|
It
is very clear that a sustainable and functional
trajectory for civilization requires Fundamental
Change in human settlement patterns. (See End
Note One.) To achieve this goal there must
also be Fundamental Change in the governance
structure. Fundamental Change in governance
structure means change in “political” parties
and political processes.
It
is impossible for most citizens to tell the
difference between the “tax and spend” tactics
of one major party and the “spend and spend”
tactics of the other. It is impossible to know
which is worse: Tax cuts for the rich or Cadillacs
for welfare queens – or whatever those
“liberals” and those “conservatives” are
up harping on at any given time.
Both
parties prepare for elections by doling out tax
cuts, subsidies and pork for individuals,
enterprises and institutions that represent the
party faithful, be they soccer moms, NASCAR dads,
farmers, speculators, investors, unions, radical
Christians, snowmobile owners who drink bourbon or
whom-so-ever. The election-time communications
focus on scaring voters about what will happen if
the other party wins. As Doonesbury pointed out
during the fall of 2006, “Fear Himself” was
the main player in the election process. He is
being groomed for another big run in 2008.
It
is extremely depressing to open the mail box or
tune into the electronic media and learn what
consultants to political action committees believe
will impress or sway voters. Both major party’s
fliers and ads insult the intelligence and
integrity of nearly every voter.
Tragically,
the election is a fair barometer of the state of
politics and the state of governance. Citizens
must force Politics As Usual to evolve before
governance can change in any meaningful way. The
2006 Fall election cycle in Virginia and elsewhere
in the US of A has made it crystal clear that
there is a desperate need for a new way to measure
citizen well-being. (See End
Note Two.)
The
Politics of Change
Jim
Bacon summed up the election very nicely in a blog
posting titled, “Elections,
Shmelections. Nothing Has Changed.” Many of
the posts to this string point out critical
shortcomings in the current structure of
Politics-As-Usual but offered few overarching
solutions.
The
party now in control of Congress has a narrow
majority. Many who were elected won by small
margins. Within days the donkey clan leaders were
already fighting among themselves and the elephant
clan rank and file were abandoning their most
recent flag bearer. There is little prospect of
real change in the months and years ahead under
the current political construct.
Mark
Weinberger, a partner in Ernst & Young and
former treasury official, was quoted in WaPo
on 9 November as saying: “There is nothing more
important on either party’s mind than winning
the presidency in 2008. The window for bi-partisan
cooperation is very small.” So is the
opportunity for real change.
Everyone
now in office is beholden to the current
duopoly. The same is true for those who were
just elected. Talk of going to the capital –
state or federal – and making a significant
positive change is meaningless
rhetoric.
In
Virginia, citizens went to the polls to vote for
representatives at the national and municipal
scales. The winning participant’s platforms and
the agendas outlined since the election by all
governance practitioners reflect no interest in
any significant change from the partisan efforts
that are leading toward profound economic, social
and physical unsustainability. The “agendas for
change” are just lists of past initiatives that
the parties have tried and failed to implement.
Both
the winners and the losers in Virginia are
positioning themselves for more gridlock in
January – political and vehicular. The primarily
focus on the next legislative session will be
jockeying for position in anticipation of the 2007
elections when all the General Assembly seats will
be up for grabs. In preparation for the 2007
elections you might consider putting the following
on your bumper:
Voting
for an incumbent is voting for Business As
Usual.
If
you really like the way civilization is headed,
vote for an incumbent. If not, vote for change. If
you are pleased with society in general -- the
economy, foreign policy, the trade deficit, the
environment, consumption of resources, security
and safety -- go for Politics As Usual and, thus,
Business As Usual. The same is true for your
family, your dooryard and your community.
If:
Then
there is no reason for you to vote for
change.
If
you and your family are better off now than five
years ago, go for the status quo. (See End
Note Three.)
The
following sections provide a survey of the context
of Politics As Usual followed by long-term
objectives and immediate future survival tactics.
Signs
of the Times
The
Friday before the 2006 election, Nov. 3, the front
page of WaPo could have been a hoax edition
intended for Halloween or Friday the 13th. Here
are some highlights:
-
The
world’s most prosperous democracy, which
claims to posses the most powerful
technological capacity ever known, cannot
deliver a safe, secure voting system.
But
for the fact that there are far better places to
spend $2 billion and that dysfunctional governance
impacts all citizens, these stories could
constitute a sick joke. There were other stories
on WaPo’s front page to put the real
world in perspective. These stories reported on:
-
A
peer-reviewed paper just published in Science
suggests that if current trends continue,
marine fisheries will collapse in 42 years.
(See "Collapse,
An Appreciation,” 8 August 2005)
There
was nothing on the front page concerning the
balance of payments deficit, the federal budget
deficit, declining consumer confidence, the Wars
in Iraq and Afghanistan, energy over-consumption,
Global Climate Change, sanctimonious religious
leaders, sneaky political organizations or
self-serving corporate officers and boards.
There
was nothing about traffic deaths, traffic
congestion, lack of affordable and accessible
housing or other indicators of governance and
settlement pattern dysfunction. These topics were
the subject of stories on other pages in the first
(“national”) and second (“metro”) sections
of that, and most other editions that WaPo
publishes.
The
urban dysfunction and fisheries collapse reports
were in stark contrast to the issues raised in the
recent political campaign in Virginia. That
contest dwelt primarily on the marriage amendment,
other divisive culture-war issues and “other
party” horror stories orchestrated by Fear
Himself.
There
is another way to consider the political realities
that shape the future: Making a few citizens
richer and richer by taxing or tolling everyone
for goods and services that only those at the top
of the economic food chain can afford is a recipe
for political chaos.
Romanization
Politicians
are promoting the Romanization of contemporary
society -- but with a twist. Bread and circuses
were cheap. Rome's profligate consumption was
limited to an elite few. Gross over-consumption by
millions is dramatically expensive, and it is
unsustainable.
We
have seen no politician’s campaign materials
which suggest the current frenzy of excess needs
to be curtailed. No one is suggesting that an
examination of the role of advertising is needed.
Inflated
advertising claims are driving an unfounded and
unsustainable view of citizen well-being.
Automobile and real estate ads are helping put the
wrong size dwelling in the wrong location. Ads for
goods and services convey an impression of need
and entitlement that fuels over-consumption and
dysfunctional settlement patterns.
We
have seen no politician’s campaign materials
that raise the issue of enterprise scale. There is
rhetoric about the value of small government but
how about small enterprises?
The
vast majority of healthy economic activity is
generated by small enterprises. A strong argument
can be made that beyond a certain enterprise size,
economies of scale become economies of domination
and destruction. This is not just a reprise of the
19th century monopoly issue. The scale of Wal*Mart,
Exxon-Mobil, Microsoft, General Motors and others
make what is good for the enterprise and the
enterprise stockholders more important than what
is good for consumers, for society or perhaps even
the survival of the species in the case of energy
consumption and the settlement pattern. See “Whale
on the Beach,” 28 August 2006.
We
have seen no politician’s campaign materials
which address the issue of population growth,
regionally, nationally or globally. Immigration,
yes, population, no.
At
the time the nation-state’s population passed
the 300-million milestone it is important to note
that there is not a single citizen in the United
States living within a governance system that
reflects contemporary economic, social and
physical reality.
Finally,
no campaign materials from anyone running for
office that we have seen, has raised the issue of
Fundamental Change in governance structure.
“Privatization” is not an answer.
The
fact that privatization of public activities from
maintenance of the mobility system to the issuance
of passports makes economic sense is not so much a
vote of confidence for private enterprise as it is
a condemnation of the disciplines of Public
Administration and Political Science.
Recent
analysis in New York State suggests that there is
wide variance in the cost per capita of governance
from region to region. In no place is the cost of
the current governance structure cheap. In no
location is it worth the money being spent.
The
obvious conclusion from the current political
context is that citizens need a new metric to
measure happiness and safety to replace mass
over-consumption.
A
New Metric
So,
what of substance can be learned from the current
political party rut?
The
most important reality is that both major
political parties rely on attracting votes by
touting their contribution to malignant economic
“growth.” This growth can be described as
over-consumption of renewable and nonrenewable resources.
The
rhetoric of both parties equates prosperity and
citizen well-being with increased consumption.
Both parties claim they are best suited to ensure
that citizens can continue to prosper by
over-consuming natural capital. (See “Soft
Consumption Paths,” 7 August, 2006; “The
Whale on the Beach,” 28 August, 2006; “Jackpot
Winner,” 25 September 2006; and “Big
(Gray, Brown) Sky Country,” 23 October
2006.)
Reinforcing
this perspective, both major parties claim they
have the secret to continue gross over-consumption
at little or no cost to the voter. Candidates
promise that if elected they will lower taxes, or
tax the rich, or give tax breaks to the rich to
encourage them to spend more so the economy will
grow faster and per capital consumption will grow.
It
is safe to assume that most citizens would not
want the economy and consumption to grow rapidly
if they understood that this means that their
grandchildren will have much less and their great
grandchildren may have nothing. Having no more
wild Salmon and later no more Salmon of any kind
is only the tip of the melting iceberg if the
current trajectory is continued.
What
the strategists driving both major political
parties miss is that maintaining the standards,
benefits and expectations of contemporary
civilization is very expensive. It will take time,
money and natural capital to provide for safe,
happy citizens. In the long run, making citizens
happy and safe requires shrinking the ecological
footprint and scaling back over- consumption.
Prosperity
based on increasing consumption is a dead end. A
sustainable future requires Fundamental Change in
settlement patterns and Fundamental Change in
governance structure. Consumption and “growth”
is, however, the metric of success applied by the
two major political parties.
Happiness,
a Place to Start
In
October 2006, Business Week Online called
attention to a study released in July by Analytic
Social Psychologist, Adrian White at the
University of Leicester. The research behind
White’s “first ever World Map of Happiness”
has a number of challengeable assumptions as well
as data collection and data aggregation
disconnects but it provides a place to start
thinking about alternatives to mass consumption
and Gross National Pproduct as a basis for
measuring the happiness and safety of citizens.
White’s
analysis ranks nation-states by the happiest
populations. Five of the top 10 are in Europa. US
of A is 23 out of 178. China is 82, Russia 167.
The
United States’ ranking is not bad until you
recall that the USofA is by far the
“richest” nation-state the planet has know
and that the citizens are burning up far more
Natural Capital per capita than any other
nation-state. If our tactics are
well-founded, we should be ahead of every other
country by a mile.
The
23rd ranking in spite of gross over-consumption
confirms the view that something is wrong.
Further, only those at the very top of the
economic food chain are happy and they are not all
that satisfied; they want more and more.
It
is important to note that the US of A is behind
nearly every country in the EU and all those to
which citizens of the US of A believe they should
be compared. Further, a lot of the nation-states
that take up the bottom rankings are places like
The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zimbabwe,
Burundi and, of course, Sudan.
Mentioning
Sudan--and Darfur—highlights the need to measure
happiness and safety by New Urban Region and Urban
Support Region, not by nation-state. In fact the
myth that a nation-state is the most important
scale of governance in a global economy is a major
stumbling block to governance reform.
White’s
work identifies a number of factors that make
people happy. It turns out those are the ones upon
which governments at all levels in Europa tend to
spend their resources. Citizens in Europa have not
only created a multi-nation-state trading block to
counteract forces that generated two World Wars
but have also done far more than the US of A to
create a functional governance structure at the
regional, subregional, community, village,
neighborhood and cluster scales. The result is to
downplay the role of nation-states and provinces
(“states” in the US of A).
MainStream
Media in the US of A know that readers and viewers
in this country have no frame of reference for a
functional governance structure and so do not even
mention this important fact.
By
contrast in the United States politicians focus
on tax cuts for the rich, subsidies and pork for
voting blocks and programs to increase the rate
of consumption.
A
Matter of Scale
One
important contextual parameter to understand on
the path to governance and political party reform
is the issue of scale.
Dysfunctional
human settlement patterns are incentivized
/subsidized by federal and state legislation,
programs and policies. Dysfunctional patterns and
densities of land use are, however, implemented
primarily by regional, community-, village- and
neighborhood-scale actions.
A
core problem is that there exits no regional-,
community-, village- or neighborhood- scale
governance structure.
The
only government structures that exist below the
nation-state are state (province) and municipal
governance structures. The current structure was
conceived to support citizens in the agrarian
society that existed in 1760. These structures
were not well suited for the onset of the
Industrial Revolution in the late 18th and 19th
Centuries. (See End
Note Four.)
Current
governance arrangements are profoundly outdated in
the face of 21st Century economic, social and
physical realities. Global competition, electronic
communications and advances in science/technology
are only the most obvious realities with which to
measure governance structure obsolescence.
It
is not the ideals of democracy and freedom that
need changing. It is the absence of any mechanism
to achieve these common goals and failure to
evolve a governance structure that reflects the
organic scales of economic, social and physical
reality. This is a major stumbling block to
achieve a sustainable future.
Yes
Virginia, There is Governance Chaos
A
quick survey of Virginia’s governance structure
illustrates the need for Fundamental Change.
County governments are technically not
“municipalities” but they provide municipal
services for the majority of the citizens of the
Commonwealth. There are almost no municipal
governments (including counties) that are of Alpha
Community or even Beta Community scale. Most
counties are too large or too small to serve as
Alpha Community governments. Many counties inside
the Clear Edge around the Core of Virginia’s
three New Urban Regions cover the territory of
several potential Alpha Communities. Fairfax
County covers eight or ten community-scale
components depending on how the future Alpha
Community boundaries are drawn.
In
Virginia, most cities and towns are far smaller
than the logical Alpha Community. Jim Bacon
explores the transportation impact of freezing
annexation which has exacerbated this reality in
“Seventy Five
Years,” 9 Oct 2006. In addition, towns are
only semi- municipalities because of the role of
counties in town governance.
There
are a few municipalities that are of Alpha Village
Scale. The “cities” of Fairfax, Falls Church
and Poquoson are sometimes cited as examples of
appropriately scaled “village” governments.
Many small “cities” are not coterminous with
the organic Alpha Village boundaries, however, and
all have powers that far exceed their geographic
extent. This thwarts the rational allocation of
governance functions.
There
are no neighborhood- or cluster-scale governments.
The closest entities that exist are homeowner
associations. But homeowner associations, as
currently structured, are woefully inadequate to
meet even the tasks for which they are now
responsible.
There
are no regional or subregional governments,
PERIOD. Is there anyone who thinks that mobility
and access, affordable and accessible housing or
safety and security are not regional and
subregional problems?
The
Countryside has no coherent governance structure.
The
existing mishmash of wrong-sized or vacuum
governance structures, leads to dysfunctional
governance, which results in dysfunctional human
settlement patterns.
As
long as citizens/voters have no opportunity to
make input at the level of impact, least-common-
denominator governance flourishes.
The
“National” Party
One
underlying cause of dysfunctional governance is
the illusion that there can be meaningful
one-policy- fits-all “party” platforms and
positions.
“National”
political party platforms should focus on national
interests and the “regional” political party
platforms should focus on regional interests. The
problem is, there are no “regional” parties.
A
statement of objectives for a group of like-minded
representatives topic "A" at the
national scale would be different from the
objectives of a similar group on topic “A” at
the regional scale. While the overarching goals
may be compatible – e.g. increasing home
ownership – the effective implementation
strategies would be different. For this reason the
platform of the any effective political
“party” must be different at different scales.
The
vacuum of governance agencies at the regional,
community and village scales has resulted in
“problems” being bucked up to the state and
federal scales. The same is true for political
parties.
Discontent
caused by a vacuum of functional governance at the
neighborhood, village, community and regional
scales results in meaningless generalities and
platform planks. Once elected, state and national
representatives have no insight into the problems
nor do they have the power to solve them.
Here
are examples of scale dysfunction in housing,
transport and social cohesiveness:
Few
question that the objective of increased home
ownership is an important element of the larger
goal of affordable and accessible housing for all
citizens. Programs that may support this goal at
the national level -- the federal mortgage
interest subsidy and the creation of tradable
securities from pooled mortgages – generate
obvious problems at regional and community scales.
These blunt federal tools have resulted in
building wrong-size houses in the wrong location.
(See “Solutions
to the Shelter Crisis,” 25 July 2005.)
In
transport, a strategy of building an interregional
expressway system to support national defense and
interregional commerce is sound national policy.
However, the regional impact of pouring federal
money into an “Interstate and Defense Highway
System” has disaggregated urban fabric at the
community and regional scales. (See “Interstate
Crime," 28 February 2005, and “Regional
Rigor Mortis,” 6 June 2005.)
Similar
problems of scale emerge when looking at
settlement pattern parameters from the other end
of the spectrum. What constitutes a sound policy
at dooryard and perhaps cluster scale – e.g.
homogeneity – can be disruptive at the
neighborhood scale. Homogeneity leads to total
dysfunction at the village and community scales.
This is because homogeneity does not facilitate
the evolution of a balance in
Jobs/Housing/Services/Recreation/Amenity at these
scales, which is essential to sustainability of
large organic components of human
settlement.
Of
course, scatteration of homogenous enclaves is
an economic, social and physical disaster at
regional scale. (See “Regional Rigor
Mortis,” 6 June 2005.)
It
is impossible for a single “party” to adopt a
platform with meaningful detail and specificity to
cover areas such as housing, mobility and access
or patterns of land use that relates to all scales
of human settlement.
It
goes without saying that the policies and programs
at the nation-state scale are often different than
those at the multi-national scale. This issue is
faced every day in the European Union.
Monetizing
Civilization
There
are society-wide forces that help foster the
belief that:
There
is a rational basis for “national” political
parties
One-size-fits-all
political slogans and sound bite platforms will
continue to win elections by 50.5 percent of the
vote
An
important overarching force is the monetizing of
civilization. In "The Shape of the
Future" this is number three of the Nine
Fundamental Theses on the Path to Understanding
Human Settlement Patterns. (See Chapter 1
Box 1)"
“Economic
competition is in the driver’s seat of
contemporary civilization.”
The
media coverage of the recent passing of Milton
Friedman spotlights the central role of markets in
contemporary society. The problem is that
advocates of free markets honor the free market
ideal in the breach. They do their best to use
politics and government action to skew markets to
serve their personal, private and enterprise
interests. The failure to fairly distribute
location-variable costs is a prime example. There
are many others.
The
most rabid advocates of “free” markets, and
the think tanks they fund, spend most of their
resources finding ways to have the general public
subsidize private activities. In other words they
miss the whole point of “free” markets.
Free-market
conservation is a good example. Many of the
views of “free” market are akin to, and just
as much pie-in-the sky as “from each according
to his ability to each according to their
need.” (See End
Note Five.)
Free
markets are critical to reaching a sustainable
future. The problem is without full and fair
allocation of location-variable costs, warped
markets continue to generate dysfunctional human
settlement patterns.
Anti-Profit
of Anti-Unearned-Profit
Those
who benefit from Business-As-Usual, and thus are
the natural enemies of Fundamental Change, resort
to charging that advocates of Fundamental Change
are against “profit.” Profit and economic
well-being are what drive a market economy. Those
who support Fundamental Change and a fair
allocation of location-variable costs are not
against profit. They are against unfair
accumulation of profits from activities that
collectively undermine society.
Advocates
of Fundamental Change are not against the
“American way of life,” they are for
preserving and maintaining the desirable and
sustainable attributes of contemporary life. As we
point out in our column “Clueless,”
4 December 2006, at S/PI we measure “desirable
and sustainable attributes of contemporary life”
by what the market documents are the most desired
characteristics of present lifestyles. These
characteristics are determined by the settlement
patterns, goods and services chosen by those who
are high enough on the economic food chain to make
choices when and where an array of real choices
are available.
It
is not necessary to over-consume resources to
maintain most of the important, as opposed to
least-common-denominator, aspects of
“America’s way of life.” If resources were
conserved by evolving functional human settlement
patterns, many more citizens have a chance to live
the lifestyles preferred in the marketplace today
by those who have a choice.
It
turns out that an extreme reduction in citizens'
cumulative ecological footprint can be derived
from relatively modest, market-driven changes in
distribution of human activities that will
achieve functional human settlement patterns.
As
noted above, in a monetized society the formula
for political party for success – promising
continued mass over-consumption – goes hand in
hand with stimulating mass consumption through
ever more aggressive and ever more unrealistic
advertising. We will focus on this issue in a
future column.
Politics
of Expediency
So,
here is the context of contemporary politics:
In
this environment, politics becomes the art of
winning elections by 50.5 percent, not “the art
of the possible,” much less a way for citizens
to achieve a sustainable trajectory for
civilization.
The
historic rationale for political “parties” was
to have an umbrella organization that represented
common interests and philosophy in a society with
low levels of literacy and primitive means of
communication over vast distances.
Party
politics never worked well but contemporary party
managers have found a way to capitalize on the
societal context, including the governance
structure chaos to create the current political
party duopoly which perpetuates dysfunction.
Contemporary technology, especially electronic
communications, eclipses most of the reasons for
simplistic, one-size- fits-all political parties
and platforms.
The
role of parties has morphed to focus on the
generation of platitudes. These simplistic
catchall sound bites are designed to secure 50.5
percent of the vote.
The
current political parties champion lower taxes,
provide subsidies and lower cost of goods and
services, including scarce resources, to spur
“growth.” The net result is to waste resources
and accelerate evolution of unsustainable human
settlement patterns. This is true for all
resources but especially energy. (See “Soft
Consumption Paths,” 7 August 2006.)
Party
platforms, and politics in general, have
degenerated to meaningless platitudes about
“freedom,” “low taxes” and
“middle-class values.” Citizen
understanding of the importance of different
interests at different scales could be the nail
in the coffin of one-size-fits-all-scales
politics.
Private
interests and proclivities have eclipsed what
governance should focus on: Public interest and
general welfare. Separation of church (religion)
and state (governance) is one way to put it,
separation of religious and other private-choice
organizations from political parties is another.
Most
culture war issues would disappear if governance
focused on common welfare and if political parties
avoided advocating positions on personal choice
issues.
What
Is This Fundamental Change of Which We Speak?
Before
we look at initial steps toward functional
governance and constructive political action, it
is important to get a handle on what Fundamental
Change in governance structure would mean. Here is
a quick, threshold check list of milestones on the
path to Fundamental Change in governance
structure:
The
"Shape of the Future" provides a
threshold survey of alternatives, including the
37-state proposal of Stanley Brunn and others, and
a more profound restructuring to reflect Joel
Garreau’s “Nine Nations of America”
categorization.
It
is critical to understand the importance of
organic components of human settlement patterns.
It is imperative to evolve Balanced Communities
within sustainable New Urban Regions and Urban
Support Regions.
First
Steps Toward Political Reform
A
late 19th and early 20th Century “progressive”
ideal was that “local” elections should be
“non-partisan.” Some municipal elections are
nonpartisan by charter, others by custom. Some
“nonpartisan” arrangements reflect an attempt
to avoid being saddled by elements of state or
national party platforms or personalities.
A
surface problem is that for the most part, those
running in “non-partisan” elections are really
active party members running without a visible
label.
A
root problem with “nonpartisan local
elections” is that “local” is a Core
Confusing Word. What does “local” mean?
It is “regional,” “community,”
“village,” “neighborhood,” “cluster”
or even “dooryard? (See the discussion on
“Local” in Appendix Two, Core Confusing Words
of "The Shape of the Future.")
Under
the current system Citizens/voters frequently
have no opportunity to make input at the level
of impact, thus perpetuating least common
denominator governance where winning elections
is more important than governing.
The
goal of both the donkey clan and the elephant clan
is to get 50.5 percent of the vote, and winning an
election is more important than governing.
Programs with substance offend those who profit
from Business As Usual, so spin masters nix
substance.
Politics
is fueled by political contributions and since
real programs always impact the interests of some
potential donors, no party apparatchik will
include substantive programs in party platforms.
The
net result of the current process is that
national-scale and state-scale issues eclipse
regional-scale and community-scale issues and
policies.
Elected
governance practitioners act as if 95 percent of
the citizens agree with them even if less than 50
percent voted for them in the last election.
Current
political parties serve those in office, but not
citizens. Citizens and society in general need
functional governance. Parties serve as a
springboard for politicians to “move up,”
creating pressure from elected officials to have
parties that purport to span all the scales of
human settlement pattern.
Society
has reached the current gridlock on
affordable/accessible housing, mobility/access and
now safety and security via least common
denominator decisions (aka, “political
compromise”). Compromise is appropriate now and
then but when trajectory of civilization is down,
and the path is wildly unsustainable, citizens
must find a way to achieve Fundamental Change, not
compromise. This is especially true when the
primary area of agreement between donkeys and
elephants is continued over-consumption of
resources and unsustainable “growth.”
A
Sound Bite Solution
There
is a simple sound-bite solution to the “national
party” problem:
No
political party shall support candidates running
for office at more than one scale.
This
policy would result in the creation of distinct
parties at nation-state, regional, community,
village and neighborhood scales. Parties might
form multi-scale coalitions when they share mutual
interests, but the focus would be on policies and
programs that relate to a specific scale, not
meaningless sound bites like “conservative” or
“liberal.”
The
Bottom Line
If
civilization is to evolve toward a sustainable
trajectory, it will require Fundamental Change in
human settlement patterns. (See End
Note One.) Fundamental Change in human
settlement patterns will not be achieved under the
current governance structure. This is because
current governance practitioners – elected and
appointed – believe that their power and that of
their party is best served by the status quo and
avoiding Fundamental Change. That is why progress
on PROPERTY DYNAMICS is critical.
PROPERTY
DYNAMICS is an open-ended citizen education
process. This process will create the basis for
a new Metric, a new way to measure citizen
happiness and safety beyond and replacing growth
and over-consumption. (Also see End Note
Three)
It
is not a new constitution that in needed. It is a
new understanding of what the creation of safety
and happiness in the 21st Century requires. In a
democracy it means citizens must come to
understand the context and take action. That is
what PROPERTY DYNAMICS is all about: a citizen
education program.
In
the Meantime
Until
there is Fundamental Change in governance
structure and citizens move beyond the current
two-party duopoly, the very best one can hope for
is that neither political party gains control of
more than one branch of the legislature and the
executive mansion at federal or state levels. It
would be best if neither party has unquestioned
control over any legislative chamber or executive
branch.
It
would appear that many citizens who do not have a
personal stake in a political party feel a
“balance of vulnerability” is a good stop-gap
strategy. However, since there is no efficient,
effective governance structure at the regional,
community, village, neighborhood and cluster
levels in the US of A, citizens tend to vote back
into office incumbents at the state and
nation-state levels. These candidates run on
platforms composed of pork, subsidies and scare
tactics.
This
is especially true for congresspersons who have
stepped into the governance vacuum to “solve”
regional and community problems like
transportation, governance efficiency and safety.
In flier after flier our incumbent congressperson
stresses his contributions to solving these areas
of concern even though traffic congestion has
grown worse every year he has been in office,
government is far less efficient now than 26 years
ago, and the valid measures of “safety” are
all in decline.
Incumbents
like to stress the importance of seniority. What
is the benefit to citizens of a representative
with tenure or seniority in a failed system?
Short
Term Benefits of Divided Party Control
One
of the most heartening and intelligent actions by
the national government in the past year has been
the decision to repair and keep in operation the
Hubble telescope. The alternative was to spend the
money trying to get manned missions back to the
Moon and then on to Mars.
Did
someone say the marine fisheries are on a
trajectory to collapse in 42 years? Did someone
mention Global Climate Change? If humans cannot
keep the Earth from becoming uninhabitable, what
chance is there of making Mars into Tortola, the
Flathead Valley or the Virginia Piedmont? If
humans squander the resources of a rich, living
planet, what advantage is it to expend resources
to put man on a dead planet? Of what value are
these inorganic resources of the Moon or Mars
beyond making a few richer at the expense of the
majority? (See End Note Six.)
Spending
the money on Hubble makes all kinds of sense but
does anyone think the decision on Hubble would
have been the same if the election was not too
close to call and the administration needed things
to offset bad press on many fronts?
Does
anyone think that the United States would have
rushed into Iraq with few allies, cooked
intelligence on “weapons of mass destruction”
and links to Al Qaeda, with no plans for
reconstruction and no exit strategy if real
bipartisan support was needed to declare war?
An
excellent case can be made for the fact that fewer
bad decisions are made if there is no clear
majority at the federal or the state levels.
Would
this lead to stalemate? A “do-nothing”
congress or legislature? Pop Quiz: Compare and
contrast the 1948 “do-nothing” congress with
the 2006 “do-nothing” congress. Did someone
mention the 2006 regular or special sessions of
the Virginia legislature?
The
real test of governance concerns decisions that
forward the common good.
Will
there be a real national energy policy without
Fundamental Change?
Will
there be functional plans that balance land-use
generated travel demand with transport system
capacity in every New Urban Region without
Fundamental Change?
Will
there be affordable and accessible housing for all
citizens without Fundamental Change?
Will
there be effective (aka, conservative) action on
conservation without Fundamental Change? (See “Quantification
of Land Resources and the Impact on Land
Conservation Efforts,” 28 August 2006.)
We
suspect the answer is “no” to all these
questions.
It
will take Fundamental Change of the governance
structure and Fundamental Change of settlement
patterns to achieve a sustainable trajectory for
civilization. However, a stalemate would be at
least better than what we have seen in recent
years.
The
first step is a new way to quantify “happy and
safe,” a new metric for citizen well-being. The
recent elections demonstrate how far that is away.
As
noted above, citizens of the US of A have reached
this point by least common denominator decisions (aka,
political compromise).
Compromise
is appropriate now and then but when trajectory is
down, and course is unsustainable citizens must
demand Fundamental Change. Long-term
sustainability demands Fundamental Change and that
requires citizen education and PROPERTY
DYNAMICS.
--
December 10, 2006
End
Notes
(1).
This reality will be the topic of a forthcoming
Backgrounder titled “Understanding Human
Settlement Patterns,” which will become the
Introduction to TRILOGY.
(
2). This Backgrounder is an expansion and
melding of the 6 Nov 2006 column, “Bread and
Circuses,” and the 20 Nov 2006 column, “Moldy
Bread and Lame Circuses.” This
Backgrounder will be further revised to serve as
the introduction to PROPERTY DYNAMICS in TRILOGY.
(
3). Based on the three-tiered economic
profile outlined in PROPERTY DYNAMICS, if citizens
vote their enlightened self-interest, there will
be a landslide for Fundamental Change. The
economic profile use in PROPERTY DYNAMICS notes
that the top of the economic food chain makes up
five percent of the Commonwealth’s population.
The bottom 50 percent of the food chain is losing
ground in terms of economic, social and physical
measures. The citizens who make up the 45 percent
in the middle are the Running as Hard as They Cans
or (RHTCs). This means that 95 percent of
the population is always, or are frequently, not
happy.
(
4). Many aspects of these policies were set
down in the Northwest Ordinance of 1789. This view
of desirable settlement patterns reflected the
vision of all the major political and economic
perspectives of the time. The Industrial
Revolution was already making these perspectives
obsolete when the Northwest Ordinance was adopted.
See discussion of the 1800 to 2000 transformation
from an agrarian society to an urban society in
“Burned
Out,” 10 July 2006, and in “Regional
Rigor Mortis,” 6 June 2005.
(5).
The short sightedness of some free marketeers is
well illustrated by their position on population
and food production. They like to point out that
Malthus was wrong because at the present time, the
market is creating more food production as the
population expands. It is true that at this
point starvation is not caused by the inability to
produce food but from:
Intentional
use of starvation as a political weapon
Cost of food distribution
Inability of those who need food to pay for it
For
starters, free market theoreticians ignore the
idea of a “tipping point” and “punctuated
equilibria” in natural systems. The margin
of error provided by surplus productive land and
miracle crops is shrinking. Several critical
ecosystems are near the breaking point. Global
marine fisheries noted above, is an example.
The
more basic issue is that the issue is not just
food production but finding ways to pay for food
and moving food to those who need it. The cost of
mobility is escalating and the only solution is
functional settlement patterns which include food
production close to the place it is needed.
(6).
On the topic of putting humans back on the moon
and then on Mars, I posted the following on
Bacon’s Rebellion Blog on 1 December 2006:
HAWKING
THE FUTURE
In
anticipation of receiving the Copley medal from
Britain’s Royal Society, revered cosmologist
Stephen Hawking granted a rare interview this
week. He told BBC that "humans must colonize
other planets." That statement generated
headlines around the planet. His arguments are
sound and you can read them on http://www.cnn.com/
in a story CNN picked up from Reuters.
Before
anyone runs out and suggests that Hawking’s
position in anyway supports the current NAS
/administration view that one nation-state, the US
of A, is wise to spend the resources necessary to
put humans back on the Moon and then on Mars, let
us get four things straight:
1.
Hawking correctly points out that eventually an
asteroid, nuclear war or some other event (and in
the long term the natural life cycle of our Sun)
will make Earth uninhabitable. With this position,
no scientist disagrees. Every major religion has
an escape clause for those who believe in that
particular faith, the rest just burn up.
2.
Hawking also notes that to get to the nearest
potentially habitable planet it would take 50,000
years with current technology. See Fundamental
Thesis Nine (No Exit) in Chapter 1 Box 1 and
Chapter 23 Box 1 No Exit in "The Shape of the
Future."
3.
Before humans go back to the Moon, we need
technology that will get us there in 30 minutes.
If humans can develop that technology it will be
done here on Earth, not on the Moon or on Mars.
This is especially true when the rationale given
by the administration to go there is to exploit
material resources on these nearby bodies.
4.
There is an even bigger issue:
Before
US of A taxpayers, or everyone on the planet,
expend vast resources to ensure survival of the
humans species, citizens need to prove they can
efficiently and sustainably manage our activity on
Earth. The Earth is the only known planet where
human survival is possible under current
conditions. Without a sustainable trajectory for
civilization, going to Mars and beyond would just
be exporting chaos.
Evolving
functional and sustainable human settlement
patterns here on Earth is a first step. It is
still possible if governments, institutions and
enterprises would stop distorting the market and
the environment for short-term profit.
|
