I am a citizen not a consumer
From:
Michael Allan
Date:
Jul 29 10:49 UTC
Short link
Pete Thomson wrote:
> I don't think it would work, because it misses the fundamental
> purpose of government - to decide on issues when there is no
> consensus. ... If instead of the friendly example ...
So government is still the decision maker for divisive issues? Yes,
that seems inevitable (or at least government still has a crucial
role).
> Because governments have to take some decisions that some people
> disagree with, they need to aggregate assent over multiple decisions
> to maintain legitimacy. They'll obviously want to include some
> decisions that would command broad consensus, to gain some degree of
> assent from everyone, so they won't want to let go even of those
> decisions that could be handled by a consensus mechanism.
So there's a bigger picture... I'm thinking now that the missing
piece is an understanding of how consensus might be built within a
power structure. I've never understood that part, but now it's
becoming clearer.
I don't want to hijack John's thread, so I've posted separately to the
research list. See if you agree with my arguments:
http://groups.dowire.org/r/topic/47GTfRhVa6dOa0G7BXMxfp