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| The Millennium Course Alvin Toffler The Third Wave Politics The following extract should encourage you to read the book... MINORITY POWER In place of a highly stratified society, in which a few major blocs ally themselves to form a majority, we have a configurative society --- one in which thousands of minorities, many of them temporary, swirl and form highly novel, transient patterns, seldom coalescing into a 51 percent consensus on major issues. The advance of Third Wave civilization thus weakens the very legitimacy of many existing governments. (p. 420) In second Wave societies, majority rule almost always meant a fairer break for the poor. For the poor were the majority. Today, however, in countries shaken by the Third Wave, the truly poor no longer have numbers on their side. They have become a minority (like everyone else). Majority rule, therefore, no longer is necessarily humanizing or democratic in societies moving into the Third Wave. (p. 421) SEMI-DIRECT DEMOCRACY The second building block of tomorrow's political systems must be the principle of �semi-direct democracy� � a shift from depending on representatives to representing ourselves. The mixture of the two is semi-direct democracy. The collapse of consensus, as we have already seen, subverts the very concept of representation. Without agreement among the voters back home, whom does the representative really �represent�? (p. 427) This helps explain why single-issue political pressure groups become intransigent. Seeing limited opportunity for sophisticated trading or reconciliation through Congress or the legislatures, their demands on the system become non-negotiable The theory of representative government as the ultimate broker collapses too. (p.428) One imaginative approach is suggested by an actual program carried out by the Swedes in the mid-1070s when the government called upon the public to participate in the formulation of a national energy policy. Recognizing that most citizens lacked adequate technical knowledge of the various energy options, from solar or nuclear or geothermal, the government created a ten-hour course on energy and invited any Swede who took it, or an equivalent course, to make formal recommendations to the government. Simultaneously, trade unions, adult education centers, and parties from one end of the political spectrum to the other all created their own ten-hour courses. It was hoped that as many as 10,000 Swedes would participate. To everyone�s surprise, 80,000 flocked to discussions in homes and community facilities � the equivalent on the American scale of two million citizens trying to think together about a national problem. Similar systems could easily be employed to cancel out the objections to �overemotionalism� in referenda or other forms of direct democracy. (p. 429) There are powerful ways to open and democratize a system that is now near breakdown and in which few, if any, feel adequately represented. (p. 430) The old objections to direct democracy are growing weaker at precisely the time that the objections to representative democracy are growing stronger. Dangerous or even bizarre as it may seem to some, semi-direct democracy is a moderate principle that can help us design workable new institutions for the future. (p. 431) |
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| Jack Latona made the following remarks on April 25 at the Center's Evening Discussion CLICK HERE Right now, the US has a two party system. The system has been capable of forcing compromises for over 200 years. Our experience and the British experience show that the two-party system is far more effective and efficient than multi-party systems in running countries. But in every other area of our lives we are living with or even demanding diversity: religious diversity, diversity in schools, diversity in entertainment, choices everywhere. We hope you will attend the next Evening Discussion. |
| Here's a trivia question: Are the School Board Elections partisan or non-partisan? Single-member district or are the member elected county-wide? Click HERE for the answers |