Strictly an illustrative example and NOT a blueprint or platform
Copyright 081306 by John R. Ewbank
On each continent there are experienced executives who have studied the writings of Robert Greenleaf about Servant Leadership. Their names are available through the Robert Greenleaf Center. Some of them have had experience in evaluating the achievement records for recommending candidates for particular positions. Such Servant Leader Headhunters could be hired to identify those executives who have handled complex reorganizations, who clearly retained their “help others” perspectives, and who unambiguously lack ambitions for personal power or wealth. Some such individuals might have enthusiasm for a reorganization of the world for greater sustainability. Some might be extremely skeptical about the risks of any world government because of the hazards of creeping centralism. Both types are much needed. The isolationists are needed to serve on Opposition Campaigns. The altruistic experienced managers of complex projects are needed for candidates for a cabinet for the initial administration of a world federation.
It costs money to identify such individuals. The altruistic Headhunters might be well paid for identifying from each continent about 60 executives. The 300 executives thus identified might be well paid during a one week Congeniality Conference, at which, by spontaneous order, there could be organized about 3 different Cabinets and about 3 different Opposition Campaigns. Each of the Cabinets could prepare a Proposal for a Constitution for a Supra-National Federation having the authority and projects under which a Cabinet would be willing to reorganize the world if it won a Competitive Ratification Contest. For each Proposal, there would also be a responsible Opposition Campaign having responsible Servant Leaders stressing the hazards of creeping centralism. Many constitutions have failed to fulfill their author’s aspirations about restricted central authority.
If there were available a plurality of Cabinet-Candidates, and Opposition Campaigns for such Proposals, then the costly project of launching a Competitive Ratification Contest might be appropriate. Its Rules might provide for a Bonus Day, on which all entities making local donations to a local campaign, either for or against any Proposal attaining “Plausibility Status” would be refunded such donations with simple interest at 0.54% per month. Great difficulty might be involved in obtaining the donations for the campaigns during the early stages. However, as soon as the imminence of any Proposal qualifying for winning the Contest was recognized, the volume of political contributions might far exceed any previous campaign. Thus the Federation would pay for a portion of its own birthing costs. Wealthy members of a Cabinet would be risking their funds until their Proposal gained “plausibility status” but thereafter, their financial donations to their own campaigns would be business investments paying a plausible rate of return as well as enhancing political objectives. Such a Competitive Ratification Contest could help to solve some of the financial hurdles delaying the launching of a federation.
The Competitive Ratification Contest would need rules concerning winning the contest so that the launching of the federation on Ratification Day could be announced. Although highly improbable, a plurality of Proposals might qualify within a week of one another, thereby creating a tie. The contest rules might provide that the “grass roots preference” data would be used in terminating such tie. Because heretofore, the grass roots has been dominated by international affairs but predominantly powerless to affect them. Prompt “empowerment of neighborhoods” by authorizing neighborhood preference data to terminate a tie would alert thousands to the potentiality of a world parliament enhancing neighborhood autonomy. The widespread skepticism about politicians, the widespread fears of remote bureaucracies might impose hurdles delaying federalization. However, immediate empowerment of neighborhoods to terminate a tie might help to overcome some of such skepticism.
In earlier decades many federalists debated jurisprudence, including issues that have been made essentially irrelevant by events. Federalization requires agreement upon a package comprising both jurisprudence and the trustworthiness of the Cabinet for the Initial Administration. One advantage of some type of Competitive Ratification Contest is that it permits the simultaneous choice of both. One advantage of a Competitive Ratification Contest is that it can be extremely vague as regards the size of the budget of the routine budget of the federation and/or other jurisprudence issues, while adequately emphasizing what seems likely to be far more important, the trustworthiness of the members of the Cabinet for the Initial Administration of a Federation.
Alarmists have been alerting pessimists to dismal trends for centuries. In 2006 such dismal trends are so undeniable that even optimists can concede that the individual coping with the horrendous plight of the last-surviving human may have already been born. Realistic hope for the sustainability of civilization does not require religious faith in the inevitability of prolongation of civilization for a few millennia. The hazards can be recognized while seeking wise discernment about the abundance of paths that might enhance sustainability.
Individuals can learn to modify their pragmatic blending of opposite guidelines in a manner analogues to how they have evolved toward their current perspectives. Federalization is truly a drastic transformation of the entire institutional matrix. Instead of advocating an explicit political platform as the only route toward sustainability, as was the pattern of some federalists of earlier decades, one can stimulate individuals to recognize that in fact they are both national citizens and world citizens. Each has opportunities for mentoring so that others acknowledge their world citizenship. Some world citizens substantially ignore and boycott international affairs and all aspects of the many varieties of national fascism or global fascism. Accepting the past as irretrievably past, but fully forgiving the entities accused by conflicting experts of having caused earlier problems is a modification of individual philosophy that expedites federalization. With sufficient enhancement of individual philosophies, there can be hope for the financial donations needed for the many steps toward sustainability of civilization.
This contest would aim primarily to stimulate adequate debate about world federalism while educating many about the complexities of reorganizing the world. Federalization would be the most drastic transformation of the institutional matrix ever attempted by humanity, and should not be attempted unless prolonged viability seems likely. Not only would the Opposition Campaigns attack each explicit Proposal for a World Constitution, but the Cabinets would be debating each other in their efforts to win the contest.
Sovereign nations currently have the authority to launch or reject any Proposal. The Ratification Contest Rules would permit a nation to validly evaluate a Proposal only after at least 75% of its provinces had evaluated it. In keeping with the concept of the sovereignty of nations, how a province had voted would be irrelevant, but whether the 75% of the provinces had voted would be a necessary perquisite for a valid evaluation.
Similarly, no Province could vote unless at least 20 town councils had evaluated such proposal, with again ignoring how the vote had been, and focusing merely on prior evaluation. No town council could vote unless the aggregate number of votes tabulated by Registries amounted to at least 20% of the vote by which some local efficient has been elected. In areas in which local officials were not elected, the requirement would be 20% of the adult population.
Thus there would be widespread awareness of the Ratification Contest and the potentiality of adoption of the Proposal winning the contest. If there were a tie because of a plurality of Proposals qualifying for winning within a week of each other, such tie would be resolved by applying the grass roots voting data instead of the national ratification data. Each individual, town, and/or other entity would be encouraged to endorse each acceptable proposal, thus
differing from normal elections.
Before any Proposal won the contest, the powerful nations might “pre-empt” the process by calling an official Constitution Convention and campaigning for its ratification. Because the objective is to expedite the launching of a federation, the Contest would have fulfilled much of its mission even if scuttled by power politics.
One illustrative example of a Panarchic Proposal might provide that each governance entity having a giant constituency [e.g. greater than 15,000] should gain its funds purely on a voluntary basis of affiliation by mature adults at the grass roots level. Such panarchy is essentially a logical extension of the freedom of choice available to citizens of those nations no longer collecting taxes for a national church. Such panarchy might be best attained while launching a federation.
Some entities might be territorial. Some might be scattered territories. Some might be service-oriented on a global basis. There might be a provision preventing any entity from providing both military services and monetary services. If all members of a federation lacked the combination of monetary and military authority, then the treaty system might be able to handle many aspects of global governance. A supplemental federation could cope with “hold-out” nations, and have provisions by which a nation could secede. Expediting ratifiability might be more important than achieving the perfect world government.
A world government might have a normal budget [after the turmoil of the initial administration] that was limited to what the treaty system spent on global governance five years prior to the budgeted year. Nations might conceivably increase the disbursements within the treaty system, while not feeling hopelessly dominated by the federation. Such perspectives differ from those advocated by some federalists of earlier decades.
There might be a dozen alternative routes for amending the constitution, with adequate opportunities for powerful factions to veto proposed amendments without burdening them with routine matters for the World Parliament. One chamber of the Parliament might be the global tabulation of the results of local “talking circles” of from about 5 to about 35 individuals. All participants in a Talking Circle would temporarily abstain from any connotation of “expertness” or “prestige” or “clout” because of the temporary effort to maximize the experience of “egalitarianism” within that session of the “talking circle”. Such talking circles would be the format for gathering “grass roots” perspectives on the various Proposals. There would be scattered oases of meritocracy in which “talking circles” could be organized and win the participation for a sufficient period of time to permit three rounds in which each participant had an opportunity to clarify their perspectives. At the grass roots level, the discernment of “phoniness” might be wiser than in some of the scholarly institutes. Each talking circle would expect to have disparities of viewpoint, with the aim of clarifying a viewpoint rather than in any way seeking consensus. Only those who had heard mass media debates concerning the issue could participate in a talking circle.
After the launching of a Competitive Ratification Contest, it might be difficult to persuade the residents of some neighborhoods to devote the needed time for talking circles. However scattered oases of meritocracy always exist. The expressions from such scattered areas would adequately reflect what was the “market reaction” globally, and at a cost that would be trivial compared to the costs of any global “election system”.
Each of the other chambers of the World Parliament might be desirably “paired” chambers in which a group of 50 women could have veto authority over a group of 50 men, so that nothing could advance unless there was essentially spontaneous agreement by the two gender-based chambers. Within each chamber, wise discernment would be the factor providing relative clout. Alumni of legislatures would be restricted, so that they would pay 45% of the gross receipts from all of their services as lecturers, writers, lobbyists, etc. in any way exploiting their experience as a former legislator. The adequacy of the lifetime pension starting at the end of the term would be a principal incentive for serving a ten year term as a legislator. Legislators might be selected by lottery from long lists of those who had been certified by non-governmental institutes as having educational and character qualifications meriting such service. In the world parliament, all delegates might represent a global constituency, so that various vocations would have a plausible voice. Reasonable equity about continents might be sought, but national boundaries might be essentially ignored.
A world parliamentarian might serve a single term of ten years. There might be 10 mew legislators being injected every two years. No ex-legislator could in any way serve in any other legislature until after a lapse of at least 10 years, thus seeking to discourage any career as a politician advancing upwardly on a ladder toward greater political power. Lottery might be relied upon for choosing legislators for any constituency larger than 15,000, There would be no educational qualifications for local legislative councils, but provinces, nations, continents and the global parliament might have educational standerds established by non-governmental institutes.
Greater inventiveness is the great need if any Surpa-national Federation is ever to be launched. Substantially all of the experts have goofed horrendously by seeking a world parliament closely resembling a provincial parliament. Grass roots wisdom and grassroots common sense can blossom for launching a Supra-National Federation soon enough to prolong civilization for a score of millennia.
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