Tiered Democratic Governance

Chapter 8: The Post-Transition

Chapter 8: The Post-Transition

“It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.”

C. S. Lewis

In the previous chapter, I described a possible process to legally transition from the western democratic model to the TDG. I also described that this transition would mostly affect the electoral laws as the electoral laws of these two systems of governance are incompatible. All other institutions of western democracy would more or less remain in place, and the new TDG would initially work within this framework.

But it is very important to realize that the TDG is not just an updated version of the western democratic model. It is a whole new process of governance that has a whole new way of thinking and reaching societal decisions. If I wasn't clear enough in the preceding chapters, I am going to summarize the main points in new ways.

The positions of TDG governance will be practically open to all citizens, so society will have a bigger pool of talent to put into these positions.

If constructed carefully, a mature TDG will have created a culture that minimizes an overly ambitious individual's quest for a powerful position in governance. If the citizens at the neighborhood level fail to see such aspirations and actually elect this individual, the individuals elected to the lowest tiers will most likely ensure that the ambitious person stays at the lower levels.

Most citizens will be indifferent whether they are elected or unelected, whether they rise higher in the TDG, or whether they are appointed to the advisory board. They will see whatever way the TDG calls them into governance as an honor to the positive attributes they were given or have developed. They will give their best efforts to the TDG, whether that be for a short time or a long time. When they are no longer called into service within the TDG, they will willingly accept this decision and make way for the new people.

If we have such individuals making their way into more responsible bodies within governance, what is the likelihood that they will abuse their positions of influence and power? Not very likely!

But even when a high-ranking TDG official does put him or herself in a position that brings discredit to the TDG, that individual will most likely not be elected in the next annual election. In essence, the annual election becomes an important check-and-balance to remove the infrequent corrupt officials from office, albeit in a very undramatic way.

There will also be a different relationship between the general citizenry and the TDG officials. Citizens will see many people of good character and competence elected and appointed into government. They will have more trust and respect for these individuals. They will also know these people are making their decisions by employing the consultative process: there are no favors to be paid off, no party unity to be displayed, or no re-election considerations. The people making the decisions will be altruistically motivated—only for the good of the citizens they serve. Since the citizens know this, when they find themselves in disagreement with a TDG decision, they will be more likely to be accepting of it.

With such an acceptance, there will be new strategies for implementing government initiatives. New initiatives can be tried, monitored, and changed without fear of some kind of punishment. The society or community will learn new things from these experiments. If a new initiative is found not to produce effective results, it will be because the society or community tried its best to make it work and could not make it work. Therefore the initiative can be fully discarded, with certain lessons learned, because it is truly a failure—not because of opposition to the initiative was successful in supplanting the initiative before it was allowed to bear its fruits (or lack thereof).