Hereís a wacky idea: How about making government a model for natural, responsible, community-based sustainable enterprise? Yes, of course, government is currently bureaucratic, unresponsive, and inefficient. And itís not especially effective either.
What if we were to reinvent government in a way that would work? The first thing we would have to do is completely decentralize it. People would self-select themselves into physically contiguous communities of, say, 150-1000 people. This would be the only level of government, and the only authority able to collect money from its members, and it would have the authority to do so in any of a variety of equitable ways, drawing from a set of models predetermined by a representative assembly of people from all communities. It would also have the responsibility to provide all essential services and (if it so chose) some optional additional services for the community members (the lists of which, and standards for which, would also be set by the representative assembly). It would have the option, for each service, of sourcing each service it provided from within the community, or of jointly sourcing the service with adjacent communities from suppliers within that group of communities. So, for example, a community might have its own group of resident family doctors, teachers, its own energy supply co-op, local food co-op, building and road maintenance co-op and community centre, but might jointly contract with neighbouring communities for hospital, long-term care, university, water supply, communications and other services that cannot be effectively provided in every community. All essential services: food, water, home construction, roads, energy, health care, education, social services, communications, resource stewardship and environmental protection, would be collectively owned, managed and regulated by the community on a not-for-profit basis. People (other than unpaid volunteers) providing these services would have to live in the community or, in the case of jointly sourced services, live in one of the communities contracting jointly for the services. This is a self-governance model. It precludes the need for national, state and regional governments. It is a model that is based on networks and connection, not hierarchy and power. Such a model poses several challenges:
So there is still a need for a national body to enforce inter-community regulations and to collect and invest the tax on ‘bads’ and redistribute the tax on excessive wealth. But it would not be a political, law-making organization. As long as we agreed to abide by certain sustainable principles (by which many indigenous peoples have lived for millennia), principles of responsibility, equity and stewardship, we should not need any new laws or regulations once the regime is in place. Some will argue this is just a re-invention of communism. But this model is, in fact, much closer to anarchism than any other -ism. No one likes big, impersonal, bureaucratic government removed from the problems it promulgates laws for, and largely irresponsible and unresponsive to those who it supposedly serves. This model provides for as little government as is needed for a healthy, sustainable world, but no less. And as much as possible, this little government is as close to the people as possible, so those making the decisions cannot escape their consequences by flying to a distant capital city. I don’t really think it’s possible to move from where we are now to this model, though it’s fun to ponder. I’m not even sure that model intentional communities that proved how well this model worked would be allowed to secede from existing levels of hierarchical government oversight and go their own collective, networked way. But just maybe this model might work in the society that remains after civilization’s fall. At that point, there will be no government to replace and do battle with. The survivors will be much fewer than we have to contend with today, with much less squabbling over land and other resources made scarce by human overpopulation and wastefulness. They will be looking for a better wayto live. This might give them some good ideas how to start. Categories: Community-Based Society, and Alternative Economies
|
Navigation
Collapsniks
Albert Bates (US)
Andrew Nikiforuk (CA)
Brutus (US)
Carolyn Baker (US)*
Catherine Ingram (US)
Chris Hedges (US)
Dahr Jamail (US)
Dean Spillane-Walker (US)*
Derrick Jensen (US)
Dougald & Paul (IE/SE)*
Erik Michaels (US)
Gail Tverberg (US)
Guy McPherson (US)
Honest Sorcerer
Janaia & Robin (US)*
Jem Bendell (UK)
Mari Werner
Michael Dowd (US)*
Nate Hagens (US)
Paul Heft (US)*
Post Carbon Inst. (US)
Resilience (US)
Richard Heinberg (US)
Robert Jensen (US)
Roy Scranton (US)
Sam Mitchell (US)
Tim Morgan (UK)
Tim Watkins (UK)
Umair Haque (UK)
William Rees (CA)
XrayMike (AU)
Radical Non-Duality
Tony Parsons
Jim Newman
Tim Cliss
Andreas Müller
Kenneth Madden
Emerson Lim
Nancy Neithercut
Rosemarijn Roes
Frank McCaughey
Clare Cherikoff
Ere Parek, Izzy Cloke, Zabi AmaniEssential Reading
Archive by Category
My Bio, Contact Info, Signature Posts
About the Author (2023)
My Circles
E-mail me
--- My Best 200 Posts, 2003-22 by category, from newest to oldest ---
Collapse Watch:
Hope — On the Balance of Probabilities
The Caste War for the Dregs
Recuperation, Accommodation, Resilience
How Do We Teach the Critical Skills
Collapse Not Apocalypse
Effective Activism
'Making Sense of the World' Reading List
Notes From the Rising Dark
What is Exponential Decay
Collapse: Slowly Then Suddenly
Slouching Towards Bethlehem
Making Sense of Who We Are
What Would Net-Zero Emissions Look Like?
Post Collapse with Michael Dowd (video)
Why Economic Collapse Will Precede Climate Collapse
Being Adaptable: A Reminder List
A Culture of Fear
What Will It Take?
A Future Without Us
Dean Walker Interview (video)
The Mushroom at the End of the World
What Would It Take To Live Sustainably?
The New Political Map (Poster)
Beyond Belief
Complexity and Collapse
Requiem for a Species
Civilization Disease
What a Desolated Earth Looks Like
If We Had a Better Story...
Giving Up on Environmentalism
The Hard Part is Finding People Who Care
Going Vegan
The Dark & Gathering Sameness of the World
The End of Philosophy
A Short History of Progress
The Boiling Frog
Our Culture / Ourselves:
A CoVid-19 Recap
What It Means to be Human
A Culture Built on Wrong Models
Understanding Conservatives
Our Unique Capacity for Hatred
Not Meant to Govern Each Other
The Humanist Trap
Credulous
Amazing What People Get Used To
My Reluctant Misanthropy
The Dawn of Everything
Species Shame
Why Misinformation Doesn't Work
The Lab-Leak Hypothesis
The Right to Die
CoVid-19: Go for Zero
Pollard's Laws
On Caste
The Process of Self-Organization
The Tragic Spread of Misinformation
A Better Way to Work
The Needs of the Moment
Ask Yourself This
What to Believe Now?
Rogue Primate
Conversation & Silence
The Language of Our Eyes
True Story
May I Ask a Question?
Cultural Acedia: When We Can No Longer Care
Useless Advice
Several Short Sentences About Learning
Why I Don't Want to Hear Your Story
A Harvest of Myths
The Qualities of a Great Story
The Trouble With Stories
A Model of Identity & Community
Not Ready to Do What's Needed
A Culture of Dependence
So What's Next
Ten Things to Do When You're Feeling Hopeless
No Use to the World Broken
Living in Another World
Does Language Restrict What We Can Think?
The Value of Conversation Manifesto Nobody Knows Anything
If I Only Had 37 Days
The Only Life We Know
A Long Way Down
No Noble Savages
Figments of Reality
Too Far Ahead
Learning From Nature
The Rogue Animal
How the World Really Works:
Making Sense of Scents
An Age of Wonder
The Truth About Ukraine
Navigating Complexity
The Supply Chain Problem
The Promise of Dialogue
Too Dumb to Take Care of Ourselves
Extinction Capitalism
Homeless
Republicans Slide Into Fascism
All the Things I Was Wrong About
Several Short Sentences About Sharks
How Change Happens
What's the Best Possible Outcome?
The Perpetual Growth Machine
We Make Zero
How Long We've Been Around (graphic)
If You Wanted to Sabotage the Elections
Collective Intelligence & Complexity
Ten Things I Wish I'd Learned Earlier
The Problem With Systems
Against Hope (Video)
The Admission of Necessary Ignorance
Several Short Sentences About Jellyfish
Loren Eiseley, in Verse
A Synopsis of 'Finding the Sweet Spot'
Learning from Indigenous Cultures
The Gift Economy
The Job of the Media
The Wal-Mart Dilemma
The Illusion of the Separate Self, and Free Will:
No Free Will, No Freedom
The Other Side of 'No Me'
This Body Takes Me For a Walk
The Only One Who Really Knew Me
No Free Will — Fightin' Words
The Paradox of the Self
A Radical Non-Duality FAQ
What We Think We Know
Bark Bark Bark Bark Bark Bark Bark
Healing From Ourselves
The Entanglement Hypothesis
Nothing Needs to Happen
Nothing to Say About This
What I Wanted to Believe
A Continuous Reassemblage of Meaning
No Choice But to Misbehave
What's Apparently Happening
A Different Kind of Animal
Happy Now?
This Creature
Did Early Humans Have Selves?
Nothing On Offer Here
Even Simpler and More Hopeless Than That
Glimpses
How Our Bodies Sense the World
Fragments
What Happens in Vagus
We Have No Choice
Never Comfortable in the Skin of Self
Letting Go of the Story of Me
All There Is, Is This
A Theory of No Mind
Creative Works:
Mindful Wanderings (Reflections) (Archive)
A Prayer to No One
Frogs' Hollow (Short Story)
We Do What We Do (Poem)
Negative Assertions (Poem)
Reminder (Short Story)
A Canadian Sorry (Satire)
Under No Illusions (Short Story)
The Ever-Stranger (Poem)
The Fortune Teller (Short Story)
Non-Duality Dude (Play)
Your Self: An Owner's Manual (Satire)
All the Things I Thought I Knew (Short Story)
On the Shoulders of Giants (Short Story)
Improv (Poem)
Calling the Cage Freedom (Short Story)
Rune (Poem)
Only This (Poem)
The Other Extinction (Short Story)
Invisible (Poem)
Disruption (Short Story)
A Thought-Less Experiment (Poem)
Speaking Grosbeak (Short Story)
The Only Way There (Short Story)
The Wild Man (Short Story)
Flywheel (Short Story)
The Opposite of Presence (Satire)
How to Make Love Last (Poem)
The Horses' Bodies (Poem)
Enough (Lament)
Distracted (Short Story)
Worse, Still (Poem)
Conjurer (Satire)
A Conversation (Short Story)
Farewell to Albion (Poem)
My Other Sites
Hi Dave – Thanks for thoughts, but I believe you’ve left out the most important, and the hardest, challenge, which is defending the community (physically) against other communities. With no system of alliances and armies, wouldn’t this be a replay of agriculture sweeping out the hunter gatherers as soon as one of these communities decided it wanted what the other communities have?Now that war is so cheap (not nearly as much cost of life or security at home), we have to accept that it’s going to occur. The question becomes how to stop one rogue community from wiping out all the others (and, as you mention, there will always be a rogue).
Oh, that person wrote almost exactly what I wanted to write. Wouldn’t there need to be some sort of centralized government in order to product the communities from each other? What if one 1,000 person community decided to over take all of the nearby 150 person communities?
Your vision has much to commend it, and it’s both fun and useful to think about.However.When governments collapse, they aren’t replaced by utopian dreamers looking for something better. They are replaced by roving bands of thieves and murderers. Think Quantrill, for an American example. But examples are common in history. Until you get rid of bullies, you’re going to need police and armies, or you’ll be ruled by bullies.You can’t wish away power. In the modern world, the power of hierarchically organized global organizations will greatly exceed the power of decentralized bands of anarchists and their gardens. We now know how to create such organizations, and even a collapse of civilization won’t remove the knowledge. In the dust of the fall of towers, someone will be organizing the next round. To live your dream you have to have the power to clear a space.We have lived so long in the bubble of U.S. power and its mechanisms for keeping the use of that power relatively decent that many kid themselves that Rwanda and Darfur have nothing to teach us about ourselves, or our neighbors. Sorry, but I work in EMS and spend my evenings on the dark side, and I don’t kid myself.Barbarians are not rare, nor are they far away. They are, at the moment, suppressed by police.We need a central government to estalish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty. It would be nice if we would limit the central government to those affairs, so communities could turn their attention to the matters you describe, which come closer to what we ought to be doing than building miles of strip malls and shopping for purple soap on purple ropes.You’ll still needs cops and courts, though.
Reading this makes me think of tribal societies — the kind of lifestyle our ancestors led (and in some places, the kind of lifestyle a few cultures still lead). How interesting it is to realize now that “progress” would actually be a return to how things used to be. And yet the old ways are so clearly far from primitive — instead they are avant garde. …Although the modern-day village with its tribal council would definitely have major technological advances — solar powered, sturdy buildings…
Hey,Someone proposed me the exactly opposite: to make the governments operate like enterprises and make all citizens their shareholders. Well, after reading “Jennifer Government” I wouldn’t be that convinced about the idea.I’m also not convinced the model you proposed would work. Some reasons have already been stated. Human being is a vicious animal for its own kind.Anywho, I like your style of thinking. We need more people like you who have the guts to challenge the status-quo.How would you like an idea of organizations without top-management? Write next about that and drop me a line if you did.Cheers,Tomi
What they said above about defense – on a macro scale. I think any- and everyone should be prepared to defend themselves and their communities, but on a large scale, (unfortunately) there needs to be, at the very least, an officer corps that can draw troops (voluntarily) for the common defense.And, while I agree with a great many of the things to which you ascribe, you lost me completely with the abolition of property rights. If people were perfect, maybe, but the potential for abuse goes up exponentially when people are not allowed to hold on to the fruit of their own labor, and anyone else with a claim, legitimate or otherwise, may take it. The way I read your statements above, if I come up with a true wealth creation idea, and I would like to hold onto the value I create, but the general consensus is that I may not, I will be ‘encouraged’ to move on, probably without the wealth I created.
in the South, we know what you get when you secede — wars of aggression from those trying to tax you. All wars are economic and those making their living off the bloated government (teachers, grant-mongers, road crews and all) will not easily give it up the gravy train.
You go, Dave! Always love your thought process!BTW, I wrote a book about this on Kauai, called Tending the Garden Island, and subtitled Toward New Kauaian Governance.The first half of the book documents the trends that necessitate a homegrown ‘just do it’ approach, while the second half documents the lessons learned in our community-building efforts.Right: It takes practice.Of course, on Kauai, we have less worry about marauding bands coming over the hill to spoil our party!
http://www.mentalhealth.net.indevelopments include an increased understanding of the brain’s function through the study of neuroscience, the development of effective new medications and therapies, and the standardization of diagnostic codes for mental illnesses