[permaculture-oceania] Re: the 'rights-based' approach

[Mike Edmonds]

>>I don't think you can go past some type of democracy

Notwithstanding the rest of your post, democracy = mob rule. To repeat 
an oft-quoted saying "Democracy is the worst form of government - except 
for the others". Will and Mary Durant in their book "A Brief History of 
Civilisation" make the point the dictatorships have always followed 
democracies. Up until recently you could have argued that we have modern 
democracies that haven't. Up until recently, that is.

A deliberately weak government, with short tenure, with a strong 
educational emphasis on the evils of powerful government might last a 
couple of hundred years before being hijacked by ambitious types.

Maybe a random selection from a group that doesn't want to be elected. 
And the death penalty for anyone who actually wishes to be in government.

An interesting story about co-ops in Argentina demonstrates that a 
leadership consisting of reluctant individuals might have some merit.

But whatever the case, the government (if any) jurisdiction should be 
severely limited to those issues that affect those individuals in that 
jurisdiction. Thus many levels of autonomous and independent government 
might be a good model. Similarly, each one of those governments might 
operate on a different model.

For example:
1. A family farm might be run as a hereditary dictatorship - with a 
limited jurisdiction allowing sustainable harvest of any yield on that farm.
2. A watershed government might work as a participative democracy. That 
is, no elected representatives, but a technology based democracy that 
requires an 80% majority for any changes to be made. Their jurisdiction 
might be limited to governing harvests where the quality of water and 
soil might be compromised. You might say that this form of government 
would be very slow to make changes. That'd be a good thing.
3. Some jurisdictions might not even need a legislative government. Take 
the area of personal violence. For many years the process of common law, 
enforced by judges and sheriffs, was a very successful one.
4. In New Zealand we have a Maori Queen (well, now a King). That's a 
monarchy. I don't know what her jurisdiction is, but it appears not to 
overlap that of any other form of government - nor that of the British 
monarchy. But I imagine it is legitimate and I imagine that she DOES 
actually have a jurisdiction of some sort. Probably a cultural thing. 
Can someone enlighten me here?

Having said all that, I don't think we are ready for this yet. The 
permaculture community might say that they are, but reading through the 
posts in this group, and many others, shows that if we were in power we 
would screw it up as well. And the posts also show that we wouldn't 
support any other form of government to the level that we would have to 
for it to survive.

The current system exists because it is giving us what we want. Pure and 
simple. It exists because we allow it to exist. It exists because we buy 
from it. It exists because we vote for it. It exists because we want our 
MTV. And our money for nothing. And our chicks for free.

Mike


Russ Grayson wrote:
> Hi John...
>
> On 18/8/06 10:36 AM, "John Bickmore" <lindajohnandsophie at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>   
>> Hi I am very interested in this topic.  I am writing an essay for uni about
>> what political system a sustainable society may have.
>>     
>
> I don't think you can go past some type of democracy... there are many
> models - representative democracy, direct democracy, liberal democracy and
> so on. The thing about the democratic model is that it should give dignity
> to individuals and keep government out of private life as much as possible.
> We know that our present system doesn't quite live up to this, however I
> don't see any other contenders that potentially blend the common and the
> individual good. 
>   
>   
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