This is a work-in-progress. Comments welcome.
Richard K. Moore rkm@quaylargo.com
Contents
Part I: The nature of the global crisis
Prolog
1 Prognosis 2012
the elite agenda for social transformation
2 The Grand Story of humanity
- Historical background — the establishment of capitalist supremacy
- The end of growth — capitalists vs. capitalism
- The carbon economy — controlling consumption
- ‘The War on Terrorism’ — preparing the way for the transition
- Prognosis 2012 — a Neo Dark Age
- Postscript
3 The story of hierarchy
- Our primate origins
- Origins of intelligence
- The story world
- A Golden Age of innocence
- Early civilization
- The return of the alpha male
- Origins of class
- Leaving Eden
- Orthodoxy and empire
- Science wobbles the gyroscope
- The Grand Story of humanity
Part II: A grassroots response to the crisis
Prolog
4 The emergence of localism
5 A framework for achieving economic transformation
- Always darkest before the dawn
- Achieving greater self-sufficiency
- Revitalizing the local economy
- Awakening grassroots energy
6 Facilitating the emergence of democratic empowerment
- Development as a focus for transformation
- The role of investment
- Managing the development process
- Milestones of development
Abstract: The previous chapter presented a framework for economic development, but only at an abstract level. In any particular community, there is a lot of planning to be done, and many choices to be made, in order to achieve the potential of the framework. In this chapter we look at how local citizens can be invited to participate in the planning process, and how this participation can grow into a full-fledged democratic process at the community level.
Part III: Global transformation as an organic process
7 The emergence of community empowerment
Abstract: When a community has created a resilient and prosperous local economy, and has developed processes that maintain community coherence while enabling ongoing community evolution, then we can say that the community has empowered itself to govern its own affairs.8 A viral model of cultural transformation
Local elections become a process where a slate of officials are elected unanimously, and the functions of the official government are effectively integrated into the community’s self-governance processes, as was always supposed to be the case in a democratic society — the government responding to the will of the people.
Abstract: The basic premise of the localization movement has always been that society could be transformed by transforming one community at a time, as regards achieving sustainability, local self-sufficiency, etc. Expanding on that premise, if community empowerment can be achieved in a few seed communities, we could expect that widespread interest would develop in other communities.9 An organic global society
The model, particularly the processes that enable community coherence, might with some real likelihood go viral, leading to a grassroots cultural transformation on a society-wide basis. Only some such viral process, based on some appropriate seed, can hope to transform a society which has become so tightly controlled from the center by unaccountable elites.
Abstract: The coherence that exists in our current societies is imposed from the center, by laws, taxes, government policies, etc. It is a coherence based on uniformity and conformance to rules. In a natural ecosystem coherence emerges spontaneously through the voluntary interaction of autonomous organisms. Organic coherence is based on diversity and on spontaneous responses to changing circumstances.
An empowered community operates as an organic system, its coherence emerging through the voluntary interaction of autonomous citizens. If every community in the world were empowered in this way, and if each community is an autonomous political unit, then we would have an organic global society. Coherence in such a society emerges from the voluntary interaction of autonomous communities. It is a coherence based on diversity and on spontaneous responses to changing circumstances.
