[Campaignforrealdemocracy] Modest Proposal

[Mark Barrett]

 Hi there

I was at Climate Camp yesterday, and attended the CRD meeting. Thanks James
for getting this set up. Some of the thoughts set out below came to me from
the session. James could you please make sure it gets to the new people who
put their names down for subscription. Thanks :-)

I think we also need to focus on the question of *superstructure. *Meaning,
the political and economic structure(s) in which decisions about taxation,
expenditure, lending and all-important priorities/desired outcomes (and
therefore use of resources) actually get made. In short, who gets to make
the laws and commercial decisions, and who doesn't, and how humanity and the
biosphere benefit, or lose out as a result.

If we have a clear sense of how the present superstructure (including the
hoarding of land which it encourages by not taxing land owners) creates
conditions for more poverty, exploitation and environmental degradation (not
to mention a host of other social problems) then perhaps we can begin to
develop a strong critique of the current order. But also we can start
designing a viable alternative. Just to reiterate, what I am talking about
here is not a redesign of the present constitution, but rather a programme
that allows a new order to start rising, alongside the old one and with
public support. A recognisable, organised yet decentralised democratic
'other' to state-corporate globalisation. Again, what I think this comes
down to is a question of *values and sovereignty*.

Superstructure most obviously relates to the latter, but indirectly I think
it also helps to shape the former.

Examples of what I mean by superstructure: the centralisation of political
and economic power in the twin hands of the Bank of England and Westminster
(plus their 'local' authority stooges), an overemphasis on representative
rather than direct democracy and the ongoing extension of this
centralisation to the EU and other transnational bodies. But also: the
hegemony of the corporate world (as sole providers of goods, services and
employment).

These corporate-state centralising superstructural forces all increase
the distance between political - economic sovereignty and ordinary folk, or
civil society. And they encourage an ever greater reliance on large,
impersonal (and soley profit driven) institutions.  All this relates to
sovereignty, but the forces also affect our values, making us
uber-competitive, atomised and alienated from one another, and from our own
labour and from the natural world ('divide and rule'). What can we get out
of each other? And because the mainstream media and all the creative types
that go with it are in cahoots with the same forces, they also make us
slaves to advertising, celebrity etc.  While it might strive to educate some
of us (to succeed in this competitive, self-interested paradigm) at the same
time it infantilises us.

What we need is a movement that puts at its core aim the antidote to this
centralisation and corporatisation of the human world. An programme for a
real opportunity, for civil society, to create its own way of doing things ,
its own sovereignty. Values come second here, in part because that part of
the world we call 'civil society' already has mostly good (ie 'civil')
values. Civil society is that part of society which is naturally community
and ecologically minded, but also, being that part of the world that lobbies
against state and market based interests, it also seeks power. What
it doesn't have is  a recognisable place close to all of us (ie in yours and
in my, and in every neighbourhood) for it to operate. Churches and mosques
and other community centres are all very well, but they are often sectarian
by their very nature, and all of them lack real political power, which is to
say sovereignty.  But civil society is non-sectarian, the desire to create
good social relations among all beings, and the will to political power.

So, it (we, the people on this list and throughout the world of global
social movements) have all the attributes of a revolutionary post-capitalist
/ real democracy movement, yet we lack a recognisable place to do
our business, in the neighbourhoods of the world. And if it can't do
business in the place where we the people live, we can't practice new,
visible forms of democratic decision making, except on an ad hoc basis. Nor
can we start to emit the kind of values that transform the world in a joined
up way. Lacking neighbourhood space, and a joined up-ness outside of single
issue campaigns we lack the ability to transform globalisation along
democratic and ecological lines. We are love without power, which to coin a
phrase of Martin Luther King, is anaemic.

The other side of this coin (power without love) is what we've got in the
present superstructure, which is tyranny.

So, with all this in mind, in terms of superstructure, for the new politics
(whether of the party, network or direction action campaign variety) to
start us off I'd like to propose one, basic principle - a modest proposal if
you like - around which a sea-change in *values and sovereignty* could
actually take place.

Which is: instead of the usual debate about state vs private provision,
we should set our stall out as being for the *local provision* of services,
both private and public, including governance. The true heir to the third
way. For me this is the 'Clause 4' necessary in any new, democratic
movement, as it relates to the power to take control of the means of
production, culturally, economically, spiritually, neighbourhood by
neighbourhood and from the ground up. We need to build a movement around
this simple idea, and win power so that it can become a reality. Once that
happens, to the extent that a genuine civil society steps into the
constitutional space helps create, and stays true to the  vision of a
democratic, earth friendly, mutually supportive and non-violent society,
all the shittiest  traditions in our world will fall away, much as weeds are
sometimes burned by a farmer.  Such is the power of love.

Folks I know it is only a modest manifesto proposal, but it is i think, if
properly understood in the sense that it is being put forward, radical
enough for all the possibilties for new social relations, human health,
newly enhanced productivity, ecological sensitivity, and an end to a great
deal of waste to take their rightful place in the world.

Thoughts anyone?
Mark
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