Those who look can see that in the Western world everywhere representative governments are losing their power, notably in the peripheral EU states such as Greece and Spain where governments are essentially financially insolvent but also in richer countries where populaces are becoming disillusioned with governments which are so obviously out of touch and no longer fit for purpose, while taking ever larger slices of national income merely to run their own functions.
Tyler Durden, writing on his website "Zerohedge" also describes how trust in governments is disappearing
The former British diplomat and writer Carne Ross writes in his recent book The Leaderless Revolution that the structure of representative government is no longer able to deal with the complexities of running modern states, and that only a peer-to-peer structure of leaderless groups has the flexibility and the ability to perform these functions.
The Occupy movement shows quite clearly how these structures can work, they set a precedent which can only get stronger and more effective as time goes on - there can be no going back to the tired old structures of representative government once the immediacy and the power implicit in leaderless structures begins to be felt on an ever-larger scale.
The theory behind the powerful dynamic of leaderless groups has a long history, and Carne builds upon foundations such as those expressed in John Michell's book The Leadership Delusion.
Of course Real Direct Democracy is a prime example of a system using leaderless groups, and it is interesting to observe the emergence of new ideas which could be used to implement such a system - one of which is Internetocracy.
Internetocracy, as expressed in Lawrence Compagna's recent free booklet The Coming Age of Internetocracy describes possible practical ways in which real direct democracy may be implemented across the internet.
More such ideas are sure to emerge soon - the spirit of the age in on their side.
Friday 28 December 2012
Tuesday 17 April 2012
Iceland wants to show other countries how to "rebalance" towards more power for The People.
In an interview with Olafur Grimmson, the President of Iceland, he makes it clear that the world is in the middle of a profound change in the way we are / will be governed / govern ourselves - all brought about by the ubiquity and low cost of modern communications technologies.
He says: "We are seeing a tectonic shift in the nature of our societies, transforming the balance between the market on one hand and democracy on the other. I have even concluded, which is a strange conclusion for me to make because I have spent most of my life within the traditional institutions of a democratic political system, that the democratic power of this movement that technology has enabled and brought about, is now so strong and so fast that the operations of the traditional institutions have almost become a sideshow."
He adds:
"We are seeing a shift from the predominance of the financial and the market institution, over to the reemergence of democracy, and what we have classically called the “public will”, to use a philosophical term. But we are in the middle of that shift; we don’t know where it will take us, or what will be the implications.
But the third shift, which is implied in all of this, is the shift in time.
These changes are now so fast, helped by the social media, that they are of historic proportions. We have nothing comparable in world history as a guideline."
"The time element is of crucial importance because all of us who are now in positions of power in the world, including myself - we have all been trained through our political training and elective offices in a slow, deliberate, and complicated process of decision-making to deal with fundamental legislation. This is no longer possible. You have a situation, where through social media, the people, or the crowd – will give their answer to the president even before he finishes his speech."
Things are moving faster than any of us imagine - before long will we wake up to a different world, a world where real direct democracy has already been established?
Or will we be left behind, wondering what is going on?
He says: "We are seeing a tectonic shift in the nature of our societies, transforming the balance between the market on one hand and democracy on the other. I have even concluded, which is a strange conclusion for me to make because I have spent most of my life within the traditional institutions of a democratic political system, that the democratic power of this movement that technology has enabled and brought about, is now so strong and so fast that the operations of the traditional institutions have almost become a sideshow."
He adds:
"We are seeing a shift from the predominance of the financial and the market institution, over to the reemergence of democracy, and what we have classically called the “public will”, to use a philosophical term. But we are in the middle of that shift; we don’t know where it will take us, or what will be the implications.
But the third shift, which is implied in all of this, is the shift in time.
These changes are now so fast, helped by the social media, that they are of historic proportions. We have nothing comparable in world history as a guideline."
"The time element is of crucial importance because all of us who are now in positions of power in the world, including myself - we have all been trained through our political training and elective offices in a slow, deliberate, and complicated process of decision-making to deal with fundamental legislation. This is no longer possible. You have a situation, where through social media, the people, or the crowd – will give their answer to the president even before he finishes his speech."
Things are moving faster than any of us imagine - before long will we wake up to a different world, a world where real direct democracy has already been established?
Or will we be left behind, wondering what is going on?
Tuesday 6 March 2012
Bankruptocracy
The last few months have been interesting in the extreme in the slow evolution in the world of a real, viable form of real, direct democracy.
The visible flaring-up of movements such as "Occupy" last year has now been apparently extinguished as protest camps in the US and UK have been closed down.
This presents a real opportunity for those supporting the ideas behind these movements to take a step back and learn what has been achieved by their actions. Indeed a great deal has been achieved and the core impetus behind the movement is stronger than ever, getting ready for the next phase of the occupation as the weather in the northern hemisphere gets warmer.
While the energy of occupy movements appears to have gone underground for a while, the relentless progress of the factors which the movement have rallied against, continues apace, and with this progress it reveals itself more and more clearly in what it is.
The theatre that is the "euro-drama" displays this in a clear manner and it is best seen in that modern laboratory of social experimentation that is Greece.
Professor Yanis Varoufakis, Professor of economic theory at the University of Athens, has stated that we now live (in Greece at least for now, coming to someplace near to you real soon now!), under a system which he calls Bankruptocracy – rule by the bankrupt banks.
See: Link
In his article he confirms that the people will only ever take back control of their banking system once the middle classes revolt, because only then will the political classes realize that they have no choice but to yield to the masses, otherwise they will themselves disappear.
As it has always been in revolutions or transformations, it is the educated, articulate and thinking middle classes which decide the outcome, the masses as ever merely have to accept whatever outcome these middle classes decide.
In this way, the real powers which will dictate affairs in a world of real direct democracy will come from the groups of the concerned and educated citizens, and not the "idiotes" who are so strongly represented among the masses.
The middle classes are quietly linking, organizing, planning behind the scenes, ready to strike in co-ordinated actions, but they will move in at a time of their choosing, at a time when they have all of the weapons at their disposal to the extent that they know that they cannot lose - for they know and understand that the spirit of the age is on their side - only this time it will be an international effort.
The visible flaring-up of movements such as "Occupy" last year has now been apparently extinguished as protest camps in the US and UK have been closed down.
This presents a real opportunity for those supporting the ideas behind these movements to take a step back and learn what has been achieved by their actions. Indeed a great deal has been achieved and the core impetus behind the movement is stronger than ever, getting ready for the next phase of the occupation as the weather in the northern hemisphere gets warmer.
While the energy of occupy movements appears to have gone underground for a while, the relentless progress of the factors which the movement have rallied against, continues apace, and with this progress it reveals itself more and more clearly in what it is.
The theatre that is the "euro-drama" displays this in a clear manner and it is best seen in that modern laboratory of social experimentation that is Greece.
Professor Yanis Varoufakis, Professor of economic theory at the University of Athens, has stated that we now live (in Greece at least for now, coming to someplace near to you real soon now!), under a system which he calls Bankruptocracy – rule by the bankrupt banks.
See: Link
In his article he confirms that the people will only ever take back control of their banking system once the middle classes revolt, because only then will the political classes realize that they have no choice but to yield to the masses, otherwise they will themselves disappear.
As it has always been in revolutions or transformations, it is the educated, articulate and thinking middle classes which decide the outcome, the masses as ever merely have to accept whatever outcome these middle classes decide.
In this way, the real powers which will dictate affairs in a world of real direct democracy will come from the groups of the concerned and educated citizens, and not the "idiotes" who are so strongly represented among the masses.
The middle classes are quietly linking, organizing, planning behind the scenes, ready to strike in co-ordinated actions, but they will move in at a time of their choosing, at a time when they have all of the weapons at their disposal to the extent that they know that they cannot lose - for they know and understand that the spirit of the age is on their side - only this time it will be an international effort.
This is illustrated by e.g. Megan Greene, Senior Economist at Roubini Global Economics who writes "bright, young Greeks" are waiting to form "new political movements, untainted by the parties that have gone before."
See: Link
When she asked when this would happen, one young man told her:
We are all on the sidelines waiting for Greece to hit bottom. We do not want to mobilise and get involved now, because the house of cards could come crashing down on top of us. We will wait until the collapse has happened and then we can finally start rebuilding anew.
First Greece, then the others - we truly do live in interesting times.
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