Open Source Sustainable Government

Democracy is government of the people by the people for the people. Today, it is being subverted by a combination of corpocracy and plutocracy. Corpocracy is government of the corporations by the corporations for the corporations. Plutocracy is rule of the rich by the rich for the rich. This subversion is being accomplished by various means, but one of the most important is the control of the bureaucracy and the flow of bureaucratic information.

Democracy depends upon various feedback loops operating to maintain checks and balances in the social system. These include the press, elections, markets, etc. Bureaucrats play an essential but poorly appreciated role in maintaining freedom and access for the public. If bureaucrats fail to alert Congress, the press, or the public about actions or conditions which threaten their interests, then those interests can be compromised without a check on the system.

Obvious examples include the effort of the Bush Administration to impose nondisclosure rules on employees of the Department of Homeland Security, thus preventing alerts about an erosion of rights and intrusions on the authority of other branches of government. In the Department of Energy, this is occurring in the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy International Programs. Congress provides funding for an interagency program which is being hijacked for goals inconsistent with the stated purposes of the Congressional appropriation. The Assistant Secretary has imposed a regime of strict control over decisions and communication that if successful would redirect funding and prevent or frustrate the Congressional intent. In the course of this, the public's interests may well be compromised, but there would be no discussion of the issues at stake.

This blog will explore some of those issues.

There is a point of view here, characterized by the wry smile of the Cheshire Cat. A radical bureaucract always knows the rules, and knows that enforcing the rules upon government itself is one of the most effective ways of preventing its tyranny by limiting its authority. The greatest threat to a democracy is never an external enemy, but the enemy within who would destroy the essential freedoms that democracy is intended to secure. External enemies can always be mobilized against, and people always fight most fiercely in defense of their freedom. But, the enemy within sows the seeds of fear and doubt, often by manipulating beliefs about an enemy without, and thus facilitates the voluntary surrender of rights and freedoms based on the claim of a need to catch or prevent the external enemy.

The partisan polarization of political parties today has resulted in an erosion of former collegial relations and patterns of political horse trading that led to compromises in the public's interest. There have always been abuses and scandals, but the contest for power itself maintained a balance and equilibration of interests. Now, marginal segmentation of the electorate is used to leverage nominal majorities into the presumption of absolute majorities as if to justify whatever policies the group in power wants to propound -- or individuals within the group in power want to propound.

This siezure of power is not unexpected, however. Intrigues and conspiries are as old as human relationships. The essential question is what to do about it. How can balance be restored so that democracy retains its freedoms? I suggest a metaphor from the internet economy in which the economics of open source software and design provide a radical paradigm. Open source software builds upon the creation of a community of users whose collective use creates value by virtue of the ability to utilize shared software within that community. Democratic institutions are the open source vehicles of democracy which secure the freedoms on which democracy depends. Absent those institutions, democracy itelf no longer exists.

Among the ancient Greeks, democracy was distrusted as an instable and unsustainable form of government that was a prelude to anarchy, and thus to tyranny. In modern times, we are able to understand how information, communication, and multiple feedback loops can operate to produce and maintain sustainable government. So, to defeat tyranny, society depends on the maintenance of open source democratic institutions which provide means of information feedback to assure self-correction within the social system, beginning with government, but extending to corporations and elites. In the absence of control by the people, there is no democracy. So, the role of radical bureaucrats is to secure the public's interests by directly representing the interests of the people in the exercise of bureacratic authority. Bureaucrats should serve to balance the power of politicals whose partisan interests have become corrupted and corroded to serve the interests of selective special interests.

Of course, there are always risks that any individual will arrogantly assume that their own opinion requires no check or balance by others, but is inherently infallible by whomever exercises it. Such arrogance must be guarded aginst with vigilence. Certainly, politicals are an important constituency because of their election or appointment to office. They are presumed to express the popular political will. But, the realilty is that they represent more limited special interests. The burueact must endeavor to appreaciate the diverse perspectives of the public, which include the views of minority group members. The radical bureaucrat has the mission to restore balance to the system.

It is hoped that this blog will contribute to that purpose. Feel free to post your thoughts.