Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism Subject: Democracy from the barrel of a gun Organization: * From: Jos Democracy from the barrel of a gun seems strange, which it is, but it can work. Suppose the country is in chaos and for this reason the army has chosen to install its own rule, that is rule by rank where civilians are outranked by soldiers. A military rule can force the population to start up a http://www.socialism.nl/law (chapter 3) Government. To do this one would first ask the population to do so and explain what it means. If they don't respond (or understand) forcing it becomes an option. Sometimes runnig a country is about being practical. Forcing a democratic system can be quicker, and even end up more democratic as you not only get the bullies/power-grabbers/criminal-ring-leaders throbbing to get power, but everyone. To do this one needs to force the people to group in group of, say, 105 people (5 spares). This can be done at gun-point right at the place where people live. Pulling people above 18 (20, 25) and below being too old to manage (unless voluntary) from their homes unto a street until you have 105. Those that resist too much to bother can be left out, it will only diminish their share of power. This group can get a designation number / code, and be given the order to produce a representative within a certain time period, or (even better) immediately (in say 10 minutes). Say: "who wants to represent this group" ? Allow 60 seconds fro people to step forward (because the better people may not react before giving it a thought). If nobody responds point out some people that seem capable of carrying responsibility, prefferably over the age of 40. If several respond that is ok. Group the candidates in front, point at them one at a time and ask for votes. When in doubt count carefully, thus preventing later disorder / accusations of partiality. If only one responds take that one. Tell the group that if they want to change their selection later, they can do so. Give them a location to send for an officer to come verify the change. That single representative gets the signs of its rank: 1st level delegate, or (abbreviated) "liason." Mark this person its living place and postal box on a list. March on to the next area. Optionally put a stamp on people their wrist who have voted to prevent catching these again. Once all these "liasons" have been determined one way or the other, start grouping them in groups of 55 (5 spare again), tell them their group and their territory, which ideally encompasses all the people that chose them. This results in a lot of delegates, almost 1% of the public in total. Say that these groups are responsible for local Government decisions, if any, that they should make sure their area looks nice and is livable. Tell them that they will get money for this from other Government levels, they are not supposed to levy taxation themselves (because that seems corruption sensitive.) Mark out an office or locale and a postal box on it clearly marked out as local Government office. Say that these Government bodies are not sovereign powers, explain that this means they can't enter homes of people, or execute people. If things are dramatic you can change this to allow these bodies to also enforce order in the street directly, or order it being done by attracting employees (in a police function). They can also get power of taxation, making them more independent. For remote sparcely populated areas. Take the map of the nation and divide it into 50 areas with about equal number of representatives total. Issue a bulletin to all local Governments and asks who wants to be elected to the national level Government. Say each local Government can only send in one person. Bring these willing national representatives together from 1/50th of the nation (this is not exactly the Constitutional protocol, but seems most practical), and say they should all vote for someone there but not themselves. This can be done by non-secret ballot, a piece of paper unto which a name is written. Give them some time to make a good decision, for instance a day or 2, 3. Place the 20 most popular on a list, allow each person one page of text to make its case. Reproduce for all local Governments (21 pages). Let all delegates in all local Governments vote individually for one of the 20. The most popular of all will be in the Country Council. Once done the country has a civil national Government. If it seems satisfactory (in good order) the army can subjugate itself to it. Each 50th of the nation can be divided again in 50 parts. All local Governments in each 50th part get a bulletin that tells them to elect one representative. If one 50th is small they can get together and vote for who are willing, if need be with help from officials (to reduce rioting). If one 50th is large the same procedure for national can be followed: each council sends maximum 1 (or zero) willing candidate, they group and elect N most popular, that result gets send back to all local Governments for individual representative vote. These 50 become the province level Government, which can be given specific tasks such as taxation, spreading the taxation monies to all local Governments, and to "rule" over areas between the local Governments. The army could do the province level before the national level. Could be useful if it is anticipated the to be national Government won't resolve to Govern, or might end up pulling all power toward itself (under-rule / over-rule). Meanwhile a functioning civil police force must be established. Meanwhile a functioning civil justice apparatus must be established, which is professional: evidence, pleading for/against suspect before an impartial judge. Meanwhile a new currency can be designed and printed (in low tech countries one could use a rare commodity). Meanwhile a money exchange banking system can be established. Meanwhile for profit business investment must be destroyed, and natural resources (soil) should be divided between all people if at all possible, foreign economic ownership (ownership parasitism) destroyed, foreign loans on Government destroyed. In case soil distribution is impossible the Government could rent soil out to economic enterprise and yield that rent to the people who haven't gotten land, or rather subtract that from taxation demands (easier). It seems useful to try to foster land distribution for those that want it to get an idea about fair price for the Government controlled soil rent. The taxation can simply be: a fixed sum per head per time period, unless a person has nothing / too little to give. In principle there is no need to make special taxes for businesses. It is a good idea to set a maximum on personal wealth, to protect the long term freedom of those not busying themselves every second of their lives with hoarding wealth and stealing it from others. Maintenance: since this was a forced democratic protocol, it is in danger of running dry of people once the force is removed. This can be resolved: a) by allowing it to run dry, and constantly re-grouping the local Councils, who get more territory, or b) to have forced elections after 5 years, forcing areas with an undervote to again show up, or c) to progressively make the amount of people who must be in one voter block smaller to compensate for the people who refuse to vote (potentially assymetrically accross the nation), or d) to allow Government councils to shrink in size below 50, to lower the minimum size. This leaves one issue: the large cities, even the moderately large cities. One might organize some kind of yearly convention for all local Governments in that city, to decide on common problems. One might install a connecting office, an ongoing communication platform between the local Governments in one city to resolve common issues. One can also resolve to regroup some or all local Governments into a 2nd level local Government (in some cities this will be a very large local Government, see Constitution Proposal for 2nd level). One can also unite the very large cities on the province level. Whatever the case it seems necessary to at least have some platform, central connecting point, of mass communication between the local Governments in a single city / village. The country council is the authority over political conflicts between local / province bodies. Make sure it is all fixed in laws, and have an effective procedure to these laws. If a culture is "macho" and tends to admire criminality, it may be an idea to make a law that says only older people can be elected, for instance above 40 or 50. Another idea is to take the oldest willing person out of every 105 voters, only vote if age difference seems small or uncertain. An older Government is for sure a more gentle Government I think. The upshot of the above is protocol for controlled stepping down of direct military rule toward an elected civil Government (of www.socialism.nl chapter 3 type: bottom-up committee model), with a mandate, some chance of taking on the job of Governing responsibly, without losing military enforced order / power in the meantime. Although the mechanism is forced, in history there have been generals who did not favor military rule when all they had to do was maintain it, but attempt to come back to function under a non-military Government. A protocol to go back to multi-party democracy is another option, one which is potentially easier if parties exist (tradition exists). On the other hand the bottom up committee model - at least in unproven theory - can secure high level democracy. A benefit of this committee model is that you do not first split the people into camps, who then struggle for supremacy in politics. It is more about uniting, splits occuring on individual issues maybe. It is entirely possible that the bottom-up model in practice will fail, or work in one nation while failing in the next. In that case one could attempt another model. See also: post/000/333.html Function identifiers See also: post/000/346 Voter block bottom-up representative democracy: great freedom, or chaos ? See also: post/002/020-* Function identifiers, added comment: shielding sovereign use. *.jpg Simplified rank designators.