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Chapter 10
Consensus
Government, Consensus Capitalism, and Consensus Society
In this chapter I will discuss how the
practice of consensus democracy in the demos leads to consensus of the entire
electorate within the rest of the government and even within the private sector
market economy. The overall result is a just, balanced distribution of power, an
unequal but equitable distribution of wealth, and a moderate, centered,
peacefully evolving political-economic system and society. With consensus of the
entire electorate achieved throughout government and the market economy, one
could meaningfully use the term consensus
society.
As discussed in the chapter entitled Reorganizing
the Powers of the American Government, the combined effect of three major
elements work together to achieve a correct distribution of political power
within our (or any) government: 1) direct democracy judiciously balanced
with representative democracy, 2) the use of consensus democracy in the
direct democracy branch, the demos, rather than majority-rule democracy, and 3) limiting
the direct democracy to “just the right” small, fixed set of easily
understood economic and electoral issues
of central importance to society. I have named this government design consensus
government. It is designed specifically to overcome the tyranny of
plutocracy and maximize the freedom of the individual while avoiding the tyranny
that an incorrectly designed democracy can become.
Consensus government empowers the
electorate and achieves true democracy in two important ways. It empowers not
just the elite few or the simple majority but the entire electorate to directly
achieve consensus on and set some fundamental economic values that the
government and the nation must use as they function. And the government-supported demos
electoral system empowers all members of the electorate to run for office for
free and to reach out to each other across states or the entire nation to select
for office not the lesser of evils preselected by the wealthy as is done today
but their champions, officeholders that resemble them in body, mind, interests,
and pocketbook and truly represent them. The resulting representative bodies of
government automatically demographically resemble and honestly serve the entire
electorate.
Thus, under consensus
government the entire electorate achieves consensus in three ways: It
achieves economic consensus on its demos economic issues. The demos electoral
system automatically results in representative bodies that demographically
resemble the entire electorate in body, mind, interests, and pocketbook, which
may be taken to be electoral consensus.
And, since the now truly representative bodies create laws and rules that
honestly serve the entire electorate, they achieve what I call the legislative
consensus of the electorate.
(Also, in a later chapter entitled Congressional
Legislative Reform I propose two changes for the senate and the house that
overcome their “old-boys’ clubs” and significantly democratize their
function and a change in how justices are selected for the Supreme Court making
the court more truly resemble and represent the entire electorate in its
rulings.)
The distribution of political power
permanently built right into the structure and function of consensus
government—the judicious balance of powers between its direct and
representative democracy branches and the specific set of economic and electoral
consensus-achieving powers included in the demos—does not unduly favor any
group. The result is truly democratic government in which the entire electorate
and its fairly elected representatives are empowered to create laws and rules
for the market economy in the private sector that honestly include a wise
balance of all of our interests. This produces a balanced market economy and an
unequal but equitable overall distribution of wealth in the nation. Unequal but
equitable distribution motivates and results in honest reward for honest
creativity, entrepreneurship, and work.
Unlike plutocracy’s obscene
accumulations of private wealth in the face of abject poverty, under consensus
government market forces operating within parameters set by a consensus of the
entire electorate result in a moderately wealthy class, a large healthy middle
class, and at least a modestly comfortable living for all who work. In a sense,
it could be called a consensus economy, and one is almost gravitationally
attracted to the already existing term consensus
capitalism. But under consensus government the concept of consensus
capitalism rises to a whole new level of honesty and meaning than exists today.
The term consensus
capitalism was originally used in 1995 by the Financial Secretary of Hong
Kong Sir Hamish Macleod in the attempt to win broader support for the then
current form of capitalism in Hong Kong. The consensus was supposedly continued
support of free enterprise and competition while promoting equity and assistance
for those who need them. (From the book East
Asian Welfare Regimes in Transition, edited by Alan Walker and Chack-kie
Wong.)
Of course, the form of capitalism in Hong
Kong at the time was just another variant of history’s long sorry string of
plutocracies, and this “equity and assistance” just turned out to be empty
words. Under plutocracy, the bottom economic half is held permanently in the
position of begging hat in hand for equity and assistance from the upper
economic half—really, the upper ten percent—which may or may not respond to
the begging as political necessities and expedience dictate. Even if a few alms
are tossed to the poor, charity begins at home. Those who have advantage take
even more advantage and serve themselves first and best. Given this permanent
begging-hat-in-hand situation in plutocracy, always met with an insufficient
response and result, the term consensus
capitalism is essentially meaningless.
In Time
magazine, August 11, 2008, in an article entitled How
to Fix Capitalism, Bill Gates reminds us that capitalism has improved the
lives of billions of people. But he also admits that it has left out billions
more. He advocates using what he calls “creative capitalism” to bring
enterprise to those parts of the world currently left behind in poverty. He
advocates channeling market forces to compliment what governments and nonprofits
do. Along with entrepreneurial ideas, Gates says companies should provide “the
poor with heavily discounted access to products.” And governments should
create more financial incentives.
While creatively expanding the world’s
market economy to include everyone is an important part of a correct solution of
poverty, Gates misses and his ‘solution’ does not fix the real problem.
Rather, it produces, at best, a kinder gentler plutocracy in which the upper
economic half perpetually paternalistically tosses an insufficient bit of equity
and assistance to the lower economic half.
Poverty does not only exist in those
parts of the world where successful market economies have not yet developed and
created wealth. Throughout capitalism’s history abject poverty has always
existed within capitalism. Like all
forms of plutocracy, capitalism tends toward an extreme concentration of power
and wealth and toward monopoly. In and of itself capitalism will not and cannot
correct this problem. Handouts forever are not a real solution to poverty but
only a palliative. A real solution to poverty is and can only be a correctly
designed political-economic system that does not produce and perpetuate poverty
within itself.
The real problem that Gates and others
miss or turn blind eyes to is the fact that there are no nations in the world
whose governments honestly mitigate the excesses of their economic systems. The
weakness inherent in the market economy, the tendency toward monopoly, would be
readily mitigated if the will to do so existed within government. But such will
does not exist within any current governments because they do not honestly
include and represent their entire electorates. Despite mythologies and wrist
slapping affectations to the contrary, the fundamental design and central role
of current governments are not to achieve political balance or economic equity
but to facilitate and protect plutocracy and monopoly.
Precisely because
government lies at the heart of the problem it also lies at the heart of the
solution. By correct design, it can be made into an honest broker. All current
governments concentrate too much political-economic power in too few hands. If
we alter governments in a way that make them honest brokers, then we, through
our governments, can easily and permanently correct the profound imbalance
inherent in capitalism.
The consensus government presented in
this book is an honest broker. Under
consensus government with its demos and consensus democracy the economic
situation and result are very different then under today’s governments, and
the term consensus capitalism has real
meaning. Rather than a wealthy elite creating and perpetually populating a
self-serving government, the entire electorate directly sets some fundamental
economic parameters within which the market economy must function, and it
populates the representative branches with people that honestly represent the
entire electorate as they create other laws and rules governing the market
economy. A true consensus is achieved among all adult members of a populace as
to how their capitalism will function. No members of the electorate are left
powerless and begging hat-in-hand for equity and assistance. Equity is built
right into the political-economic system. In the demos, in the representative
branches, and in the general economy, the upper economic half, which is no
longer obscenely powerful and wealthy, is held in a just, dynamic balance with
the lower economic half, which is no longer powerless and destitute. The result is balanced capitalism
that really is an honest consensus of the populace.
Several safeguards and sensible features
are built into or are the results of consensus government. Moderation and
consensus are favored over extremes and polarization. The practice of consensus
democracy rather than majority-rule democracy results in a stable
political-economic system that hovers about a slowly evolving moderate “golden
mean” over time. Because correct governance and results exist in the first
place and everyone is and feels fairly included in the political-economic
system, there is no need and therefore no motivation for remedial measures like
welfare states, labor unions, strikes, etc., not to mention insurrection or coup
in extreme situations. It is highly unlikely that the will could develop for a
simple majority or an organized, zealous minority of the populace to rise up
against the rest of the populace from the extreme Right or Left and reassert
plutocracy or establish some kind of fascism or communism. Because one of the
demos issues is how much we tax ourselves in support of the federal government,
the electorate controls the overall size of the state and we need never fear the
rise of a huge monolithic government or socialistic state crushing individual
freedom. And because the electorate directly controls the overall amount of
government saving or debt, military expenditure, and entitlements, we have
significant control over government using our tax money responsibly. Everyone
enjoys maximum responsible personal freedom within an open, pluralistic,
equitable society under a lean, efficient government.
While, were they ever instituted, there
would be some amount of learning and adjustment, consensus government and
consensus capitalism would not feel radically alien and unfamiliar to today’s
citizens. No attempt is made to achieve some kind of idealized unrealistic
high-minded altruistic behavior or governing process. Just as today, both the
private economy and government would function by the messy processes of “horse
trading” and “wheeling and dealing.” The
main difference between what could be called consensus
society and today’s plutocracy is that not just the elite but all adult
members of the society are honestly included and represented in the
political-economic system producing a much more just, equitable, and happy
result.
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