This is genius! Am however yet to explore CatComm in better width and depth. And as an advocate of the communities model as an approach to welfare and sustainability, am greatly intrigued by CatComm endeavours. Certainly, we that are fated to dwell in poorer countries need must hugely borrow from such efforts to make our existence meaningful at all, lest we wait for years on end before the effects of ever-sizzling national governments' policies trickled down onto the one eigth acre of a Meru subsistence cassava farmer or the arid wilderness of a nomadic Maasai herder! Thanks for the priviledge to learn from you!

Richard!

CatCom is started on the right path.   It could expand its impact by recognizing that and even deep social and organizational paradigm is needed.  We have to think of the future of governance in a different context.  Modern science and technology as well as the deteriorating socioeconomic system suggest a new foundation is needed.

The nation states and the interlocking organizations have served their purpose.  Creating cooperative communities is certainly one part of the path,  networking the socially and economically is another.  The following essay in my book in progress suggest global networks of communities as the future of global governance. It may be worth our consideration.

Bill Ellis

A GAIAN PARADIGM

CHAPTER  #16 

 COMMUNITY GLOBAL GOVERNANCE

The renewal happening around us has many roots and many names. The “Environmental Movement” in the USA was initiated by books such as Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” in the 1957 (1). The common ownership movement in Britain was given impetus with the transfer of ownership of the Bader works to the workers (2); in France Jacques Ellul’s “The Technological Society” (3) brought on a re-  evaluation of technology; Eric Daman’s The Future in our Hands (4), in Norway, initiated a major reexamination of First World/Third World relationships. The Consumer Association of Penang in Malaysia (5), Co-cop in Bolivia (6), the Gandhi Peace Foundation in India (7), the Tasor Women’s Group in Ghana (8), and the Eco-  development Centre in Paris (9) are only a few of the independent actions which indicate a deep-seated and global desire for change.

The theories of quantum mechanics and relativity have laid a philosophical base for this global transformation. As physicist David Bohm demonstrates in “Wholeness and the Implicate Order” (10) the shift from Newtonian to modern physics necessitates a change in our mode of thought from one of atomism and fragmentation to one of wholeness and continuum. The notion that individuals and parts of the universe have separate existence's if an illusion. It is to some extent necessary for humans to divide things up, and to separate them, so as to reduce certain problems to manageable size. But, Bohm argues, we have let fragmentation become our dominant approach to life. We separate our thinking into desperate disciplines. Religion, art, science, work, leisure, are all put into separate unrelated categories. This proclivity to divide and subdivide leads ultimately to negative, destructive, and unreal results. In modern physics it is recognized that the Newtonian, mechanistic and fragmentary, view of the universe is valid only within certain limited domains. Once we go beyond those domains closer to reality each particle or individual becomes part of a continuum reaching to infinity. It is Bohm’s belief that the new view of the unity of the universe is effecting world culture just as it is effecting modern science and our general mode of thought.

The search for wholeness and rejection of fragmented lives was marked in the 1960’s by billows of smoke rising from the riot rocked cities of Amsterdam, Newark, London, Washington, Tokyo, San Francisco and Paris. During the 1970’s the concerns of the counterculture moved into the mainstream of acceptable society. Studies such as the Club of Rome’s Limits to Growth (11) made even the most academic scholars look out of the windows of their ivory towers; stagflation sent shivers of fear through all ruling capitols of the world; the energy crunch forced every household to recognize the need to reappraise our social forms. Now, in the 1980’s, the many small beginnings and the many independent actions in all parts of the world are beginning to coalesce into a single network for transformation.

The current situation as well described in ‘The Aquarian Conspiracy” by Marilyn Ferguson (12). According to Ferguson, this is a conspiracy among people who seldom know one another. They are nonetheless conspiring in that each recognizes the turnabout in the consciousness which is bringing about the radical change in our culture. She notes that the unspoken beliefs of people change long before they publicly concede the transformation. We are, thus, still mouthing conviction in bygone values, mores and paradigms while we already live by different principles.

James Robertson in “The Sane Alternative”, delineates some of the paradigm shifts needed and taking place (13). “Wealth”, for example can no longer be counted in stocks and bonds, mansions and limousines. The wealthy person is coming to be the one least dependent on the fragile economic-social system for his=or her livelihood and well being. “Work” can no longer be defined only in terms of hours away from home and financial income. More and more people are mixing recreation with employment to combine self-sufficiency with self realization. Dogmatic “Religion” is giving way to personal spiritual transformation; “Professional” services are being replaced by personal relationships; and, established “government” is being bypassed as communities and individuals dominate social innovation.

Chilean, Gustafo Lagos, ties this age of transition and wholeness, to world government in “The Revolution of Being,” one of a number of articles with decentralist themes from the World Order Models Project (14). He contends that “the revolution of having” has failed to bring either justice or happiness. The future world system must be based on a cultural and spiritual transition from “having” to “being”. It is his belief that the world culture based on fragmentation and accumulation is being replaced by one of unity and faith in human beings.

It would be illusory and hypocritical to talk of a major cultural and spiritual revolution with out recognizing that it will be neither sustained nor effective without a major structural change in the formal social, economic and political system by which we are governed and by which we govern. It would be equally illusory to speak of a future world government without recognizing the unalterable transformation in human thought and in human being now in progress. To speak sensibly of World Government we must recognize that formal “government” is merely one part of a complex of informal and formal “government”.

Each of us is governed and governs by many forces. Physical forces hold us to the earth; biological forces dictate what we need to survive physically; inner spiritual forces determine our requirements for meaningful life; and, social forces govern our associations with other people. Families, churches, employers, schools and technologies are all part of the system of governance. Each influences what we can do and how we can influence the behavior of others. Government is only one element in this system of governance. Government is only necessary, and only effective, when some other element of governance is ineffective.

Current discussions of world order are premised on the omnipotence of the nation-state. they seldom recognize the full range of forces that are part of the system of governance. In fact, the nation-state system of World Governance is an invention of a few European rulers within the last 200 years. It was spread from a small sector of the earth to the rest of the world by the force of arms, the dogma of a religion shaped to do its bidding, and an economic-industrial system which relied on it for control and protection.

World order based on the nation-state assumes that the resources and the people within a political boundary are the inalienable property of that nation-state. Leaders within each nation-state gain control through some competition that eliminates opposition. Once in power, and in order to maintain power, they must strive to maximize their nation’s share of the world’s resources. They are entrapped in a competitive world system. Though recognizing a degree of economic independence, no nation dares recognize its political interdependence. The fact that all persons have stake in programs and policies which distribute the world’s resources is given no voice. Nor is the selection of national/world leaders open to all those effected by the choice. Each nation-state is accepted to be politically supreme,m autonomous and independent regardless of the effect its government’s actions have on people outside or even within, its border

There is nothing inalienable or permanent in this European invented form of government. The study of history, even European history, reveals many alternative political systems. In fact, history shows that the societies with the least bureaucratic and hierarchical structures have had the greatest stability over time. many of these societies are based on precepts that are much more in line with the emerging new age than the precepts of the nation-states. Consider, for example, the Native American system of governance.

For Native Americans the whole culture - religious, economic, social, technological and political - is based on the concept of a community of beings, or more correctly a community of Being. Each individual - human, animal. plant, and even the forces of nature - are parts of a single living cosmos. Each has its purpose and its proper niche as part of the whole. The individual, the person, is not bent on mastering nature, controlling others, or competing to win respect or property. Each strives to perfect his or her own being in harmony with, and as part of, the whole. Human rights are not a matter of law bestowed by government. They are arts of one's duty, and his obligation to Being. Each being, human and on-human, is responsible for developing not only his own creative powers but those of all others of the universe of which he has part (15).

The Native American economic-political system designed itself from this metaphysical understanding. One could not own property for property had its own being. Even tools, clothes and utensils had a being and purpose to be fulfilled. One’s own future and the welfare of his family were not assured by an accumulation of material wealth but by one’s service to Being. Elaborate ceremonies were developed to provide for the broad distribution of food, shelter and the other necessities of life, particularly to the aged and weak. The dignity of the individual was gained not by what he owned but by what he was able to give away - his contribution to society. The great hunter, or craftsman had no concept of selling the product of his work. His duty to being was to create for the benefit of the community. The natural system was one of cooperation, consensus and confederation rather one of competition, confrontation and struggle for power.

Variations on this theme were well known in Africa and Asia as well as the Americas. They were the rule rather then the exception before the advent of European expansion. They are perhaps, too idyllic to be copied without change in the over populated, under resourced, and stressful world we know today. But by envisioning ourselves in the framework of alternative governmental systems we may be able to break the bonds which tie us to the dying paradigms of the passing age.

Governance for the New Age cannot be based on the narrow concepts of government through bureaucratic nation-state hierarchies. The current transformation is holistic and multidimensional. in keeping with this transformation, world government should be holistic and multidimensional. We must recognize the many forces of human governance and construct a world which reflects, promotes, and takes advantage of the emerging spiritual and ethical affirmation of human rights and human dignity. A future world government can be pictured as a multidimensional network or networks which provide each individual with many optional paths through which he can provide for his own well being and can participate in controlling world affairs.

A multidimensional system of world governance is, in fact, nothing new. World religions have never completely surrendered their power of governance to the nation-states. New systems of supranational control have been created by multinational corporations which have not only been able to avoid the meddlesome interference of national governments but have probably been a positive force in avoiding destructive wars between nations in which their financial interests were involved. The oil producing countries, through OPEC, added another dimension to world governance which goes well beyond the boundaries of nation-state. Such examples prove the world order has many dimensions; they also show that grass roots participation has not yet been provided for in global decision making.

These beginnings must be extended to provide a system of optional ways in which planetary citizen can express his preferences for the world of the future. A World Council of Ethnic Groups could provide on channel for each individual to reach up from his local village to the highest echelons of world government. A World Council of Craftsmen could be another. A world Council of Communities; a World Council of Laborers; a World Council of Homeowners; a World Council of Religion; a World Council of Nations; a World council of Business and other world councils would provide other equal voices for expressing the needs of the grass roots. A council of World Councils could assure coordination, guarantee balanced representation, and provide over-all direction in world affairs.

Such a world representing more than the territorial rights of nation-states could reduce the tensions which lead to wars and could give people new agents to which to declare their loyalties and allegiances. But, merely substituting many parallel hierarchies for one would not necessarily assure human rights, equity, democracy, peace or self realization. Each vertical hierarchy might still remain open to dominance and elitism. New Age governance calls for a more fundamental reordering of our channels of communication and governance. It calls for horizontal linking at the level of individual and their communities as well as multiple vertical linking to the seats of world direction.

It is not even necessary to destroy or replace the current world government system in order to put into effect a system of world government which gives more voice and more power to the people. As has been stressed throughout this article formal government is only one element of world order. Non-formal, informal, non-  governmental, and voluntary agencies already play significant roles even within the very hazardous and faulty U.N./nation-state system. The existing, or any, governmental form could provide a more stable, humane, and equitable future for all if the people’s values replaced those of the competitive ruling elites.

The primary need is for transitional people-to-people networks in which the grass roots can build solidarity based on an understanding of one another’s desires. The strategy for this is to build horizontal networks as complementary alternatives to the existing order. This “second level of world governance” could grow to take over many, if not all, of the function, now performed by the association of nation-  states.

The embryos for such a New Age governance are slowly taking shape. Sister Cities International (16)is a transitional twinning of cities which provide technical assistance to one another to solve urban problems; Action Aid from London  has helped small communities nd small industries provide mutual assistance. The Experiment in International Living  helps students learn about one another’s culture by living in one anthers homes; promotes bilateral links between groups developing appropriate technologies; the International Communities Exchange provides information for groups wishing to exchange experiences in new lifestyles; and, many other transitional networks are helping to promote a nongovernmental world system of cooperative self-reliance .

To date few of  these nongovernmental networks have given serious attention to their potential participation in world governance. Those which have, like the official NGOs associated with the U.N. agencies, have spent many fruitless days reacting to empty proposals and hackneyed propositions advanced by U.N. committees and bureaucracies. They have spent scattered efforts in their own initiative to bring peace and understanding among people or among nations. Notable exceptions to this general rule have been the Pugwash Conferences. Initiated by Albert Einstein, Bertrand Russell and her leading scientists at the height of the Cod War, the Pugwash Conferences bring together leading scientist formal parts of the world, irrespective of the relationships of their respective nations, to discuss world problems without the hindrance of official national positions. Although elitist and confined to the problems of science and society Pugwash provides a model on which other people-to-people networks might be built as the harbingers for New Age world governance.

As transitional networks mature and coverage there is a growing realization that self renewal, local community action, alternative technology, human rights, ecological concern and other transformational activities must be linked with developing concepts for a just world order. It is nor enough to “rearrange the chairs on the Titanic”. A just world order can only be built by recognizing the radical reformation human thought now taking place throughout the planet.

There are many social networks.  Some have their heads in the esoteric clouds. Others keep their hands and feet mired in the too real land of development aid. Others have locked Themselves in their academic ivory towers. The millennium is a time of coming out and coming together. New Age governance must have many elements; the spiritual, the technical, the social, the economic, and the political. They must be harmonious and unified, and they must be rooted in the minds, hearts and souls of all people. As stronger transnational people-to-people networks are built, and as bridges between the many new age movements grow stronger a New Age Governance will emerge for the fuller development of human potential.

A Gaian Paradigm

***************end of chapter 16  Global Governance*********