Even when the cost to the government is small, it seems determined to destroy everything good and valuable about this country. It’s the pettiness of the decision that makes it so shocking. But in a letter published last week, the UK’s environment minister, Rebecca Pow, refused permission, claiming it “would impose new and distinct regulatory obligations on the farmers and businesses within the catchment”. It applied to the government to create a water protection zone, defending the River Wye against the pollution pushing it towards complete ecological collapse. After two decades of disastrous policies that turned its rivers into open sewers, Herefordshire county council, following a shift from Tory to independent control, finally did the right thing. Even if you are unwilling to follow him into a major change in our governing system his analysis and insights about our current system are well worth the read.But the final straw for me was a smaller decision. Part direct democracy and part representative government, he calls his creation "consensus democracy".
So how do we fix it? Rothenberger is a true outsider who presents a completely out-of-the-box solution in a clear and completely readable style.
It produces a balanced, equitable market economy, a lean, centered, moderate, functional government and free, responsible citizens within a just, open, pluralistic, peacefully evolving, ever improving society that avoids the extremes and screams of both the Left and the Right. Unlike plutocracy, which only achieves the consensus of a simple majority of elites, and majority-rule democracy, which only achieves the consensus of a simple majority of the electorate, consensus democracy achieves a political-economic consensus of the entire electorate. If we alter our government in a way that makes it honestly include and serve the entire electorate, then we can easily and permanently correct the profound unfairness and inequity inherent in our current political-economic system. Precisely because our government lies at the heart of the problem it also lies at the heart of the solution. America has the best government that money can buy. Elections and our government’s offices, laws, actions and favors are bought and sold just like any other commodity. The wealthy hold a perpetual hegemony of power in our government through the generations, much to the detriment of the rest of the populace. Most of America’s many political, economic and social ills are caused or aggravated by its most fundamental problem: America is not really a democracy but a plutocracy dominated and governed by a wealthy few. The wealthy hold a perpetual hegemony of power in our government through the generations, much to the detriment of the rest o Plutocracy is governance by the wealthy.
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