I Joined VoiceOver 2015 95.0

On August 15, I joined VoiceOver2015, a forum on politics hosted by the Dutch NCDO (National Committee for International Cooperation and Sustainable Development). I joined as one with interests in business and finance, education, the environment and democratization. After this introduction, I will only post relevant entries from VoiceOver2015 in SYNTHESiST.

One discussion I joined was on the issue: Do developing countries need democratic leaders or benevolent dictators?

“Leaders emerge from the communities they lead. As a student and teacher of innovation (my ongoing reflections on social innovations like democracy, commons, and social enterprise are at Post #75, I see Democracy as the pinnacle of a social innovation process which started and still exists today in the position of the nomad hunter clan chief.

Democracy emerged because “politically mature” societies see it as the only way to achieve reasonable consensus, without violence, when evenly powered sub-groups within a society all gained the means to a Pyrrhic stalemate, like guns, to decimate each other in arguments. The coming together of the EU to avoid more continental wars in the future, among other reasons, is one such example.

The level of political maturity of the ‘led’ determines the eventual emergence and sustainability of the type of government. Even if ‘mature’ communities sometimes backslide to dictatorship, a return to democracy will always happen in short, historical time.

Let me step back a bit to Athens at the time of Pericles. While it was leadership by acclamation, it was not democracy by present definition. It existed for the propertied class and slavery was still pretty much in place. But it was a stage in the development. It is interesting to note that at that time Sparta was a military dictatorship and the Athenians did vote for war when they decided their collective interest was threatened. Athens is still around today; Sparta lies in ruins.

Therefore, democracy cannot be simply overlaid on societies where the underlying institutions of countervailing power like civil society, the press, grassroots community leadership do not exist. Without these constituencies and their leadership, the collective cannot systematically optimize decisions for the whole and a de facto aristocracy arises. And these aristocracies tend to make decisions for their group (which creates problems for the rest, in time.) The political collective must be trained to develop factions of countervailing power to conduct negotiations in behalf of their stakeholders.

Benevolent and strong aristocracy is not necessarily wrong for a community. But how many of them descend to the exploitation of the rest for every Lee Kuan Yew that arises.”

Another post answers the question: Should Citizens take the law in their hands by punishing their Local Leaders Publicy due to failed promises?

“Citizens taking the law into their own hands against duly elected officials, who fail to deliver, should be the last recourse.

The Americans did it in 1776 but with a formal declaration of independence duly ratified by a representative assembly and justified on the basis of the English government violating its own citizens’ natural rights.

The act was not done by mob rule, as is implied by the topic statement above.

The reason why the convening and the declaration are important is for the revolution, if it succeeds, to have the legitimacy and the means to rule.

Mob action destroys the very institutions that allow governance thereafter. Mob action will in its turn be thrown out by other mob action. It will eventually result into failed a state.”

The NCDO organizes campaigns, debates, educational activities, exhibitions, media productions and cultural projects in order to increase the potential for international cooperation and to give a higher profile to the millennium goals. The forum is composed of interesting people from the developing countries who join discussions that the NCDO processes as inputs to the Dutch parliament. I join as one with interests in business and finance, education, environment and democratization.

The discussions are robust and enlightening. There are already 200 people from all over participating. Joining the Forum is free.  Do join!