The Vision
"It appears to me
that if a thoughtful and honest man were offered such a post (as your representative in government), he would
answer somewhat in this fashion: "You entrust me with a
task
which I am unable to fulfil. I am
unacquainted with most of the questions upon which I shall be called on
to legislate. I shall either have to work to some extent in the dark,
which will not be to your advantage, or I shall appeal to you and
summon meetings in which you will yourselves seek to come to an
understanding on the questions at issue, in which case my office will be unnecessary.
If you
have
formed an opinion and have formulated it, and if you are anxious to
come to an understanding with others who have also formed an opinion on
the same subject, then all you need do is to communicate with your
neighbours and send a delegate to come to an understanding with other
delegates on this specific question; but you will certainly reserve to
yourselves the right of taking an ultimate decision; you will not
entrust your delegate with the making of laws for you. This is how
scientists and business men act each time that they have to come to an
agreement." by Peter Kropotkin 1921 approx Small is beautiful The present methods of governing the nations of the world are out of date. In fact, the whole idea of nations is out of date. We need a complete revamp in government. Not just change the people, but completely change the way we think about government. Taking Britain as an example, we see that when the current systems of democracy were created in 1801, the population of England was about a sixth of what it is now. So there were 659 MPs for about 10 million people, being a representation ratio of about 15000 to 1. Now, there are 646 MPs, and about 60 million people giving a representation factor of about 93,000 to one. So each person's representation has reduced by around 600%. In other words, we now get about one sixth of the representation that a citizen in 1801 got. Another way of looking at this is to say that, in order to have the same level of representation that we had in 1801, we would need 3876 MPs. This is obviously ludicrous, and is absolute evidence of a need for a change. And it's the same in almost all democratic countries.
As the population has increased so dramatically, then the effectiveness
and fairness of a central government has reduced. What we now need is an increase in the power of local government, and a
reduction in the power of central government.
I propose that we should bring back something akin to the parish councils. We should have constituencies of a maximum of 500 families. These constituencies should have total control over the lives of their constituents, with no interference from outside, They could provide all of their own facilities such as school, health care, pensions, police, currency, or anything which they feel that they need. If they feel that they are too small for a particular project or service, then they could negotiate with nearby constituencies to make suitable arrangements. There would be no higher level arbitrator. Full responsibility would rest at the local level. The benefits of this are enormous. Firstly, everybody would know everybody else within a constituency, so when a problem arises it would be easy to get to the source, because it would be to everyone's benefit to do so. This alone would reduce terrorism and serious crime to a minimum. It would be a sort of neighbourhood watch scheme in which everybody takes full part, and makes the decisions. The money presently spent on taxes, most of which disappears in red tape, civil servants' and MPs' salaries, waging war, and hundreds of other expenses from which the average citizen receives no benefit whatsoever, would be spent on directly benefiting the community, on projects voted for by the community. It is most likely that taxes could be reduced to zero, or at least a fraction of what is presently paid, because all wastage would be readily identified. Everybody would participate in their own government, because they would be able to understand it, and would have a real voice. There would be no need for secret services, or secrets of any kind, saving another fortune, and removing another load of confusion. We would overcome the problems created by too much power in too few hands. I would envisage an updated Internet, where there is a separate "educational channel, totally free of adverts, personal opinions and spam etc. I see many people spending time on Permaculture, with the end result that the planet's food output is easily sufficient to feed well over six billion people.(See Bill Mollison's "Global garden"series on YouTube.) And of course we would hope for the benefits of free energy, from the hundreds of independent inventors now working around the world I'm sure we can identify many other benefits, and I'm also sure that any disadvantages could quickly be overcome. “Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind." - Albert Einstein, in Fred Jerome’s The Einstein File: J. Edgar Hoover’s Secret War Human Evolution Index |