The current, so-called liberalistic society is struggling with severe problems. In this text I will discuss these problems and what created them and attempt to sketch out a solution for them.

Of course it isn�t possible to discuss all of these problems, as they are numerous as the stars. Most of them, however, are related to the phenomenon of alienation so that is what we will be focusing on in this text.

Modern society has laid waste to most, if not all, of the local communities and human networks which once guaranteed its members economical security, social security and - more importantly - a sense of community, responsibility and purpose in life.

Instead of these natural ties, the modern system has created a pseudo-society that secures immense material welfare but in no way provides for peoples immaterial needs. This is what has created the alienation of today. In ancient villages everyone had their specific responsibility as shepherd, smith or farmer. Thus everyone played an important part in securing the welfare of the overall village. That gave the villagers a sense of purpose and community. Today, however, people lack these feelings as most people work with things non-essential to the continuation of life. Even those who work with life-important matters have no contact with the people to whom their work matters and are often pushed by their employees to work faster rather than do a good job. Therefore even those lack any true feeling and relevance.

To try and compensate for its own inadequacies, the welfare state grants free psychological counselling and all sorts of entertainment. It is obvious, however, that these compensations don�t help much. If psychological counselling could solve the alienation problems of modern society they would have been solved already with the fortunes being spent on such things. As far as entertainment goes, the effect of it is also small and dwindling: more and more extreme TV shows are needed to keep people's minds away from their boring and senseless everyday lives.

As these attempts to solve the problems of alienation fail miserably there is only one way of solving the problems: to recreate local communities.

Obviously the immaterial needs of human kind cannot be fulfilled within the frame of a centralised government. We must have a social and political revolution. We must revolt against the narrow-minded economical interest groups and power-hungry politicians, rip the power from their hands and decentralise it.

Notice that I deliberately say a political and not just a social revolution. Some might claim that only a social revolution is needed to revive the local community. While it is clear that the reviving of the local community starts by creating a feeling of community between people in a common neighbourhood, in the long run political change is needed as well.

Only the members of a local community know how that local community can best flourish and therefore power over the community must lie with them. Living local communities cannot be created from a centralised government.

So, practically speaking, how could a system based on the local community be built? Well, the first problem of such a system would be an increase in conflict between two interests in regards to the size of the communities:

On one hand we want the communities to be able to provide welfare and - if needed - military defence of its members -that would mean fairly big communities. On the other hand we want the members of the community to be able to have a real relationship to each other - that points to very small communities.

The solution to this problem is to build a political system based on to levels: The main component of the society that we are outlining here would be the local community. These local communities should be formed by no more than a 1000 members. A local court into which everyone has access and everyone the right to vote would govern the local communities.

The secondary political unit would be the commune. The commune would be about 40.000 to 80.000 members strong and would thus be formed as a federation of 40-80 local communities.

A communal council consisting of one member from each of the local communities of the commune would then be doing the day-to-day administration of the commune. Members of the communal council would be appointed by direct election at the courts of the local communities.

Apart from the communal councils day-to-day responsibilities it would also have the right to come up with suggestions for the overall course of the commune. All major decisions, however, would be decided by vote in the courts of the local communities.
In addition to the local communities and communes there might be a national board that could come up with suggestions for a common course for all the communes within a given nation. The national board however would not be able to make any decisions of its own. It would only serve to advice the communes and to carry out their decisions.

To illustrate this system let's take an example: There has just been a war in a country (lets call it Country A) but now the parties of the war have negotiated a ceasefire. In order to make sure the ceasefire is upheld the international community has appealed to its neighbouring country (Country B) to rally a peace-keeping force and send it to Country A to see to it that the ceasefire isn�t broken. Now Country B is governed by as system like the one described above. Thus the national board can't make any decision on the matter itself. Instead a vote is held in the courts of the local communities around the country. When the voting is done the communal council then gather those men from the standing forces of the commune who has their roots in the local communities who agreed to the idea and dispatch them to the national board.

Of course if anyone wishes to volunteer for the endeavour, even though they don�t come from a local community that has decided to take part in the peacekeeping force, he could of course do so.
When the forces from around the country have assembled and dispatched to Country A, the communal council (in close connection with the local communities) then work out an agreement with the national board as to how long the troops shall be stationed in Country A. When that agreement has been made the national board then controls the troops for the agreed time. When the agreed time-period has expired the troops will return home to their native communes and local communities.

As can be seen this system would work the opposite of the current. In the current system power is distributed from the top to the bottom in a form of converted pyramid. The national government has the most power and can bide over the regional entities and the regional entities has power over the local entities.

In the system we have been outlining above, power would be distributed in a pyramid form: with most power at local level, less power with the regional entities (the communes) and the least power to the national leadership. The national board would be unable to command the communes and no commune could force a local community to act against its will.

So, this is my idea for a decentralised society. It is, of course, not the complete, final plan of how to make a decentralised society. On the contrary: it is merely a sketch. Also, a decentralised political system is only the precondition to creating a society that will solve the problems of the current society: The integration of aesthetic ideals into our housing, our tools and all of everyday life, the creation of cities which reflect all of the human emotions and, in general, the creation of a society in which the longing of people for adventure, mystique, a sense of purpose and a sense of community can be truly satisfied. This hard task is what we must eventually take on board in order to slay the beast of alienation!

I hope that this text - imperfect though it may be - will inspire you to take on that task!
 

By Darksphere