 Here’s a wacky idea: How about making government
a model for natural, responsible, community-based sustainable
enterprise? Yes, of course, government is currently bureaucratic,
unresponsive, and inefficient. And it’s not especially effective either.
What if we were to reinvent government in a way that would work?
The
first thing we would have to do is completely decentralize it. People
would self-select themselves into physically contiguous communities of,
say, 150-1000 people. This would be the only level of government, and
the only authority able to collect money from its members, and it would
have the authority to do so in any of a variety of equitable ways,
drawing from a set of models predetermined by a representative assembly
of people from all communities. It would also have the responsibility
to provide all essential services and (if it so chose) some optional
additional services for the community members (the lists of which, and
standards for which, would also be set by the representative assembly).
It would have the option, for each service, of sourcing each service it
provided from within the community, or of jointly sourcing the service
with adjacent communities from suppliers within that group of
communities. So, for example, a community might have its own group of
resident family doctors, teachers, its own energy supply co-op, local
food co-op, building and road maintenance co-op and community centre,
but might jointly contract with neighbouring communities for hospital,
long-term care, university, water supply, communications and other
services that cannot be effectively provided in every community.
All
essential services: food, water, home construction, roads, energy,
health care, education, social services, communications, resource
stewardship and environmental protection, would be collectively owned,
managed and regulated by the community on a not-for-profit basis.
People (other than unpaid volunteers) providing these services would
have to live in the community or, in the case of jointly sourced
services, live in one of the communities contracting jointly for the
services.
This is a self-governance
model. It precludes the need for national, state and regional
governments. It is a model that is based on networks and connection,
not hierarchy and power.
Such a model poses several challenges:
- It
would take practice to make it work. We would have to learn how to
participate in the democratic and decision-making processes again. We
would have to learn to trust each other. We would have to learn how to build genuine consensus. There are some good examples for this, but it would require a great deal of patience and energy. I think it would be worth it.
- It
would require a mechanism to deal with people who refuse to comply with
the decisions of the community. Consensus is a process that requires
essential unanimity, rather than the power-brokering and coercion that
occurs in 'voting' systems. And there's someone in every crowd who
refuses to work for genuine consensus. A graceful way to give these
people space to self-select themselves out of the community would be
needed. Examples for this also exist.
- It would require the abolition of the concepts of private property and 'ownership' of land, replaced with a collective stewardship model.
The current model of acquisition of property encourages personal greed
and works against the interests of the collective community. Some sort
of transitional grandfathering would be needed (perhaps until the death
of current property owners or 25 years, whichever comes first, after
which title transfers to the community). Once property belongs to no
one, it can be stewarded in the interest of the entire community.
- It
would require a mechanism to allow people to move easily until they
discover a community that works for them. Our current communities are
designed for the convenience of the development industry and other
corporate interests, not for the coming-together of people with like
minds and shared values. It would take at least a generation for
communities to re-form around such common interest, and in the interim
people need to be able to move easily and inexpensively to communities
to discover those they were meant to live with.
- It would require a mechanism to address inequity of income within and between communities. I have written before about a tax on 'bads'
(pollution, waste and use of non-renewable resources) instead of goods,
and a tax on excessive wealth (beyond a certain threshold). These taxes
could be used both for environmental remediation and for redistribution
of wealth.
- It would require a mechanism to facilitate trade in non-essential
goods and services between communities. Beyond the provision of
essential services and subject to the taxes on 'bads' and excessive
wealth, the market should determine what gets produced and distributed
to those who want it. But two of those 'bads' are long-distance
transportation (which consumes large amounts of non-renewable
resources) and (in the case of goods that can reasonably be produced
locally) importation (which deprives the local economy of jobs by
exploiting a distorted and unequal playing field). So some kind of
oversight board would need to monitor and regulate inter-community and
international trade.
So there is still a need for a national
body to enforce inter-community regulations and to collect and invest
the tax on 'bads' and redistribute the tax on excessive wealth. But it
would not be a political, law-making
organization. As long as we agreed to abide by certain sustainable
principles (by which many indigenous peoples have lived for millennia),
principles of responsibility, equity and stewardship, we should not
need any new laws or regulations once the regime is in place.
Some
will argue this is just a re-invention of communism. But this model is,
in fact, much closer to anarchism than any other -ism. No one likes
big, impersonal, bureaucratic government removed from the problems it
promulgates laws for, and largely irresponsible and unresponsive to
those who it supposedly serves. This model provides for as little
government as is needed for a healthy, sustainable world, but no less.
And as much as possible, this little government is as close to the
people as possible, so those making the decisions cannot escape their
consequences by flying to a distant capital city.
I don't really
think it's possible to move from where we are now to this model, though
it's fun to ponder. I'm not even sure that model intentional communities
that proved how well this model worked would be allowed to secede from
existing levels of hierarchical government oversight and go their own
collective, networked way.
But just maybe this model might work
in the society that remains after civilization's fall. At that point,
there will be no government to replace and do battle with. The
survivors will be much fewer than we have to contend with today, with
much less squabbling over land and other resources made scarce by human
overpopulation and wastefulness. They will be looking for a better way
to live. This might give them some good ideas how to start.
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MADE IN CANADA
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