[Campaignforrealdemocracy] New World Values - Thoughts?

Tue Sep 8 15:03:04 BST 2009

Hello Mark,

Your latest thinking on essential values and democratic control prompts my hopefully useful response. The essence of your splendid vision (08.09.09) closely reflects what I believe is the scope and the promise of my work on spatial order. This defines an underlying 'natural history' of human settlement patterns, in ordered groups local to global, their consequential self managing dynamics contained and defined by natural limits ( Chrystallers' Central Place Theory). These limits demand readoption as a frame of reference for democratic change at the lowest and subsequent delegated levels, to contest and to harness the many forces beyond the comprehension and control of civil society today (Subsidiarity Principle). The natural spatial disciplines so mapped must be brought to bear on current disorder, bringing a scope for corresponding social, political and economic reconfiguration.

The agents of change needed will I am sure be already imbued with your agreed common values,of truth, justice and mutual concern, but the wider public expression of such values might only be encouraged and enabled by the initial prospect for, and hopeful realisition of, safe, secure, therapeutic environments for family and community, for which historical models abound. The patterns and the processes needed for that change are I believe implicit in my evidence to the House of Commons Health Committee, January 2007, to be found in Google under my name. The social mobilisation called for to give life to such vision would not be practical however if it were to look only to existing governance with its current encumbrances.The way forward however must instead lie in the 'open source' web based dialogues of which you are already part, ordered by local territories and their scope for 'virtual communities', suitably mapped, platforms and arenas for local action.

The most practical level of intervention in this hierarchy of spatial territories must however be at urban townships, their clusters and local catchments, the most tangible fixed points in an otherwise continuous, unmanageable sea of urban variables. Such common ground is the most stable and manageable citizen group, in common focus around their High Streets and Market Places, within which the more fluid patterns of local neighbourhood may then be enabled and activated. Giving voice to and engaging local citizens through such processes has I believe a scope for influence on existing electoral and representative processes in which local power may soon be enhanced or attained through incremental, evolutionary change.

If wider,complex forces for change are however to be fully harnessed in all their multiple forms,and in their diversity of interest, a framework for consensus and for mutual action may I believe only be found, in that same common focus, through the social harnessing of market forces which spatial order makes possible, through graduated sets of partial, communal autonomies. The gradual subordination of wider authority to more 'local states' on common ground might only become a reality if it is seen not as a threat to current establishments but as a bulwark to and consolidation of those organisational functions with which they otherwise struggle in a mass society, the better achievement of a 'common good'.

Cordially yours,

Barry Fineberg.

Original Message ----- 
  From: Mark Barrett 
  To: project2012 at googlegroups.com ; campaignforrealdemocracy at lists.aktivix.org 
  Sent: Tuesday, September 08, 2009 7:43 AM
  Subject: [Campaignforrealdemocracy] New World Values - Thoughts?

  Sorry, my first attempt  was a shockinly bad grammar.. Was typing while at work and a bit distracted. Have edited and I hope made clearer below.  

  Earlier, we agreed three 'new world' values: Truth. Justice and Love/Compassion (we couldn't exactly agree on the last)

  I'd like to propose a second, 'the democratic control of resources'. 

  This is huge, as by definition it starts at the bottom and goes right the way up to the top. 

  So, 'democratic control of resources' would range from the collective, inclusive control of each neighbourhood (but with decision making / morality operating, thanks to the first three values of T, J&C, with the whole planet in mind) to the global. In this way, we would not only be in control of our neighbourhoods but also, with other communities the world over, we would also be powerful enough to set the overall direction of globalisation. Think global act local, and the other way around too. Obviously, there will be an important middle-step in the process of takinng control of globalisation, which will be the seizing of control, by the people, of the region, nation and continent too. These developments, which would be driven from the bottom up by ordinary people in common cause, would bring about a new era, which we might call 'democratic globalisation'. 

  If each local community was seen to be a potential world in itself (many other worlds, aswell as another world, is/are possible) democratic globalisation could relate to the process of including everyone in the local area in consensus and regular decision making, aswell as, one day also being made to take the needs of each and every community, and the planet in mind. 

  If truth justice and  compassion can be seen as a kind of democratic consciousness, meaning congnizance of the need to look after each other life form, socially politically economically and in recognition of the fundamental interconnectedness, but also with a very practical agenda to seize power and thereby reduce carbon emissions by LOCALIZING, would that not be essentially the knottiest part of the problem of environmental degradation, solved? Aswell, presumably, poverty and war? 

  Isn't 'the democratic control of resources' what the best of both left (fighting corporate power ) and right (fighting the big state) agree upon? 

  Obviously what it means in practical terms will vary depending on the context. It might, for example, include the idea that rental income on all privately owned land should go into the public purse, as suggested by Robin, aswell as the necessary new political structures giving direct control of neighbourhoods [Local Sovereignty] to people and, through delegation likewise the policy of regions, nations, continents and the whole world.  

  But to start with, can find this as a point of agreement?

  So, to add to the first point:

  (1) Truth, Justice and Love/Compassion [already agreed]
  (2) Democratic Control of Resources, on every level (from neighbourhood to planet-wide)

  What do people think - is this, the democratic control of resources a good next step after Truth, Justice and Compassion?
  Can we start here and build our ideas, for a democratic globalisation, on top?

  Apologies of any of this is unclear - I don't have much time on-line at the moment to finesse and edit.

  Thoughts?

  Mark

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