have the necessary knowledge and articulateness to take part
in policy forums -- the same proportion (the middle-to-upper middle class)
to which the mass electorate is shrinking anyway.
FWers will know what I think is the only possible solution to this, so I
won't bore readers by repeating it here.
Keith Hudson
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�Writers used to write because they had something to say; now they write in
order to discover if they have something to say.� John D. Barrow
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Keith Hudson, Bath, England; e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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