ESCAPING THE MATRIX & GLOBAL TRANSFORMATION

cyberjournal.org/newslog/show_archives/15 Nov 2004

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When articles come across my desk that particularly catch my interest, I post them to newslog. Some of these articles provide real information, others are examples of matrix propaganda, and some are in between. One must always consider the source when evaluating articles, but much can be learned by listening to those with whom we disagree or even whom we mistrust.
—rkm

From: richard-at-cyberjournal.org

Date: 15 Nov 2004

Subject: ESCAPING THE MATRIX & GLOBAL TRANSFORMATION

To: newslog-at-cyberjournal.org

** DRAFT FOR REVIEW **

_________________________________________________

ESCAPING THE MATRIX -

GLOBAL TRANSFORMATION: WHY WE NEED IT, AND HOW WE CAN ACHIEVE IT

richard-at-cyberjournal.org

http://cyberjournal.org

_________________________________________________

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1 - THE MATRIX

CHAPTER 2: We the People AND THE TRANSFORMATIONAL IMPERATIVE

CHAPTER 3: THE HARMONIZATION IMPERATIVE

CHAPTER 4: HARMONIZATION IN THE MICROCOSM

CHAPTER 5: HARMONIZATION AS A CULTURAL MOVEMENT

CHAPTER 6: HARMONIZATION AND GLOBAL TRANSFORMATION

CHAPTER 7: A CHARTER FOR A DEMOCRATIC WORLD: HARMONIZATION

AND LOCALISM

CHAPTER 8: THE LIBERATION OF HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS

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CHAPTER 1 - THE MATRIX

* Are you ready for the red pill?

The defining dramatic moment in the film The Matrix occurs

just after Morpheus invites Neo to choose between a red pill

and a blue pill. The red pill promises "the truth, nothing

more." Neo takes the red pill and awakes to reality --

something utterly different from anything Neo, or the

audience, could have expected. What Neo had assumed to be

reality turned out to be only a collective illusion,

fabricated by the Matrix and fed to a population that is

asleep, cocooned in grotesque embryonic pods. In Plato's

famous parable about the shadows on the walls of the cave,

true reality is at least reflected in perceived reality. In

the Matrix world, true reality and perceived reality exist on

entirely different planes.

The story is intended as metaphor, and the parallels that drew

my attention had to do with political reality. This article

offers a particular perspective on what's going on in the

world -- and how things got to be that way -- in this era of

globalization. From that red-pill perspective, everyday

media-consensus reality -- like the Matrix in the film -- is

seen to be a fabricated collective illusion. Like Neo, I

didn't know what I was looking for when my investigation

began, but I knew that what I was being told didn't make

sense. I read scores of histories and biographies of

historical figures, observing connections between them, and

began to develop my own theories about roots of various

historical events. I found myself largely in agreement with

writers like Noam Chomsky and Michael Parenti, but I also

perceived important patterns that others seem to have missed.

When I started tracing historical forces, and began to

interpret present-day events from a historical perspective. I

could see the same old dynamics at work and found a meaning in

unfolding events far different from what official

pronouncements proclaimed. Such pronouncements are, after all,

public relations fare, given out by politicians who want to

look good to the voters. Most of us expect rhetoric from

politicians, and take what they say with a grain of salt. But

as my own picture of present reality came into focus, "grain

of salt" no longer worked as a metaphor. I began to see that

consensus reality -- as generated by official rhetoric and

amplified by mass media -- bears very little relationship to

actual reality. "The matrix" was a metaphor I was ready for.

* Imperialism and the matrix

From the time of Columbus to 1945, world affairs were largely

dominated by competition among Western nations seeking to

stake out spheres of influence, control sea lanes, and exploit

colonial empires. Each Western power became the core of an

imperialist economy whose periphery was managed for the

benefit of the core nation. Military might determined the

scope of an empire; wars were initiated when a core nation

felt it had sufficient power to expand its periphery at the

expense of a competitor. Economies and societies in the

periphery were kept backward -- to keep their populations

under control, to provide cheap labor, and to guarantee

markets for goods manufactured in the core. Imperialism robbed

the periphery not only of wealth but also of its ability to

develop its own societies, cultures, and economies in a

natural way for local benefit.

The driving force behind Western imperialism has always been

the pursuit of economic gain, ever since Isabella commissioned

Columbus on his first entrepreneurial voyage. The rhetoric of

empire concerning wars, however, has typically been about

other things -- the White Man's Burden, bringing true religion

to the heathens, Manifest Destiny, defeating the Yellow Peril

or the Hun, seeking lebensraum, or making the world safe for

democracy. Any fabricated motivation for war or empire would

do, as long as it appealed to the collective consciousness of

the population at the time. The propaganda lies of yesterday

were recorded and became consensus history -- the fabric of

the matrix.

While the costs of territorial empire (fleets, colonial

administrations, etc.) were borne by Western taxpayers

generally, the profits of imperialism were enjoyed primarily

by private corporations and investors. Government and

corporate elites were partners in the business of imperialism:

empires gave government leaders power and prestige, and gave

corporate leaders power and wealth. Corporations ran the real

business of empire while government leaders fabricated noble

excuses for the wars that were required to keep that business

going. Matrix reality was about patriotism, national honor,

and heroic causes; true reality was on another plane

altogether: that of economics.

Industrialization, beginning in the late 1700s, created a

demand for new markets and increased raw materials; both

demands spurred accelerated expansion of empire. Wealthy

investors amassed fortunes by setting up large-scale

industrial and trading operations, leading to the emergence of

an influential capitalist elite. Like any other elite,

capitalists used their wealth and influence to further their

own interests however they could. And the interests of

capitalism always come down to economic growth; investors must

reap more than they sow or the whole system comes to a

grinding halt.

Thus capitalism, industrialization, nationalism, warfare,

imperialism -- and the matrix -- coevolved. Industrialized

weapon production provided the muscle of modern warfare, and

capitalism provided the appetite to use that muscle.

Government leaders pursued the policies necessary to expand

empire while creating a rhetorical matrix, around nationalism,

to justify those policies. Capitalist growth depended on

empire, which in turn depended on a strong and stable core

nation to defend it. National interests and capitalist

interests were inextricably linked -- or so it seemed for more

than two centuries.

* World War II and Pax Americana 1945 will be remembered as the year World War II ended and the

bond of the atomic nucleus was broken. But 1945 also marked

another momentous fission -- breaking of the bond between

national and capitalist interests. After every previous war,

and in many cases after severe devastation, European nations

had always picked themselves back up and resumed their

competition over empire. But after World War II, a Pax

Americana was established. The US began to manage all the

Western peripheries on behalf of capitalism generally, while

preventing the communist powers from interfering in the game.

Capitalist powers no longer needed to fight over investment

realms, and competitive imperialism was replaced by collective

imperialism (see sidebar). Opportunities for capital growth

were no longer linked to the military power of nations, apart

from the power of America. In his "Killing Hope, U.S. Military

and CIA Interventions since World War II", William Blum

chronicles hundreds of significant covert and overt

interventions, showing exactly how the US carried out its

imperial management role.

* Sidebar

Elite planning for postwar neo-imperialism...

Recommendation P-B23 (July, 1941) stated that worldwide

financial institutions were necessary for the purpose of

"stabilizing currencies and facilitating programs of capital

investment for constructive undertakings in backward and

underdeveloped regions." During the last half of 1941 and in

the first months of 1942, the Council developed this idea for

the integration of the world…. Isaiah Bowman first suggested a

way to solve the problem of maintaining effective control over

weaker territories while avoiding overt imperial conquest. At

a Council meeting in May 1942, he stated that the United

States had to exercise the strength needed to assure

"security," and at the same time "avoid conventional forms of

imperialism." The way to do this, he argued, was to make the

exercise of that power international in character through a

United Nations body. - Laurence Shoup & William Minter, in

Holly Sklar's Trilateralism (see access, page XX), writing

about strategic recommendations developed during World War II

by the Council on Foreign Relations.

In the postwar years matrix reality diverged ever further from

actual reality. In the postwar matrix world, imperialism had

been abandoned and the world was being "democratized"; in the

real world, imperialism had become better organized and more

efficient. In the matrix world the US "restored order," or

"came to the assistance" of nations which were being

"undermined by Soviet influence"; in the real world, the

periphery was being systematically suppressed and exploited.

In the matrix world, the benefit was going to the periphery in

the form of countless aid programs; in the real world, immense

wealth was being extracted from the periphery.

Growing glitches in the matrix weren't noticed by most people

in the West, because the postwar years brought unprecedented

levels of Western prosperity and social progress. The rhetoric

claimed progress would come to all, and Westerners could see

it being realized in their own towns and cities. The West

became the collective core of a global empire, and

exploitative development led to prosperity for Western

populations, while generating immense riches for corporations,

banks, and wealthy capital investors.

* Glitches in the matrix, popular rebellion, and neoliberalism

The parallel agenda of Third-World exploitation and Western

prosperity worked effectively for the first two postwar

decades. But in the 1960s large numbers of Westerners,

particularly the young and well educated, began to notice

glitches in the matrix. In Vietnam imperialism was too naked

to be successfully masked as something else. A major split in

American public consciousness occurred, as millions of

anti-war protestors and civil-rights activists punctured the

fabricated consensus of the 1950s and declared the reality of

exploitation and suppression both at home and abroad. The

environmental movement arose, challenging even the

exploitation of the natural world. In Europe, 1968 joined 1848

as a landmark year of popular protest.

These developments disturbed elite planners. The postwar

regime's stability was being challenged from within the core

-- and the formula of Western prosperity no longer guaranteed

public passivity. A report published in 1975, the "Report of

the Trilateral Task Force on Governability of Democracies",

provides a glimpse into the thinking of elite circles. Alan

Wolfe discusses this report in Holly Sklar's eye-opening

"Trilateralism". Wolfe focuses especially on the analysis

Harvard professor Samuel P. Huntington presented in a section

of the report entitled "The Crisis of Democracy." Huntington

is an articulate promoter of elite policy shifts, and

contributes pivotal articles to publications such as the

Council on Foreign Relations's "Foreign Affairs".

Huntington tells us that democratic societies "cannot work"

unless the citizenry is "passive." The "democratic surge of

the 1960s" represented an "excess of democracy," which must be

reduced if governments are to carry out their traditional

domestic and foreign policies. Huntington's notion of

"traditional policies" is expressed in a passage from the

report:

To the extent that the United States was governed by anyone

during the decades after World War II, it was governed by the

President acting with the support and cooperation of key

individuals and groups in the executive office, the federal

bureaucracy, Congress, and the more important businesses,

banks, law firms, foundations, and media, which constitute the

private sector's "Establishment."

In these few words Huntington spells out the reality that

electoral democracy has little to do with how America is run,

and summarizes the kind of people who are included within the

elite planning community. Who needs conspiracy theories when

elite machinations are clearly described in public documents

like these?

Besides failing to deliver popular passivity, the policy of

prosperity for Western populations had another downside,

having to do with Japan's economic success. Under the Pax

Americana umbrella, Japan had been able to industrialize and

become an imperial player -- the prohibition on Japanese

rearmament had become irrelevant. With Japan's then-lower

living standards, Japanese producers could undercut prevailing

prices and steal market share from Western producers. Western

capital needed to find a way to become more competitive on

world markets, and Western prosperity was standing in the way.

Elite strategists, as Huntington showed, were fully capable of

understanding these considerations, and the requirements of

corporate growth created a strong motivation to make the

needed adjustments -- in both reality and rhetoric.

If popular prosperity could be sacrificed, there were many

obvious ways Western capital could be made more competitive.

Production could be moved overseas to low-wage areas, allowing

domestic unemployment to rise. Unions could be attacked and

wages forced down, and people could be pushed into temporary

and part-time jobs without benefits. Regulations governing

corporate behavior could be removed, corporate and

capital-gains taxes could be reduced, and the revenue losses

could be taken out of public-service budgets. Public

infrastructures could be privatized, the services reduced to

cut costs, and then they could be milked for easy profits

while they deteriorated from neglect.

These are the very policies and programs launched during the

Reagan-Thatcher years in the US and Britain. They represent a

systematic project of increasing corporate growth at the

expense of popular prosperity and welfare. Such a real agenda

would have been unpopular, and a corresponding matrix reality

was fabricated for public consumption. The matrix reality used

real terms like "deregulation," "reduced taxes," and

"privatization," but around them was woven an economic

mythology. The old, failed laissez-faire doctrine of the 1800s

was reintroduced with the help of Milton Friedman's Chicago

School of economics, and "less government" became the proud

"modern" theme in America and Britain. Sensible regulations

had restored financial stability after the Great Depression,

and had broken up anti-competitive monopolies such as the

Rockefeller trust and AT&T. But in the new matrix reality, all

regulations were considered bureaucratic interference. Reagan

and Thatcher preached the virtues of individualism, and

promised to "get government off people's backs." The

implication was that ordinary people were to get more money

and freedom, but in reality the primary benefits would go to

corporations and wealthy investors.

The academic term for laissez-faire economics is "economic

liberalism," and hence the Reagan-Thatcher revolution has come

to be known as the "neoliberal revolution." It brought a

radical change in actual reality by returning to the economic

philosophy that led to sweatshops, corruption, and

robber-baron monopolies in the nineteenth century. It brought

an equally radical change in matrix reality -- a complete

reversal in the attitude that was projected regarding

government. Government policies had always been criticized in

the media, but the institution of government had always been

respected -- reflecting the traditional bond between

capitalism and nationalism. With Reagan, we had a sitting

president telling us that government itself was a bad thing.

Many of us may have agreed with him, but such a sentiment had

never before found official favor. Soon, British and American

populations were beginning to applaud the destruction of the

very democratic institutions that provided their only hope of

participation in the political process.

* Globalization and world government

The essential bond between capitalism and nationalism was

broken in 1945, but it took some time for elite planners to

fully recognize this new condition and to begin bringing the

world system into alignment with it. The strong Western nation

state had been the bulwark of capitalism for centuries, and

initial postwar policies were based on the assumption that

this would continue indefinitely. The Bretton Woods financial

system (the IMF, World Bank, and a system of fixed exchange

rates among major currencies) was set up to stabilize national

economies, and popular prosperity was encouraged to provide

political stability. Neoliberalism in the US and Britain

represented the first serious break with this policy framework

-- and brought the first visible signs of the fission of the

nation-capital bond.

The neoliberal project was economically profitable for

corporations in the US and Britain, and the public accepted

the matrix economic mythology. Meanwhile, the integrated

global economy gave rise to a new generation of transnational

corporations, and corporate leaders began to realize that

corporate growth was not dependent on strong core

nation-states. Indeed, Western nations -- with their

environmental laws, consumer-protection measures, and other

forms of regulatory "interference" -- were a burden on

corporate growth. Having been successfully field tested in the

two oldest "democracies," the neoliberal project moved onto

the global stage. The Bretton Woods system of fixed rates of

currency exchange was weakened, and the international

financial system became destabilizing, instead of stabilizing,

for national economies. The radical free-trade project was

launched, leading eventually in 1993 to the World Trade

Organization. The fission that had begun in 1945 was finally

manifesting as an explosive change in the world system.

The objective of neoliberal free-trade treaties is to remove

all political controls over domestic and international trade

and commerce. Corporations have free rein to maximize profits,

heedless of environmental consequences and safety risks.

Instead of governments regulating corporations, the WTO now

sets rules for governments, telling them what kind of beef

they must import, whether or not they can ban asbestos, and

what additives they must permit in petroleum products. So far,

in every case where the WTO has been asked to review a health,

safety, or environmental regulation, the regulation has been

overturned.

Most of the world has been turned into a periphery; the

imperial core has been boiled down to the capitalist elite

themselves, represented by their bureaucratic,

unrepresentative, WTO world government. The burden of

accelerated imperialism falls hardest outside the West, where

loans are used as a lever by the IMF to compel debtor nations

such as Rwanda and South Korea to accept suicidal "reform"

packages. In the 1800s, genocide was employed to clear North

America and Australia of their native populations, creating

room for growth. Today, a similar program of genocide has

apparently been unleashed against sub-Saharan Africa. The IMF

destroys the economies, the CIA trains militias and stirs up

tribal conflicts, and the West sells weapons to all sides.

Famine and genocidal civil wars are the predictable and

inevitable result. Meanwhile, AIDS runs rampant while the WTO

and the US government use trade laws to prevent medicines from

reaching the victims.

In matrix reality, globalization is not a project but rather

the "inevitable" result of beneficial market forces. Genocide

in Africa is no fault of the West, but is due to ancient

tribal rivalries. Every measure demanded by globalization is

referred to as "reform," (the word is never used with irony).

"Democracy" and "reform" are frequently used together, always

leaving the subtle impression that one has something to do

with the other. The illusion is presented that all economic

boats are rising, and if yours isn't, it must be your own

fault: you aren't "competitive" enough. Economic failures are

explained away as "temporary adjustments," or else the victim

is blamed for not being sufficiently neoliberal. "Investor

confidence" is referred to with the same awe and reverence

that earlier societies might have expressed toward the "will

of the gods."

Western quality of life continues to decline, while the WTO

establishes legal precedents ensuring that its authority will

not be challenged when its decisions become more draconian.

Things will get much worse in the West; this was anticipated

in elite circles when the neoliberal project was still on the

drawing board, as is illustrated in Samuel Huntington's "The

Crisis of Democracy" report discussed earlier.

* The management of discontented societies

The postwar years, especially in the United States, were

characterized by consensus politics. Most people shared a

common understanding of how society worked, and generally

approved of how things were going. Prosperity was real and the

matrix version of reality was reassuring. Most people believed

in it. Those beliefs became a shared consensus, and the

government could then carry out its plans as it intended,

"responding" to the programmed public will.

The "excess democracy" of the 1960s and 1970s attacked this

shared consensus from below, and neoliberal planners decided

from above that ongoing consensus wasn't worth paying for.

They accepted that segments of society would persist in

disbelieving various parts of the matrix. Activism and protest

were to be expected. New means of social control would be

needed to deal with activist movements and with growing

discontent, as neoliberalism gradually tightened the economic

screws. Such means of control were identified and have since

been largely implemented, particularly in the United States.

In many ways America sets the pace of globalization;

innovations can often be observed there before they occur

elsewhere. This is particularly true in the case of

social-control techniques.

The most obvious means of social control, in a discontented

society, is a strong, semi-militarized police force. Most of

the periphery has been managed by such means for centuries.

Urban and suburban ghettos in America -- where the adverse

consequences of neoliberalism are currently most concentrated

-- have literally become occupied territories, where police

beatings and unjustified shootings are commonplace. So that

the beefed-up police force could maintain control in

conditions of mass unrest, elite planners also realized that

much of the Bill of Rights would need to be neutralized. This

is not surprising, given that the Bill's authors had just

lived through a revolution and were seeking to ensure that

future generations would have the means to organize and

overthrow any oppressive future government.

In the matrix, the genre of the TV or movie police drama has

served to create a reality in which "rights" are a joke, the

accused are despicable sociopaths, and no criminal is ever

brought to justice until some noble cop or prosecutor bends

the rules a bit. Government officials bolstered the construct

in the 1980s and 1990s by declaring "wars" on crime and drugs;

the noble cops are fighting a war out there in the streets --

and you can't win a war without using your enemy's dirty

tricks. The CIA plays its role by managing the international

drug trade and making sure that ghetto drug dealers are well

supplied. In this way, the American public was led down the

garden path to accepting the means of its own suppression.

The covert guiding of various social movements has proven to

be one of the most effective means of programming factions and

stirring them against one another. Fundamentalist religious

movements have been particularly useful. They have been used

not only within the US, but also to maximize divisiveness in

the Middle East and for other purposes throughout the empire.

The collective energy and dedication of "true believers" makes

them a potent political weapon that movement leaders can

readily aim where needed. In the US that weapon has been used

to attack the women's movement, to support repressive

legislation, and generally to bolster the ranks of what is

called in the matrix the "right wing."

In the matrix, the various factions believe that their

competition with each other is the process that determines

society's political agenda. Politicians want votes, and hence

the biggest and best-organized factions should have the most

influence, and their agendas should get the most political

attention. In reality there is only one significant political

agenda these days: the maximization of capital growth through

the dismantling of society, the continuing implementation of

neoliberalism, and the management of empire. During the

Clinton era, his liberal rhetoric and his playing around with

health care and gay rights were not the result of liberal

pressure. They were rather the means by which Clinton was sold

to liberal voters, so that he could proceed with real

business: getting NAFTA through Congress, promoting the WTO,

giving away the public airwaves, justifying military

interventions, and so forth. Issues of genuine importance are

never raised in campaign politics -- this is a major glitch in

the matrix for those who have eyes to see it.

* The New American Century

The New American Century began on September 11, 2001. For

anyone familiar with the history of American war-enabling

"outrage incidents", the attacks on the World Trade Center and

Pentagon were highly suspicious from the very beginning. Four

planes were known to be hijacked for more than an hour, and

yet no fighters were scrambled to intercept them -- not even

after the first Tower had been hit. This is completely

contrary to standard procedure. Typically, when any flight

goes off course in the U.S., even if it's not a hijacking,

interceptors are scrambled within minutes. The manner in which

the Towers collapsed was also highly suspicious --

particularly the third tower, which was not even struck by a

plane. All three collapsed in precisely the manner one would

expect from a professional demolition, and numerous fire

fighters and other eyewitnesses reported hearing explosions in

the buildings -- after the fires had been brought mostly under

control. Although the Administration expressed complete

surprise at the attacks, it claimed to know the exact

identities of all the hijackers within hours of the event.

While the whole world was transfixed to TV screens, awed at

the magnitude of the attacks, President Bush read stories to

children and other top administration officials carried on

with their normal schedules. The announcement of the War On

Terrorism and the Patriot Act followed entirely too rapidly to

have been the result of a surprise attack.

As more information emerged in the following weeks and months,

the official version of the 9/11 events became increasingly

untenable. The administration had received dozens of warnings

that Al Qaeda was planning to use hijacked aircraft as attack

planes, contrary to White House claims of being caught

completely by surprise. In fact, the Pentagon had carried out

practice exercises in anticipation of precisely such an

attack. Two weeks prior to the attacks, Lt-Gen Mahmud Ahmad,

head of Pakistani Intelligence, transferred $100,000 to the

account of Mohammed Atta, leader of the alleged hijackers.

While the attacks were being carried out, Ahmad was having

breakfast in the Senate lunch room with members of the Select

Committee on Intelligence. The FBI identified Ahmad as the

"moneybags of the hijacking", and yet he was allowed to leave

the country and there has been no follow-up regarding his

involvement. About the only thing supporting the

Administration's official version of events is the inability

of most people to imagine that the events of 9/11 could have

been an inside job. For those familiar with America's history

of "outrage incidents", not much imagination is required.

We now know that Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and crew came into the

White House with a detailed agenda up their sleeves, and it

was an agenda that would have been very difficult to pursue

without the dramatic events of 9/11. Indeed, such an agenda

would have been incomplete if it did not include a plan for

achieving domestic public acceptance and international

acquiescence. And after 9/11, the pre-existing agenda was

immediately launched into implementation. In terms of

evaluating suspected perpetrators for 9/11, one must clearly

attribute to top U.S. elites motive, opportunity, means, modus

operandi, and lack of alibi. In addition there has been no

evidence presented that is contrary to their culpability.

The agenda of the new White House was written up as a report,

"Rebuilding America's Defenses -- Strategy, Forces and

Resources For a New Century", produced in September 2000 by

The Project for the New American Century (PNAC). The report is

an updated version of a classified "Defense Policy Guidance"

document drafted in 1992 under the supervision of Paul

Wolfowitz. Some of the founding members of PNAC include Deputy

Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Vice President Dick Cheney,

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and Defense Policy Board

chairman Richard Perle. Here are some excerpts from their

written agenda for the New American Century:

"The United States has for decades sought to play a more

permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved

conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need

for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends

the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein". (p. 14)

"Further, these constabulary missions are far more complex and

likely to generate violence than traditional 'peacekeeping'

missions. For one, they demand American political leadership

rather than that of the United Nations, as the failure of the UN

mission in the Balkans and the relative success of NATO

operations there attests" (p. 11).

"Despite the shifting focus of conflict in Europe, a

requirement to station U.S. forces in northern and central

Europe remains. The region is stable, but a continued American

presence helps to assure the major European powers, especially

Germany, that the United States retains its long-standing

security interest in the continent. This is especially

important in light of the nascent European moves toward an

independent defense 'identity' and policy; it is important

that NATO not be replaced by the European Union, leaving the

United States without a voice in European security affairs"

(p. 16).

"Since today's peace is the unique product of American

preeminence, a failure to preserve that preeminence allows others

an opportunity to shape the world in ways antithetical to

American interests and principles. The price of American

preeminence is that, just as it was actively obtained, it must be

actively maintained" (p. 73).

"To preserve American military preeminence in the coming decades,

the Department of Defense must move more aggressively to

experiment with new technologies and operational concepts, and

seek to exploit the emerging revolution in military affairs" (p.

50).

"Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings

revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some

catastrophic and catalyzing event -- like a new Pearl Harbor" (p. 51).

Soon after the PNAC crew managed to gain control of the White

House, they got their "new Pearl Harbor", they got their

"substantial American force presence in the Gulf" under

"American political leadership", and the revolution in

military affairs is now moving "more aggressively". The "War

on Terrorism", enabled by 9/11's "new Pearl Harbor", is the

smoke screen behind which the agenda of the New American

Century is being aggressively implemented. American

"preeminence", apparently, is to be ensured into the future.

No challenge to U.S. military or economic supremacy is to be

tolerated.

_________________________________________________

CHAPTER 2: We the People AND THE TRANSFORMATIONAL IMPERATIVE

* Civilization in crisis

Civilization, and humanity, are now facing the most severe

crisis of survival that either has ever faced. The unbridled

exploitation and waste of resources, required by capitalism's

growth imperative, is destroying the bio-infrastructure upon

which future human life depends. The pace of this devastation

is ever increasing, as corporations must seek each quarter to

achieve greater growth than the quarter before. In many ways,

civilization has already passed the point of no return. So

much carbon dioxide has already been released into the

atmosphere, for example, that the effects of global warming

will continue to worsen even if we were to somehow stop

burning fossil fuels immediately and totally. Huge tracts of

agricultural land have been irreversibly turned into barren

desert, many fishing stocks are near extinction levels, and

the global population is already so large that feeding

everyone -- even under some ideal system of agriculture and

distribution -- would be a major challenge.

If we look at this situation from an objective point of view,

as an outside observer, it makes no sense at all. Humanity as

a species is behaving insanely, like lemmings jumping over a

cliff. Given finite resources, the only sensible strategy for

humanity is to carefully manage the resources that remain, to

help the environment begin healing, and to transform our

economies and cultures so that we are able to survive

sustainably using renewable resources. And the sooner such a

transformation begins, the better -- the longer we continue on

our current path, the fewer resources will be left to manage

and survive on. There is no natural law or dictate of the gods

that requires us to continue on our ill-fated course. If the

societal will existed, we could readily scale down our

industrial operations and re-purpose them toward producing the

the technologies and products which can be used to build

sustainable societies. When the will exists, as we have often

seen under the pressure of war, societies are capable of great

creativity and resourcefulness.

Some people believe that it is already too late to save most

of humanity -- there are just too many of us. This may serve

as a rationalization to acquiesce in the status quo, but it is

largely a myth. India, for example, could end its own

starvation problem if it simply diverted 5% of its food

exports to feed its own hungry. Although population levels do

present a significant problem, it is not population per se

that accounts for widespread poverty and the rapid depletion

of our resources. The causes of both are the wasteful and

reckless manner in which resources are exploited, and the

excessive consumption that characterizes the richest

societies. The USA for example, with 5% of the world's

population, uses 20% (?) of the world's energy.

As long as there were new lands to conquer and plenty of room

to grow, humanity could operate -- even if unwisely and

unjustly -- under an economy based on the paradigm of growth

and development. Such a paradigm was never sustainable, not in

the long run, but the long run always seemed far away -- and

the visible benefits of 'progress' were seductive.

Unfortunately for those of us alive today, the long run has

finally arrived and the visible benefits are declining as

well. Either we somehow wake up as a species and deal with

this crisis, or else civilization will continue down the

slippery slope to mass die offs, perhaps the collapse of civil

order, and in any case a very dismal future for our

grandchildren and future generations.

* We the People

"If the world is saved, it will be saved by people with changed minds, people with a new vision. It will not be saved

by people with the old vision but new programs." - Daniel Quinn, "The Story of B"

If civilization is in dire crisis, and if only a radical

transformation of our economic and governance systems can

provide a lasting and favorable outcome to that crisis, then

we must inquire into what means might be available to bring

about that kind of radical transformation. Changes in society

are usually initiated from the top, by elites acting through

their various hierarchical institutions. In those cases where

change has been initiated from the grassroots, by elements of

'We the People', that change has always come by the efforts of

a social movement. 'Social movements' is a broad category,

including everything from polite reform organizations to armed

insurrections, from labor unions to anti-globalization

protests. In general, a social movement is an attempt to give

voice to popular sentiment, to provide a vehicle that enables

the members of the movement to act as a whole, to be a

collective 'actor' in society, to have a coherent effect on

society.

Quite clearly the kind of transformation we are seeking will

not be initiated by the elite establishment. If such a

transformation is to be achieved, the initiative will need to

come from We the People in the form of a social movement that

is suitable to that task. That social movement might be quite

unlike previous movements, as its objectives are uniquely

radical. But by examining various existing and historical

movements, we can gain some insight as to the kind of movement

that would be suitable for our needs.

Let's first take a look at the anti-globalization movement, a

movement whose sentiments are largely in harmony with the kind

of transformation we have been discussing. The

anti-globalization movement understands that unbridled

capitalism is destroying the world, and the movement seeks a

radical shift towards democracy, justice, and sustainability.

The movement also has many thousands of committed supporters

worldwide, who are willing to participate in movement events

at considerable expense and risk to themselves. Is the

anti-globalization movement an appropriate vehicle for

achieving global transformation?

Unfortunately, this movement has not proven to be particularly

effective. It's heart is in the right place and it's

supporters show commitment, but it has no clear vision of a

transformed society, no strategy to bring about change, and no

program to expand its constituency. It is in the amorphous

mold of the protest movements of the 1960s, and those kinds of

movements can no longer be effective in this post-neoliberal

age. Neoliberalism brought the economic abandonment of the

middle classes, and elites no longer see any need to maintain

an illusion of popular consensus. In the 1960s governments

were concerned when masses of people protested, and they

responded with a Civil Rights Bill, a Freedom of Information

Act, and an Environmental Protection Agency. Today's

neoliberal elites respond to protests by suppressing them or

ignoring them, and then simply carry on with business as

usual. One of the things leaders are taught at globalist

gatherings is to avoid being distracted by popular

'sentimentality'.

About a century ago, just prior to 1900 in the U.S., there was

a movement which provides a closer model for the kind of

movement that might bring about transformation today. Its

goals were not nearly as radical as what we are considering,

but they were radical, and they did represent a challenge to

the ascendency of monopoly capitalism. This movement did have

a vision of a transformed system, a strategy for bringing

about change, and an effective program for expanding its

constituency. It began as the Farmers Alliance, was later

known as the Populist Movement and the Peoples Party, and it

became a very significant actor in society. In 1890, for

example, Georgia and Texas elected Alliance Governors, and

thirty-eight Alliance members were elected to the U.S.

Congress.

The Farmers Alliance began in 1877 as a self-help movement in

Texas, organizing cooperatives for buying supplies and selling

crops. The cooperatives improved the farmers' economic

situation, and the movement began to spread throughout the

Midwest and the South. By 1889, there were 400,000 members.

This was a thinking movement as well as an action movement.

Howard Zinn, in "A People's History of the United States",

writes, "The Populist movement also also made a remarkable

attempt to create a new and independent culture for the

country's farmers. The Alliance Lecture Bureau reached all

over the country; it had 35,000 lecturers. The Populists

poured out books and pamphlets from their printing

presses...". Zinn goes on to cite from another source, "One

gathers from yellowed pamphlets that the agrarian ideologists

undertook to re-educate their countrymen from the ground up.

Dismissing 'history as taught in our schools' [ie., The

Matrix] as 'practically valueless', they undertook to write it

over -- formidable columns of it, from the Greek down. With no

more compunction they turned all hands to the revision of

economics, political theory, law, and government." And from

another source, "...no other political movement -- not that of

1776, nor that of 1860-1861 -- ever altered Southern life so

profoundly."

There is much here that makes sense for a transformational

democratic movement. Our current systems are supported by

cultural mythologies, and "writing it over" is a good

description of what needs to be done if the illusions of the

old culture are to be exposed and the culture of a new society

is to be developed. The emphasis on education of the

membership shows a respect for popular intelligence, and it

builds a shared cultural perspective that enables a movement

to act with increasing unity and coherence. The emphasis on

outreach and recruitment is necessary if a movement hopes to

grow large enough to bring about significant changes.

The Populist Movement arose due to economic problems that were

being faced by farmers, and the movement set out to find

practical ways to solve those problems. I suggest that such a

problem-solving emphasis is appropriate to a democratic

transformational movement. If a movement makes demands, then

it is affirming that power resides elsewhere -- in that person

or agency which is the target of the demands. If a movement

creates solutions, then it is asserting its own empowerment,

it is taking responsibility for its own welfare. Furthermore,

problem solving ability in general is necessary for any

movement which intends to achieve radical goals. Such a

movement is bound to encounter all sorts of challenges and

barriers along the way, and it will need to be able to respond

creatively and effectively to them. The emphasis on economics

in particular is also appropriate to a transformational

movement. Economics is the basis of most social activity, and

it is in the realm of economics that solutions can be found to

our social and environmental malaise.

The Populists, being largely farmers, were closely connected

to place, and their movement was in part an expression of

localism. The movement built up its constituency region by

region, rather than by seeking isolated members spread

throughout the society, as do modern reform organizations like

the Sierra Club. To use a military metaphor, the movement

'captured territory' and then 'consolidated that territory'

through education and by implementing its solutions in that

'territory' -- and by winning elections there and gaining some

degree of official political power. Such a territorial

emphasis is very appropriate to a transformational movement.

Within a 'captured territory' -- a region in which people

generally have become part of the movement -- the vision and

culture of the movement has an opportunity to flower and to

find expression in ordinary conversation among people. The

culture has a place to take root and grow, and people's sense

of empowerment is reinforced by being in the daily company of

those who share an evolving vision, and who are in effect

collaborators in a shared project.

The Populist Movement was also an expression of localism in

another way. At the core of the Populist political agenda was

a set of economic reforms. Those reforms represented an

attempt to stem the ascendency of centralized big-money

capitalism -- and reassert the interests of locally-based

farms and small businesses. The Populists were calling for

fundamental reform of the financial system, the debt system,

and currency policies. They wanted to give local communities

and regions enough economic viability to be able to take

responsibility for their own welfare.

In their relationship to the political process, the Populists

again had much to teach a transformational movement. They

began as a grassroots organization oriented around self-help,

not as a movement attempting to influence the political

machine. They were successful at their self-help endeavors,

and they expanded their focus to recruitment and territorial

expansion. Only when they had achieved overwhelming success at

the grassroots level did they turn their attention to the

ballot box. In this way they were able to achieve some measure

of political power without compromising their objectives in

the horse-trading that characterizes competitive politics.

They were able to integrate politics into their tactical

portfolio and also retain their integrity as a grassroots

movement.

But ultimately the Populists faltered and collapsed, and we

have as much to learn from that experience as from their

earlier successes. They ran up against an unavoidable barrier,

one that all radical movements must run up against eventually,

and that is the limit on how much can be accomplished in the

face of establishment opposition. In order to promote their

economic reform agenda, and encouraged by their electoral

successes, they decided to commit their movement

wholeheartedly to the political process. They joined forces

with the Democratic Party and backed William Jennings Bryan in

the election of 1896. The Populists had then placed themselves

in a no-win situation. If the Democrats lost, the movement

would be defeated and shattered; if the Democrats won, the

movement would be swallowed up in the horse-trading of

Democratic politics.

The reactionary capitalist establishment responded vigorously

to this opportunity to put a final end to the upstart Populist

movement. Corporations and the elite-owned media threw their

support to the Republican candidate, William McKinley, in what

Zinn calls "the first massive use of money in an an election

campaign." Bryan was defeated, and the Populist movement fell

apart. The establishment was taking no chances: even diluted

within the Democratic party, the Populists represented too

much of a threat from below, they were too successful at

providing a voice for We the People. Democracy had raised its

ugly head, and elites chopped it off at their earliest

opportunity.

Any transformational movement that wants to go the distance

must be prepared to resist the seductive siren call of

electoral politics -- a siren whose voice becomes even more

appealing after the movement has made some significant

progress. As the Populists' earlier experience showed,

politics can be used successfully to consolidate gains made on

the ground, particularly if the expansion program employs a

territorial strategy. But when electoral politics is allowed

to dominate movement strategy -- before the territory of the

movement encompasses the entire electorate -- then the hope of

ultimate success has been lost. Either the movement will be

destroyed abruptly, or it will die a slow drowning death in

the quicksand of factional politics.

Any transformational movement must also eventually run up

against the barrier of establishment opposition. Like the

Populists, it makes good sense for a transformational movement

to focus initially on what people can collectively do for

themselves, without confrontation and within the constraints

of the existing system. This is how the movement can be built,

and how a culture can be fostered based on common-sense

analysis, creative problem solving, self-reliance, and

democratic empowerment. But the movement's self-help progress

will eventually be frustrated by the economic and political

constraints of the establishment's system, and that's when the

movement needs to decide what it's really about.

At that point the movement can either take the 'blue pill',

and settle for temporary reformist gains within the elite's

political circus, or it can take the 'red pill' and face the

challenges of the real world -- of power and engagement. As

much as we may be enamored of a win-win, love-your-enemy

approach to the universe, we must face the fact that the

currently entrenched regime is ruthless in its tactics,

determined to stay in power, and resourceful in its

application of its many means of suppression, subversion, and

co-option. Though we may carry universal love in our hearts,

the strategic thinking of the movement must at some point

focus on the principles of effective engagement. The Populists

have little to offer us here. A better model for this phase

would be the non-violent grassroots movement against British

rule in India, led and inspired by Mahatma Gandhi.

Gandhi is most renown for his non-violence and for his

universal empathy for all people, including even the British

oppressors. Those are wise principles for any transformational

movement that must engage an armed establishment and that

seeks to create a just and democratic society. But Gandhi

should be equally renown for his strategic acumen, and we can

learn much from that aspect of his work. Like a skillful Go

player, he was able to set up situations where the British

felt compelled to respond, yet any response they chose would

undermine their position. They had to choose between yielding

ground to the movement, or else engaging in suppressive

measures which could only serve to build greater sympathy and

support for the movement. The point is not necessarily that a

movement should emulate Gandhi's tactics, but rather that

flexible and creative strategic thinking is absolutely

essential to successful engagement.

Gandhi's movement did succeed in its immediate objective of

ousting the British occupiers, but it failed to achieve

Gandhi's deeper goals for a new kind of harmonious and

democratic society. The leadership of the movement was

concentrated too much in him personally and after his

assassination his followers reverted to traditional political

patterns. His movement was in the final analysis a

hierarchical movement. A successful transformational movement

-- which seeks to establish a democratic, non-hierarchical

society -- would be best served by taking a non-hierarchical

approach from the very beginning. Goals and strategy should be

developed at the grassroots level, and the movement culture

should facilitate the exchange of ideas and solutions, thus

building a self-reliant and holographically led movement --

and a movement which is not vulnerable to death by leadership

decapitation.

The Populist Movement too had a hierarchical leadership

structure, and this limited its transformational potential in

several ways. In the long run hierarchy is the bane of

democracy, so in that sense the Populists were from the

beginning not pursuing a path toward a transformed democratic

society. And by monopolizing strategic thinking, the wisdom of

the movement was limited by the cultural perspective and

prejudices of the relatively small leadership cadre. In

particular the rural, farmer-based leadership limited the

growth of the movement to what we might in some fairness call

'their own kind of people'. Although movement activists

sympathized with urban industrial workers, and expressed

support for their strikes and boycotts, the culture of the

Populist leadership did not lead them to bring urban workers

into their constituency, to make them part of the Populist

family. From an objective strategic perspective, it is clear

that this was a fatal error of omission. There was a natural

alignment of interests, based on mutual exploitation by

monopoly capitalism, and an effective joining of forces would

have propelled the expanded movement onto a new and much

higher plateau of political significance.

Any movement which aims to create a transformed and democratic

society needs to keep this in mind: when the new world is

created, everyone will be in it -- not just the people we

agree with or the people we normally associate with. Certainly

any particular movement is likely to attract certain kinds of

people before others, and that must inevitably give a certain

flavor to the emerging movement -- but a movement must aim to

be all inclusive if it seeks to create a democratic society

that is all inclusive. Is there anyone you would leave behind,

or relegate to second class citizenship? If not, then you

should be willing to welcome to the movement anyone who shares

the goal of creating that new world.

* The transformational imperative

We the People have found our identity and common purpose many

times in the past: on the fields of Lexington and Concord, at

the gates of the Czar's palace and the Bastille, and in

movements like the Populists. We have a tradition to learn

from, and there are many wrong turns we must avoid. Martin

Luther King used a phrase that sums up one of the most

important lessons we need to take to heart, "Keep your eyes on

the prize." If we want a world which is democratic, and which

is sustainable both economically and politically, then we must

stay true to that vision. We must anticipate that the devil --

the elite regime -- is likely to offer us enticing

distractions when we show up on their radar. But only a

thorough and radical transformation can rid us of the dynamics

of hierarchy, exploitation, and elite rule.

There is no one out there, no actor on the stage of society,

who can or will bring about the radical transformation

required to save humanity and the world -- no one that is

except We the People. Not we the electorate, nor we the

public, but we who are members of the intelligent and aware

human species. We who are capable of thinking for ourselves,

and envisioning a better world, and working together with

others in pursuit of our common visions. There is no one else

who will do it for us, and it is a job that must be done.

This is our transformational imperative.

_________________________________________________

CHAPTER 3: THE HARMONIZATION IMPERATIVE

* Adversarial systems and liberal democracy

If We the People are to respond effectively to our

Transformational Imperative, then we will need to do so by

means of an appropriate social movement. In the preceding

chapter I argued that a protest movement like the

anti-globalization movement cannot be our transformational

vehicle. I also suggested that electoral politics cannot be

our vehicle either, and I offered the Populist Movement as an

example of a promising popular movement that finally

floundered on the shoals of the political system. In this

chapter I'd like to take a deeper look at our 'democratic'

system, as a prelude to investigating what kind of movement

could serve our needs.

Liberal democracy is an adversarial system. Candidates compete

for party nominations, parties compete to get their candidates

elected, and elected representatives compete to get their

programs adopted in parliaments. In the U.S. Constitution,

adversarial dynamics are enshrined in the form of a carefully

worked out balance of powers among the executive, judiciary,

and legislature.

There is a naive democratic theory behind this system of

governance. When advocates for side each present their case,

there is some hope that all relevant information will emerge,

enabling good decisions to be reached. When candidates and

parties compete, there is some hope that their relative

success will be related to the size of their following --

leading indirectly to a democratic result. In a competition

among people, ideas, and programs -- the theory goes -- the

best will rise to the top.

But with any kind of system, theory is one thing and practice

is another. Systems tend to have inherent dynamics -- and the

way those dynamics play out is not always consistent with the

theory or purposes under which the system is established. In

the case of hierarchies, an inherent tendency toward

centralization of power inevitably pushes against whatever

mechanisms are set up to constrain the hierarchy. We can see

this in the gradual consolidations of power by the Federal

Government in the U.S. and by the Brussels bureaucracy in the

EU. In the case of adversarial systems as well, there are

inherent dynamics which we can observe wherever adversarial

systems are employed.

An adversarial process operates as a competitive game. The

objective of the game is to win. If you want to be a

successful player in the game, you need to be better at

winning than the other players. In the case of politics,

winning means getting elected. According to the naive theory

of democracy, the election of a candidate should reflect

general acceptance of the candidate's program. But in reality,

victory in the political struggle depends on the ability to

attract a constituency by whatever means prove to be effective

-- and selling programs isn't the means that works best in

practice. More important might be the charisma of the

candidate, or the vulnerability of the opponent to a smear

campaign, or the ability to focus public attention on

superficial but dramatic issues, or countless other propaganda

games we see played out in typical campaigns. When programs

are talked about, a candidate usually does best by evading

questions or by telling people the lies they want to hear. The

dynamics of the competitive game lead to results that have

little to do with the naive theories behind representative

democracy.

Electoral reforms can be attempted, and have frequently been

implemented, but reforms are like sand castles set against the

tide. The same political dynamics, and similar results, can be

seen in every nation that uses competitive elections. Indeed,

if we look back two thousand years to the Roman Republic we

can see the same patterns of corruption, complete with costly

campaigns, gerrymandering of districts, bought votes, etc.

What we need to understand here is that 'corruption' is the

wrong word for these phenomena. They are not distortions of

the system, rather they are the normal behavior of such a

system. It is the adversarial system itself that is a

corruption -- of democratic principles.

* Liberal democracy and elite hegemony

Liberal democracy is an ideal system to facilitate rule by

wealthy elites. In any adversarial game, the advantage goes to

the strongest players. On the school yard, the game of 'King

of the Mountain' is naturally dominated by the biggest and

strongest kids. In politics, the game of elections is

naturally dominated by those with the most campaign funds and

the most media support. By such means wealth can be translated

directly into political power and influence -- and by such

means every so-called 'democracy' is in fact ruled by wealthy

elites, either in office or from behind the scenes. There is

an ironic truth behind the neoliberal myth that capitalism and

'democracy' are closely related. In the myth the two are

related by a mutual respect for human freedom; in truth they

are related by their mutual friendliness to elite domination.

It is not by chance that we are governed by a system that

facilitates elite rule, nor was the system established due to

a mistaken belief in the naive theory of liberal democracy.

The naive theory is for school text books; it is part of the

establishment's supporting mythology. The elites who set up

these political systems understood very well how they actually

function.

When the American revolution was over, the result was thirteen

sovereign republics, collaborating under the Articles of

Confederation. But there were problems. So much was new that

unforeseen difficulties arose. There was no common agreement

to protect sea lanes, for example, and piracy became rife. The

States all agreed that the Articles required amendment. A more

collaborative framework was needed. The legislatures agreed to

sponsor a Constitutional Convention, empowered to amend the

Articles and bring them back for unanimous approval of the

States. The delegates were supposed to represent their States,

and the Constitution was to be an agreement among the States,

an amended version of the Articles. Such was the charter under

which the Convention was empowered to operate.

The legislatures, unfortunately, mostly appointed their

delegates from among their local wealthy elites. The delegates

then ensconced themselves in secret session and proceeded to

betray the charter under which they had been assembled. They

discarded the Articles, and began debating and drafting a

wholly new document, one that transferred sovereignty to a

relatively strong central government. The delegates reneged on

the States that had sent them, and took it upon themselves to

speak directly for "We the People" -- and thus begins the

preamble to their Constitution. In effect they accomplished a

coup d'etat. They managed to design a system that would enable

existing elites to continue to run the affairs of the new

nation, as they had before under the Crown -- under a

Constitution that for all the world seems to embody sound

democratic principles.

At every level of the new Constitution there were safeguards

against uprisings from below. The life-appointed Supreme Court

Justices and the six-year Senators provided a kind of

conservative flywheel against any kind of rapid change. The

President was to be elected indirectly by State Legislatures,

which provided a buffer from "mob" sentiments in each state.

Most significantly, the strongest protections in the

Constitution were granted to private property. The

Constitutional sanctity of private property guaranteed that

existing elites would be able to hold on to and continue

developing their fortunes. Whereas in most European nations

the financial system is controlled by a central government

bank, in the new American republic the private sector was

given a more influential role. This provides American elites

with a way to influence economic affairs outside of political

channels.

This may seem like a cynical assessment of the legacy of

America's "Founding Fathers". Have they not given us all those

noble sayings?... "Give me liberty or give me death.", "The

price of liberty is eternal vigilance.", .etc. Were they not

true democrats? Some were and some weren't. Even some of the

best of them, like Thomas Jefferson, were slave owners. The

worst of them, like Alexander Hamilton, would have preferred

rule by an American royalty. In general the allegiance of

colonial elites to democracy was tempered by their concern for

their own self-interest, and their notion of how society

should operate. They didn't want Royal interference in their

affairs, but neither did they want interference by what many

of them referred to as "mob rule".

By the very way they carried out the secret Constitutional

Convention they demonstrated how the new government was going

to operate. They were delegates, chartered to represent their

constituencies, and they were mostly from wealthy elite

circles. When gathered in their own company they represented

instead their own mutual interests -- yet they presented their

work as the embodiment of their charter. And they succeeded

politically in selling their product to the people and to the

States. Such has been the story of American politics ever

since.

After the Convention completed its work, a debate raged

throughout the colonies as to whether the new Constitution

should be ratified. As part of this debate, a series of

newspaper articles appeared that came to be known as the

Federalist Papers. These papers reveal with considerable

candor the elite reasoning behind the design of the new

government. Zinn writes:

In Federalist Paper #10, James Madison argued that

representative government was needed to maintain peace in a

society ridden by factional disputes... "Those who hold and

those who are without property have ever formed distinct

interests in society." The problem he said, was how to control

the factional struggles that came from inequalities in

wealth.Minority factions could be controlled, he said, by the

principle that decisions would be by vote of the majority.

So the real problem, according to Madison, was a majority

faction, and there the solution was...to have an "extensive

republic", that is, a large nation ranging over thirteen

states, for then "it will be more difficult for all who feel

it to discover their own strength, and to act in unison with

each other...The influence of factious leaders may kindle a

flame within their particular States, but will be unable to

spread a general conflagration through the other States."

The purpose of the new system, in other words, was to enable

the colonial elite to retain their economic and political

dominance by systematically preventing the ascendency of any

kind of popular democratic movement. The rules of the

adversarial game were carefully worked out so as to enable the

successful management of factionalism by the elite

establishment. The system was consciously designed to

facilitate elite rule and that is how it has functioned ever

since.

* Divide and rule

Directly after the ratification of the Constitution, two

elite-led political parties were established. Madison,

Jefferson, and Monroe joined the Democrat-Republicans, while

Hamilton, Washington, and Adams joined the Federalists. This

set the pattern for U.S. politics ever since: two mainstream

parties, both controlled by wealthy elites, and providing the

illusion of choice to voters. The two major parties had the

funding to carry out major national campaigns, and then as now

people were corralled into choosing between the lesser of two

evils when they cast their ballots.

From the beginning, the primary agenda of all mainstream

parties has been to facilitate economic growth and the further

enrichment of the wealthy elites who control both the economy

and the government. I do not mean to imply that the elite were

then, or are today, a monolith with a single consensus agenda.

There have always been ideological divisions and different

cliques competing for relative advantage. These differences

play themselves out partly in political campaigns, and lead to

rhetoric that attempts to attract voters to supporting one

clique rather than the other. Each party tries to convince

voters that the other party is to be feared, and that their

own party will lead to popular prosperity. Voters have a

choice, but it is always between two different elite agendas

which differ only in the tactics by which growth is to be

facilitated -- and by which the people are to be kept under

control.

As Madison anticipated, political stability in America has

been achieved through the management of factionalism. At any

given time, some sizable faction was always doing rather well

under the elite-managed system of economic growth, and these

more prosperous elements provided a solid base of support for

government policies. But there was always a mass of unrest

boiling up from the less advantaged segments of society.

Particularly with industrialization and the increasing

dominance of capitalist dynamics, wealth was very unequally

distributed, workers, women, and minorities were exploited,

and there were always movements of various kinds attempting to

influence the elite agenda. These movements were contained

either geographically, or else by means of pitting one faction

against the other. The Populists probably came closer than any

other movement to challenging elite hegemony, but they too

finally fell prey to adversarial dynamics when they cast their

lot in the electoral game.

Today the grassroots U.S. population is divided into two

primary factions, usually known as liberals and conservatives,

or left and right. This split represents a rather

sophisticated version of factional manipulation. It does not

represent any real difference of interests. It is not the case

that grassroots liberals and conservatives are from different

economic strata, or have different self-interest agendas for

fundamental national policies. The divisions, though deeply

felt, are not over matters of state, but over issues such as

abortion, gay rights, and the like. These kinds of issues,

according to the Constitution, are not even the business of

the Federal Government -- they are the kind that should be

dealt with locally or at the state level. But divisiveness is

so effective at controlling the population that the major

parties are happy to promote such issues to the national

level, where they can be exploited to generate fear and

anxiety. Campaigns and rhetoric are focused on these

peripheral issues, and fundamental issues of national policy

never even come up for discussion. Campaigns have no more

relevance to national policy than do high school debates, and

as in high school debates the winner is decided more on the

style of their presentations than on the validity of their

positions.

* The Harmonization Imperative

It ain't left or right. It's up and down. Here we all are down

here struggling while the Corporate Elite are all up there

having a nice day!..

- Carolyn Chute, author of The Beans of Egypt Maine and

anti-corporate activist

For two tactical reasons, the pursuit of a 'progressive

victory' via the electoral system is a no-win idea. The first

reason is simply that such a project cannot succeed. The

divisive power of the establishment media and political

machines are too powerful. Elites have refined the management

of factionalism into a science. We all know this intuitively,

and that is why most progressives don't want to 'waste' their

vote on a Nader-style candidacy.

The second tactical reason is that a strong and aggressive

progressive movement -- within the context of neoliberalism

and adversarial politics -- would heighten the fears of the

right, fan the flames of polarization, and help facilitate an

overt fascist takeover. Indeed, if a progressive movement

showed any signs of gaining power, the elite regime would be

likely to play the fascist card in self-defense. This is why

I'm writing this book instead of campaigning for Nader.

There is also a more strategic reason why a 'progressive

victory' is a no-win idea -- even if it were achievable. Such

a victory would perpetuate hierarchy and the adversarial game.

The progressives would be on top for a while, but society

would remain divided. Progressive legislation would presumably

be enacted, but it would be enacted and enforced by a

centralized government. Those in opposition would rankle under

what they perceived to be a 'leftist dictatorship'. The forces

of reaction would exploit this divisiveness and there would

always be a danger that the political pendulum would swing

back to the right. This is in part how Reagan was able to come

to power -- an eventuality that would have seemed

inconceivable during the euphoric progressive resurgence that

followed the resignation of Richard Nixon.

If we want to transform society both economically and

politically, then we must first transform our culture. If we

want a non-dominator culture, we cannot achieve it by using

dominator methods. Such a culture cannot be imposed by a

centralized government, it must be grown from the grassroots.

The Soviet experience demonstrates what can happen when a

centralized government sets out to create a brave new world in

the name of 'the people'. A dictatorship of the proletariat is

just another kind of hierarchical rule by elites.

In order to escape from the trap of factionalism, we need to

find a way to get beyond the superficial issues that divide

us. Underneath our political and religious beliefs we are all

human beings who want a better and saner world for our

families and our descendents. Instead of focusing on what

divides us, and struggling to prevail over the 'other', we

need to find a way to focus on what unites us -- and learn how

to work together to achieve the kind of world we all want. We

face a common crisis as neoliberal capitalism destroys our

societies and threatens our life support systems. This crisis

presents us with an unprecedented opportunity to find our

common ground, as there is no sizable segment of the

population that benefits from the direction the regime is

taking us in. Factionalism no longer has any economic teeth --

the regime keeps us divided not by appealing to our self

interest but by means of manufactured and sensationalized

fears and anxieties.

If We the People are to respond effectively to our

Transformational Imperative -- to save the world and humanity

from its crisis -- we need first to actualize our common

identity as We the People. We need to learn to see one another

as human beings rather than as 'us' and 'them'. We need to

learn how to harmonize our deep common interests instead of

accentuating our superficial differences. In order to respond

to our Transformational Imperative, we must first respond to

this Harmonization Imperative.

Fortunately, there is a proven means by which we can move

effectively toward cultural harmonization and overcome

cultural factionalism. That means goes under the simple name

of 'dialog', and the next chapter is devoted to examining the

remarkable results that been achieved by appropriate kinds of

dialog -- and exploring how dialog might be employed to awaken

We the People and empower us together to respond to our

Transformational Imperative.

_________________________________________________

CHAPTER 4: HARMONIZATION IN THE MICROCOSM

* A very promising gathering in Michigan

In June, 2004, twenty four diverse "opinion leaders" were

invited to a conference in Michigan which had the following

stated purpose:

The purpose of this gathering is to [initiate] a new kind of

public conversation that moves us beyond polarization so we

[can] effectively address the issues we care most about. . . .

The participants were from all across the political spectrum,

including a former FBI agent, the National Field Director of

the Christian Coalition, a founding member of the National

Congress of Black Women , a board member of the National Rifle

Association, the president of a left-leaning legal-issues

organization, former Weather Underground supporters, and

former speakers at white racist gatherings.

Is this gathering a joke? From such a radically diverse

conference one might expect fist fights and shouting matches

to emerge, rather than any kind of agreement or consensus. Tom

Atlee, one of the participants, expressed his misgivings prior

to the gathering this way:

Using Google, I researched the people who were coming to the

conversation. I read articles by the conservatives and

listened to their radio talk shows -- and I got triggered by

what they said. I reacted with anger, frustration and

rejection of who they were. I thought silent counter arguments

and felt the rise of adrenaline. Friends warned me to be

careful -- or couldn't even imagine going to talk with such

people.

But somehow, at the conference in Michigan, the outcome

transcended these negative expectations. It turned out to be a

very productive meeting. Another of the participants, Mark

Satin, wrote an article about the experience, and he sums up

the results this way:

Before leaving, we all signed our names to a document titled

"We the People." Many of us signed with flourishes, as if we

were signing something akin to the Declaration of

Independence. Here are the key passages:

"We respect our differences and recognize America needs every

one of our viewpoints, ideas, and passions -- even those we

don't agree with -- to keep our democracy vital and alive;

"We recognize that meeting here and across our land for

dialogues across differences builds trust, understanding,

respect, and empowerment -- the conditions necessary for

freedom and democracy to live in us and around us;

"And, therefore, each still grounded in our own considered

views (conscience and convictions), we commit ourselves and

our communities of interest to foster dialogue across the many

divides in America, in large and small groups, to build trust,

insight, and inspired action toward the more perfect union we

all desire".

How were these people able to cut through their differences

and arrive at a statement they could all sign their names to?

Why did these people take the trouble to get together with

their political 'enemies' in the first place? Why do they now

feel it is important for them to keep working together? Was

this a one-off event or is it something that could be repeated

elsewhere? Could this be a microcosm of how factionalism might

be overcome in our society generally -- could it be part of

the response to our Harmonization Imperative? Could this be a

way to give real meaning to the phrase, 'We the People'?

* Meeting dynamics: collaborative & adversarial

Consider for a moment the many kinds of meetings that occur in

our society. In business, meetings are held regularly to make

plans and coordinate people's activities. If parents feel that

their children need a crossing guard on the way to school,

then they organize a neighborhood meeting. When a country

decides to go to war, that decision is made in some meeting

among high-level officials. In government one wonders if they

do anything but go to meetings, whether they be official

government sessions, or meetings with staff, colleagues,

lobbyists, backers, or constituents. If people want to start a

political movement, they begin by organizing meetings. The

American Revolution was born in New England pubs, where the

rebellious minded held meetings and plotted against the King,

inspired by the local brew.

Although many of us have negative feelings about meetings, and

about their effectiveness, the fact is that meetings are the

place where people generally make joint plans and reach group

decisions. Some of these meetings are collaborative, and some

are adversarial. We are all familiar with both kinds.

A typical example of a collaborative meeting would be the

neighborhood gathering mentioned above, where the parents

would like to see a crossing guard assigned to a dangerous

local intersection. The people have a common goal, and they

work together cooperatively to achieve it. People offer

suggestions for actions which can be taken, the suggestions

are discussed, and people volunteer to help with the actions

that are agreed to. If the meeting is successful, everyone

comes away better off -- the concept of winners and losers is

irrelevant to a collaborative meeting.

A typical example of an adversarial meeting would be a city

council session where a controversial development project is

being discussed. The developers and business community are

showing slides of beautiful landscaped buildings and talking

of new jobs, while neighborhood protestors are complaining

about increased traffic and the loss of a children's

playground. The typical outcome of such a meeting is that one

side wins and the other loses. Either the development project

goes ahead, and the neighborhood suffers, or else the project

is rejected and the investors may suffer considerable losses.

It is very unusual for anything creative to happen at an

adversarial meeting. People, or factions, come in with agendas

to promote -- agendas that were created somewhere else. If the

meeting is unable to resolve an issue, it is typically

deferred -- and people are expected to go off somewhere else

and create revised proposals. The 'somewhere else' -- where

the creative activity of planning occurs -- is generally a

meeting of the collaborative variety. In our city council

example, the developers and promoters have been meeting

collaboratively for months preparing their project plans and

their city-council presentation. Similarly, the neighborhood

protestors have held collaborative meetings to assess their

feelings and to decide how best to express their concerns to

the city council. The adversarial meeting -- the official

'decision making' meeting -- is not a discussion session, but

is rather a battle of strength between the two opposing sides:

Which side can muster the most support among the city council

members? Which side can spout the most convincing rhetoric,

painting its own proposals in the colors of the common good?

Parliamentary sessions in liberal 'democracies' are based on

the adversarial meeting model. A chairman governs the

proceedings, proposals can be introduced, time is allowed for

debate, and a majority vote decides each question. The

'debate' is typically rhetorical, for public consumption, and

seldom affects the outcome of the vote. This is not a system

designed to solve problems nor to encourage useful discussion

-- it is a system designed to efficiently measure the relative

power of opposing factions, and to promptly assign the rewards

to the strongest. Just as the floor of the stock market is

designed to efficiently manage the investment transactions of

the wealthy elite, so is the floor of the parliament designed

to efficiently referee power transactions among elite

factions.

A collaborative meeting operates according to collaborative

dynamics, and an adversarial meeting operates according to

adversarial dynamics. Collaborative dynamics are about people

seeking common ground, identifying common problems, and

working creatively together to find mutually beneficial

solutions. Within collaborative dynamics people have an

incentive to listen to one another's perspectives, and in the

problem-solving process the group typically converges toward a

consensus perspective on the problems at hand.

Adversarial dynamics are about people debating from their

fixed perspectives in an attempt to prevail over the other

side. There is little incentive to listen to the other side,

apart from looking for weaknesses that can be exploited. Each

side may attempt to shift the perspective of the other side,

but neither side has any intention of shifting its own

perspective. Whereas people learn useful things about their

shared problems within collaborative dynamics, the only thing

learned within adversarial dynamics is how to better combat

the other side. Collaborative dynamics tend to resolve group

factionalism when it arises, while adversarial dynamics tend

to reinforce and encourage group factionalism.

* A gap in our cultural repertoire

These two meeting models are very common in our society, and

indeed they are more or less the extent of our cultural

repertoire. We know how to get together with our allies and

make plans to promote our shared interests, and we know how to

fight for our side in an adversarial gathering, according to

whatever rules are in play. What we don't know much about, and

don't have many cultural models for, is how to resolve

differences within a group of people. We don't know how to

engage in productive dialog within a group of people who

express conflicting interests.

In an adversarial meeting the differences are accepted as a

given, as a fixed quantity, and the business of the meeting is

to enable the different factions to battle it out until a

winner can be chosen. There is no attempt to resolve the

differences: people go away with their perspectives unchanged,

and the same factions retire to prepare for their next

engagement.

When people come into a collaborative meeting, they come in

with the knowledge that they are bound by common interests to

the other participants. Indeed, the people come together in

order to collaborate in advancing those common interests. In

order to 'get on with it' and 'make progress', participants

tend to avoid bringing up internal differences in such

meetings. At such a meeting a 'good leader' will be skillful

at defusing differences, articulating compromises, and keeping

the meeting 'on track'. Minority factions within the group are

encouraged to stifle their 'divisive' concerns, and join the

majority in a 'consensus' that will advance the identified

common interests of the group. And in the competition between

different factions, success tends to go to those which are

best able to submerge their internal differences, focus on

their primary interests, and adopt decisive action plans.

Under neither dynamics is there an attempt to engage in

constructive dialog regarding the differences in the group.

Under adversarial dynamics there is dialog over differences --

but it is the dialog of power, expressed in the language of

influence and votes. Under collaborative dynamics, discussion

of differences is avoided, so that the group can focus on

their identified common interests and get on with their

primary business. In the one case difference are expressed

competitively and are reinforced, and in the other case

differences are suppressed. In neither case are differences

resolved.

This gap in our cultural repertoire creates a problem for

popular initiatives, particularly in a society which is

already split by factionalism. Indeed, the gap can lead to

difficulties whenever people attempt to work together. Here's

an example I observed on a recent visit to the San Francisco

Bay Area. The population there is relatively progressive, and

there is widespread support for an increased focus on public

transport. But instead of people getting together and coming

up with a common proposal, people soon divided themselves into

two camps. One camp wanted to expand the conventional rail

network, while another wanted to expand the rapid-transit

system. Most of the available activist energy was then devoted

to a struggle between these two camps.

As I read over the positions of the two camps, as an outside

observer, it seemed obvious to me that the best of the ideas

could be usefully combined into a cost-effective hybrid

proposal. The real solution, it seemed, would be to make

strategic interconnecting links, and coordinate upgrades,

among available transport systems -- rather than promoting one

kind of transport to the exclusion of another. Of course my

own arm-chair proposal probably didn't take everything into

account, but the main point remains: the two camps were

fighting over their differences rather than trying to resolve

them -- and missed any opportunity to find synergy in some

creative middle ground. The collaborative meeting model could

not serve the two camps, because neither side was willing to

stifle its ideas -- so the activists adopted the only other

available cultural model: adversarial engagement. As a

consequence of this split in popular activism, the transport

planning decisions will most likely be made by speculative

developers and their politician cronies, and whatever they

decide they will be able to claim their decision has 'public

support'.

Most of us consider public meetings to be a waste of time,

particularly when they attempt to deal with issues that are

complex or controversial. This is because we have prior

experience with the dynamics that are likely to occur. First

there will be an attempt to reach a rapid consensus, most

likely proposed by those calling the meeting. Then someone in

the back stands up and disagrees, voicing some objection. That

sparks other suggestions and objections. The meeting threatens

to 'get out of control' -- to revert to adversarial dynamics.

The organizers attempt to bring the dynamics back into

collaboration. If they succeed, then some of the participants

go away feeling their interests have been betrayed; if they

fail, then everyone goes away with the feeling that yet

another meeting has been a waste of time.

Because of these circumstances, anyone with a motivation to

pursue political activism soon learns to flock with birds of

the same feather. Environmentalists flock under a green

banner, animal rights activists follow their drummer, other

groups rally around their opposition to corporate power, or

their stance in favor of or against abortion rights, etc. In

order to get anything done, collaborative dynamics are

required, and gathering together in interest groups seems to

be the natural thing to do. Those gathering together already

agree on what's important, and they are thus able -- depending

on their organizational ability -- to get get on with a

program, rather than 'wasting time' debating the priority of

different issues. In this way the energy of popular

initiatives gets sucked into the game of adversarial

factionalism -- a game whose rules are set down by elites for

their own advantage. Just as in Las Vegas or Wall Street, this

is a game where the house always wins in the end.

If we want to overcome factionalism at the macro level, at the

level of society, we must first learn how to overcome

differences at the micro level, down in the grassroots where

people meet face to face. We need to extend our cultural

repertoire to include gatherings of a third kind, where people

neither compete to win or lose, nor submerge their differences

in order to reach a shallow consensus. We need a third

dynamics, a dynamics of harmonization, a dynamics that

encourages us us to express our concerns fully, and which

enables us to work creatively with that information to find

ways forward that benefit everyone involved. If our cultural

repertoire can be extended in this way, at the micro level,

then we may find that there are new ways of working together

on a larger scale as well -- ways that avoid the quicksand of

adversarial politics.

* The dynamics of harmonization

Although harmonizing dynamics is not part of our mainstream

culture, it is a well-developed part of certain sub-cultures.

In particular, if we look at the management-consultant and

meeting-facilitation communities, we find that harmonization

(under various names) is a rapidly expanding domain of

knowledge and practice. In the pursuit of greater efficiency

and competitiveness, corporations want their internal teams to

work more effectively together -- and this has spawned a whole

industry of consultants and facilitators. As a consequence the

state-of-the-art of facilitation has progressed along many

lines, and some of those lines have produced very promising

results as regards harmonization. Indeed, there are several

proven facilitation methodologies that focus on overcoming

group differences at a deep level, thereby unlocking creative

synergy that was previously blocked by divisiveness or

misunderstanding. Not all of these methodologies were

developed in the industrial context, but corporate support has

overall provided a boost to this field of practice -- and

success in the domain of corporate teamwork provides hard

evidence for the effectiveness and value of these techniques.

These facilitation techniques have proven to be successful in

socially-oriented contexts as well, as evidenced by the

outcome of the Michigan gathering. An extensive listing of

initiatives and methodologies relevant to harmonization

dynamics (closely related to what Tom Atlee calls

"co-intelligence") can be found on Tom's website:

http://www.co-intelligence.org. These techniques are proven

and reliable. They enable groups to transcend their

differences, discover their underlying common ground, and come

up with creative, breakthrough solutions to difficult problems

and seemingly intractable conflicts. Furthermore, people who

participate in one of these session generally report that they

find the experience to be personally transforming.

This kind of facilitation is not about a leader guiding the

group through an agenda or a problem-solving system. The main

job of the facilitator, in achieving harmonization, is to

enable the participants to learn how to listen to one another.

That turns out to be the key to harmonization -- really

listening. Listening without thinking about a counter-argument

at the same time. Listening without judging and dismissing.

And beyond that, listening with the respect that every person

deserves and that we ourselves would hope to receive when we

speak.

Our culture doesn't give us much experience with this kind of

patient and respectful listening. Typically in social

conversations we are thinking about what we're going to say

next instead of really listening. In adversarial meetings we

listen in order to retort, and in collaborative meetings we

are only interested in hearing things that move the agenda

forward. It never seems like a good use of our time to pause

and really listen to what everyone has to say, even those we

might consider to be divisive or uninformed. But such

listening is possible, we can all do it if we have a bit of

support, and when it occurs amazing things happen.

The Michigan gathering was a particularly dramatic example,

involving people who are deeply committed to radically

opposing factions. At the end they created and signed a "We

the People" declaration, and we will return to examine the

substance of that declaration. Perhaps more significant than

the specific document is the fact that this group could reach

any agreement at all, and perhaps still more significant is

the fact that the group expressed a sense of solidarity. The

title itself, "We the People", indicates an amazing and

surprising outcome from this particular group.

My own introduction to harmonization dynamics came in a

roundabout way. I had organized a gathering in Berkeley of

about a dozen progressive activists and thinkers. My intention

was to to explore with the group certain ideas that I had been

developing. I had learned about consensus decision making and

was convinced that the key to an effective movement could be

found in consensus. If we could agree on a vision for a new

kind of society, and if we could agree that radical change was

necessary, then we could reach a consensus that might become

the basis of a radical popular movement. Since we all shared

progressive views, I figured we should be able to avoid

divisiveness, and consensus would be achievable. I prepared a

discussion agenda and my intention was to lead a discussion

based on the agenda, the last item of which was to document

whatever consensus we had reached.

For a while the meeting seemed to be going 'on track'. We got

through a good portion of the agenda and wrote down many

points of agreement on several flip charts. And then someone

spoke up and complained about the agenda. He had other things

in mind he wanted to talk about. I considered this to be a

divisive interruption of our process, and a threat to the

'progress' we were making in our 'limited time'. I tried to

get the discussion back 'on track', but he persisted in his

objections. At that point, feeling frustrated and

'threatened', I totally lost awareness and told the fellow he

should go off and organize his own meeting(!) I'm sure you can

imagine how my rude outburst affected the tone of the

gathering. Any momentum we had achieved suddenly evaporated.

There was a seemingly endless moment of embarrassing silence.

I wished I were somewhere else, as I was expecting some

measure of deserved ridicule from the group.

But something else happened instead, something that

transformed the gathering and created a space that I hadn't

visited before -- the space of real dialog. A woman spoke up

and asked if I'd mind if she tried a bit of facilitation.

Relieved to see the focus of attention shift away from myself,

I readily agreed to her offer, not knowing what 'facilitation'

was or how it could help. What she did was very simple. She

asked the other fellow what he was expecting from the meeting

and then she asked me the same thing. His answer was basically

a repetition of what he had said before, but somehow I could

now hear it as a sensible concern rather than as a disruption.

When it came my turn to answer I felt like I was making a

public 'confession'. I was opening myself up to a kind of

vulnerability I wasn't accustomed to -- the vulnerability of

being really 'present' and 'exposed'. As other participants

shared their thoughts about the session, that's when I

realized that our exchange was now taking place in a different

space than before. It was a space occupied by people, rather

than by ideas, 'discussion', flip charts, and 'progress'.

I had always thought of dialog as being primarily a logical

interaction among ideas, as in the pages of a scientific

journal. In this new space I realized that dialog has a more

profound dimension. Dialog is the means by which people

express who they are. It is the means by which they become

'present' in the group. By 'listening to people', rather than

'hearing ideas', we allow a shared space of openness and trust

to emerge. As people express their concerns, in an atmosphere

of respectful listening, the space expands and everyone's

presence expands. The group becomes a 'We' rather than just a

cluster of individuals. Not a manufactured, compromise We,

where diversity is submerged, but an empowered, alive We,

where diversity is embraced -- all of it adding to the

collective experience and insight of the group. In this space,

diversity brings synergy rather than conflict.

Being in this space was a powerful experience. It wasn't a

new-age "We are one with the cosmos" experience, and it wasn't

a brainwashing "Merge with the group" experience. It was more

like the experience of being part of an effective team: "We

are all present and now we can do some good work." It became

clear to me that until this kind of presence comes into being,

dialog can only exist in the black & white space of abstract

ideas. With presence, and with listening, I felt that We could

tackle any problem and We would do so with technicolor synergy

-- with a spirit of intelligent, creative, collective inquiry.

Unfortunately, in the Berkeley gathering, we didn't have

enough time left to do much with the experience -- other than

for us first-timers to get a taste for what might be possible.

Let's return to the Michigan gathering, which was better

organized and able to go further. Mark describes the first

evening's activities this way:

On Friday night, we broke into three groups (of eight

participants and one facilitator each) to discuss such

questions as, What did you understand about being an American

when you were 12 years old? How have you experienced political

differences and how did that affect you personally?

It was impossible to participate in that exercise without

coming to see (and feel and know) that every participant,

whatever their politics, was a complex and caring human being.

This description is extremely brief, but we can see the same

basic elements I experienced in Berkeley. People were invited

to become present by expressing who they are, and what kind of

experience they've been through. And as a consequence of this

open sharing, in a space of facilitated listening, the focus

was on the people, and their mutual respect, rather than on

any specific issues. As the weekend progressed, the group

moved on to examine questions like, "What is missing in

conventional political discourse?". Conflict was expressed as

well as agreement, but the group was able to do something

creative with the conflict as well:

Someone tried to classify participants' approaches as "left"

or "right." Someone on the right took umbrage with that,

feeling that the qualities cited as "right" were insulting

stereotypes; and that pressed many people's buttons; and round

and round and round we went, and the afternoon shadows grew

longer.

But the end result of that conversation is we all realized --

I mean, we all really "got" -- how misleading and even

infantilizing the old political spectrum had become.

In another exercise, the participants were asked to tell about

each of the key decisions they'd made in their political

lives:

Everyone stared, some of us open-mouthed, as various

"left"-wingers and "right-" wingers, former Weather

Underground supporters and former speakers at white racist

gatherings, shared the incidents that shaped their lives.

And revealed without even trying that every caring person is a

brother or sister under the skin.

And that our values are at some deep level fundamentally the

same.

With these kinds of breakthroughs, we can understand how the

group was able and willing to sign their "We the People"

declaration. They also decided to co-sponsor a larger,

follow-up conference -- and they agreed to pursue a few other

collective projects as well. We'll return in the next chapter

to explore the political potential of this thread of

initiatives. For now, I'd like to focus on the dynamics of the

gathering.

Earlier, I drew a distinction between collaborative and

adversarial dynamics, and suggested that our culture is

lacking -- and needing -- a dynamics of harmonization. In that

discussion I was talking about ideas and issues, and the

problem of how to resolve differences. In this current

section, we've seen that it is possible to enter a space where

the dynamics of harmonization operate -- but the door to that

space seems to be about people rather than about ideas and

issues. And in going through that door, its seems that we may

experience some kind of personal transformation. Mark reported

a transformation in terms of his activism:

...for the first time in many years, I feel enthusiastic

enough about an incipient political movement to want to put my

shoulder to the wheel.

In the Berkeley gathering, my transformation was about the

realization that the people part of dialog is more fundamental

than the issue part of dialog. Tom Atlee says, regarding the

Michigan gathering:

In the end I experienced a deep, gut-level transformation. I

had a profound personal shift away from Left/Right framings

that was comparable to my earlier shifts away from sexism and

homophobia.

It seems that there is no single flavor of transformation that

occurs in this space of harmonization. Rather, we each tend to

undergo whatever transformation is needed to remove those

internal blocks that prevent us from being present with a

particular group at a particular time.

The dynamics of harmonization are quite different than

adversarial and collaborative dynamics. Harmonization begins

by expanding the space to include everyone's diverse concerns

and interests. Adversarial and collaborative dynamics both

begin by limiting the space to narrowly defined issues and

interests. Participating in the space of harmonization

involves being open and present as a complex human being.

Participating in an adversarial or collaborative space

involves only being an advocate or opponent of some issue or

proposal. The experience of harmonization often leads to

personal growth and transformation, while adversarial and

collaborative experiences tend to reinforce pre-existing

positions and attitudes. Harmonization breaks down barriers

between people and enables them listen to one another and to

find common ground at a deep level. Adversarial and

collaborative dynamics reinforce factionalism and regard

deeper issues as being irrelevant or divisive.

Collaborative meetings provide a space in which factions can

rally together and plan their strategies. Adversarial meetings

provide a space in which factions can compete for dominance.

Harmonization-based meetings provide a space which may enable

us to do away with factional divisiveness altogether.

In the microcosm of a facilitated gathering, we know it is

possible for the empowered spirit of We the People to be

kindled. We know that in that space of harmonization it is

possible for this empowered microcosm to work together

effectively and creatively as a group. At the level of the

microcosm, assuming the availability of appropriate

facilitation, we can see a way to overcome factionalism and

bring We the People into being.

This leads us to several useful questions: How can the

practice and understanding of harmonization dynamics be

brought into the mainstream culture? How can the availability

of facilitators be expanded, or alternatively, how can the

need for facilitators be reduced -- so that the dynamics of

harmonization can be practiced more widely? How can progress

in the microcosm be translated into progress in the macrocosm?

That is to say, how can We the People come into coherent being

at the level of a community, a region, a nation, or the whole

globe? How can We the People become a 'player' in society and

in global affairs? And if We achieve that, how can We dialog

with, or engage with, the established regime so as to respond

effectively to Our Transformational Imperative? How can We the

People create a new society, and can we (you and me today)

anticipate what that society might be like?

These are the questions we will be investigating in the rest

of this book.

_________________________________________________

CHAPTER 5: HARMONIZATION AS A CULTURAL MOVEMENT

* The prospects for a large-scale harmonization movement

One of the remarkable outcomes of harmonization experiences is

the enthusiasm that can be generated for sharing the

experience more widely. In my case, soon after the Berkeley

gathering, I was inspired to write and self-publish a

pamphlet, "The Zen of Global Transformation" -- in order to

share the principle of harmonization and to explore its

potential. The Michigan gathering arose out of the enthusiasm

generated by a previous harmonization event that occurred in

Ashland, Oregon. The Ashland event, in turn, was inspired by a

radio interview with Tom Atlee, whose enthusiasm for

harmonization lit a flame under a few Ashland activists. The

same kind of evangelistic enthusiasm arose again in the

Michigan gathering, as evidenced by the "We the People"

declaration and also by the plans the participants agreed to

(quoting again from Mark):

It was decided that we'd all join the advisory boards of the

two co-sponsoring organizations (Let's Talk America and

Democracy in America). Immediately those boards became the

most politically diverse boards in America.

It was decided that the two organizations would convene a

follow-up conference for hundreds of participants some time

this fall (with funding to come from three left-wing groups,

three right-wing groups, and a "bridging" grant from Fetzer).

It was decided that many of us would initiate political

conversations in our professional or geographic communities,

and invite participants to the follow-up conference.

The fundamental reason why these sessions generate such

enthusiasm is the sense of empowerment that arises when the

space of We the People is entered. When you are in that space,

you realize that We really can make a difference -- it really

is possible for Us -- all of Us -- to get Our act together and

change things. This realization is a transformative, uplifting

experience. When you experience it in the microcosm, you know

intuitively that it could -- somehow -- happen on a larger

scale. It is an experience that awakens those who are

apathetic, and offers new hope and direction to those who are

already socially conscious. It is an experience that gives one

a new faith in humanity -- no one really needs to be my enemy,

we can all work together, and peace on all fronts is not

contrary to human nature. In order to see that faith realized,

one naturally would like to see others go through the same

kind of experience.

Whenever a certain experience inspires people to bring that

experience to others, then we have the seed of a potential

cultural movement. When people are inspired by an experience

to go out and actively bring it to MANY others, then we may be

looking at a cultural movement that has the potential to grow

rapidly and widely. One shares with ten, ten share with a

hundred, etc. Such a movement can spread throughout a whole

society in a relatively short period of time. The propagation

dynamics are like those of a funny story -- one day you

haven't heard it and the next day it's all around you. A funny

story propagates exponentially: the more it spreads the faster

it spreads -- because the more it has spread, then the more

people there are who are spreading it further.

Unfortunately, spreading the harmonization experience is more

difficult than spreading a story. It takes more than just one

person telling a few others. An event needs to be organized

and funded, people must be found who are motivated to

participate, and adequate facilitation support must be

available. These difficulties slow down the rate of

propagation, but they do not change the exponential dynamics.

Let's examine each of the difficulties in turn.

The activist energy available for organizing and promoting

harmonization events is likely to grow in proportion to the

number of activists who have gone through the experience. This

would help support an exponential rate of propagation. In

addition, the receptivity of people generally (activists or

otherwise) to respond to invitations can be expected to

increase as word spreads about the nature of the experience.

The Michigan gathering demonstrates that everyone -- across

the spectrum of beliefs -- is potentially receptive to the

experience. It is a movement for everyone, not just

progressives, and not just activists.

Funding is a different sort of difficulty. Funding sources,

such as those tapped for the Michigan event, cannot be

expected to multiply their contributions indefinitely. In

order for an exponential rate of propagation to continue, new

means of funding would need to be developed along the way. I

do not believe this would turn out to be a limiting obstacle.

I don't see any reason why such events would not become

self-funding -- particularly as interest begins to develop in

the mainstream culture. Besides, the costs of holding

harmonization sessions are not exorbitant. If such a movement

gains momentum, creative ways to deal with funding would be

very likely to emerge and be adopted by subsequent organizers.

In many cases, we might expect motivated activists to

volunteer their time and skills, reducing or eliminating the

need for funding.

The most critical difficulty in achieving exponential growth

would seem to be the availability of qualified facilitators.

If the number of facilitators remains relatively fixed, then

that places an upper bound on the rate of propagation. This

would threaten to reduce the propagation to a linear rate,

rather than exponential. But even this obstacle would probably

be overcome. It only takes a few days to train a new group of

facilitators, and just a bit more training enables a

facilitator to train others. If the movement gains momentum,

the dynamics of supply and demand should encourage more

training sessions to be offered and more potential

facilitators to attend those sessions. Every motivated

activist is a potential facilitator, and there are hundreds of

thousands of activists in each of our Western societies.

Besides, as people become familiar with the dynamics of

harmonization there would presumably be less need for special

facilitation skills. After all, harmonization is simply about

a group of people taking a 'time out' to listen to one another

-- and it turns out that this is a very natural thing for

people to do. Native Americans, with their their pow wows and

peace pipes, were creating a space of listening and

harmonization. When we lived in small bands, which is most of

our time as humans, it was natural for us to learn how to

maintain basic harmony in the group, and this was important

for group survival. Under the domination of hierarchies, and

divided either by class or factionalism, we have forgotten

what was once natural. Remembering is a liberating experience.

These considerations do not prove that a large-scale cultural

movement will develop. But they do show that the potential is

there. The We the People enthusiasm generated by harmonization

provides the energy for propagation, and there is no inherent

obstacle that would be likely to prevent exponential growth.

Whether or not such a large-scale movement actually develops

depends on whether actual individuals and groups follow up on

their enthusiasm and do something to bring the experience to

others. When we look at the chain of events from the Ashland

session, to the diverse Michigan session with its "We the

People" declaration, to the planned "follow-up conference for

hundreds" -- we can see a momentum developing, and we are

seeing the kind of initiatives that might be able to get a

real flame going under this potentially wildfire movement.

Although the scenario I've been developing here has been

highly speculative, I nonetheless believe -- because of our

current historical situation -- that this movement is very

likely to grow and break into the mainstream. Everyone knows

down deep that our societies are in trouble. Some blame the

liberal elite and the liberal media, while others blame the

right-wing elite and the corporate media. Some are concerned

about moral decline, others are concerned about environmental

degradation, and others are mainly concerned about feeding

their families in a deteriorating economy. Everyone is

concerned by the increasing levels of conflict and suffering

on the world stage. Some think we need to return to

traditional values, and some think we need to advance into a

more progressive age. We all know down deep that something

needs to be done, and most of us don't see anything very

promising on the horizon. Many of us, perhaps most, have given

up hope that things might get better or that there is anything

we can do to make a difference. The most we hope for is that

things don't get too bad too quickly, and that our own family

and friends will be OK. If we still have enough hope to be

activists, we mostly spend our energy trying to minimize

suffering and slow down the process of decline.

The reason that the We the People experience generates such

deep and general enthusiasm -- at this particular time in

history -- is because it offers real, deeply-felt hope that

'something can be done' about our situation. Most of us have

had to submerge any such hope in order to get on with our

lives. When that hope is allowed to awaken, and when it finds

nourishment in community with others, that is transformative

at a very deep psychological level -- the level of personal

survival and species survival. If this were the relatively

prosperous 1960s, the We the People experience might be just

one more 'tribal trip', another 'group high' for that segment

of society which was entranced by the vision new-age

flower-power. But today, when the seemingly unstoppable

deterioration of our societies can be perceived by everyone of

all stripes, the We the People experience hits home for all of

us, and at a more profound level.

For those who have a strong social conscience, in this time of

social crisis and hopelessness, the discovery of a 'path that

offers real hope' creates an action imperative. If you care

deeply about humanity and its future, and if you know there is

a promising way forward, then you don't simply want to do

something about it -- you MUST do something about it.

Different people will experience this imperative more strongly

than others, and people may have a variety of notions about

where harmonization might lead us as a society -- but taken

all together I believe this deep imperative will provide a

formidable driving force that will push the movement forward

with determination and persistence. Real hope, in an era that

desperately needs hope, will turn out to be highly contagious.

* We the People: the process of waking up

We the People are like a sleeping giant, a giant that has been

asleep for millennia. When a group of us find community in a

harmonization session, that is a twitch -- a part of the

giant's body beginning to wake up. When a harmonization

movement leads to many of us finding community in that way,

the giant begins to toss and turn. When the movement begins to

be consciousness of itself as a potential actor in the affairs

of society, then the giant sits up, rubs its eyes, and begins

to wonder, "Where am I?". The giant's brain is muddled as

dreams fade and confusing images begin to come in from the

outside world. The dreams are all the hopes and fears that we

as individuals have experienced under the oppression of

hierarchies -- while the giant slept. The confusion of new

images represents Our first fumbling attempts -- as We the

People -- to achieve a coherent sense of the world around Us,

and Our place in it.

Before the giant can make plans or begin to act, it must first

clear its head, stretch its body, take a look around, and gain

an understanding of the unfamiliar situation it finds itself

in. That is to say: before We the People can usefully think in

terms of social goals and strategies, We must first finish

waking up. We must learn how to achieve coherence as a

movement, We must develop a realistic shared understanding of

the political and economic challenges that face us, and --

unaccustomed as we are to giant-hood -- We must learn to

appreciate our own strength and potential as an actor in

society. Only then can our plans and actions -- as We the

People -- reach their full potential.

Unfortunately, as our giant begins to awake, it will not know

that it is a giant. My apologies for mixing metaphors, but the

waking giant will be like the ugly duckling who didn't know it

was really a swan. The giant will not realize how much it has

to learn, and it will have little understanding of its full

potential. That is to say: most of the people who come to the

harmonization experience will be mainstream citizens who do

not yet think in radical terms. Most participants, when they

encounter the We the People experience, will not be thinking

in terms of a total transformation of society. They will see a

'path that offers real hope', but for most of them 'hope' will

be defined in terms of democratic reforms to the current

system. They will feel empowerment in community with others,

but their vision of how far empowerment can go will be bounded

by the current structures of society. They will be very likely

to think in terms of plans and actions before the giant is

fully awake. Consider for example these words from Mark Satin,

referring to plans for the follow-up conference:

It was strongly suggested that a "consensus statement of

American goals and priorities" be prepared during or after the

conference, by functional area -- "governance and law,"

"learning and education," etc. (None dared call it a political

platform.)

I think it is clear that any such consensus statement, at such

an early stage of the movement, will be very timid. We might

see calls for increased funding for education, a bigger role

for public input to policy, curbs on corporate power, etc. We

are unlikely to see any deep thinking about how a capitalist

economy functions -- and why meaningful reforms cannot be

delivered simply by waving the magic wand of policy

priorities. We may see a call for environmental safeguards,

but we are unlikely to see a fundamental commitment to

sustainability, nor an understanding of what sustainability

really implies in terms of social transformation. We are

unlikely to see the emergence of a systems perspective, nor an

understanding of how deep the problems go in our current

societies. Our giant is still in the early stages of waking up

and its mind is still muddled by dreams. The giant doesn't

realize that it is not yet fully awake and that its attempts

to begin taking action are premature and futile.

This kind of premature attempt at action is both necessary and

dangerous. It is necessary because We the People need to learn

how to think and act coherently. It is dangerous because the

all-important evolution of the cultural movement might be

aborted by the premature development of a political movement.

Suppose for example, at the follow-up conference, that the

group of "hundreds" succeeds in adopting a seemingly strong

consensus agenda of "American goals and priorities". Suppose

then that the energy of the organizers and participants is

shunted into an effort to build a political movement around

that agenda. The harmonization process might then become only

a means of advancing that limited agenda, and We the People

might be prevented from fully awakening. Such a political

movement might succeed in achieving some temporary reforms --

if it is lucky -- but the real potential of the cultural

movement would not be realized.

I doubt that this adverse scenario will actually develop. Such

an unwise narrowing of perspective to short-term objectives is

not typical of the outcomes of previous harmonization events.

There seems to be an inherent wisdom in such gatherings (Tom

Atlee's "co-intelligence") that tends to avoid such cul de

sacs. Although the Michigan participants suggested that a

future gathering might focus on a policy agenda, it is notable

that they did not narrow their focus in that way themselves in

their own gathering. They realized, even without articulating

it explicitly, that any policy agenda of their own would have

been premature. They knew that they were only a small group,

and that more people would need to be brought in before policy

discussions have any democratic legitimacy. The focus of their

work, wisely, was to figure out how they could most

effectively spread the harmonization experience to others.

If the "conference for hundreds" works within the dynamics of

harmonization, then I believe those dynamics will enable the

group to come to the same implicit understanding. Even

"hundreds" are not enough to speak for We the People

generally. In the space of harmonization people come to

respect one another -- and they also feel respect and

responsibility toward those who are not present. The

experience of We the People does not lead to an exclusive

feeling that "We are a special, talented group who should

point the way for others", but rather to a universal feeling

that "Any group of people can experience this, and everyone

should get the chance to do so". I suspect, and hope, that

even while its brain is still beclouded by dreams, our We the

People giant will have enough inherent good sense to avoid

stumbling into premature pitfalls. From a strategic

perspective, the primary mission of a harmonization movement

-- in its early stages -- is to spread the We the People

experience into the mainstream culture. I believe that the

nature of the harmonization experience will prevent the early

movement from straying too far from this all-important

mission.

If our giant can avoid early pitfalls -- while it is still

rubbing the sleep out of its eyes -- then it will soon be able

to develop a sense of itself and a basic understanding of its

surroundings. In movement terms, this means that the movement

is likely to soon achieve an essential critical mass -- as

regards constituency, coherence, and awareness. In terms of

constituency, critical mass will be achieved when the

harmonization experience is spread widely enough so that the

movement develops several independent 'centers', and several

autonomous threads of initiatives. In terms of coherence,

critical mass will be achieved when these parallel threads

begin learning how to harmonize their thinking and activities

without creating a hierarchical organization or a centralized

leadership circle. In terms of awareness, critical mass will

be achieved when people in the movement begin to get a sense

for the immense potential of the movement -- and of the

equally immense challenges that We the People must learn how

to deal with.

The giant will be nearly awake when people in the movement

begin to realize that the problems of our society can only be

addressed by a deep reexamination of the systems that govern

our lives -- and that our political systems are a major part

of the problem. The giant will be fully awake when people

begin to understand the true nature of the crisis that

humanity currently faces -- an understanding that I have tried

to articulate in the form of a Transformational Imperative:

There is no one out there, no actor on the stage of society,

who can or will bring about the radical social transformation

required to save humanity and the world -- no one that is

except We the People. Not we the electorate, nor we the

public, but We who are members of the intelligent and aware

human species -- We who are capable of thinking for ourselves,

envisioning a better world, and working together with others

in pursuit of our common visions. There is no one else who

will do it for Us, and it is a job that must be done.

When the movement is fully awake, and a critical mass has been

achieved, then it will be possible for the movement to begin

thinking effectively in terms of plans and strategies. It will

then make sense for Us to think in terms of a transformational

movement -- a movement which is not primarily political, but

which can transform the very meaning of politics.

The movement is beginning as a cultural movement, and its main

activity so far has been, and wisely so, to spread the

experience of harmonization. In today's context, we might say

that the movement is 'less than' a political movement -- in

the sense that the movement is not explicitly challenging or

engaging the existing regime. But as the movement evolves,

more and more of us will realize that this kind of cultural

movement is in fact 'much more than' a political movement. The

promise -- and the inherent mission -- of this movement is to

transform not only our political priorities, but to transform

our entire global culture and the cultures of each of our

societies and communities.

The metaphor of the waking giant is about We the People

awakening to our full heritage as an intelligent, self-aware

species. Harmonization is merely the catalyst that enables us

to listen to one another, find our common identity, and work

together with synergy and coherence. We are capable of

governing ourselves wisely, we have the power to bring that

about, and we have both the right and the responsibility to do

so.

_________________________________________________

CHAPTER 6: HARMONIZATION AND GLOBAL TRANSFORMATION

"May you live in interesting times."

- An ancient Chinese curse

* The crisis of civilization

We are now in the midst of an extremely volatile and unstable

moment in history. It is a chaotic instability, where a

variety of likely events can each lead to unpredictable and

far-reaching consequences. Nuclear war is a strong

possibility, as the U.S. pursues its New American Century

agenda and tensions continue between Israel & Iran, India &

Pakistan, and China & Taiwan. Abrupt climate changes are

likely to occur, as global warming threatens to melt the polar

ice caps and disrupt the Gulf Stream. Global food supplies are

being diminished by depletion of fishing stocks, water tables,

and arable land. Declining oil supplies threaten to

destabilize our entire energy-hungry civilization, while

rising oil prices are already stressing the global economy.

Even without the oil problem, the global economy is in serious

trouble as it faces the ultimate limits to growth on a finite

planet. And this is only a partial list of potentially

disastrous disruptions. All major governments and political

leaders, meanwhile, have no policy concept other than a

stubborn insistence on 'more of the same'. Attempts at reform

have become futile, as neoliberal economists tighten their

budgets and governments militarize their police forces.

In such a chaotic context, it may seem like a waste of time to

pursue processes of social transformation. Perhaps it would

make more sense to escape to high ground, find a cave, and

stock it with provisions. A few may adopt such a survivalist

strategy, but most of us cannot or will not. For the majority

of us who stick with the Titanic, we might as well use our

time in the best way we can. I believe that taking control of

our own destinies is the most sensible thing we can devote our

efforts to, no matter what the state of the world. If we can

gain control of the ship before it sinks, we may be able to

steer around the worst dangers. If instead we become survivors

in a post-apocalyptic world, then the more we know about

governing ourselves the better off we will be. If we are

forced to build a new civilization, we would be well advised

to take charge of that process -- and consciously avoid the

mistakes of our predecessors.

In other words: even in the midst of a chaotic situation, our

Transformational Imperative remains in effect. Indeed, a time

of chaos is the most fertile time for new possibilities. In

more stable times, there would be no mass constituency for

social transformation. In today's world, everyone knows that

fundamental change is needed. But our societies are divided by

factionalism, and this prevents us from working together to

bring about change. Overcoming factionalism in society, by

harmonizing our differences, is the only way that We the

People can come together and become the desperately needed

agent of transformation.

We know how to overcome divisiveness in the microcosm, in a

face-to-face gathering. There are proven techniques for

achieving that, based on deep listening, and the outcomes of

such gatherings are very promising. Not only do participants

overcome their differences -- and reach a place where they can

work creatively together -- but they come away with a sense of

We the People, and an understanding that factionalism can be

overcome in society generally. As a consequence, participants

also come away with an enthusiasm for spreading the experience

to others. They've seen the light of hope, and being caring

human beings, they want to share it.

My message to activists and concerned citizens everywhere,

regardless of your political or religious orientation, is to

take heed of this ray of hope. If you really want to make a

difference, I can see no more promising direction for your

energies at this time than to help spread a culture of mutual

understanding and creative dialog. Massive worldwide protests

against war and globalization have been ignored, but if We the

People get our act together in the right way, there is no

power that can stand against us. The following links provide

useful information, contacts, and resources:

Tree Bressen, "Dynamic Facilitation for Group Transformation":

http://cyberjournal.org/cj/authors/tree/DynamicFacilitation.Group.html

Jim Rough's Dynamic Facilitation workshops: http://www.ToBe.net

Rogue Valley Wisdom Council:

http://www.rvwc.org/

Tom Atlee's politics and democracy pages:

http://www.co-intelligence.org/CIPol_Index.html

http://www.democracyinnovations.org/

A Canadian experiment in citizen's councils:

http://www.co-intelligence.org/S-Canadaadvrsariesdream.html

National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation:

http://thataway.org/index.html

Report on popular democracy in Venezuela:

http://www.cyberjournal.org/cj/show_archives/?id='846'&lists='cj'

* Achieving critical mass: the role of activists

Despite the transformative experience of harmonization in the

microcosm, and despite the many groups and initiatives aimed

at spreading this experience (eg., the above links), there is

not as yet any real momentum -- and no real harmonization

movement. The Michigan gathering shows promise, in terms of

systematically getting some momentum going. But in terms of a

major movement that initiative is only a drop in the bucket.

If the movement is to really get off the ground, we need a

much wider variety of initiatives. If there is to be a

harmonization movement, I believe there must first be an

earlier movement, a movement to spread an understanding of

harmonization -- and the importance of overcoming factionalism

-- among activists.

Throughout the West there are hundreds of thousands of

activists. They are the stalwarts who regularly show up at

anti-globalization and anti-war protests, and they are the

ones who organize such events. They organize boycotts to fight

against sweatshop practices, they create community currencies,

they demonstrate against or in favor of abortion rights -- and

there are hundreds of other such causes. Activists are people

who have the motivation, and make the time, to roll up their

sleeves, get involved, and do what they can to make a

difference -- according to their own values and perspectives.

If this kind of mass energy could be shifted to spreading

harmonization, the movement could build momentum very quickly.

In general, when people experience a harmonization session,

they come away with an enthusiasm for spreading the

experience. In the case of activists, that enthusiasm would

likely be turned into action. Currently, most activists think

in terms of adversarial engagement within the current

political system. After experiencing the empowerment of We the

People working together, activists would naturally want to

share this experience with other activists and with people

generally. They would have new visions of how social change

can be brought about -- as did the participants in the

Michigan gathering.

The Michigan participants were activists of a sort, what we

might call 'organizational' activists. From their experience

of overcoming divisiveness, they naturally thought in terms of

joining advisory boards, building bridges between their

organizations, planning follow-up conferences, and creating

policy agendas. These are very useful initiatives, and in

their way they can do much do reduce factionalism in society.

But at the same time these initiatives are basically

hierarchical in their nature. They are, in their main thrust,

aimed at coalition building -- within the context of

adversarial politics. Rather than spreading harmonization as a

cultural movement, these initiatives are, it seems, directed

more at using harmonization as an organization-building tool.

The great bulk of modern activists, on the other hand, tend to

be 'grassroots' activists. They think in terms of

face-to-face, locally-based affinity groups rather than

at-large membership organizations. They participate in

large-scale events -- but they see those as collective

expressions of grassroots energy rather than the result of

coalitions among hierarchical groups. Their demonstrations are

marked by diversity, creativity, 'spirit', and spontaneity,

rather than by agendas and centralized planning. Within the

context of our adversarial political system, these grassroots

activists can be criticized as regards their ultimate

effectiveness. But in terms of deep social transformation,

this kind of activism could be very effective indeed -- if

empowered by an understanding and appreciation of

harmonization and its potential.

In closing the previous section I said, "If you really want to

make a difference, I can see no more promising direction for

your energies at this time than to help spread a culture of

mutual understanding and creative dialog." To that I would now

add that the most promising way to get the momentum going is

by bringing in grassroots activists and giving them the

opportunity to experience a harmonization session for

themselves. The communication and organizational links among

these activists tend to be horizontal and multi-branched --

based on networking rather than hierarchy. If a fire can be

lit among grassroots activists, it would be likely to spread

widely and quickly.

* Achieving critical mass: the role of community

If a harmonization movement develops momentum on a grassroots

basis, then we could expect many different kinds of sessions

to be organized. We could expect the same kind of imagination,

variety, and energy to be expressed as we currently see in the

many diverse forms of activism throughout the West. In this

way an understanding of harmonization could spread throughout

the culture. In this section, I'd like to discuss some of the

kinds of sessions that we might expect to see, and consider

how the movement might lead to an awakening of We the People

-- as an agent of social transformation.

One kind of session might be among activists themselves, as a

means of reaching consensus on activist projects. In

anti-globalization protests, for example, most of the

protestors have been strictly non-violent while others, the

'anarchist' wing, insist on engaging in property destruction.

Perhaps, by using harmonization, more coherent tactics could

be adopted among all parties in such an event. This could

increase the effectiveness of the event and perhaps reduce the

likelihood of conflict with police.

Another kind of session might be among different parties in a

local dispute, as a means of reaching resolution. Perhaps some

community is divided between people supporting a development

project and others wanting to protect the environment.

Harmonization might enable the community to come up with a

consensus approach that everyone can support. For local

environmental activists, organizing such a 'both-sides'

session could be more fruitful than a traditional

environmentalist protest event.

Another kind of session, like the Michigan gathering, might be

aimed at reducing divisiveness among competing organizations.

Certainly many activists will think in traditional political

terms, and there might be attempts to create a political

movement or even a new party. And there are countless other

possibilities, limited only by the imagination and creativity

of diverse activist groups. And whenever a certain kind of

harmonization session achieves a successful outcome, that

would provide energy and inspiration for future similar events

in other places. In this way the movement could spread

non-linearly, along many lines of propagation, and a broader

sense of 'harmonization movement' would emerge.

Of all the various kinds of sessions that might arise, there

is one in particular that I would like to focus on -- a

session aimed at creating a collective sense of identity and

empowerment within a local community. For a variety of

reasons, I suggest that this kind of session offers the

greatest potential for social transformation. In order to

explore this notion further, let's examine the Ashland

gathering -- the one that generated the enthusiasm for the

Michigan event.

Held in January, 2004, the Ashland event was billed as "The

Rogue Valley Wisdom Council" (see URL above). A "Wisdom

Council" is a concept developed by Jim Rough, the inventor of

Dynamic Facilitation -- one of the most effective forms of

facilitation for achieving harmonization in a diverse group of

people. The Wisdom Council is Jim's proposal for how the We

the People experience might be translated into the political

domain. The basic idea behind a Wisdom Council is to bring

together a group of randomly selected citizens, as a kind of

'representative microcosm' of a larger population -- a

community, a region, or even a whole nation. Ideally, a Wisdom

Council would be officially chartered in some way, so that the

outcome of its harmonization process would have a claim to

democratic legitimacy. The ideas and proposals generated in

the Council session would be published to the larger

population, and could presumably find their way eventually

into public policy.

The Ashland session was organized as an attempt to implement

this Wisdom Council vision for the people of Rogue Valley,

Oregon. Not every part of the Wisdom Council formula was

followed, for example there was no official political

chartering of the event. But overall the event was a very

useful experiment and from it we can learn quite a bit about

the potential of Wisdom Councils and of community-based

sessions more generally.

In order to achieve a reasonably random selection of

participants, hundreds of names were picked randomly from the

phone books for the Rogue Valley area. These people were

contacted by phone, and eventually a small group agreed to

participate in the event. Jim Rough personally facilitated the

two-day session, and the group did indeed achieve a strong

sense of We the People. The event was recorded on video, and

one can readily see the transformation in the participants. At

the beginning they were all rather shy and didn't feel they

had much to say. By the end, they were overflowing with

enthusiasm about the possibility of some more direct kind of

participation in the democratic process.

As a follow-up, a public meeting was held in the week

following the session, and this was also recorded on video.

The meeting started off with a report by the participants on

their experience, and their highly articulate expressions were

in stark contrast to their original shyness. The meeting then

broke up into several roundtable discussions, each including

one of the Council participants. There was no attempt to

facilitate these discussions, and remarkably the enthusiasm of

the Council participants turned out to be highly contagious.

The people at the meeting were able to somehow pick up the We

the People spirit without actually going through the

harmonization experience themselves.

Everyone came away from the public meeting with a great deal

of enthusiasm, including the organizers. But along with the

enthusiasm, there was also a kind of let-down. The potential

of We the People had felt so real, so promising, and yet the

next day the world goes on as usual. How can We the People be

more than a transitory experience? How can it have a

noticeable effect on society? Where do we go from here? What

next?

For these particular organizers, the answer to the 'What

next?' question was the Michigan gathering. The strategy there

is to piggy-back on existing activist organizations. Those

organizations have some degree of political influence, and if

that influence can be shifted away from divisiveness we can

hope for beneficial political consequences. Jim Rough's

strategy with Wisdom Councils is similar, only he seeks to

piggy-back on official political institutions rather than

activist organizations. Both strategies are promising and make

good sense, but the sense they make is within the context of

the existing hierarchical political system. They are not aimed

at creating the kind of deep social transformation that is

required to deal with the unprecedented crisis being faced by

humanity and civilization.

So let's return to the Ashland experience, and consider again

the 'What next?' question -- from the perspective of

transformation. How can We the People achieve democratic

legitimacy -- not as an influencer within hierarchical

politics, but rather as a primary actor in society? I suggest

that the answer to this question can be found at the community

level. I've been referring to face-to-face sessions as being

examples of 'harmonization in the microcosm'. The community, I

believe, is the natural next step. If a community as-a-whole

can achieve harmonization, then that would be an example of

harmonization in a very important larger microcosm, the

microcosm of a community. If a whole community can 'wake up',

then We the People would exist as a coherent entity in an

identifiable territory. This would be a very important

milestone in terms of social transformation, and we will

return to this point shortly.

What would it mean for a community to achieve harmonization --

for a community to 'wake up'? It would not necessarily mean

that the whole community participates in face-to-face

sessions, although that might be possible in a very small

community. More likely 'waking up' would be a multi-stage

process. In Ashland, a significant number of people came away

with a considerable amount of enthusiasm, from both the

session and the public meeting. It seems likely that a similar

project could be carried out in any locality, with similar

results. So let's take the Ashland scenario, and consider how

that kind of momentum might develop into a community waking-up

process.

It seems to me that there would be two 'threads' in such a

process. One thread has to do with organizing more sessions

and spreading the experience among more members of the

community. The other thread has to do with the content of what

is discussed in the sessions -- and the publication of that to

the community at large. The first thread serves to involve

larger and larger segments of the community in the vision of

We the People, and the second facilitates the evolution a

'sense of the community' -- the awakening consciousness of We

the People.

After several sessions, it seems likely that certain issues

would rise to the top, as being of general community concern.

There would begin to be a coherence in the awakening

consciousness, as a harmonized perspective begins to emerge on

those issues. Subsequent sessions would have a 'starting

point'; they could move beyond simply discovering a sense of

We the People, and go on to advance the ongoing community

dialog. Each session would bring in new perspectives and

concerns, leading to greater coherence in an evolving

community consciousness. As harmonization became part of the

local culture generally, it would become possible for larger

gatherings, and shorter gatherings, to operate effectively

within the context of harmonization. At some point the

community as a whole would be awake -- it would have a sense

of itself as a community, it would have evolved ways of

maintaining community dialog, and it would have a shared

understanding of its collective concerns and priorities.

I've extrapolated quite a bit, in drawing out this scenario.

But based on the experience of previous harmonization

sessions, it seems to me that these kind of dynamics would be

likely to develop if sufficient organizational energy were

applied to pursing the two threads. In the case of Ashland, I

believe enough energy was generated to enable a next step to

be taken in this process -- a follow-on session, let's say,

and some effective local publicity. Out of the enthusiasm

generated in that next session, there would be new energy

released to enable another step, and so on. Perhaps that will

happen or is happening, but for the time being most of the

energy seems to have been diverted instead to the Michigan

event. What is needed for the community process to proceed is

not more seed energy -- an Ashland-like event can provide that

-- but rather an awareness, on the part of organizers, of the

transformative potential of awakened communities. This is a

point that I promised , a bit earlier, to return to.

My claim here is that an awakened community has the potential

to be an active and effective agent of social transformation.

There are three basic reasons for this claim, and they have to

do with political legitimacy, ability to act coherently, and

ability to serve as a model for other communities. Let's

examine each of these reasons in turn.

The most basic principle of politics, since time immemorial,

has been a mutual respect among societies as regards

sovereignty and territorial integrity. Whenever this principle

is violated we note that as an exceptional episode, and we

give it a label like 'raid', 'invasion', 'conquest', 'war', or

'imperialism'. Most of us yearn for peace, and we define that

in terms of societies not interfering, or threatening to

interfere, in the affairs of other societies. In today's world

sovereignty and territorial integrity are defined, for the

most part, at the level of nations. In earlier eras, the level

was kingdoms, chiefdoms, tribes, and hunter-gatherer bands.

The principle that the 'people of a place' have a right to run

their own affairs, according their own system of governance,

goes all the way back to our origins, evolving out of the

territorial behavior found throughout the animal kingdom,

including in particular the primates.

As the size of political entities has grown, through conquest

and imperialism, peoples have often been forced together

against their will. With the Kurds and Palestinians in the

Middle East, the Basques in Spain, and the Tibetans in China,

we see examples of peoples who see their primary identity in a

smaller entity, and who yearn for their own sovereign

territory. In the splitting up of the USSR, Czechoslovakia,

and Yugoslavia, we see examples of such yearnings being

allowed to play themselves out. In some cases we may

sympathize with a demand for independence, and in other cases

we may not, but we all recognize that any legitimate claim to

independence must begin with a consensus among the 'people of

a place' that they want to be independent. Thus international

recognition of a new nation is frequently associated with some

kind of plebiscite, verifying that the desire for independence

is genuinely shared by most people throughout the identified

territory.

It is within the context of this primordial principle -- that

the 'people of a place' have an inherent right to seek to run

their own affairs -- that I speak of the political legitimacy

of an awakened community. I'm not claiming that a community

has the right to become a sovereign state, at least not at

this point in our discussion. What I am claiming is that a

community is the 'people of a place', and there is an inherent

political legitimacy in the will of a community -- if that

will is based on a genuine consensus of the members of that

community. An awakened community has the ability to achieve

such a consensus -- to evolve a community 'will' or 'agenda'

-- and it has the ability to express that will with a coherent

community voice. When 'We the People of Our Town' can speak

with such a voice, then that voice has a legitimate claim to

be taken seriously by surrounding communities and by relevant

governmental agencies.

Let's next examine the ability of an awakened community to

'act coherently'. When a community has achieved a sense of its

collective will or agenda, then there are many ways in which

the people of the community can act to move that agenda

forward. For one thing, they can select a slate of candidates

from among themselves, and elect them to all local offices

with something near 100% of the vote. In this way We the

People can also speak with the official voice, and exercise

the authority, of the local governmental apparatus. The people

of the community would be involved in ongoing policy

formation, by means of appropriate harmonization processes

that the people work out for themselves. The local government

apparatus would serve as the operational arm of the people,

rather than as a vehicle of power and wealth for local elites

and politicians. And there are many things an awakened

community can do outside the governmental context, such as

organizing co-op industries to create employment and generate

income for the community. Regardless of what local agendas

might be pursued, We the People would be learning how to

think, act, and respond as a whole community. This is an

important phase of the waking up process.

Porto Alegre is a medium-sized city in Brazil which operates

under a bottom-up consensus process that has enabled the

residents to achieve some degree of We the People

consciousness. The budget of the city is determined by this

process, in which everyone can participate, and the official

government implements that budget -- spending the allocated

amounts on the identified items. Porto Alegre is recognized

internationally as being a well-managed, efficient, and

livable city, and has won many civic prizes and awards. Within

the constraints of higher-level government and funding, an

awakened community can basically run its affairs according to

its own preferences and priorities. Policies on open spaces,

public services, traffic, zoning, and other matters can be

developed creatively, with respect for the concerns and tastes

of everyone in the community. We the People, at the level of

community, can be the agent of transformation of its own civic

environment.

An awakened community, I suggest, would be a very appealing

model to people in other communities. Every community today

has conflicts between different factions or ethnic groups,

gripes about the way the local government runs things, and

recognized local problems that seem to never go away.

Activists, concerned citizens -- and even elected officials --

in such a community would naturally have some interest in

finding out how 'Our Town' was able to resolve its internal

conflicts, and move forward toward achieving a civic

renaissance. Perhaps nothing could be more effective in

spreading a culture of harmonization than the inspiration

provided by a growing number of awakened 'Our Towns'.

* The waking of the giant

So far in this chapter we've been looking at harmonization

mostly as a cultural movement. We saw in the previous chapter

that such a movement exists in an embryonic form, with a

handful of initiatives seeking to generate momentum in one way

or another, based on one strategy or another. In this chapter

we've been exploring ways in which such a cultural movement

might gain momentum. We've looked particularly at the

potential role of grassroots activists, and focused on

applying harmonization to the mission of enabling 'We the

People' to wake up at the level of community. I suggested that

this focus is important because the people in a community, if

they find common purpose, can claim a kind of legitimacy

(being the 'people of a place'), and because the community

level can give We the People practice in thinking and acting

together coherently, and because awakened communities could,

by their example, be effective vehicles of movement

propagation.

If the movement were to develop in this way, and if several

different communities began to achieve a sense of We the

People, and if interest in these activities began to spring up

in the society at large -- then we would probably be able to

say that the movement had reached critical mass. In actual

experience with harmonization processes, as in Ashland and

Michigan, participants have come away with a great deal of

enthusiasm. It seems to me that we would see that kind of

enthusiasm magnified many times when the process is enabling

communities to begin taking charge of their own affairs. With

that kind of enthusiasm, and sufficient initial momentum, I

anticipate that the movement would take off in a big way.

In terms of our waking giant, this would bring us to the point

where the giant is conscious and able to interact

intelligently with its local environment. But social

transformation cannot be brought about at the local level. We

the People may begin to awaken locally, but our consciousness

must become global if we are to save humanity from the crisis

it faces. The giant is not fully awake until it understands

its role in the wider world. Fortunately, it is very likely

that awakened communities would soon discover the limitations

of what can be accomplished locally. For example, they would

find themselves encumbered by restrictions placed by

higher-level government, they might find that outside

landlords control much of the property in the community -- and

that remote corporations have more say over the local economy

than do the local government and the people combined.

Eventually, people would begin to realize that further

progress requires a deeper perspective than that of civic

improvement.

Communities are made up of real people, some of whom are

experts in various areas, and some of whom are concerned about

things like sustainability and globalization. There is no

reason to assume that there would not be sessions early on in

the waking up process that would be brave enough to venture

into radical thinking of one sort or another. I've found that

in face-to-face discussions people can entertain surprisingly

radical ideas. It is only in public forums and the media that

everyone seems to limit themselves to mainstream thinking.

Here's one experiment I've carried out a couple times in

airports. I'd find myself next to some 'very ordinary' middle

class couple and I'd strike up a conversation. They'd ask what

I did, I'd say I write, they'd ask what about, I'd say

political stuff, and then I'd say, "For example, what do you

think of capitalism?". That's a question that had never

occurred to them, and amazingly, within about ten minutes of

discussion they'd be saying something like, "I see what you

mean, capitalism doesn't really make much sense, does it?".

I'm not saying that people can be converted quickly away from

capitalism, only that people are more open than we might

presume to entertaining deep questions about the myths of

society -- if the circumstances are right.

Earlier, I introduced the concept of 'harmonization dynamics'

-- within the context of a face-to-face meeting. In that

context, those dynamics typically lead to remarkable results:

people learn to respect one another as human beings, they

learn to resolve their differences, they learn how to work

creatively and effectively together, and they experience a

sense of We the People. In that earlier discussion, I

contrasted the dynamics of harmonizing meetings with those of

'adversarial' and 'collaborative' meetings -- in which

differences are not resolved, but are instead either

reinforced or submerged.

Just as harmonization exhibits remarkable dynamics in the

microcosm, I believe we can expect it to also exhibit

remarkable dynamics in the macrocosm. I think we can assume,

for example, that awakened communities would tend to stay in

touch with one another on a networking basis. It would be only

natural for them to want to compare experiences and share

ideas amongst one another. And as people began to see the need

to think more globally and more deeply, they would be likely

to organize gatherings and conferences to bring in as many

ideas and perspectives as possible -- and to seek to harmonize

them. After such gatherings, people would go back to their

communities and most likely there would be follow-up

discussions, harmonizing community perspectives as regards

whatever ideas or proposals came up at the wider gathering.

Good ideas or resolutions-of-conflicts that come up in one

community would tend to spread around and be considered by

other communities. Breakthroughs in any microcosm would soon

become breakthroughs for the macrocosm. In this way, a

movement-wide consciousness would tend to develop -- and We

the People would begin to have meaning on a society-wide

scale. The macrocosm reflects the microcosm: communities would

learn to respect one another as human communities, they would

learn to resolve their differences, they would learn how to

work creatively and effectively together, and they would

experience a sense of We the People -- at the level of the

macrocosm.

If these kind of dynamics emerge and become a factor in the

mainstream culture, then the giant will be fully awake and

ready to become a player in society. We the People will be

emerging from the anonymous masses, just like the figures

emerging from the rock in Michelangelo's "The Prisoners".

[picture here]

* Cultural dynamics and cultural transformation

What we would be seeing, with harmonization in the macrocosm,

is the beginning of a fundamental cultural transformation --

from a hierarchical-adversarial culture to a

networking-harmonizing culture. Under hierarchical-adversarial

dynamics, people seek empowerment by joining forces with some

faction or 'cause'. When we 'push' within such a system,

opposition energy arises to push back, and the net transaction

tends to reinforce divisiveness -- whether or not our pushing

gets us anywhere. In such a culture, we have little motivation

to think creatively about solving the problems that face us as

a society because no one would listen to us, and besides our

energies must go to supporting those candidates and causes

which are, at best, _somewhat aligned with our own concerns.

No one asks us for our ideas, they only ask us for our

support. The creative thinking that sets the direction of our

societies comes from the top down, and it reflects the

interests of those near the top. Furthermore, this

hierarchical planning results in a tendency toward uniformity

in society -- cookie cutter towns with a Starbucks, a WalMart,

look-alike motels and freeways -- and now occurring on a

global scale.

A networking-harmonizing culture begins in the community, and

its creative thinking is aimed at dealing fairly with

everyone's concerns. We can seek empowerment in such a culture

by openly expressing our concerns and ideas, and by listening

respectfully to those of others. If we 'push' a concern which

is important to us, we will be listened to, and rather than

opposition we would find cooperation in trying to find a way

in which the concern can be dealt with, taking into account

conflicting concerns as well. Regardless of what the concern

is about, the net transaction tends to broaden community

understanding and deepen harmonization. In such a culture, we

have every motivation to think creatively about the problems

that face us a society, and at the scale of community we will

find that we are blessed with a considerable measure of

collective wisdom.

In a networking-harmonizing culture, creative problem solving

goes on in parallel in every community, and indeed in every

gathering or conference that is concerned with social issues.

Whenever something is learned in one venue, or a new idea is

generated, that becomes available for consideration everywhere

else. In this kind of culture, we could expect the emergence

of diversity, as different communities find their own way of

dealing with their own unique problems and opportunities. Such

a culture would be incredibly more creative in dealing with

social and economic problems than is our current culture.

Under hierarchy, fundamental policies are determined

centrally, and then implemented everywhere more or less the

same way. Apart from the fact that 'one size does not fit

all', there is a more systemic problem: a central planning

agency is a creative bottleneck. It's like having one central

processor in society's computer instead of thousands of

parallel PCs -- each of which can share its discoveries with

the others. (In our current society, we see this kind of

parallel creativity in the way the marketplace operates, but

unfortunately all that creativity is constrained and channeled

by the harmful dynamics of capitalism.)

I suggest that a networking -harmonizing culture is precisely

what we need to be aiming for, in terms of social

transformation. The community as the primary autonomous unit,

harmonization as the way of relating, and networking as the

principle of organization. That is my formula for the

enlightened society. I come to this not because I think it is

ideal, nor because it suits my native sentiments -- although

both or these are true -- but because from a systems

perspective I see this as the only viable alternative to

hierarchies and elite rule.

But I get ahead of our story. So far, in our examination of

where harmonizing dynamics might lead, we've gotten to the

point where a culture based on networking and harmonization is

growing up within the larger hierarchical society. The new

culture is characterized, to use the rhetoric of revolution,

by 'captured territory' -- ie., the network of awakened

communities. This territorial aspect is very important. When

people in their everyday lives participate with their

neighbors in a new culture, that culture is reinforced and

strengthened, and the culture begins to elaborate itself in

the form of artistic and poetic expression. Awakened

communities are in fact 'liberated zones', and in liberated

zones we begin to see the potential of a transformed society.

Without territory, there are only dispersed partisans. With

territory, a new culture will begin to lay down roots.

I daresay it would not be too long before people would began

to ask, "Why can't we just run society this way? What are

those jerks in Washington (or Dublin, or Paris, or wherever)

doing for us anyway? What do we need them for?" This is when

the giant begins to realize its own power. In terms of

revolutionary dynamics, this situation is very similar to that

of the American colonies under British rule.

The American colonies were not really ruled by Britain, rather

they were compelled to pay tribute to Britain in monetary

terms, in the form of levies to the Crown or profits sent home

to British-owned enterprises operating in the colonies. In

terms of governance, the colonies had their own elected

assemblies that managed their own local affairs. The American

Revolution was not a social revolution -- as were the French

and Russian -- it was simply the severing of ties with the

Mother country. Whereas the French and Russian revolutions

were followed by considerable conflict and strife, the

aftermath of the American 'Revolution' was relatively orderly

and civil. The new society had already been in place -- it

only needed to be freed from outside domination. The

Constitution was not intended to transform the colonies, but

rather to legitimize the way they already were -- and to

preserve the privilege of those who had come out on top under

Crown rule. There was no breakdown of society, no chaos, when

the British were defeated. The transition to the new regime

was at least orderly, even if it didn't lead to a democratic

society.

Similarly, as the new networking-harmonizing culture begins to

establish itself throughout society, people will begin to

realize that their relationship to the hierarchy is a matter

of paying tribute -- in taxes to government, in profits to

corporations, in interest to banks, and in young people

sacrificed to the military machine. As we gain experience in

running our own affairs, we will understand that it is

possible for us to sever our ties with oppression and

exploitation. At this point, our giant is making the decision

to claim its rightful ground.

* Global transformation and the third world

The third world persists in poverty for precisely one reason:

because it has been systematically dominated, robbed, and

looted by centuries of still-ongoing imperialism on the part

of the industrialized nations. This has been a horrible fate,

accompanied by much genocide, bloodshed, and suffering, and no

right-thinking person would wish such an experience on those

peoples. And yet, there is a benefit that accrues from that

suffering: social transformation will be much easier for the

third world than it will be for the West.

The problem for the West is that we believe we already live in

democracies. When a 'bad' official gets elected, we blame

ourselves for not 'getting out the vote'. We get caught up in

adversarial games, pursuing reform, and don't realize that all

the paths of the maze leave us inside the same box. We are

kept from liberation by what the Sufis call a 'veil of light',

which is more dangerous than a 'veil of darkness'. A veil of

darkness is a recognized obstacle, against which we know we

should muster our resources. A veil of light is a seductive

siren that seems to be what we want, but which imprisons us.

Moving past our pseudo-democracy veil of light requires, if my

investigation has been relevant, a wholesale cultural

transformation. Only when we experience genuine democracy will

we realize that what we had wasn't the real thing.

The third world, on the other hand, sees the mainstream

capitalist imperialist system as a 'veil of darkness'. People

in the third world know that most of their rulers are corrupt

puppets, and their socieities are being raped by globalization

and corporations -- modern descendents of the missionaries

and conquistadors. People in the third world don't need to

awaken to the possibility of transformation, they need only

the freedom to liberate themselves. If the West is able to

transform itself to a culture based on networking and

harmonization, and if it ends imperialism and extends the hand

of friendship and support to the people of the third world, I

suspect that social transformation will be global in a matter

of weeks.

But in fact the third world is not waiting for us in the West

to lead the way. All over the third world people are

struggling for local control, and they are building networks

and learning to find their empowerment as We the People. They

have been forced into bottom-up solidarity by the array of

forces exploiting and dominating them. They have not been

encumbered by illusions of living in democracies. Under the

hyper-exploitation brought on by globalization, rejection of

the imperialist system is spreading to all strata of many

third world societies, not just the poorer segments. I

mentioned earlier the example of Porto Alegre, a medium-sized

city in Brazil, where the budget is determined by a bottom-up

consensus process. This model has been replicated elsewhere in

Brazil, and there there are many other democratic initiatives

and innovations being pursued in Brazil, under the progressive

stewardship of a strong labor party at the national level.

There are more radical examples of third-world leadership on

the path to social transformation, but before I mention them

I'd like to review a few points. Consider for a moment the

possibility of a whole society operating on the basis of

harmonization and networking. Each community basically runs

its own affairs, and wider scale issues are dealt with by

harmonizing the concerns of all affected communities. There's

a lot more to be said about how that could work in practice on

a global scale, and we'll get into that in the next chapter.

For the moment and for the sake of the argument, please

imagine that such a society would be viable.

What I'd like you to notice is that voting and political

parties do not play a role in such a society. Parties are the

embodiment of factionalism, and they make no sense in a

culture of harmonization. If people have concerns that need to

be addressed, harmonization is a more effective way of

addressing those concerns than would be the formation of a

faction dedicated to those concerns. As regards voting, there

are two kinds to consider: voting on issues, and electing

representatives. As regards issues, voting is a vastly

inferior decision-making system in comparison with

harmonization. If there are competing proposals on the table,

it makes much more sense to creatively harmonize the

underlying concerns than it does to simply choose among the

proposals. Indeed, this is the core principle underlying the

virtues of harmonization.

As regards electing representatives, the issue is really one

of hierarchy. In our current system, candidates compete to be

given the power to rule over us. We choose among masters, live

under a hierarchy, and call it democracy. While we live under

this illusion, it is natural that we value 'open and fair

elections'. That serves to maximize the meaning of our votes,

for whatever that's worth -- or at least it helps us be

comfortable in our illusion. But 'open and fair elections' are

only of value within the context of hierarchy. In a society

based on harmonization there are no rulers and no need to

elect any. Instead we might select people, or solicit

volunteers, to manage certain projects or to represent the

community's concerns in some gathering or conference -- what

the Native Americans called a 'pow wow'. Such representatives

or managers are not 'given power', but are rather given the

responsibility to carry forward the agenda that has been

articulated by the community as a whole. If people compete for

such roles, it is not on the basis that they will 'make better

decisions', but rather on the basis that they are good

managers or good communicators. And in many cases, it would

probably be a team or slate that would be selected for such a

role rather than an individual. Competitive elections of

rulers, whether 'open and fair' or not, makes no sense in a

society based on harmonization and networking.

It is in the context of these observations that I dare to

bring up the examples of Cuba and Venezuela. I'm not claiming

that these are ideal societies, nor that they embody

harmonization, but I do suggest that we can understand these

societies better if we are able to see that competitive

parties and elections are not the same thing as democracy.

According to mainstream mythology, there are basically two

kinds of governments: democratic and dictatorial. In this

mythology, democracy equals fair & competitive elections, and

everything else is dictatorship. And indeed, most of the

governments in the world that don't have fair & competitive

elections are indeed dictatorships. I suggest, however, that

Cuba and Venezuela are examples that need to be examined on

their own merits.

In the case of Venezuela, we do have fair & competitive

elections, as recently verified by international observers

including ex-President Jimmy Carter. Nonetheless, based on the

grassroots support for Chavez's radical programs, one suspects

that a one-party-state scenario might develop. Based on

eyewitness reports I've seen, by Venezuelan and foreign

observers alike, Chavez is facilitating a cultural

transformation in Venezuela. He is not launching massive state

programs, but is instead encouraging local empowerment, and

providing services and support for those programs which seem

to be achieving results. Katherine Lahey, a community studies

major at the University of California Santa Cruz, offers these

comments in an article she wrote based on her observations in

Venezuela:

The stitching of the fabric of the revolution is unmatched in

its strength and breadth of anything I have ever seen.

Throughout the country, not just in the urban barrios, social

programs called 'misiones' - a social development strategy

borrowed from the Cuban revolution - are being implemented by

the people with the support of government resources.

What takes place behind the scenes of each mission is simply

incredible and inspiring beyond words. These campaigns include

education - from literacy to university level, health,

employment, citizenship, support for indigenous groups and

their reincorporation into society, economic justice and

resistance to neoliberalism through development of grassroots

and community cooperatives and businesses, to name a few.

- Full article at:

http://www.cyberjournal.org/cj/show_archives/?id='846'&lists='cj'

Chavez is genuinely trying to help the people of Venezuela

mobilize their own creativity to solve their problems and

develop their communities and society generally. He is not

representing a privileged elite. If his efforts lead to a We

the People kind of democracy in Venezuela, then competitive

elections will not be relevant to the situation. It is likely

that the people would choose to continue on that path -- there

would be no rascals to vote out of office. Venezuela under

their "Bolivarian" revolution needs to be judged on its own

merits, not compared to a set of political standards that

themselves do not deliver democracy. If Chavez starts

suppressing or exploiting people then he's a dictator after

all. If he continues to shepherd a cultural transformation

toward local empowerment, then we should acknowledge him and

the people of Venezuela as being bold pioneers on the path to

global social transformation. So far, at least, that seem to

be what is going on. In the third-world context, Venezuela is

apparently evolving a credible response to our

Transformational Imperative. And that is precisely why our

elite rulers in Washington and Wall Street don't like Chavez

and don't like the broad-based support of the Venezuelan

people for the Bolivarian revolution. One can only hope that

the Venezuelan military is loyal to the government, unlike the

Chilean military in the time of Allende which was covertly

linked with the CIA.

I've saved Cuba to the last because it is the most

controversial case. We never hear Castro's name mentioned in

the news without it being accompanied by the label 'dictator'.

And in mainstream entertainment propaganda, we see stories of

'daring refugees from tyranny', who never have anything good

to say about the Cuban Revolution or Castro. And in the case

of Americans, we are told by our government that Cuba is a

communist dictatorship, and that loyal Americans shouldn't go

there. And it goes deeper than that. With the history of the

Cuban Missile Crisis, the Bay of Pigs, and the derision of

Cuba in right-wing circles, Castro turn out to be rather

deeply embedded in the general American psyche as a bad-guy

commie dictator. I risk alienating my readers if I dare

challenge that myth.

Nonetheless, I must take that risk and offer the challenge. As

an example, Cuba is too valuable to ignore, despite the shadow

cast by decades of demonizing propaganda. As it turns out, the

extent of Cuba's success in achieving a culture of

community-based democratic harmonization can be estimated by

measuring the hostility of Washington towards Cuba. Hostility

from Washington is not a guarantee that democracy exists

somewhere, but wherever a people stand up effectively for

their rights against the imperialist system, you can be sure

Washington's ire will soon follow. For Washington, Cuba is too

important an example to allow it to be seen for what it is --

proof that there are viable models for development outside the

capitalist paradigm. The success of Cuba stands as a

contradiction to the dominant mainstream economic mythology.

It is not at all surprising that Washington and the corporate

media make every effort to demonize, destabilize, and harass

Cuba in every way they can -- and every effort to make other

third-world nations understand that Washington would look with

strong disfavor on any nation that might seek to emulate Cuba,

as we have seen in the case of Venezuela.

Charles McKelvey, an American Professor of Sociology, has

spent considerable time in Cuba as an observer. In 1998, he

wrote a report on his studies for an Internet list, and here

are two excerpts:

The Cuban political system is based on a foundation of local

elections. Each urban neighborhood and rural village and area

is organized into a "circumscription," consisting generally of

1000 to 1500 voters. The circumscription meets regularly to

discuss neighborhood or village problems. Each three years,

the circumscription conducts elections, in which from two to

eight candidates compete. The nominees are not nominated by

the Communist Party or any other organizations. The

nominations are made by anyone in attendance at the meetings,

which generally have a participation rate of 85% to 95%. Those

nominated are candidates for office without party affiliation.

They do not conduct campaigns as such. A one page biography of

all the candidates is widely-distributed. The nominees are

generally known by the voters, since the circumscription is

generally not larger than 1500 voters. If no candidate

receives 50% of the votes, a run-off election is held. Those

elected serve as delegates to the Popular Councils, which are

intermediary structures between the circumscription and the

Municipal Assembly. Those elected also serve simultaneously as

delegates to the Municipal Assembly. The delegates serve in

the Popular Councils and the Municipal Assemblies on a

voluntary basis without pay, above and beyond their regular

employment. ...

So the Cuban revolutionary project has many gains, not only in

the area of social and economic rights, but also in the area

of political and civil rights. Because of these achievements,

the system enjoys wide popular support, in spite of the

hardships caused by U.S. opposition and by the collapse of the

Soviet Union. Drawing upon the institutions that they have

developed over the last forty years, they are responding to

the present challenges and are surviving in a post-Cold War

world. The strength and vitality of these institutions is

worthy of our investigation, for Cuba may represent an

important case as we seek to understand how peripheral and

semi-peripheral states can overcome the legacy of

underdevelopment.

- Full article at:

http://www.cyberjournal.org/cj/show_archives/?id='0009'&lists='cj'

I am not trying here to give a full, balanced report on Cuba

or Venezuela. I imagine there are failures as well as

successes in both places, as regards democracy and justice. My

main point here is that the absence of competitive elections

is not necessarily a sign of dictatorship, and may in some

cases be a sign of a democratic process characterized by the

dynamics of harmonization. Each case deserves to be evaluated

on its own merits by looking at the results on the ground and

at the reports of people who live there. And the fact that

Castro is still around after all these years is not

necessarily evidence that he is a tyrant. It could equally be

an indicator that the people of Cuba continue to support their

revolution, and that Castro continues to support the people in

their project. If that is the case, as it seems to be, then

one can only hope that the Cuban scenario does not depend too

heavily on Castro's personal moral leadership, as he will not

live forever.

As regards the third world in general, I repeat my observation

that social transformation will be easier to accomplish there

than in the West -- once the West abandons its imperialist

ways. In the meantime it seems that the third world is leading

the way in transformational innovation and may provide models

that we can learn from in our own pursuit of transformation.

* Engagement with the regime

In the West there are two primary obstacles to transformation.

The first, which we have been discussing at length, is the

current absence of an effective transformational movement. In

the principle of harmonization at the level of community, I

believe we can find one viable path to building such a

movement. Perhaps there are other viable organizing principles

and paths as well, although I haven't heard of any as yet. But

whatever kind of transformational movement might arise in the

West, it will sooner or later need to face the second

obstacle: determined opposition by the ruling elite regime.

In this section, I will try to anticipate the various kinds of

opposition we could expect to encounter, based on the

experiences of previous social movements and based on what we

know about the tactics and attitudes of the current regime. I

will present this material as a kind of Movement Guidebook --

"How to Overcome the Regime With the Least Confrontation". I

am not competent to write a definitive version of such a

guidebook, but this seems to be the most convenient way for me

to convey observations and analysis which, hopefully, may be

of some value to the movement.

To begin with, I believe it is very important that we look to

the game of Go for our models of engagement rather than the

game of chess. Chess is about battle, and on the battle ground

it is those who command tanks and attack helicopters who have

the advantage, not the people. Besides, transformation is not

about destroying anyone, but about taking everyone's concerns

into account. When eventually they have no useful alternative,

our elite brothers and sisters will be willing to talk to us,

and their concerns will be listened to with the same respect

afforded everyone else. Indeed, it will be much easier for us

to transform our economies and infrastructures when we have

the enthusiastic cooperation of those who currently run our

governments, corporations, and banks.

The game of Go is about gradually consolidating territory

while artfully constraining the alternatives of your opponent

-- so that eventually he has no available move that can

improve his position. Among master players, it is seldom

necessary to actually remove stones from the board -- both

players know from the position what would be the outcome from

that mundane exercise in mechanical capture, and so they don't

bother with it. As I pointed out earlier, this kind of

strategy characterized Gandhi's resistance movement against

British occupation. Certainly his non-violent ethic provides a

model we want to emulate, and I suggest his Go-like strategic

approach also provides us with useful lessons.

In our case, assuming that the movement develops along lines

similar to those I have outlined, the first strategic

objective should be to capture as much territory as possible

-- while keeping a low a profile on elite radar. The initial

task of the movement is not to confront any regime, but rather

to spread and develop a culture of harmonization and

networking. The more widely such a culture can spread and the

more firmly established it can become, prior to encountering

strong elite opposition, the better off we will be. We would

be well advised to focus our initial We the People empowerment

on local problems and issues, and on developing our We the

People consciousness. We need to learn to walk before we can

run, and during that learning process we should not tread too

near to sleeping dogs.

During this stage, we need to beware of the temptation to

reach too high and too soon for the gold ring. The experience

of harmonization generates a lot of hope and enthusiasm, and

many of us might come away with the feeling that there is a

magic short cut to transformation. We see this already in the

agenda of the Michigan organizers and in Jim Rough's Wisdom

Council strategy. These are intelligent people and their

sentiments are beyond reproach, but the diversion of movement

energy in those ways causes problems of two kinds. The first

problem is that early attempts to influence the general

society are premature: they can only have meaning within the

arena of adversarial politics, and there has not as yet been

an opportunity for We the People to evolve any kind of

consciousness of who we are and what we're about. Any

discussion of major issues at this point would be

impoverished, and would be dominated by mainstream thinking --

discussion now could only remain 'inside the box'.

The second problem, perhaps more harmful, is that premature

efforts take up scarce energy that would be more usefully

devoted to spreading a culture of harmonization more widely,

particularly with a focus on grassroots activists and

community empowerment. At this early, embryonic stage of the

movement there are only a handful of activists who are

politically oriented in their activism and who at the same

time understand the value of harmonizing processes. Until some

of their energy is guided by a more strategic transformational

perspective, or until new activists get involved, the

potential of the movement remains, unfortunately, only latent.

Despite our best efforts to keep a low profile on elite radar,

it is unlikely that we could postpone an elite response for

very long. Public opinion and shifts in alignments are of

great interest to the establishment, and they keep close tabs

on trends. It's not that they want to be responsive to public

sentiment, but rather that they want to maintain control with

their system of divide-and-rule propaganda. If they begin to

see a trend toward people listening to their own drummers, and

dialoging across factional lines in their communities, the

opinion managers will have the good sense to perceive that as

a potentially serious threat to their system of control. They

might initiate appropriate counter-measures earlier than would

seem to be warranted by the actual progress of the movement on

the ground. We must keep in mind that the current regime is

characterized by preventive, preemptory action against those

deemed to be a potential threat. Indeed, the Patriot Act

amounts to a preemptory strike against popular movements in

general.

Let's consider some of the early counter-measures that they

might deploy. Surveillance and infiltration by spies and

provocateurs are very common tactics used against movements of

all kinds throughout the West. But a harmonization movement is

relatively secure against those tactics. The moment has

nothing to hide as regards its activities, and the

harmonization process is characterized by too much good sense

to allow itself to be sabotaged by a provocateur pushing some

counter-productive agenda. There may be infiltrators who

intentionally try to thwart the progress of sessions, and we

may need to develop some sensible counter-measures to that

line of attack. More drastic measures, such as arresting

organizers or banning discussions among citizens, are unlikely

to be undertaken at any early stage. That would be a strategic

error on the establishment's part, as it would only bring

attention to the movement and generate support for it.

There are other counter-measures that might be deployed, but

the one I believe is most likely would be a demonization

campaign launched over various media and propaganda channels.

Religious conservatives would be warned, from pulpits and from

radio pundits, that harmonization is a cult movement, and that

it seeks its wisdom not exclusively from the Word of God --

good Christians should stay away. To the libertarian-minded

would come the warning, from radio chat jocks and online

bulletin boards, that harmonization is communistic and that it

submerges the individual in the collective -- stay away and

don't risk being brainwashed. Liberals would read in the Op-Ed

pages that harmonization is undemocratic and that it would

lead to one-party tyranny. They would learn that it's hip to

dismiss harmonization, in the same way that it's hip to scoff

at 'conspiracy theories'.

It would a mistake to underestimate the potential

effectiveness of such a campaign, particularly in the American

context. If the general population adopts a variety of strong

negative attitudes toward harmonization, that might stifle or

even destroy the early movement. But if the movement can build

sufficient momentum in the meantime, and establish sufficient

roots, it should be able to hold its ground and respond

effectively to such an attack. We can take some comfort from

the fact that a demonization campaign would make no sense

until after the movement has made noticeable progress.

I believe that such early confrontation would lead to a major

turning point in the development of the movement. The

establishment would be pushing the movement to consider issues

beyond the civic and the local -- perhaps earlier than if the

movement had been left to develop at its own pace. In the

struggle to respond, We the People would be forced to raise

our political consciousness. Nothing can wake up a giant more

quickly than a poke with a sharp stick. The establishment

would be saying we are dangerous to society, and we would

begin to realize that they are right. We would begin to

understand that the latent destiny of the harmonization

movement is nothing less than the transformation of society.

The movement would be spreading a culture based on

harmonization and networking, and it would be developing a

vision of a society organized around those principles. As the

movement deals with difficulties, innovates in the local

arena, and finds ways to cooperate effectively on a networking

basis, people would be creating the foundations of a

transformed society. They would come to understand, based not

on theory but on their own experience, that We the People are

capable of running our own affairs, and that we can do a much

better job of that than can any remote and corrupt central

government. And yet, even with this raising of

'transformational consciousness', the movement could continue

to co-exist comfortably within the current electoral system.

In liberated zones, we would be able to incorporate local and

regional governmental structures into the movement. Government

there would be aligned with the will of the people, which is,

after all, the proper role for constitutional government.

The movement would have no incentive to cause any kind of

trouble for the regime -- until the time came when such

initiatives could be effective. Before that time the threat to

the regime would exist only in potential, and conflict would

be most likely to arise due to preemptive attacks from the

establishment, not all of which can be anticipated in advance.

We can only trust in the inherent wisdom of the harmonization

process, and our own collective creativity, to deal with such

challenges as they arise.

Eventually, if we overcome the intermediate obstacles, most of

our society will be part of the new culture, and we will have

developed a coherent vision of a transformed society. Only

then does it make sense to initiate decisive dialog with the

regime. One form of dialog will be to elect our own people to

all the national offices. But enforcing rules from the top is

not the way of harmonization. We will also want to bring elite

leaders into the dialog process -- but only when they realize

their best option is to participate. When the time comes to

consolidate the new society, we can expect everyone to be on

board.

_________________________________________________

CHAPTER 7: A CHARTER FOR A DEMOCRATIC WORLD: HARMONIZATION

AND LOCALISM

* Introduction

Up until this point, this book has been addressed to readers

in today's untransformed cultures, particularly those in the

industrialized West. It has presented an historical analysis,

focusing on the role of elites and the dynamics of hierarchy,

imperialism, growth, and capitalism. Special attention was

devoted to exposing the sham of liberal democracy, and showing

how it functions, by design, as an effective mechanism of

elite domination. The objective of this analysis has been to

make it clear that our current societal systems are leading us

inevitably to disaster, and that relief cannot be found by

attempting to reform those inherently flawed systems. The

central conclusion of this investigation was stated as a

Transformational Imperative, identifying We the People as

being the only conceivable agent of social transformation.

That was followed by the development of a Harmonization

Imperative: for We the People to come into existence, we must

first find a way to overcome the factionalism that keeps us

divided and facilitates rule by elites.

The rest of the material has been an exploration of the

potential of harmonization as a means of transforming our

cultures and enabling We the People to wake up. I developed a

scenario of how a harmonization movement might develop, based

on awakened communities and networking, and the kinds of

obstacles it would be likely to encounter. That scenario was

not intended to be a detailed prediction or recommendation,

but rather a rough map of what I see as a plausible route. We

can compare the scenario to a satellite photo of mountainous

terrain: from such a photo we can identify the main passes

through the mountains, but we can't really know what the

terrain is like until we get there -- "The map is not the

territory." Again, this material has been addressed to readers

in today's hierarchical societies, in the hope that some might

be inspired to pursue what appears to be a promising route to

social transformation.

The rest of this book is intended for a moment in the future,

that moment when the movement achieves victory. We the People

have woken up all over the world, and we have just succeeded

in bringing the world's elites into our harmonization circle.

In accomplishing this victory, we have learned to make plans

and take action together and to develop effective strategies.

Now with everyone on board, We the People of the world are

ready to take on the responsibility of transforming our

societies and our global economy. At this special moment of

victory everyone in the world is unified in a common spirit,

as we have seen historically whenever tyrants have been

overthrown. People celebrate and dance in the streets, and

everyone is embraced as a brother or sister.

Everyone, for the moment at least, is reading from the same

page, is full of hope for the future, and has a spirit of

trust toward humanity in general. We have been unified up to

this point by our common struggle, but that's now over. Now

begins a much more difficult task, with many trade-offs to be

made, and we will need a new organizing principle. Presumably

our first step will be to arrange a global council, to

establish a basic system of world order. By using

harmonization, with back-and-forth exchange between the global

council and ad hoc local councils and networks -- and in our

current spirit of cooperation -- we can expect to converge on

a universally acceptable global charter. What elites

accomplished at Bretton Woods, we too can accomplish.

This rest of this chapter is my advance contribution to the

dialog of this future global council. I will be developing,

from a systems perspective, a proposal for a global charter

for a democratic and sustainable global society. My starting

point is to identify a minimal set of 'enabling qualities' for

our new society:

- genuinely democratic

- peaceful

- stable

- economically efficient

- sustainable

- can deal effectively with issues at all levels up to the global

If even one of these qualities is lacking in our new society,

then I suggest we will have serious problems sooner or later.

But if we can be sure our society will exhibit these qualities

as it operates, then we will be enabled to carry on with the

business of running and transforming our societies. We will be

able to set our agendas at all levels democratically, pursue

them efficiently in peace, and plan our futures with an

expectation of stability. That's all we need from a charter;

the rest will be up to us, We the People, as creative and

responsible citizens working together.

The list of qualities is not itself a charter. It makes little

sense to proclaim, for example, "Thou shalt be stable". That

states a desirable outcome, but it says nothing about how to

achieve it, nor how compliance would be measured. What our

charter needs to be about is a set of system constraints

(charter provisions), which are well defined and achievable,

and which can be expected to lead to system dynamics which

exhibit the qualities we are seeking. In case this seems

confusing, here's a simple example. You don't want your child

to be injured in traffic: that's a 'quality' that you want to

see realized. What you tell your child is: "Look both ways and

cross with the light." That's a system constraint. If your

child constrains its behavior in that way whenever it crosses

the street (microcosm), then 'not being injured in traffic' is

likely to characterize that child's life (macrocosm). But if

you tell your child directly, "Don't get injured", that

conveys little useful information.

Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations" presented an entirely

analogous exercise in systems analysis. Smith identified a

small number of constraints (eg., each buyer and seller is

small compared to the market size), and then demonstrated, by

examples and logic, that compliance with those constraints in

the microcosm would cause everyone's economic self interest to

lead toward the common good in the macrocosm. His model has

proven to be accurate in those competitive sub-markets (eg.,

PC peripherals) where his constraints largely apply. His model

has no relevance to a capitalist economy generally, which is

designed to facilitate the concentration of wealth into a few

hands.

Similarly we seek a charter, with a small number of primary

provisions, that will ensure that as people pursue their own

self interest in their local microcosm, the global society

will exhibit our minimal enabling qualities in the macrocosm.

* A global charter: the primary provisions

The first constraint I would like to introduce has to do with

harmonization. If we can ensure that harmonization processes

will be used to develop agendas and to resolve conflicts in

our society, then that will go a long way toward facilitating

our enabling qualities. Harmonization facilitates democracy by

allowing every voice to be heard and taken into account. It

facilitates peace by providing a way to resolve conflicts to

everyone's benefit. It facilitates stability by inhibiting the

emergence of factional strife. It facilitates "dealing

effectively with issues" by providing a tool -- the

harmonization session -- which is designed for that express

purpose.

What I offered in the previous paragraph was a rationale for

considering harmonization as a system constraint. But the

suitability of a constraint is not established by such a

rationale, no matter how persuasive it might seem. The test of

a constraint comes later, as we consider what its consequences

are likely to be in conjunction with the other constraints.

Before stating the first constraint in the language of a

provision, I'd like to bring in the principle of localism, in

the context of democracy. To begin with, let me suggest that

genuine democracy can exist among a group of people only if

every one of their individual voices is able to participate in

the policy decisions of that group. I for one would not be at

all happy if I don't get my two cents in. Who doesn't feel the

same way? Who has nothing to contribute? Who has no unique

concerns? Who doesn't care how their community is run?

If every voice is to be heard, then there would seem to be a

limit to how large a democratic group of people can be. How

can every voice be heard, for example, in a city of ten

million people? I don't know what this size limit is, but I'm

sure we'll know by the time we're considering charter

provisions. If I had to guess now, I'd say the limit is

somewhere between 1,500 and 3,000 citizens. By a process of

iteration, and participant rotation, such a group of people

can converge via harmonization on a shared sense of We the

People, in which everyone's concerns are represented. I

suggest that if we want a democratic society, we would be well

advised to build it on a foundation of political units, or

'communities', each of which is small enough to enable an

inclusive, participatory, democratic process.

A 'community' might be a neighborhood in a town or city, or it

might be a rural village -- presumably it would be some

existing, traditional unit of society. The boundaries of

communities will presumably be determined by the people

involved, and the sizes of different communities might vary

considerably, both in area and population. The only

requirement, from the perspective of democracy, is that a

community be small enough that everyone can participate

effectively in the community's affairs. Thus at the community

level it is possible to achieve genuine participatory

democracy -- a democracy without factions, without

representation, and with no need for elected authorities. We

the People of a community can think and speak for ourselves,

with a sensible and coherent voice, and with every individual

voice included in the process.

If every individual voice needs to be heard, then we will have

some challenges to face when it comes to dealing with global

issues democratically and effectively. It turns out that those

challenges become easier to deal with if we can assume our

society is based on democratic communities as the lowest-level

political entity. More about that in the next section.

With these rationales as an introduction, permit me to offer

my first three provisions:

Provision 1 (Communities): Communities are to be established,

in which every person will be included on the basis of their

primary residence, and which are small enough to enable an

inclusive democratic process.

Provision 2 (Harmonization): Communities are to set their

policies by a process of inclusive democratic harmonization,

and by similar processes a harmonious relationship is to be

maintained among communities as they interact and collaborate

with one another.

Provision 3 (Local sovereignty): Presuming it abides by all

the provisions of this charter, each community has the

sovereign right to manage its internal affairs, and its

external relationships, as it sees fit -- without interference

by the rest of society. However, if the actions or inactions

of a community raise legitimate concerns in another community,

those concerns are to be resolved as per Provision 2

(Harmonization).

If these provisions are followed, then we could expect to have

genuine democracy at the local level, and we could expect

effective and peaceful collaboration among neighboring

communities. Provision 3 (Local sovereignty) has an economic

rationale in addition to the obvious democratic rationale. Not

only does this provision ensure that the management of the

community's resources will serve the needs of the people in

the community, but it facilitates economic efficiency. The

feedback loops are small at the local level, the consequences

of policies are visible to everyone, and effective corrective

measures can be taken promptly whenever they are needed. The

people of such a sovereign community, when working in harmony,

have both the motivation and the means to manage the community

wisely and with a view to the long term. They can make better

decisions about how to use and preserve their local commons

than can some remote regulatory agency. In a society made up

of such democratic communities we could expect a proliferation

of creative initiatives and a renaissance of civic culture.

In order for a community to be able to manage its own affairs,

it will need to have dominion over its own local resources. If

the land and resources in a community are controlled by

absentee owners, for example, then the community won't have

the resources it needs to pursue its own survival and

prosperity, and its sovereignty would be meaningless.

Furthermore, if people or entities are permitted to accumulate

property on a wide-scale basis, then they could establish

economic empires and democracy generally would be undermined.

Due to these considerations, permit me to offer my fourth

charter provision:

Provision 4 (Local ownership): All real property in a

community -- land, structures, and natural resources -- are to

remain under the exclusive control and ownership of residents

of that community, of associations of such residents, or of

the community as a whole, subject to compliance with the other

provisions of this charter. No mortgage or lien is valid or

enforceable against any real property in a community by any

non-resident person or entity.

This provision gives communities a maximum degree of control

over their own destinies. With the benefit of short feedback

loops, and the ability to adjust policies when needed, we

could expect the grassroots of our new society to operate with

a reasonable degree of efficiency and effectiveness. It would

be in each citizen's and community's self interest to make the

most of what it has, to reuse and recycle on a systematic

basis, to minimize waste, to make appropriate use of

resources, and to generally follow sensible economic

practices. Furthermore, it would be in each community's self

interest to actively collaborate with its neighboring

communities, and with networks of communities, in achieving

the benefits of scale for large projects such as

infrastructure development and regional resource management.

A society cannot remain stable if its economic practices are

unsustainable. Unsustainable practices on the part of any

community would endanger that community's future and would be

ultimately destabilizing for the surrounding society. Based on

self-interest, we could expect sovereign communities to

voluntarily employ sustainable practices. Nonetheless, we must

acknowledge that some communities might unwisely choose to

pursue short-term convenience by over-exploiting their own

resources. Not out of paternalism to such a community, but in

order to ensure the stability of society generally, such an

unwise pursuit cannot be permitted. In this regard, permit me

to suggest three related provisions:

Provision 5 (Sustainability): While ownership of land and

natural resources resides within each community, as per

Provision 4 (Local ownership), the sustained productivity of

those lands and resources is an asset held in trust by the

community on behalf of society generally and future

generations. All use, exploitation, or development of such

land and resources must be carried out in such a way as to

sustain and improve the overall productivity of that land and

resources in perpetuity.

Provision 6 (Non-renewable resource): Non-renewable resources,

such as minerals and fossil fuels, are a special case and are

considered to be jointly owned by the community in which they

reside and by society generally. Policies regarding extraction

and use of such resources must be determined in a context in

which the overall best interest of society in the long term

can be harmonized with the legitimate prerogatives of local

ownership and autonomy.

Provision 7 (Global commons): Resources which are not found

within a community, such as those in wilderness areas or the

high seas, are to be under the ownership and control of global

society generally, and are to be managed according the

sustainability constraints of Provision 5 and 6.

These seven provisions define the fundamental operating

constraints for our new society. Harmonization helps ensure

that local affairs will be run democratically, that conflicts

can be resolved satisfactorily, and that effective and

creative policies can be developed within communities and

among neighboring communities. Local sovereignty, together

with the sustainability requirements, facilitates sound and

efficient economic practices and inhibits the emergence of

economic empires or hierarchical political structures. In

addition, local sovereignty can be expected to encourage

diversity and experimentation, as various communities around

the world find creative ways to deal with their own unique

problems and opportunities. Communities could be expected to

learn from one another, and successful initiatives to be

adapted for use elsewhere. In this way a culture of localism

and harmonization can be expected to lead to a global cultural

renaissance -- in the realms of art, economics, appropriate

technologies, and even the human spirit itself.

In order to deal with unusual emergencies, and in order to

make amendments our global charter, we will need to have a

formula for assembling future global councils. There are

probably many different formulas that would do the job, and

I'll offer one as an example. Basically, my proposal would be

to assemble two intermediate levels of councils, local and

regional, leading up to the global council. A local council

would be made up of delegations from each of 60 local

communities, and a regional council would be made up

delegations from each of 60 local councils.

Each community would first reach consensus on the issues of

the day, and then select a delegation of three people to

represent that consensus at its local council. Each local

council would then reach consensus on the issues and select a

3-person delegation to represent that consensus at its

regional council. Regional councils would repeat the same

process, and send a 3-person delegation to the global council.

If significant issues come up at any level that have not been

discussed at lower levels, or if the lower-level perspectives

are in conflict and cannot be harmonized, then those issues

would be kicked back down to the next lower level councils for

further discussion. This process would iterate until a

harmonized consensus can be reached at the global level.

If we assume that our average community population is about

three thousand, and that the global population is about six

billion, then we would have about two million communities

worldwide. There would be about 33,000 local councils, and

about 550 regional councils, each involving 180 delegates. The

global council itself would include about 1,600 delegates from

the regional councils. Each council would break down into

smaller groups, and would employ a process of iteration and

participant rotation in order to reach an eventual harmonized

consensus.

Such a multi-level, iterative process would take some time to

converge on a global consensus, perhaps several weeks or

perhaps a month or two. In case that might seem cumbersome, we

need to remember that a global council is not like a world

government, rather it is more like an international treaty

conference. The council process is not employed to legislate

every-day issues, but rather to consider amendments to the

global charter and to deal with unusual problems or conflicts

that might arise and which defy resolution by the normal

process of voluntary harmonization among communities.

Permit me to put these ideas in the form of a charter

provision:

Provision 8 (Councils): If problems or conflicts arise which

cannot be otherwise resolved by the provisions of this

charter, then any community can call for a global council to

be assembled. Each community will send three delegates to a

council of sixty local communities; each local council will

send three delegates to a council of sixty localities in the

region; and each regional council will send three delegates to

a global council. Council sessions at all levels will employ

democratic harmonization processes, as per Provision 2

(Harmonization). Delegates from each level will be selected

after a harmonized consensus has been reached at that level,

and they will be selected by a process of nomination and

majority vote. No delegation will include more than one

representative from the same lower level constituency.

Delegations are empowered only to represent the consensus

which has been reached in the council that selected them.

Issues which cannot be harmonized by any council will be

referred back to lower-level councils for further

consideration. The global council will continue until the

problematic issues have been resolved

Delegates at all levels would be ordinary citizens, taking

time off from their normal occupations. There would be no role

in our new society for any kind of professional politicians. A

global council would be an exciting affair for citizens to

participate in. Those who were selected to attend at the

global level would be, for the duration, living in a temporary

community of fellow citizens from around the world, all acting

as equals as they discuss the issues of the day. Delegates at

lower level councils would be likely to return home after

their initial session, only to reassemble if issues were

referred back down for further consideration. Each day reports

of sessions at all levels would be sent out to their

constituencies so that everyone can track the proceedings.

We could expect a great deal of inherent system stability in a

culture based on harmonization. 'Running smoothly' can be

expected to be the norm. This is true because harmonization

tends to nip potential conflicts in the bud. When problems

first arise, they can be addressed right away, in whatever

context or level they arise. Once harmonization is

established, that serves as a kind of stabilizing flywheel --

the atmosphere of collaboration and mutual trust makes it

easier to deal with problems when they do arise. If problems

are not allowed to fester and grow, then there is little

reason for initiatives to arise which threaten social

stability. Thus the need for global councils would not be

expected to arise very often.

I have been giving rationales for these provisions, but we

will need to look more deeply into their likely consequences

before we can have confidence that they would lead to a

society with the desirable enabling qualities outlined in the

opening section of this chapter. In order to take that deeper

look, we will want to consider a number of scenarios. We will

want to look at how large scale problems can be dealt with,

how the global commons can be managed, and how potential

aggressors can be brought under control without creating a

centralized military force -- which itself could become a

vehicle for the seizure of power by some ambitious individual

or clique.

* The maintenance of peace and harmony

In a world in which everyone's concerns are taken into

account, and where societies everywhere cooperate and trade

with one another for mutual benefit, there would seem to be

little motivation for any group or society to pursue a path of

aggression. But there are pessimistic scenarios which deserve

consideration, such as that of some charismatic leader (eg., a

Genghis Khan) who convinces his followers to go on the

warpath. We cannot be sure that harmonization provides a

secure defense against all such anomalies. We need a Plan B in

case something goes wrong.

At this point, I must reiterate that global transformation can

only be possible when a culture of harmonization has spread to

the whole globe. We can't begin transforming the world if some

nation like China or the USA, for example, stays outside the

process and retains its elite leadership and its nuclear

weapons. In any scenario of transformation or transition, we

must assume that everyone everywhere will be cooperating from

the outset and will be participating in the harmonization

process. Before we can talk about maintaining peace, we must

assume that an initial state of global peace and cooperation

characterizes the transitional period.

With that proviso, we can assume that all weapons of mass

destruction, and all major weapons systems generally, will be

dismantled or recycled during the transitional period, along

with the related manufacturing facilities. A peaceful and

democratic world has no need of such weapons, and their

continued existence would pose an extreme potential danger to

social stability and safety. The first step toward global

peace would be universal disarmament. As part of this

arrangement, all facilities in all societies would always be

open to inspection by any visitors who cared to investigate

them. A democratic and peaceful society has nothing to hide.

But, considering again our need for a Plan B, I suggest that

disarmament should not be total. If there were no weapons nor

any kind of militias, for example, then it would be possible

for a rogue society to secretly produce a small arsenal and

begin a path of conquest against its defenseless neighbors. We

should be able to ensure, by inspections, that no big weapons

systems are secretly developed, but at the very low end of

weaponry (rifles, grenades, hand-held rockets, etc.)

inspections might not always be effective. We can't expect to

regularly search everyone's basement, nor would that be

compatible with a democratic society.

Rather than no weapons at all, I think a more stable

arrangement would be to designate a certain level of low-scale

military technology, and then encourage every society to

maintain that level of deterrent capability. As in the Swiss

system, it might be desirable for most able-bodied people to

go through a military training program, so they'd know how to

handle weapons and operate effectively in a militia unit. The

idea would be to have ready-reserve militia units, that

exercise regularly, and which can mobilize if a deterrent

capability is ever required. The designated level of military

technology would emphasize defense over offense. Perhaps there

would be anti-tank rockets, but no tanks; ground-to-air

missiles, but no military aircraft, torpedo boats but no

destroyers, etc. The objective would be to make it difficult

for a rogue to obtain an effective offensive capability, while

ensuring that societies will have an adequate defensive

capability if a rogue somehow succeeds in assembling a secret

arsenal. Any attempt to build a military in excess of the

designated levels would be considered an act of aggression

against neighboring societal units, and an early response by

them would minimize violence and enable the underlying

conflicts to be resolved before they get out of hand.

In keeping with a society based on harmonization and localism,

militia units would be community-based and under the

democratic control of each community. Just as there are no

centralized political governments, there would be no

centralized military commands.

The dynamics of defense in such a system would be similar to

the dynamics of the human immune system. If a rogue emerges,

then surrounding militias can voluntarily and coherently

combine forces to surround the rogue with overwhelming numbers

-- minimizing combat and ensuring a quick resolution. This

would be much like antibodies swarming to overwhelm and

isolate an invading organism. When the rogue has been

disarmed, the militias can go back home to their regular jobs,

and a process of reconciliation and harmonization can begin in

order to resolve the source of aggression, and restore peace

and stability.

Permit me to put these ideas in the form of charter provision:

Provision 9 (Militias): Each community shall maintain a

well-trained, ready-reserve militia unit for the purpose of

maintaining the peace. The level of armaments available to

this militia shall be strictly limited to that specified in

this charter. If any community, or group of communities,

attempts to acquire armaments which exceed those

specifications, or initiates actual aggression against other

communities, then surrounding communities are authorized and

encouraged to mobilize their militias and collaborate

voluntarily to contain and disarm the aggressing forces.

Simultaneously, regional councils shall be assembled in the

vicinity of the disturbance with the purpose of investigating

and resolving the source of the aggression. When the conflict

has been resolved, militia units shall return to their

communities and resume their reserve status.

A common view, particularly in liberal circles, is that the

best way to achieve world peace is to establish a strong and

benign world government. Everything I've been saying in this

book can be interpreted as an attempt to refute that

perspective. Centralization and hierarchy have their own

inherent dynamics, and such structures will never stay benign

in the long run. If positions of power exist, someone will

exploit them sooner or later. Power corrupts, it's that

simple. If there is a world government with a military force,

then a coup is always a possibility -- and a formidable danger

to global stability. In the previous section, I argued that

centralized government is not necessary or desirable from the

perspective of day-to-day governance. In this section, I've

been attempting to show that peace can be maintained without

any centralized military command. Defensive forces can form

themselves when needed, on whatever scale is needed, and they

can go back home when the emergency is dealt with. With no

central military command at any level, the danger posed by

military coups is minimized.

In a culture of harmonization, it seems unlikely that

aggression would occur or that militias would need to be

mobilized. In order to reduce this likelihood still further,

let us consider what kind of circumstances might lead to the

emergence of an aggressor. Clearly we would prefer to nip such

any such development in the bud before it led to actual

aggression. It seems to me that a scenario of potential

aggressiveness could only occur if some locality or region

begins to engage is some kind of secret activity, including

perhaps the development of armaments in excess of the

prescribed levels. In order to prevent the emergence of secret

activity, and to keep our societies as open as possible, we

would be well advised to address the issue of secrecy

directly. In a democratic society there should be no need for

secrecy, apart from the right of citizens to privacy in their

personal lives. Permit me to propose one feasible way to

address this issue. This proposal is based on the idea of a

guest exchange program.

Suppose that each year each community sends off three citizens

to live as guests elsewhere for the year, and in turn accepts

three guests. Actually, a 'guest' might not be a single

citizen, but might be a couple or a family. The three selected

guest contingents would go to three different randomly

selected locations throughout the world, with provision made

for location preferences. Guests would participate as equals

in the host community's harmonization process, and they would

be able to observe everything going on in their host

community, as can any citizen. If the guests are able to

function in consensus effectively in that community, then we

can assume the community is pretty much in line with

acceptable global norms.

By such a mechanism, secret programs would be inhibited and

any kind of brewing dissatisfaction would come to the

attention of the rest of society. In addition to this negative

function -- preventing conflicts from arising -- such a guest

program would serve many positive functions as well. It would

facilitate mutual understanding among societies, and encourage

the cross-pollenization of ideas and skills. Guests would be

provided with employment, or with educational opportunities,

depending on their age, skills, and interests. They would be

expected to contribute to their host communities, and be

responsible citizens, just as they would in their own home

communities. I've suggested that three guests be included in

this program in order to ensure that sufficient

cross-pollenization occurs among societies. But in fact, such

a program might be very popular, and communities might choose

both to send off and to accept a larger number of guest

contingents on a voluntary basis. Permit me to put these ideas

in the form of a charter provision:

Provision 10 (Cultural exchanges): In order to encourage

cross-cultural exchange among communities, and to maintain

open societies, a guest-exchange program shall be organized

worldwide each year. Each community shall select at least

three guest contingents to contribute to this program, and in

turn will accept at least three guest contingents. A

contingent will consist of an individual, a couple, or a

family. Each contingent will reside in its host community for

one year, and the destination of contingents will be

determined partly randomly, and partly by preference of the

members of the contingent. Guests shall enjoy the same status,

and assume similar responsibilities, as permanent local

residents.

* The management of large-scale projects and operations

The avoidance of centralized and hierarchical structures is of

fundamental importance if democracy is to be maintained in our

new society. In the preceding sections I have attempted to

show how governance and peace-keeping can be achieved without

centralized governments or centralized military commands. The

avoidance of centralized economic entities is equally

important to the maintenance of democracy. If any person or

clique is able to accumulate excessive wealth, or to control a

very large economic operation, they could very easily leverage

that economic power into political power. Abundant evidence

for this fact can be found throughout history and particularly

since the advent of monopoly capitalism.

And yet, we cannot escape the realities of the industrial

revolution. We cannot afford to ignore the advantages of

mass-production, the economies of scale, and the benefits of

technology -- if we want to survive and prosper. We do not

want to throw the baby-of-efficiency out with the

corporate-bath-water. We need, however to apply these tools

toward the benefit of our families and our communities, rather

than devote them to the accumulation of wealth by a few. In a

democratic society we can expect to use the tools in that way.

And we need to use these tools within the constraints of

economic sustainability, and with due respect for the

environment which provides us with sustenance. In a society

where resources are controlled locally and democratically, we

will have every motivation to use those resources wisely and

with an eye toward improving the quality of life in our

communities in the long run. We also need to use these tools

in such a way that they do not end up controlling us. We do

not want to create production systems which, like

corporations, take on a life of their own and end up

dominating society. Industrialism without hierarchy is the nut

that needs to be cracked.

I do not mean to over-emphasize the importance of industrial

methods. There is also much room for returning to small-scale

ways of doing things, which in many situations can be more

efficient than mass-scale approaches. Local production for

local consumption, and low-technology agriculture, are in many

contexts exactly the 'appropriate technologies'. Yet even in

those contexts, things like high-efficiency turbine

generators, solar cells, personal computer systems, and

satellite communications can offer much complementary benefit.

At least in the large, modern societies, industrial methods --

used appropriately -- certainly have a role to play.

We need benefits of scale, but how much scale do we need? I

suggest that the largest operating entity we really need is a

single-site facility -- on the scale of a single factory, a

regional airport, or a seaport. We might be talking about a

massive factory or other facility, employing thousands of

workers, and covering many acres. But it can be locally owned,

controlled democratically, and it can be autonomous from other

economic entities. Larger, multi-site entities -- such as the

modern large corporation -- do not add significantly more real

economic efficiency. They do however facilitate centralized

control and the building of monopolies. An autonomous factory

can seek the best vendors on a competitive basis, and choose

its markets and distribution channels according to free-market

principles. No single factory, even if massive, is going to

dominate its sector of the larger economy. By limiting scale

in this way, Adam Smith's constraints can be maintained, and

his "invisible hand" can be expected to lead to overall

economic benefit in the macrocosm.

Our Provision 4 (Local ownership)requires that ownership of

real property remain within its local community. In the case

of privately owned enterprises, I suggest that this provision

must be rigorously adhered to. If any private, presumably

for-profit entity, is permitted to grow beyond strict limits,

we may encourage the emergence another J.D. Rockefeller or

J.P. Morgan who will be clever enough to leverage his success

formula into an economic empire. Human nature, if anything, is

infinitely creative in the pursuit of goals, whether

beneficial or not. For our large endeavors, such as a regional

factory or seaport, we need a more democratic and inherently

socially responsible kind of enterprise.

There are probably many entity structures that would suit our

purposes here, and as usual I'll offer one common-sense

proposal just to demonstrate feasibility. I suggest that a

larger-than-community enterprise be organized as a joint-

venture partnership among a group of communities, who mutually

agree to assume specified obligations in regard to funding,

providing land and access, and otherwise contributing to the

enterprise. These same collaborating communities would receive

specified rewards (eg., a specified share of profits, or a

guarantee of employment availability) from the operation of

the enterprise.

The group of participating communities should include any

communities whose residents are intending to be workers in the

factory, as the workers and their communities are also

stakeholders in the enterprise. The enterprise would be

overseen by a board of directors, including representation

from all partner communities, and other communities and groups

which have a stakeholder interest. The board would not be a

fixed body (beware power cliques) but would be constituted by

rotating representatives from the stakeholder communities.The

primary mission of the board would be to maintain harmony

between the interests of the stakeholders (including the

workers) and the operational requirements of the enterprise,

within the provisions of our global charter. The actions of

the board would be fully transparent, indeed videos of board

meetings could be made available to stakeholders.

The existence of such a joint-venture entity would not be

destabilizing to the local political environment because all

affected communities would be represented on the board and

included fully in the policy-setting process. Furthermore, any

such single facility -- even a very large one -- would be only

one small player in the wider marketplace. If we allow

enterprises to be larger than a community -- but limit such

enterprises to a single site of operations -- then we can

expect continued political stability, along with the continued

guidance of Smith's invisible hand, and we would be able to

achieve the scale of operation necessary to support a complex

economy -- on a site by site basis.

There would be no 'personhood' or 'limited liability'

associated with such a joint-venture enterprise. The

communities involved in the enterprise would need to assume

collective responsibility for the consequences of the

enterprise, foreseen or unforeseen, according to an agreed

formula -- just as if the communities had caused those

consequences in the absence of any enterprise. The enterprise

is a mechanism to enable effective collaboration, not a means

of escaping responsibility for actions and decisions. An

enterprise, once established, has no inherent right to

continue existing. At any time the stakeholder communities can

agree, through their board, to disband the operation,

reconstitute its management, or convert the facility to some

other purpose -- always within the provisions of our global

charter.

I cannot attempt here to comprehensively consider the full

range of economic empire-building strategies, and seek a way

to prevent each. When the time comes, better minds than mine

will be working on the problem. Our main safeguards are the

democratic process and local sovereignty. If some operator

becomes a problem, people can respond to the actual situation

and take remedial action at the grassroots level, or councils

can be organized at higher levels. Within the scope of the

limited examples we have considered, permit me to suggest an

appropriate charter provision:

Provision 11 (Collective entities): Enterprises or agencies

which exceed the scope or territory of a single community are

to be undertaken as joint-venture partnerships involving all

affected stakeholder communities. Equity ownership in, and

liens and mortgages against such entities are limited to

residents of the stakeholder communities and the communities

themselves. Stakeholder communities shall include at a minimum

all communities whose territory is affected, over whose

territory access will be required, who will be contributing

resources or manpower, or who might be environmentally or

economically affected by the entity's operations. Any

liabilities or debts incurred by such an entity, if they

cannot be covered out of its operating budget, become

liabilities and debts of the stakeholders, according to an

agreed formula. Policy in such enterprises is to be set by a

rotating board, including representation from all

stakeholders, and by means of harmonization processes.

As Noam Chomsky and others have pointed out, the American

Constitution over-emphasizes property rights in comparison to

personal rights and social justice. Whereas the Bill of Rights

merely promises 'no harm' as regards civil liberties, the

Constitution overall includes much more active provisions when

it comes to guaranteeing the rights of property. In a society

which has does not restrict its cultural values to greed and

wealth accumulation, we can expect that property rights might

in some cases need to compromise with other considerations. In

particular, the enforceability of contracts may need to be

limited in certain circumstances.

To be more specific, we cannot let contracts among business

entities undermine local sovereignty. To some extent our

latest provision addresses this issue with the phrase, "liens

and mortgages against such enterprises are limited to

residents of the stakeholder communities and the communities

themselves". As regards contracts, suppose that our local

factory fails to deliver on a contract, and a significant

economic penalty has been agreed to. If the factory enterprise

cannot afford to cover the penalty, then I suggest the

stakeholders need to have the freedom to either meet the

obligation or defer it. This can be seen as a kind of

bankruptcy protection, but one generous to the debtor.

Admittedly, the hypothetical purchaser under the contract may

suffer unfair economic hardship, particularly if advance

payments have been made -- but strict enforcement might

compromise local sovereignty and economic viability. If a

community is forced to devote a fraction of its productivity

to repaying an external debt, that is tantamount to a mortgage

on the community, and would be contrary to Provision 4 (Local

ownership).

This situation is not really as troublesome as it might at

first appear. It does not mean that business relationships

would be unstable and unpredictable. What it does mean is that

reliability and reputation would be a strong element in

business relationships. Relationships among vendors and buyers

would tend to be oriented around trust bonds, and in the long

run this would be more stabilizing than a punitive system of

contract enforcement. And if an enterprise did stumble, it

would be in everyone's best long-term interest to allow that

entity to reorganize itself and become again a contributor to

the regional economy and an employer. Or if the enterprise is

not worth continuing, then the communities' sovereignty over

their real property should not be compromised. They should

have the right to recycle the facilities and equipment to the

benefit of the stakeholders.

In light of these considerations, permit me to amend Provision

4 as follows:

Provision 4 (Local ownership, amended): All real property in a

community -- land, structures, and natural resources -- are to

remain under the exclusive control and ownership of residents

of that community, of associations of such residents, or of

the community as a whole, subject to compliance with the other

provisions of this charter. No mortgage or lien is valid or

enforceable against any real property in a community by any

non-resident person or entity. The repayment of debts and

other obligations, owed by a community or resident to an

external person or entity, cannot be enforced without the

agreement of the debtor community, as per Provision 2

(Harmonization) and Provision 3 (Local sovereignty).

* The management of the global commons

In this final section of the current chapter, I will dispense

with proposing further charter provisions. I've probably gone

overboard as it is with my amateur legalese, but that seemed

like the clearest way to summarize and refer to the desired

system constraints. What I'll try to do here is explore how we

might democratically handle our global-scale problems,

efficiently and effectively. As an example, let's consider the

management of the high seas.

To begin with, there is the question of territorial waters,

which presumably would require language in Provision 1

(Communities). Local stewardship of coastal waters, within

some kind of specified boundaries, makes economic and

ecological sense by the same arguments offered earlier

regarding local sovereignty generally. Coastal communities

would be motivated by self-interest to wisely manage their

fishing stocks and other marine resources, and they would be

bound by our sustainability provisions. Coastal communities

would have primary responsibility for ensuring adequate safety

facilities (foghorns, rescue craft, or whatever) in support of

coastal shipping, just as they would need to provide safe

passage for land traffic and visitors. Neighboring coastal

communities, and economically-involved non-coastal communities

would naturally collaborate in establishing entities, as per

Provision 11 (Collective entities), to provide things like

ports and warehousing, harbor-master services, rescue

helicopters, patrol craft, etc. Local control of territorial

waters can be expected to work out satisfactorily, with

considerable variety in local usage patterns.

For the high seas we need a more systematic approach. We need

to set sensible global policies in order to help restore

fishing stocks to acceptable levels of viability and

productivity. We need to have sound policies which seek to

maximize overall marine productivity, within the constraints

of sustainability and ecological integrity. If we harvest too

much, we reduce net productivity. If we harvest too little, we

are contributing unnecessarily to world hunger and adding

stress to land-based food production.

I don't believe this kind of policy-making would be

particularly problematic. At the level of basic policy

guidelines, and the specification of goals and objectives,

this would be the responsibility of a global council devoted

to that purpose, as per Provision 8 (Councils). A team could

be assembled by such a council, with appropriate scientific

and citizen representation, to draw up more detailed policies,

for review, modification, and eventual amendment and

endorsement by a subsequent global council.

As regards compliance-monitoring, policing, satellite tracking

of shipping traffic, rescue services, and other such

operational issues, I suggest that we would want to establish

various co-operating but separate agencies to deal with

various tasks, as per Provision 11 (Collective entities).

These agencies would be special in that their "stakeholder

communities" would include the whole global society. Clearly,

every stakeholder could not be directly represented on the

board of such an agency. Care would need to be taken to ensure

that every class of stakeholder is represented, and that

rotation be used to diversify participation over time. And it

goes without saying, under our charter, that the performance

of such agencies remains always under the scrutiny of all

affected communities and enterprises. If an agency's

performance is inadequate, or if the agency starts getting

carried away with its own importance, councils can be

assembled at whatever level is appropriate, and the problems

can be addressed.

Presumably our local-militia concept can be extended to

maintaining order and preventing piracy or aggression on the

high seas. Earlier I estimated there would be about 550

regional councils. Perhaps each region could be responsible

for providing and supporting one armed vessel, with an

emphasis on defensive armaments, to participate in a

co-operative global navy. Under normal circumstances, the

assignments of these vessels would be coordinated by one of

our high-seas agencies, something like a 'high seas safety

agency'. The vessels would carry out routine patrols, be

available to deal with rescues or emergencies, and participate

in the monitoring processes, such as measuring fish stocks or

inspecting cargoes.

If any kind of aggressor scenario arises, either on the high

seas or in a coastal area where our vessels might be needed

for support, then I suggest that we stick with the principles

of Provision 9 (Militias). Our 'high seas safety agency' would

be available as a collective resource, and a communication

switchboard, but it would not become the Lord Admiralty of a

Global Naval Force. When it comes to anything like a combat

scenario, each vessel remains under the democratic control of

the region which provided the ship and the crew. Collaboration

in the face of aggression would be determined by each crew and

its home region, based on their interpretation of the alleged

aggressive events. But there is no reason to expect that the

vessels in the region of a genuine rogue would fail to respond

when needed. They would expect the same support from their

naval colleagues if their own home port or their own shipping

were under some kind of attack. By maintaining the autonomy of

individual vessels, we guard against a 'high seas safety

agency' which might seek unilaterally to mask an aggressive

invasion under the rhetoric of 'restoring order'. Once again,

we want to avoid centralized military commands and the

possibility of coups by power-seeking individuals or cliques.

* System review

In the Introduction to this chapter I put forward these

'enabling qualities' for our new society:

- genuinely democratic

- peaceful

- stable

- economically efficient

- sustainable

- can deal effectively with issues at all levels up to the global

Throughout the chapter I have indicated how the each of the

proposed charter provisions can be expected to contribute to

the realization of these qualities. We've looked at a few

representative scenarios dealing with issues that might arise

at each level, from local to the global, and we've found, I

hope you will agree, plausible approaches to dealing with

those issues -- approaches which are viable within the context

of the identified provisions, and which are supportive of our

enabling qualities.

As in the previous chapter, I am not attempting to offer a

comprehensive final recipe. Just as that chapter endeavored to

show a satellite photo of a promising pass through the

mountains, so this chapter has endeavored to show a satellite

map of a plausible democratic global system. Again, the map is

not the territory, and the real terrain will surely bring

surprises. My hope in preparing this early set of proposals is

to encourage us to take a broad view of the solutions

available to us, and to encourage us to keep always in mind

the whole-system dynamics we would set in motion by our

adopted global charter.

Harmonization in the microcosm shows us that there is inherent

wisdom latent within every group of people. We the People as

an awakened macrocosm can be expected to exhibit a level of

collective wisdom that will raise the human species to the

next level of self-aware evolution. In our final chapter we

will explore some of the cultural implications of a truly

democartic society. At the outset, I believe we will have the

wisdom to adopt a sensible global charter, one much better I'm

sure than my own amateur proposals.

_________________________________________________

CHAPTER 8: THE LIBERATION OF HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS

* Cultures and conditioning

Animals are born with most of their behavior patterns already

hard-wired in. Humans on the other hand learn their behavior

patterns and beliefs -- their culture -- from their society.

We are born with a programmable culture-unit rather than a

pre-programmed behavior-unit. Psychologists recognize a

measurable programmability-factor in humans which is most

pronounced in infancy, declines gradually, and which falls off

sharply after about age 13. This is why we have the phrase

'impressionable youth'. If a child is taught that Apollo

carries the sun across the sky each day in a chariot, that

will be accepted as unquestioned, literal truth -- as would be

the tenets of any other religion. The adult can't say why he

believes these myths, he simply 'knows they are true'. The

unquestioned faith of the adult is the frozen programming of

the child.

The conversion of a pre-wired behavior-unit into a

programmable culture-unit was one of our most important and

unique evolutionary developments. It facilitated the emergence

of early humans from the forest to pursue a wide variety of

available niches. The rate of our cultural evolution could be

measured in centuries or even generations -- rather than

millennia. We soon left the other species behind like so many

frozen statues in a pastoral tableau. Lions are still doing

exactly what they were doing before humans came along.

Meanwhile, we've gone on to build civilizations and create

cultures appropriate to them.

In our early days as Homo sapiens, each band or tribe

gradually evolved its own culture, adopting a world view that

supported the perceived requirements of its economic milieu.

The culture grew out of the relationship of the tribe with its

natural environment. These cultures were holistic, in that

economics, skills, stories, songs, maturation rites, male and

female roles, beliefs, cosmology, morals -- all of these

things and more -- were of a whole fabric. Cultures were

typically unique to each tribal group and remarkably stable

over time, often including a mechanism for reliably passing on

historical tradition orally.

The stability of early cultures was largely due to the fact

that children are programmable and that adults tend to rigidly

retain the programming. People learn their cultures, and the

meaning of the world, as youth -- and then as adults they

simply see what they were told as being 'truth'. As a

consequence, they pass on the same 'truth' to their children

in turn. If children were more critical of what they were

told, or if adults were more open to learning new truths, then

cultures would be less stable over time. This combination of

youthful programmability and adult rigidity was perhaps

necessary for our early survival. But after civilization came

along these traits became a primary means of subjugating

populations. They became the basis of hierarchical religion

and of social conditioning.

Anthropologists tell us that the first hierarchical societies

were chiefdoms. These early chiefs claimed to be gods -- and

were treated as such by their subjects. The children of the

tribe were taught that the chief was a god, they took it as

'truth', and as adults their obedience was assured. Chiefs

could use force to command allegiance, but their need to use

force was greatly reduced by their status as divinities. To

disobey or oppose the chief was not only a crime punishable by

death, but a sacrilege as well. As long as each new generation

was conditioned to this system of myths, then the chief and

his heirs were able to maintain their ruling positions with

minimum need for force.

Thus from the very beginning of hierarchical societies, myths

and conditioning have been used as tools of subjugation. As

civilization has evolved, the means of conditioning the masses

have become gradually more sophisticated. The basic challenge

for regimes is to instill a fundamental world view that

supports the continuance of the ruling regime. Once the world

view is successfully installed, then the context of

subjugation has been established. For most of the past 2,000

years, strong religious institutions, and strong social

conditioning about faith and belief, have served as the

primary means of inculcating a world view that would accept

hierarchy, suffering, and political impotence as normal states

of being. "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's...", and

so forth. This has been a rather stable conditioning system

over these two thousand years, with occasional readjustments

in response to political and economic developments, such as

the Protestant Revolution which facilitated the emergence of

nationalism.

* Liberalism: today's mythology

The Enlightenment (c. 1800) brought what was perhaps the

greatest transformation in mythology since the first

hierarchical societies. Discoveries in science were

challenging the traditional religious mythologies, and the

rising merchant class felt stifled by the hierarchies of

aristocracy and the church. The result was a gradual

transformation of Western societies from kingdoms to

republics, beginning with the American and French Revolutions.

Although religious doctrines have continued to play an

important role, republicanism introduced a new dominant

mythology: liberalism.

From my American Heritage dictionary: liberal. 2. Having, expressing, or following views or policies

that favor the freedom of individuals to act or express

themselves in a manner of their own choosing.

In this original sense of the word, liberalism included

everyone who was opposed to absolute monarchy. While in

current American usage 'liberal' refers to someone on the left

half of the political spectrum, in its original sense

'liberal' would include nearly everyone in the modern world.

We can see the vestige of this sense of the word in the term

'neoliberal', which is a right-wing agenda.

There are two primary liberal myths. The first myth is that

the individual is the sovereign unit in society, and the

second myth is that the will of the sovereign individual can

find expression through electoral representation. Neither of

these myths makes any more sense, nor has any more evidence to

support it, than the belief that Apollo carries the sun across

the sky in a chariot.

The myth of individual sovereignty is very appealing because

we as individuals like the idea of being autonomous and

sovereign. The myth appeals particularly to the juvenile urge

that arises in the youth of all societies to rebel against the

established order. Children have always messed about a bit,

working out their selfish, not-yet-socialized urges. In large

measure, the liberal cult of individualism is a case of

cultural neoteny -- the retention of a juvenile tendency in

the adults of our society. We are encouraged to compete as

selfish individuals, to make our individual way in the world,

to struggle one against another. This, we are taught, is

'freedom'.

Appealing as the idea of individual sovereignty might

superficially appear to be, it suffers from the fact that it

does not and could never exist in reality. Except for the rare

isolated hermit, people have always lived, and always will

live, within ordered societies. Societies have always had

rules which must be followed, and punishments for rule

breakers. Individuals have always had to conform to those

rules, whether they be 'god given' or passed by legislatures.

Most people don't even question the rules, but conform readily

to them so as to make their lives go more smoothly.

In fact, sovereignty is about making the rules, not following

them. In the early days of civilization it was the kings that

made the rules, and they were known as 'sovereigns'. Today it

is legislatures that make the rules -- remote bureaucracies

made up of corrupt power seekers, party hacks, and corporate

proxies. Setting aside globalization and the WTO for the

moment, the nation state is the unit of sovereignty in our

modern world -- not the individual. The individual is

compelled to obey the laws, to seek his or her fortune within

the constraints laid down by elites, and can typically be

coerced into going off and risking his or her life in

imperialist wars. This is not sovereignty, this is slavery. We

won't be sovereign, as individuals or in any other way, until

we make the rules ourselves.

This brings us to the second myth of liberalism: that

democracy is achievable by means of competitive politics and

elected representatives. The fact that history shows us no

example of this myth being realized should raise doubt in the

liberal, in the same way that the fossil record should raise

doubt in those who believe literally in the biblical creation

myth. In neither case, however, do the facts seem to dispel

the myth that was implanted during the programmable years. No

less should doubt be raised in the liberal by the actual

performance of today's so-called democracies. In no way could

anyone characterize the policies of our modern societies as

being an expression of democratic will. Indeed, those who

support the governments most loyally seem to have the least

understanding of what those governments are actually up to.

Accurate information is not made available to the masses, and

their opinion is not requested when policies are being made...

how could they possibly, through representation or not, be the

source of actual social policy? How can an X in a box possibly

convey the complex will of an allegedly sovereign human being?

The idea is preposterous, as preposterous as any primitive

superstition.

* There is hope for the liberal

Fortunately, there is hope for those who have been programmed

into the cult of liberalism. There are effective deprogramming

tools available. The harmonization process is one such tool.

In the experience of a facilitated face-to-face gathering of

diverse people, the recovering liberal can learn two

liberating lessons at the same time.

The first lesson has to do with the relationship of the

individual to the group. When people learn to let down the

defensive shell of personal prejudices, and allow themselves

to enter a shared mental space, an exciting synergy emerges --

a collective wisdom that is much greater than the sum of the

individual wisdoms. The individual is not submerged by this

process, rather the individual is awakened and empowered by

being really listened to. The experience is one of heightened

personal power, enabled by ceasing to view power as a matter

of dominance, but seeing it instead as a measure of our

ability to achieve our goals -- an ability that is enhanced

profoundly by seeking solutions in open and trusting

cooperation with others. The recovering liberal learns from

this lesson that the solitary individual is under-qualified to

act as a sovereign social unit. We need the synergy of a

larger group, or community, in order to have a context in

which our own will can find expression and effective

realization. In short: the group empowers the individual; the

solitary individual is politically impotent and, relatively

speaking, creatively impoverished.

The second lesson has to do with the relationship of the

individual to governance. The heart of this lesson is that

ordinary people are competent to govern themselves. Our

societies generally, and hence our socialization processes,

give us only the models of collaborative and adversarial

dynamics (as described in "Harmonization and the microcosm")

for use in our interactions. As solitary individuals using

these deficient processes we 'learn' that ordinary people

aren't very effective in solving difficult problems together,

or on reaching agreement on divisive issues. This conditioned

learning reinforces the myth that we can only find effective

political expression through representation, and by trusting

in the professional hierarchy. In a harmonization session, the

recovering liberal learns that ordinary people can work

profoundly well together -- when they learn to engage in

dynamics that enable their collective wisdom to emerge.

The full meaning of this second lesson is not necessarily

taken in all at once. At first it may be only a glimmer of a

realization, in the context of a small group. But after even a

single session, the programmed belief in the necessity of

hierarchy can no longer be entirely sacrosanct. The wedge of

liberation from hierarchy has been put in place. Further

experience with harmonization can only drive the wedge

forward, leading eventually to the realization that genuine

grassroots participatory democracy is possible.

In the end, the recovered liberal finds that his programmed

beliefs were a subtle distortion of a larger truth. Yes the

individual is the primary source of sovereign will in a

democracy -- but that will can only find effective expression

in a larger, cooperative political unit. And yes, political

sovereignty should begin down at the grassroots of a democracy

-- but the solitary individual is not quite viable as a

foundation for that sovereignty. From the perspective of this

larger truth, the natural synergy between localism and

democracy begins to become apparent. It is in the local

community that the sovereign individual can effectively

participate, and it is the local community which is viable as

the sovereign political unit at the grassroots of a democratic

society.

Thus the spreading of a culture of harmonization has two

aspects. On the one hand it is a deprogramming campaign, aimed

at the liberation of liberals of the left and right (victims

our dominant subjugating mythology). On the other hand it is a

positive movement aimed at establishing a culture suitable to

a democratic society. Unlike every other culture which has

characterized civilization, a culture of harmonization is not

supportive of hierarchy. In that sense, it is the most

revolutionary cultural development to come along since

civilization itself. But there is even more to it than that.

* Cultural evolution in a democracy

Earlier I suggested that the emergence of a programmable

culture-unit was a major step forward for humanity's cultural

evolution. With that genetic innovation, Homo sapiens was able

to evolve its cultures in drastically shorter time frames than

can be accomplished by biological evolution. Our consequent

ability to expand into new niches soon outstripped that of our

competitor species. And yet, as I also pointed out, early

cultural evolution was strongly limited by the automatic

passing down of cultures from generation to generation, with

change minimized. This stabilizing aspect of early cultural

evolution was suitable to early societies, where changes in

basic circumstances occurred relatively rarely. Early

societies were strongly conservative, and rightly so.

Our modern societies, particularly when undergoing a process

of radical transformation, are much more dynamic affairs than

those of early Homo sapiens. An even more rapid means of

cultural evolution would be suitable for us. Locally-based

democracy provides a suitable vehicle for that more rapid

evolution. A democratic community can transform its culture

simply by dialoging and adopting changes. Our programmable

culture-unit moved the scale of cultural evolution from the

realm of genetic changes into the realm of behavioral

adaptation. Democracy accelerates the scale of cultural

evolution further on into the realm of conscious cognition. As

I've mentioned before, we can surely expect a global cultural

renaissance.

Early societies needed myths as an effective means of passing

on successful cultural adaptations. Hierarchical societies

needed myths in order to subjugate the people. A democratic

society has no need of myths. People can believe in myths if

they want to, that's their sovereign right, but the

maintenance of a democratic society does not depend on

everyone subscribing to any particular myth. This lack of

enabling mythology is in fact the most revolutionary aspect of

this particular cultural transformation. Not only are we going

back to before civilization began (by abandoning hierarchy),

but we are abandoning something that primates have always had:

a rigid, inherited culture. Early Homo sapiens inherited his

culture through conditioning, rather than genes, but it was

inherited nonetheless, and it was typically rigid and only

very slowly changing.

For the first time ever, humanity will be free to define its

own destiny, unencumbered by systematically conditioned false

beliefs and superstitions. This 'defining our own destiny

rationally' was part of the original Enlightenment vision, but

it was in that case betrayed. To the elites who ran republican

societies, keeping the people under control was the most

important priority. Desirable cultural evolution under elites

has been systematically minimized, being forced only by

effective grassroots activism, or occurring fortuitously as a

result of elite agendas. Meanwhile undesirable cultural

evolution, as we've seen under neoliberalism, has been

initiated whenever such has been required to enable further

capitalist growth.

As we launch into transforming our societies, free at last

from elites and conditioned myths, we will most likely

experience an initial, explosive 'speciation' of new cultures.

This does not mean, however, that our democratic cultures will

be plastic affairs, changing with every season and fashion.

What it does mean is that our cultures will be free to

co-evolve along with the economic, infrastructure, life-style,

and other decisions we make as we transform our societies. In

fact, we can expect our cultures to tend to stabilize over

time due to the constraints of sustainability. Sustainability

and stability go hand in hand. Sustainable agriculture, for

example, tends to involve rotating through those crops which

are most suitable for the local soil and climate. Hence one

might expect regular cycles of agricultural activity to

develop. Sustainable businesses would want to have markets and

suppliers whose demands and productivity are relatively stable

over time. Hence we might see a stabilization of business

enterprises, perhaps somewhat akin to the medieval guild

system, but guided by democratic principles.

We also have reason to expect that our cultures will become

more holistic, as were early human cultures. When our cultures

are free to evolve, instead of being constrained by relatively

rigid myths, the various aspects of our cultures are likely to

converge toward some kind of mutual consistency. As we

universally adopt sustainable practices, for example, we are

likely to regain respect for nature at a spiritual level, as

was characteristic of early human cultures. And as we become

accustomed to using harmonization in our political affairs, we

are likely to develop a more cooperative and loving ethic

toward our fellow humans generally.

As regards respect for nature in early cultures, it is true

that exceptions can be found when tribes migrated to new

territories. They often opportunistically exterminated

vulnerable food species. But eventually equilibrium would be

reached and respect for nature would become part of the

culture. We can view industrialization as such a 'new

territory', leading to the opportunistic decimation of nature.

When we leave those exploitive practices behind us, as did

early societies when the vulnerable species disappeared, we

too can expect our world view to come into alignment with our

new economic practices.

* Democracy and personal liberation

While liberalism promises personal liberty, it is under

genuine democracy that we will experience personal liberty for

the first time. Actually participating in the conditions that

affect our lives will be not only politically liberating, but

psychologically liberating as well. We have been in a dark

prison for millennia, and emerging into the daylight of

freedom will liberate our spirits in more ways than we can

imagine. Like the lion in "Born Free", we will be able to

discover our true natures as free beings.

One of the things we will discover, in a society that is

governed for the benefit of the people, is that we have been

working entirely too hard. It is not our needs that force us

to work ten hours a day or more, but rather the needs of

capitalism. The scarcity that we experience in our lives is an

artificial scarcity, required so that elites can extract

astronomical profits from our labor. Indeed, a major problem

for capitalism has been the 'excess production' enabled by

industrial methods. If applied sensibly, modern technology can

produce whatever artifacts we need with a small fraction of

the effort currently devoted to 'work'. In a democratic

society based on local sovereignty and ownership, we will find

that we have lots of free time on our hands.

Free time plus a liberated spirit is a formula for unleashing

creativity. Not only will we experience a renaissance of

creativity at the level of our societies, but art, poetry,

music, science and all manner of personal creativity will be

enabled as well. In our societies today, it is very difficult

to be an artist. You must have a special talent and dedication

in order to make a living by art in a society which does not

assign much economic value to art. And if you want to pursue

scientific inquiry, your are restricted to what will be funded

by establishment institutions.

When we don't need to spend most of our waking hours working

to support elite's mega-wealth, then we will find there are

artists and poets all around us. Indeed, some indigenous

societies today do not have a special word for 'artist' or

'musician'. They understood that everyone has such talents.

And when scientific inquiry can be pursued free of elite

agendas, who knows what breakthroughs might be possible?

Instead of being constrained by the needs of corporate profit

making, our only scientific constraints will be those imposed

by our democratic will. Rather than most of our research going

toward developing weaponry and frivolous consumer products,

our research can be guided by the needs of society and the

pursuit of understanding.

Many social visionaries today believe that 'personal

transformation' on a massive scale is necessary before social

transformation can be achieved. I suggest that this is a

disempowering myth, a means of subjugation just like our other

myths. It inhibits us from pursuing social transformation and

it blames us, the victims, for a society that has in fact been

fashioned by elites for their own benefit. This 'necessity of

personal transformation' myth can be seen as a vestige of the

myth of 'original sin'. The myth fails to recognize that the

deficiencies in our current level of personal consciousness

are due not to our inherent natures, but are largely the

result of systematic conditioning. If the conditioning is

removed, the path to personal transformation will be a far

easier one. The conditioning can be removed by appropriate

social transformation. If we put the cart before the horse

(personal before social transformation), we are prevented from

moving forward. The teachings of Buddha and Christ have been

known for thousands of years, and yet massive personal

transformation has not yet occurred. But as with all myths,

this kind of obvious evidence seems to go unnoticed by those

who subscribe to the myth.

* Education in a democratic society

In our current societies, the primary role of 'education' is

to fill the youth with disempowering myths and condition them

to the practical requirements of a regimented society. Indeed,

general public 'education' was not established until

industrialism came along, requiring a literate work force who

could understand and obey complex instructions. Before that,

illiteracy had served as one more mechanism to subjugate the

masses. In a democratic society, we can restore 'education' to

the original meaning of the word. The word comes from 'educe',

which means to "bring out or develop something latent or

potential" (New Oxford Dictionary of English). Instead of

force-feeding children myths and 'useful facts', we can seek

to 'bring out' their innate wisdom and allow their learning to

be guided by their innate curiosity. There have been

educational pioneers who have applied such educational methods

in today's societies, and the results have been remarkable.

When children are programmed with myths, then as adults they

are constrained by those myths. To the extent children are

liberated from myths, they as adults will be that much closer

to personal and psychological liberation. The full flowering

of our new democratic societies will be realized by future

generations, who have been freed in this way during their

formative years of learning. We will envy them and, as I

suggested earlier, we can only dimly imagine the personal and

cultural renaissance that is likely to occur.

At the same time, we must respect the right of families to

raise their children according to their own family values,

even if some of us consider those values to be based on

unfortunate myths. For us to instill in children atheistic

beliefs, for example, would be manipulative programming --

just as much as if we instill in them religious mythology. My

own bias against religion has been clear from this material,

but I would not impose that bias on others. I have faith that

in a liberated, democratic society, a balance will be reached

between those with religious convictions and those who lack or

even scorn them. This too was part of the original

Enlightenment vision, and this too was betrayed by elites who

found that in secular 'democracies' religion could be

exploited as a tool to divide and subjugate the masses. We can

take hope from the experience of the Michigan gathering (in

"Harmonization in the microcosm"), where by the process of

harmonization, religious fundamentalists and outspoken

liberals (in the leftist sense) were able to find common

ground.

________________________________________________________

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Wexford, Ireland

"Global Transformation: Whey We Need It And How We Can Achieve It", current draft:

http://www.ratical.org/co-globalize/rkmGlblTrans.html

_____________________________

"...the Patriot Act followed 9-11 as smoothly as the

suspension of the Weimar constitution followed the

Reichstag fire." - Srdja Trifkovic

There is not a problem with the system.

The system is the problem.

Faith in ourselves - not gods, ideologies, leaders, or programs.

_____________________________

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Informative links:

http://www.indymedia.org/

http://www.globalresearch.ca/

http://www.MiddleEast.org

http://www.rachel.org

http://www.truthout.org

http://www.williambowles.info/monthly_index/

http://www.zmag.org

http://www.co-intelligence.org

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