Blog 10 - We need more of a say... (4)

Standard Header - In these blogs, current political events are illuminated by reference to the basic relationships explained in ‘Us, Politics and The System.’ To give readers an idea when to look for a new post, the initial plan is to do a new one at least once a week, on Fridays.

Check Blogs 5, 6 and 8 for earlier ‘We need more of a say.’

Progressives like a good demo but walking the streets for a few hours as an amorphous crowd is nothing when there’s all those solidly established institutions exercising actual decision-making power – businesses, the law courts, parliaments, congresses, banks, councils, government departments, and so on - daily.

Future blogs will say more about how we can get access to such real power. But first, some general points. Though spitting feathers as an individual on social media can spread opinion, things really get done by people organised, in organisations. Conservatives boost the idea of the individual but it’s a diversion, they themselves exercise power organised as businesses, conservative media and parties.

And organising requires more than just expressing your pet views. This writer has done a lot in unions and progressive parties and it’s surprising sometimes how your stonking, undisputable opinion comes up against other people’s differing views. In organising, you have to accommodate them and work with them. It’s through structured, organised, respectful debate, so that’s alright. As when one of my shop steward students said to me ‘Eddie, with all due respect, you’re talking crap.’

You have to put in some time and effort. It all has to be resolved in meetings, debates and votes. In the UK Labour Party the NEC (National Executive Committee) is the most decisive body and I get a vote for who goes on it. I just took part in a policy consultation with them on major policy issues.

Many people won’t do all this because it’s not so much fun. But it means you are acting with full adulthood, trying to sort out society, in a proper way, with others.

The ruling class, the Business class, don’t mind all this. They organise first of all to run their businesses. And then they’ve got something to protect, which they usually do through their conservative parties. Because of them taking the trouble, there’s a sense in which they deserve their power – but not as much as they get and they should be more civilised about how they use it - and we deserve our lack of it. The hard fact of the matter is that, to make them do that, we need to match their organisation.

As ordinary citizens, there’s no everyday, accessible democratic processes in place. You can write to representatives like MP’s, but others might be writing differently. We need some decision-making processes to mandate them. We shouldn’t have votes without proper debate – we need to talk to each other about how our decisions affect each other. So maybe Citizens Assemblies followed by constituency votes (referenda).  

There’s a thorough discussion of democracy, comparing parliamentary and union democracy, in the full ‘Us, Politics and the System’ at https://www.uspoliticsandthesystem.org/_files/ugd/e8d212_b4c119a749af49a28286fcc7648f5cbb.pdf from page 230-275, and more about Citizen’s Assemblies at pages 296-297.

Standard Footer - Comments are not being offered in this blog right now. Reader’s reflections are best spread outwards, to somebody else the reader knows, as written about in ‘How To Talk Politics With Each Other’ at https://www.uspoliticsandthesystem.org/_files/ugd/e8d212_1f348918923e4f33bac1b09b314affbb.pdf