10th January 2017
We need Panocracy not Democracy
Panocracy, or rule by everyone, is the way in which empowered people make decisions. It supports individuals having a genuine say at all times in the decisions that affect them.
The problems with democracy
Democracy pretends to give people a say in decision making. In reality it does the opposite, it encourages people to give up their power to the same sorts of people who rule under most systems. It is high time that we gave the lie to the idea that democracy is anything to do with freedom or people having any sort of influence.
Democracy takes away people’s ability to be have any control. Why, otherwise, is the USA so keen on imposing democracy on other countries when clearly their agenda is to be in control? And every astute dictator gets themselves democratically elected. Indeed I would argue that the whole point of democracy is to control people, not give them a say, and generally it is fit for that purpose.
Democracy cannot be fixed. It is not a case of “democracy has never been tried properly”. Democracy is fundamentally flawed as a means of enabling people to have any influence over the decisions that affect them. The flaw is in the idea the there is such a thing as “the people” (demos) that can have a will, as in “the will of the people”.
In reality a million different people have a million different wills.
It is clear that majority voting democracy is bad for people. The tyranny of the majority leads to distress and war as the winning side rides roughshod over its opponents. Sunni governments persecute Shias and vice versa, one nationality persecutes another and the rich persecute the poor. The Conservative party that gained a narrow majority of seats from only 37% of the vote and with only 17% of the population voting for them in the UK in 2015 continues with policies that favour the rich, dismantle public services and leave more and more people destitute.
In the 2016 referendum just over a quarter of the population of the UK voted to leave the EU, with nearly as many voting to remain. This is supposed to represent “the will of the people”. In the USA the votes of only a fifth of the population is supposed to mean that “the people” want Donald Trump to be president – even though more people voted for Hilary Clinton.
Other forms of democracy still aim to come up with something that is supposed to be “the will of the people”. At best this is some sort of abstraction that is a compromise between the wishes or wills of some of the people. Hardly anyone would be satisfied with all its elements. More often it is the outcome of a choice has been distorted through combinations of manipulation, coercion, bribery, media manipulation, tax breaks and pork barrel politics.
Panocracy
Panocracy honours the right of everyone to participate at any time in the making of decisions that affect them. That does not mean that they have to actively take part. It does mean that people can take part in whatever way they choose and there is no cut off time. Whatever people are able to do they can choose to do at any time to influence the decisions of others.
All decisions precede other decisions so even after, say, a council has decided to have some trees chopped down decisions have to be made about who will do the work, when, how and so on right down to someone deciding to pick up a saw and use it. Right up to the last tree being cut down, if any are, people can take all sorts of action. Even afterwards action can be taken to influence future decisions.
Panocracy works by the flow of information. First of all information needs to be shared between all the people involved and the people affected. Secondly this information is used by anyone who has decisions to make to inform their decisions. These are not just appointed decision makers, like MPs, councillors, managers or officers, but also anyone else involved. Everyone will have decisions to make including whether to take part and how.
The first part involves “gathering” after the Quaker practice of gathering the sense of the meeting. Information is gathered together so that it can be shared. In a meeting this is fairly straightforward and it is generally helpful to do this whether there is agreement or not to work panocratically. Someone, anyone, can start a gather whenever it seems appropriate. What they do is to gather up and summarise all the information and points of view. The aim is that everyone feels heard and acknowledged by the whole meeting.
With larger groups and ongoing and more complex issues this is better done in writing. A gather can set out in a clear way what the issues are, the constraints, opportunities and other information, possible courses of action and the pros and cons of each of these. The aim is to be inclusive of all possibilities and all points of view would be covered. The promise is that if anyone has information or points of view that are not covered the gather will be revised to include them.
Fortunately with the internet it now fairly straightforward to make gathers available to everyone concerned and for them to be updated with new ideas and information. Here are a couple of examples. One example relating to proposals to alter a crossroads can be seen here. Another one uses a form of argument mapping software called Deliberatorium1 which I have used it to start a gather on UK defence policy. Clearly this needs a lot more work on it, but it is an example of the sort of thing that could be done.
An important outcome of the gathering process is that everyone involved in making decisions has access to this information. This includes all the individuals affected by the decisions as each has their own decisions to make about what, if anything, they want to do in relation to the issue at any time.
Panocracy recognises that individuals are the only entities that make decisions. Groups do not make decisions, so called group decisions are the outcome of the decisions of individuals operating within whatever decision making processes are being used. Such decisions depend entirely for their effectiveness on the subsequent decisions made by the individuals involved. As often happens, for example, people just ignore whatever group decisions have been made.
It is because of the sharing of information that organisations functioning panocratically do not descend into chaos. Everyone has information about the needs and intentions of others and how they may be affected by any act and they make decisions in the light of this information.
For people whose role it is to make decisions that affect others, the panocratic approach is to aim for decisions that have sufficient consent. This is not the same as consensus and it is not simple like having a majority. It is a matter of judgement. It means having enough support for a decision and enough lack of opposition. Put the other way round, if a decision does not have enough consent either it will be ignored, there is insufficient support, or there will be trouble because of a combination of the number of people opposed to the decision and the strength of their opposition.
Moving towards panocracy
Doing things panocratically does not involve tearing up all our existing ways of doing things, it is evolutionary rather than revolutionary. It is more about doing things better, about good practice and a change in attitude.
Many successful organisations effectively function panocratically. There is good sharing of information and people make decisions that have sufficient consent. This works in hierarchical organisations where, in particular, there is good communication with decision makers such as office holders or managers who can then make decisions that have enough consent. It also works in horizontal, peer or informal organisations where leadership may be static or it may be quite fluid – different people taking the lead on different issues or at different times. In fact panocratic methods may be the only or the best approach to decision making in such organisations.
In government under panocracy parliaments may not look much different from what we are used to. The changes would be in principles. First of all members of parliament would not represent their constituents or speak for them. They would be legislators whose job is to be advocates for their constituency and to make decisions that have sufficient consent. Every constituent has the right to speak for themselves and so a second principle would be the duty of government to gather and share information about issues and people’s needs and opinions.
Finally the decisions of government (legislation or executive decisions) would be required to have enough consent. This is not a precise concept but would be more of a constitutional principle. Courts would decide if necessary in particular areas of law what would constitute sufficient consent, probably being guided by the person on the Clapham Omnibus (i.e. what a reasonable informed person would think). Laws might be struck down because they were widely ignored or because there was significant protest. What is significant would be a combination of numbers, strength of feeling and the proportion of any minority that was particularly affected.
Panocracy, empowerment and making a better world
Panocracy supports people being in their own power. It encourages people to make good decisions that are in their own interests. The processes of panocracy support people to make decisions in the light of other people’s needs and opinions. When people make decisions in this light that are in their own best interests they will, in general, be in the best interests of others.
Panocracy works with people being in their own power. It involves people and it needs people to be involved. It encourages people to protest when they think something is not right.
The messes in the world are the result of people making bad decisions both for themselves and on behalf others. We are not short of solutions for all the world’s problems. Panocracy will help us all to make good decisions about putting solutions into practice.
1Go to Deliberatorium, click on “submit” in the login dialogue leaving the boxes blank, click the icon to start, click the second icon down on the left to change topic, click on UK Defence Policy in the list and click on the icon to start. Click on + to start expanding the map.