message democracy

what is it?

Democracy is a political system where power is in the hands of the many rather than the few. It's what we're supposed to have in the West, but don't.
In China, North Korea and several Islamic countries, power has clearly been obtained and is kept using force, and in countries using the Western 'liberal democratic' model, power can and is bought – in fact power ultimately resides with money (a 'money = power' system is called a plutocracy, and that is exactly what we have in the West). 

Here are some of the ways that money makes a mockery of democracy:

• power can't be shared equally if many people don't have enough to guarantee a decent life. 3 billion people are on $2 a day or less, and yet some people are multi-billionaires; there's enough to go round, it just doesn't go round
• speculators can now move money around the globe in seconds; in the current economic system, elected governments are slaves to unelected money, and have to offer a speculator-friendly climate or suffer economically
• the World Bank and IMF force poor countries to open their economies and privatise public services, to the benefit of Western coroporations, which isn't surprising, as the World Bank/IMF are controlled by the central banks of Western countries
• Western media are mainly owned by billionaires, who promote the hierarchical / growth-obsessed system that made them billionaires – anyone promoting a different agenda is ridiculed
• corporations pay professional lobbyists with plush offices to cosy up to politicians to make sure they get their way; can you afford to do this? so where's democracy?
• corporate representatives are more and more invited into government – unelected ministers or members of government committees are regularly drawn from corporations
• corporations will spend billions of dollars on a US presidential election campaign, spending around the same on each party – so that whoever is elected, it's payback time
• if a newspaper prints something that their corporate advertisers don't like (for example about democracy or economic growth?) they're going to lose advertising revenue. In 1977 the New York Times' stance was positive on a tax bill that business was negative on - ads were pulled, NYT stocks fell and the whole editorial team was sacked. What kind of free press is that?
• money will buy you access to ministers; when was the last time you had someone in high political office stay at your villa?
• you have to be a millionaire to be in congress, or the British cabinet
• the revolving door – ministers leave government and go straight onto the board of a mega-corporation
• the UK government invited fast food manufacturers such as McDonald's, PepsiCo and KFC to help write government policy on obesity and healthy eating; we're not making this up
• and finally, the US Federal Reserve, who control the US money supply and thus the global 'business cycle' – privately owned, by...... not in the public domain

Economic power trumps political power every time, and there are no elections for economic power. This doesn't just damage democracy, it prevents it. We vote every 5 years or so, but not for where the real power lies. We can't vote for where the real power lies. Western governments, through the means outlined above, become nothing more than committees to manage the affairs of the super-rich.

True democracy is only possible with non-hierarchical social and economic institutions, with networks instead of hierarchies, and so true democracy doesn't exist anywhere in the world – yet. Things always change though.

With a democratic, non-hierarchical system, we can:

1. take back power over the really important things like land, energy, water, housing, food, education, economy – all the essentials of life
2. make it more likely that a smallholding gets planning permission for a cottage than Tesco for a giant out-of-town development and car park
3. begin to address the problem of economic growth that is causing the extinctions that will ultimately threaten our survival; our current plutocrats have no interest in even debating it, and they have the power to stifle and ridicule the debate. Why would they allow a challenge to the system they've done so well from, if they had the power to stop the challenge? And they do
4. begin to control our own destiny

To have true democracy, human fulfilment, and even to survive, we have to move away from hierarchical structures. So after downshifting, it's now about being more selective about who we give our money to (and who we work for, if possible). Revolution isn't the answer – it just creates another hierarchy; and power within a hierarchy is always abused – look at the Soviet Union.

We all have to do it as individuals – by not contributing to the hierarchy, by not feeding the monster. Here are some ideas:

• don't read newspapers or use the media owned by billionaires – this is the internet age – there are lots of independent sources of information and entertainment out there
• don't shop at big supermarkets – it might be a bit less convenient and a bit more expensive, but it's the price we have to pay if we want democracy – and prices will come down the more people do it (and if you have a local market, it's cheaper than the supermarket anyway)
• don't believe the hype – don't buy big brands, they're trying to make a fool of you
• get your money out of the banks, transfer your mortgage to a mutually-owned building society, and your current and savings account to the Co-op Bank or Triodos, and use zopa.com or credit unions
• change to open source
• DIY (don't give your money to large energy companies, for example – generate your own)
• network – find your local transition group, and see if there are local food co-ops, community-owned energy production, communities & smallholdings, allotments, self-build homes, craft groups, local financial institutions etc. We don't have to be 'against' things. If we build something better, people will come to it. From these local networks could develop national and international networks of non-hierarchical organisations concerned with finance, land reform, food, housing, employment, media, the works – it's been drummed into us that we need big banks and big business to provide jobs and security. We don't, unless we really don't care about democracy
• don't fall for mega-corporations becoming 'ethical' – do we want to live in democracies or not?
• and if you work for a mega-corporation, bank or supermarket – escape: go on courses, get new skills, think of a new career, take time out, go WWOOFing and reflect – something better will come along, you don't have to do it
• want to challenge any of this stuff? Do you think the super-rich don't really have power - they spend their time looping the loop in their private jets and bathing in champagne? The people with the real power are politicians? Then get on the forum and tell us what you think.
• and finally, let's not split into 'left' and 'right' camps any more; the owners of corporate and financial power are laughing at us - let's bury our differences in other areas, and unite to fight them on this - instead of pointlessly fighting each other

By reading and debating, we can try and think of a better system – one that money can't corrupt – by ensuring that money, land and production are distributed much more evenly (we can't have democracy if they're not). Also, we could legislate to make sure that our political leaders are paid very little, to attract the right people, and to ensure that they can't be (financially at least) corrupted. Elections of representatives or delegates from smaller, face-to-face groups might be a better idea too. How can we judge people's integrity if we don't know them? I'm sure we'll come up with something better than the current undemocratic system. Here's one idea for you to pull apart.
But at the very least, don't vote for the same old corporate-owned politicians. You know who they are.

resources

more - information, books, links etc.

printable version
of this factsheet (pdf)

a transition meeting in London - find independent, local, small-scale alternatives to the corporate model

'the first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power'
- Franklin D Roosevelt

plus: 'fascism should rightly be called corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power'
- Benito Mussolini (although he didn't have a problem with it)

shopping at your local market might not seem much of a blow against the all-powerful supermarkets, but 'every little helps'

Rupert Murdoch – in the top 5 of a recent Times list of the most powerful people in the UK. Who elected him? And now his power is democratically passing to his offspring James. But they have no power if we don't give them our money (that's the Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Sun, the News of the World, BSkyB, the Fox Network and many more to come)

let's help build alternative financial networks of co-operatives, mutuals and credit unions, like this one in Plymouth

take a break, go WWOOFing - you don't have to be a wage slave to huge companies