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| Mar 15, 2010 6:19 pm |
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re: re: Transition to benevolent anarchy |
Ken Hilving
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A vision of a small community, recently de-annexed from the town over decisions made by that town's council which created great cost with no benefit. The effort to de-annex came only after electing a new council and mayor, and discovering there was no way of reversing the prior council's action.
Let's call this community Anarchy, Texas. The 200 homes, farms, and ranches that make it includes had been rural until a nearby city began efforts to annex them into the city with a plan for changing the rural area into housing developments and shopping malls. The community residents requested annexation into their neighbor to the north, a small town. The action was made, and the city lost all rights to ever threaten them again. When that small town's council struck a bad deal with a developer on its own, the community mobilized again, leading to its current state.
For Anarchy, they govern best who govern least. The first step is defining the role of mayor. A mayor, or some similar office, is necessary to interact with other government agencies at the local, state, and federal level. However, in Anarchy the job carries no inherent authority. The mayor is only the authorized signature, and only when the residents authorize the signing. Since it carries no power or authority, the role is fulfilled by lottery with every resident eligible to vote subject to serving a year as mayor.
No council exists, and no departments, on a perpetual basis. Instead, community actions are initiated by proposal from one or more citizens to accomplish a common goal or meet a common need. The proposal is an online one. It is first refined by participation of all interested citizens. The proposal then becomes a cooperative, with a predetermined life time and a well defined purpose. Costs are identified, and participants commit to a share of these costs. Action is taken, a common goal accomplished, and the cooperative ceases to exist.
In some cases, the action will impact all residents regardless, and for this there are two additional requirements. First, a majority of the citizens must agree and form the cooperative. Second, inability to pay is a legitimate reason for a citizen to opt out. In such cases, the objective can still be met with those wishing it to take on a larger share of the cost, by adjusting the length for meeting the cost, or by adjusting the scope of the project.
Along the way, certain common practices will be challenged. For example, road assessment by frontage penalizes those with larger frontage. Yet the road use is fairly equal among all citizens. Likewise, water and sewage is related to population rather than lot size, yet it is the lot size that traditionally determines a household's share of cost. In Anarchy, such discrepancies are dealt with as people to people rather than government rules.
Those traditional city offices and departments that have dubious value are no longer accepted. Each function, each initiative, must first have obvious merit to exist at all, and must show value to be renewed, on a regular basis. This lack of duration also demands citizen participation, a fundamental requirement for democracy. Community becomes more than a geographical designation. It becomes a way of life.
Rules and regulations may be established, but again with a requirement for citizen approval and only for limited time spans. The rules and regulations are open to public debate on both a regular and ongoing basis.
The advances is communications plays a large role in allowing Anarchy's unique experiment in self governance to occur. Instead of scheduled meetings, the virtual town council meeting never ceases. Persuasion is the right of each citizen for or against any community action, and only when action is agreed to does action occur. Even then, ongoing debate and persuasion continues since any action must be renewed to continue.
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Will Anarchy ever be formed? The jury is still out, and those who led the charge and sought the elected offices to reach our current state may not be in favor of such a fully democratic system.
Can it work on a larger scale, even if it does come to pass in Anarchy? I believe it can. Most county activities are really local issues impacted by rules of authority. This means the debate will often become a focus only to those in the particular location. The ability to act swiftly is sacrificed initially, but this impacts both the good and the bad actions county governments take. The "common good" is quite often not as common or as good as we would like to think, and is too often good for a limited few only.
Moving up to the state level, we see the same problems and the same opportunities presented by such a limited approach to governance.
Remember that current forms of government were formed when participation was limited by time and location. These limits have been radically changed over the past 20 years. Is it time to evolve to take advantage of these changes? Private Reply to Ken Hilving (new win) |
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