Voting for Good Character

In a previous article, I presented the four salient features of the TDG. The second feature is: Voting for Good Character and Capacity for Governance.

The most obvious questions are: What is good character? What is capacity for governance? In this article, I will talk about good character.

Part of the executive committee’s job in the early TDG is to build the right culture for the TDG. Without this right culture, the TDG could just turn into a bunch of political parties, which will mean not much has changed. So in my TDG book, I tell early TDG executive committees to remind all TDG members to vote for good character. There are various ways to get this message out to members. The goal is to get TDG members to vote differently than they how vote in current democracies.

While the executive committee is reminding members about the importance of good character, it doesn’t tell the members what good character actually is. Rather, the intent is to get members to think differently when voting in TDG elections. With “good character” being stated in the communications, TDG members start the process of thinking.

Here’s the neat thing: each voter is going to define “good character” for themselves. Then they will cast their vote accordingly. I will give my example.

In my younger days, I used to be a somewhat wild youth, looking for ways to alter my brain chemistry for a little buzz and gain some social acceptance from my peers. When I was about 22, I made the decision to be more responsible with my consumption of mind-altering substances. My consumption of alcohol dropped considerably. I got “out-of-control” maybe once a year after that.

I was still using marijuana on a recreational basis for another five years. One disadvantage with marijuana as compared to alcohol (for me) was that the lingering effects of marijuana lasted a day or two with just a little use. Alcohol had a much faster recovery from the “buzz.”

I was in the second year of my business when I had my last toke. Next day, I had low energy and didn’t get the business tasks done that should have got done that day. I made the decision to no longer partake in marijuana.

So, my life experience is that marijuana usage cuts into the performance of its users. Yes, I know that there are successful people who use marijuana recreationally and a few successful people who go beyond recreationally. But I wonder what they could really accomplish if they didn’t use it at all.

For this reason, I would not cast my TDG for a user of marijuana. For sure, some people will be upset with me for making this kind of statement. It sounds like I am trying to inflict my morals onto this TDG. That is not my intent.

So please consider these next four points. First, it is my right to define “good character” when casting my TDG vote. My life experience says a certain thing, and I have to go by that experience. Second, I am not asking you to base your vote on my values; you are free to define your own “good character” as your life experience dictates. You might even consider marijuana usage as a virtue to cast your vote. That is fine by me. Third, even if a heavy marijuana user gets elected in my TDG neighborhood, that person will be put to the TDG test shortly. He/she either has capacity or doesn’t have capacity. He/she won’t win the next neighborhood election because of smoking lots of dope.

I’ll admit that this marijuana user might perform well in TDG governance. While I still won’t vote for that person, I’m not going to lose sleep if enough of my fellow neighbors overlook this vice when they cast a vote. And fourth, I don’t think such a person will rise high in the TDG. He/she may find a way into the first or second tier. But at the third tier, governance will get more serious. A representative at that tier should have a real clear head. If a marijuana user still advances, he/she must be some very capable person. But I would still wonder at how much more this person could really accomplish.

Elections are annual in the TDG, so we will get lots of practice voting in the TDG way. The executive committee of each local TDG will be responsible for setting up the election. While place and time and agenda are important, they will also need to establish up the culture for “voting for good character and capacity for governance.” They can put some instructions into the election notice. They can make a verbal reminder before people vote. They can even print a few words to that effect on the ballot.

For those who are new to the TDG, these sayings probably won’t matter that much. Many will vote with the influence of other criteria, like the neighbor who has good looks or a certain stand on a political issue. Our old habits. In other words, some new TDG members won’t be voting in the TDG spirit just yet. But there should be enough mature TDG members voting wisely such that the rookies won’t have much effect on the final election result.

By the second and third elections, the repeated messaging will start to have an effect on the psyche of the “maturing” TDG members. They will also see the TDG finding capable representatives, even if they did not vote for these representatives. So as voters mature, they will be casting wiser votes. As they mature with their wiser voting, they will be diluting the effects of any new TDG members. Wiser voting will come with time.

So, it’s very important to give the message to all members to “Vote for Good Character and Capacity for Governance” and make that message part of the TDG culture. But leave definition of “good character” and “capacity for governance” for each voter to figure out. Be patient with the new voters. They will mature in their voting decisions. The old reasons for a casting a vote will be forgotten.

Published on Medium 2021

Tiered Indirect Elections

Tiered Democratic Governance (TDG) is a new kind of democracy. A previous article introduced the four salient features of the TDG. While working within these features, early TDG builders will still have a big arena to build their local TDG.

This article is going to provide details of the first of these salient feature: tiered indirect elections.

In another previous article, I also explained how voters do not know much about the names on the ballots. So, how to improve the knowledge that voters have of their possible candidates? After pondering the question for some time, I came up with the TDG.

This new system has electoral neighborhoods of about 200 residents that comprise a natural geographical block, which I have called a "neighborhood." Streets, roads, natural features, and current political boundaries can delineate these neighborhoods. In these neighborhoods, there should be opportunity for neighbors to know one another—and know each other better than they know the current political candidates on today’s ballot.

During the annual election, each neighbor can vote for one of their fellow neighbors. The neighbors will usually find a capable person to represent them in government. This person will be known to at least a significant minority of neighbors, who will have been observed to have good character and capacity for governance. Each neighborhood may have several people like this—and as long as one of them is elected, the TDG is working well.

Let me explain this in a different way. If someone gets 20 or more votes in a TDG neighborhood election, chances are that person is reasonably competent person for the job of TDG neighborhood representative. Many of today’s politicians could not pass such a test in their own neighborhood.

The neighborhood representatives constitute the lowest tier of the TDG.

The duties of a neighborhood representative will be voluntary. I estimate about 20 hours a month. One of their jobs will be attending meetings with representatives from other neighborhoods. These neighborhoods will constitute a district. In these meetings, the neighborhood representatives will be getting to know their fellow neighborhood representatives. They should be looking for “good character and capacity for governance” within their district. In time, these neighborhood representatives will be voting, from amongst themselves, for the position of district representative.

The neighbors themselves do not vote for the district representative. “Why?” you might ask. Because the neighbors do not know the neighborhood representatives well enough to cast a wise vote. They might know their own neighborhood representative, but they probably won’t know much about the other neighborhood representatives. Is their neighborhood representative more or less capable than the other neighborhood representatives? The neighbors won’t know because they have not seen the other representatives in action.

The neighborhood representatives will be in a much better position to who know is capable. They will be working with each other, seeing how each of them conducts themselves in a meeting. The neighborhood representatives can cast a wiser vote at the district level than the rank-and-file TDG members.

So, think about this! In each district, the neighborhood representatives will be from “among the best” in their neighborhood to be the neighborhood representative. These capable people will be working together and learning about one another. Then these “from among the best” will be voting to send one of them to the next highest tier. This district representative will be from among the best of all the neighborhood representatives, who came from “among the best” in their neighborhood. Another way to state this: Capable people are sending a more capable person higher into governance!

Each tier of the TDG will be filtering elected representatives. At the highest tier, the TDG will have found society’s most capable people for governance. They will have passed many lower-tier elections and performed well in their lower-tier duties and meetings to earn their position. And the citizenry will trust and respect this system, so they will also trust and respect the people in these higher tiers.

Published on Medium 2021

Building a New Democracy is Work

First, you will have to find a few neighbors who are willing to help you write a local TDG constitution. Maybe you don’t know your neighbors. Maybe you don’t like them. But you have to get out of your social bubble and interact with people you normally do not interact with. This is a skill we all really need to develop and acknowledge.

Second, you will have to spend about 10 hours a month with these neighbors. Maybe a two-hour meeting every couple of weeks. A few email exchanges to improve the wording of your constitution bit-by-bit. Those 10 hours a month means sacrificing three Netflix movies or sporting events. Ooooo. That’s so hard!

Third, you will have to employ the process of consultation. Consultation requires the combination of knowledge, experience, and wisdom of several people. So you have to listen to the perspectives of your neighbors to build solutions no one could have thought of on their own. For our current political culture of “the side who shouts the loudest and longest wins the debate,” this is such a big change in thinking.

In case you haven’t noticed, all this constitution building is going to give some good practice in TDG governance.

Fourth, if you are elected to your TDG, your responsibilities will increase. Maybe 20 hours a month. Your neighbors believe you are capable for the job. Are you ready to sacrifice a little more entertainment?

Last, you have to be patient. It will take you a couple of years of TDG activity to really understand that the TDG is indeed something better. It will take about five years for some of society to start seeing that the TDG is something better. This patience is hard discipline in the age of instant gratification.

So what is this TDG?

I spent six years in a Canadian political party, circa 1990. I saw a lot of dysfunctional behavior in that time. I left politics after realizing that I could not change things. But somehow, I invented another system of democratic governance. That system addressed all the dysfunction I saw. In 1997, I started putting pen to paper. Twenty-four years ago!

Here is a quick summary of Tiered Democratic Governance (TDG). It has no political parties. Voters cast their vote based on good character and capacity for governance. Elected representatives work with the process of consultation, not partisanship, to decide things. These features make for a kinder, wiser democracy.

That explanation is too simple. So I really invite you to read my book. It will take you about three hours to see how all the pieces of the TDG fit together. Those three hours just might cause you to rethink “doing politics” much differently than how we are doing them today.

Conclusion

A Medium contributor and I were recently having a discussion about the TDG. He had this profound statement:

I learned a long time ago how much easier it is to believe than to think. And it’s much, much easier to “go along, to get along,” than to decide to act, even if it is in your best interest.

Make no doubt that the TDG requires effort.

The TDG will not be built by current politicians, academics, or journalists. It will not be built by the wealthy or the famous.

It will be built by average people. If we really want that kinder, wiser democracy, average people have to take charge.

And the best part is that we average people need neither help nor permission from the political elite. We just start meeting with our neighbors.

Should we put in that effort to build this new system?

Especially when it’s so much easier to just vote for people who say he or she can fix things for us?

Here’s my Dr. Phil question: “So how’s that voting working for you all?”

The ball is clearly in your court. Are you going to take a swing at it?

Published in Medium 2021

Building a Kinder, Wiser Democracy

And for only 10 hours a month!

Tiered Democratic Governance (TDG) will eventually replace the western democratic as the mechanism for humanity to organize itself. And it is we--the people--who are going to build this new way.

The Naysayers

The TDG does have its naysayers. And sometimes they naysay that my stated time commitment is much too low. And nobody has the time to build a new democracy anyways.

On one level, I would have to agree. Back in my days of being an active volunteer in a political party, I was spending a lot more time than 10 hours a month: 10 hours a week was more likely. That was the price I had to pay to earn some influence in the party.

A couple of years ago, I attended a Black Lives Matter rally in my hometown. I could see a lot of volunteer time invested to put this event together. This was not an event organized by a couple of people in a couple of hours a couple of days before. We are probably looking at least 50 hours of organizing for a couple hours of “action.”

The political commitment required for effective partisan or activist efforts is significant. Logic tells us that building a brand-new democracy will take much more time than 10 hours a week or 50 hours per event. Think fulltime and overtime, and with no pay.

This article will show my claim of 10 hours a month is reasonable. Stay with me!

First Step

Read my books. I have a 15-minute essay about the TDG. Unfortunately, this essay does not fully explain this new democratic concept. At best, the essay can only convince readers to move into my books.

Four TDG books are available for a free read from my website. This takes “I don’t have the money” as an excuse to not learn about this new way.

For sure, read the flagship book, “Tiered Democratic Governance, Governing Ourselves in the 21st Century.”

If you prefer shorter reads, I have about 500 articles on this blog, most of them dealing with the TDG. I recommend going to TDG Mechanics and just click on the links you find interesting.

Consider 10 hours of TDG reading as the time investment for your first month.

Second Step

If you like what you read and can see yourself as a TDG builder, announce your TDG discovery to your social media. Say something like:

“If you are wondering about the dysfunction in our democracy, there’s this Dave fellow from Canada who has some interesting ideas. He says we average people need to build an alternative democracy.”

This message will take you less than five minutes per social media post. This is negligible time. If only 1% of your followers take your post seriously, this is a good return on your time investment to build a better world. Someone in your network just might become enthusiastic to build the TDG.

Third Step

For a little more effort, you could send an email to the young people in your life. They must be confused as hell as to how the current system, which got us into this mess, can be used to get us out of this mess. Here’s an example:

Dear Son/Daughter/Nephew/Niece/Grandson/Granddaughter/whatever

My generation screwed up. We are giving you a worse world than the world we received. You will be the ones who have to fix it. Sorry.

There is a Dave fellow from Canada who has some interesting ideas on a new democracy. He says we will have to build it. It needs only 10 hours a month. Consider investigating Dave’s way. I don’t see anything else out there. You young people have the energy for that 10 hours.

Love ______

The young people have more at stake. Your recommendation might turn some young person into committing 10 hours a month to build this democracy. If this is your only contribution to the TDG, it is a good contribution.

Fourth Step

Imagine this conversation you can have with one of your neighbors:

Neighbor: Man, I hate politicians. They can’t seem to do anything right.

You: It’s a crazy world. . . . You know there’s this Dave fellow from Canada who has some interesting ideas on average people building a new democracy. He says we only need about 10 hours a month to build it.

Neighbor: That’s ridiculous! Average people? Ten hours a month?

You: We can either try things out Dave’s way — or continue with the current way.

Neighbor: Maybe I need to take a closer look.

You: Come to my place next Thursday. 7:00 p.m. I will try to explain this new way as best I can.

Fifth Step

Let me remind you that you do not need permission from:

1. the political elite,

2. the wealthy,

3. the academics,

4. the civil authorities, or

5. a majority of your neighbors.

These people will never approve of your decision to build a new democracy. So just host your first TDG meeting.

You might still feel inadequate to explain the TDG. Like many things, the TDG will become better understood as more practice is realized. Do not wait for full understanding to start building.

Sixth Step

When you have convinced a few neighbors to be TDG builders, hold another meeting to start building your constitution.

While I allow all TDGs to build their own constitution as they see fit, I recommend that each TDG follows these nine sections:

1. TDG Principles

2. Humanistic Principles

3. Boundaries

4. Membership

5. Electoral Rules: Schedule of Election, Ballot Design, Voter List, Ballot Counting,

6. Executive Committee: Number of executive committee members, authority & responsibility, quorum

7. Advisors

8. Amendment to this Constitution

9. Amendment to merge with another TDG.

In my novel, Diary of a Future Politician, the early TDG builders of Riverbend USA work through this list, section-by-section, to create their constitution.

Your TDG group can use Riverbend's first constitution as your template. Adjust the clauses to better suit local needs and ideas.

And if a local TDG group wants to step outside this outline and template, I would say: “Go for it.” The TDG will be a great experiment in democracy, learning from both successes and failures. We need these experiments!

But the TDG has four salient features each TDG must follow.

If an early TDG departs from these four salient features, it won’t function like a TDG should. My TDG book explains these salient features in more detail.

Ten hours a month? Get real, Dave!

I am real. Let’s do some math.

I recommend that each local TDG meeting lasts no longer than 90 minutes. And these meetings are held every two weeks. So these meetings bring a total of three hours per month for each TDG builder. And since you are working with neighbors, there is no commuting.

In between the meetings, an email draft of agreed clauses should be sent to the builders. The builders should read and comment on the draft. Reading the other comments should generate more email discussion. Some discussion will reaffirm the original clause, some will improve that clause, and some will cause reconsideration. Allow for lots of editing as ideas are flushed out. The previous draft should inspire a better next draft. With this email approach, builders will spend another three hours a month.

The email draft will require a writer. Nearly all Medium contributors have the writing skills to be the writer for their local TDG constitution. The writer should draft whatever consensus that seems to form in the bi-weekly meetings and send the draft to all the builders. The writer could also summarize the email comments and prepare an agenda for the next meeting. I estimate another three hours a month for the role of the writer.

At this point, most builders are spending six hours a month on their local TDG constitution. The writer is spending nine hours a month. So my estimate of 10 hours a month is not unreasonable.

But these 10 hours will have far more impact for the future than the much greater time invested by today’s many partisan and activist workers.

I hope that I have convinced you that building the TDG will not be a time-consuming activity. You can still be with your family, go to work, socialize, and enjoy your recreation. A month has 720 hours, you will find 10 hours for the TDG if you really want your society to go in a TDG direction.

Or you can wait for someone else to fix democracy for you!

Wait! You are already waiting for someone else. How's that working for you? And your grandchildren? And the rest of the world?

Learning this New Way

While you are engaging in your TDG meetings and email discussions, remember that the TDG is asking us to do things in a different way. We need to cast aside that democracy is about championing our own opinions into some kind of victory. Rather we deliberately need to develop a collaborative, consultative, and consensual approach — to combine our knowledge, experience, and wisdom with the knowledge, experience, and wisdom of other people.

Your opinions are necessary. So when discussing each clause, give your opinion of what it should entail. Let others give their opinions on the clause. Practice listening carefully to those opinions. Try to understand why they think the way they think. You don’t have to agree, just understand. Learn to feel the consensus that seems to be forming as these opinions are clashing with each other.

Realize that no one is able to always predict the future accurately; we are just collectively making our best guess.

With all builders thinking in this way, we are building a new culture. Building the TDG is where we can cast aside the old culture — and just focus on the new culture.

Developing this new culture is required for the TDG to work well in the future. For the early builders, this new culture is actually more important than that first constitution.

No Quick Fix

In our world of promising instantaneous results, we should not expect a new TDG constitution to be built in a couple of meetings. Even with the Riverbend template.

Learning the new ways will not be easy. After each meeting, you should reflect on how well you participated in a consultative way. What did you do well? What could you improve? If our fellow builders are having the same reflection, the next time we meet, we can take our new culture to a little higher level. More meetings mean more opportunities to improve ourselves.

If we follow the Riverbend template, we will work through those nine sections. Each section should generate lots of discussion, which gives us practice. If we get only one section written per meeting, that is OK.

And when you finish the last section, you probably should review the earlier sections — just to make sure all the sections have good synergy with each other.

I estimate that — with the nine sections, meetings every two weeks, and email discussion — your local TDG group will need three to six months to build your first local TDG constitution. This time will allow time for reflection and refinement, for writing better clauses, for connecting clauses to each other, and for putting this new culture into practice.

You will be a changed person with this experience. You will have a deeper appreciation and understanding of how people should work together.

After the Constitution

After consensus has been reached for the new constitution, hold a ratification ceremony. Your group has done some great work. Congratulate yourselves!

Then conduct your first election as per the rules of your new constitution.

If you are not elected into the executive committee, your time investment in the TDG will be less than 10 hours a month. However, you should still be active in your TDG community. Keep being friendly with your neighbors. This will help you cast a wiser vote in the next TDG election; you might even be elected. Encourage other neighbors to join your TDG. As well, the executive committee might ask you to serve on a committee; consider that task as your contribution. And, of course, donating funds to your local TDG will give the executive more consultation practice on how to spend those funds on projects for the TDG.

If you are elected to the executive committee, your time investment might go to 20 hours a month. This is still manageable for many volunteers. But I also think you will enjoy the TDG culture. Participating won’t be a burden. You will start seeing how governance will work in the future.

Ten hours a month is all the TDG really needs from you.

Many Medium contributors are spending much more time on Medium. Are they really changing the world?

And then there are the partisans and activists still putting a lot of passion and time into their political work. What have been the lasting effects of their intense contribution?

Methinks the better long-term investment of political time is with the TDG.

And for only 10 hours a month!

The TDG in 4,512 Words

The TDG (tiered democratic governance) is a new kind of democracy that will replace western democracy.

The TDG's main features are:
1) No political parties!
2) Voting based on good character and capacity for governance
3) Consultative decision making

The following essay will give you a reasonable look at the TDG. This 15-minute read could change how you want to do politics:

The TDG in 4,512 Words

My maternal grandfather was of the peasant class in Bukovina, Ukraine. After the tumult of World War I and the Russian Civil War, he experienced a change of governance in which he had no say. He saw the transition merely as one group of elites being replaced by another group of elites. As a young man, he envisioned more opportunity and freedom — and immigrated to Canada in 1922. When he gained his Canadian citizenship, he had the right to vote out governments that he and many other Canadians saw as ineffective.

In western democracies, periodic elections have been a great social engineering tool for citizens to express their anger when a government becomes out of touch with the people they govern. Hence, those who aspire to public office in western democracies must consider the needs and aspirations of a significant minority — if not a majority — of citizens to earn the legitimacy to govern. The rulers of Bukovina in the early 20th century were not subject to this social force.

For much of the 20th century, citizens in western democracies were thankful for their periodic elections. They needed only compare themselves to the parts of the world without this opportunity: they realized that their life was indeed better under western democracy. Because of this simple comparison, there was no desire or social force to change the system.

But something has changed in the past two decades. More and more citizens in western democracies are not happy with the results of their elections. Like my grandfather in Bukovina after WW1, they are seeing any political changes merely as one group of elites being replaced by another group of elites. The opportunity to replace ineffective governments is no longer there. This breeds more cynicism and more apathy. How long can this trend continue before the citizenry no longer gives legitimacy to elected governments? What is the future of western democracy?

In this essay, I will describe 12 limitations of western democracy, a replacement system of democratic governance that addresses those 12 limitations, a new culture for that replacement system, a new check-and-balance, a new relationship between government and the citizen, and a transition process from western democracy to this alternative system — called “Tiered Democratic Governance.”

Twelve Limitations of Western Democracy

Let’s imagine we are a mechanic for democracy. A customer (the citizenry) brings us his broken-down car (western democracy) to be fixed. Before we start the repair, we should ask the customer what is wrong. Very quickly, we are likely to get a long list. This is my list of things we need to fix.

1. Political Parties Belong to an Exclusive Club:

Being an active member of a political party requires time, energy, and fortitude to work within a semi-dysfunctional culture. Many citizens do not have these assets, and thereby leave political influence to those who do. This means many capable people will never be in government.

2. Political Parties are Not Think-Tanks:

Political parties like to tell the citizenry that they have some vision for their world. But the fact is that most of the effort generated within the party goes toward electioneering, not policy development.

3. Political Parties are not a Screening Process:

The internal party electoral processes have proven that people who are too controversial for governance can make it into governance. There is little screening at the party level to find the better people.

4. Political Parties are Mostly Marketing Machines:

Political parties are constantly marketing themselves as the best choice for governing. But being good at marketing is only marginally related to being good at governance.

5. Simplistic Explanations:

To reach the public through mass and social media, political parties have to simplify every issue. Many citizens are led to believe the solutions are also simple. Maybe the parties themselves believe the issues are simple. Good decisions are not likely to happen when the roots of complex problems are not appropriately understood.

6. Politics vs. Governance:

Good politicians are very busy people: long days, lots of traveling, lots of meetings. But a significant part of this effort is spent for the benefit of the party, not society.

7. Voters are Poor Judges:

Despite freedom of the press and freedom of speech, most voters know very little about the people who aspire to elected office. Voters are voting based on an image of those people. That image is created by the political party, opposing parties, and the media. It is hard to know the true person behind the image.

8. Failure to Plan for the Long Term:

Political parties can only look to the next election which means they only have a five-year outlook at best. So there is no long-term planning. Many societal issues will take decades to resolve.

9. Political Parties are Beholden to Those who Feed the Marketing Machine:

Donors of time and money to a political party sometimes want a less-than-altruistic reward for their commitment. If the reward is not somehow addressed, the party will have fewer resources to contest the next election, and electoral success is less assured. The political party must give some consideration to corruption.

10. Political Parties Cannot Deal with Internal Corruption:

Political parties highly value those members who can win elections. If a winner engages in too much corruption, the party is not likely to discipline that member — until it becomes public knowledge. And history has proven that a party can handle a few instances of corruption that make the public’s eye.

11. Adversarial Nature:

Members of political parties are required to constantly promote the virtues of their own parties and promote the flaws of the opposition — even if the other side has something positive to offer. This antagonism is inherent within the politician’s interaction with the public, the media, and even within his or her own party. In most other occupations, it’s hard to imagine much getting done with so such adversity.

12. Inability to Shape Society in a Positive Direction:

When citizens see politicians and political parties behaving inappropriately, their values are shaped in a negative way. This, in turn, affects the quality of people later elected to public office.

Popular Suggestions for Political Reform

The world already has many ideas to improve western democracy. For example, democratic advocates in Canada believe in replacing its Westminster-style parliament with a parliament based on proportional representation. This idea does not address any of the 12 limitations in any significant way. For example, if Canada ever moves to proportional representation, will Limitation #8 be fixed? Not really, because citizens of western countries with proportional representation believe their governments are also incapable of wise long-term planning.

In my opinion, most popular suggestions for improving democracy will result in very little change in governance outcome. It is almost as if the suggested changes are designed to placate the public but leave existing power structures in place.

The New System

If we are a mechanic and we see a car with 12 serious repairs, should we really try to repair that car? No — it is time for a new car! And knowing what we know about the old car, we should not buy a car with similar problems.

One common phrase in the 12 limitations is “political party”. It is logical that if we can remove the political parties from the democratic process, the limitations have a better chance of being fixed. So removing political parties is a very necessary part of this alternative system of governance which I have called the “Tiered Democratic Governance” (TDG). In this section, I will provide a brief explanation of how the TDG works.

The Neighborhood

The basic unit of the TDG is the neighborhood. Neighborhoods are geographical areas that contain 50 to 250 residents who have some reasonable opportunity to know one another. Boundaries for a neighborhood could be geographical, such as rivers or ridges; man-made, such as busy streets and non-residential areas; socioeconomic, such as certain demographics; and current political boundaries. Each neighborhood should have a common facility such as a community center or school where meetings can be held.

Once a year, the members of the neighborhood TDG elect one member to represent the neighborhood in the TDG. All members are eligible to vote — and to be voted for. There is no nomination or ballots with specific names. Voters write in the name of the person they best feel suited for the job of neighborhood representative.

The TDG should have a culture that abhors election campaigns, political parties, self-promotion, and denigration of another member. Any member employing these tactics to win should not be voted for. Rather, the members should look for someone who has proven good character and capacity as being worthy of his or her vote.

The term of a neighborhood representative is one year. If the representative is found to be ineffective, he or she can be replaced at the next election.

The District

Districts consist of three to 20 adjacent neighborhoods. The neighborhood representatives will meet occasionally to discuss affairs of the district and make decisions. In these meetings, the neighborhood representatives will learn about each other to figure out who is of good character and has capacity for governance.

Six months after the election of the neighborhood representatives, these representatives will vote one of themselves to be the district representative. Again, there is no campaigning, nomination, self-promotion, or denigration of other members.

Note that the general members in these neighborhoods do not vote for the district representative. The reason is that the general membership is not in a good position to know which of the neighborhood representatives are suitable for this higher position; most likely they might know only one person really well, so they really can’t make a wise comparison. The neighborhood representatives, who have been working amongst themselves, have a better understanding of who has a better character and capacity — and is worthy of advancement in the TDG.

This means the TDG is an indirect election. This does not, in any way, diminish the importance of voting at the neighborhood level for those neighborhood representatives play an important part at the district voting level. Each neighborhood needs to send one of its better members to a higher level for the TDG to work well.

Higher Tiers

Each TDG jurisdiction will evolve differently. Some jurisdictions may have just one tier; others may find six tiers works well for them. Calgary, Alberta will be designed differently than Atlanta, Georgia. Whatever form the TDG evolves to will be decided by the TDG members of those areas.

The Highest Tier

This is the ultimate decision-making authority of the TDG jurisdiction. It will devolve responsibilities to the lower tiers as it sees fit, making the TDG a unitary system of governance.

The members of the highest tier will have worked their way up by being effective at the lower levels and by earning the trust and respect of the representatives at these lower levels. There is no riding on the back of a temporarily popular political party to make into the highest tier.

As well, the members of the highest tier will see their position as one of service. Remember that they never asked for that position. Nor did they ferociously compete for it. They have earned it, based on their previous good service within their community and the TDG.

Comparing the TDG to the 12 Limitations

The TDG definitely has some new ideas about democracy. At this point, I challenge the reader to determine how the TDG, as explained so far, can address the 12 Limitations of Western Democracy.

The New Culture

Part of the new TDG culture has already been mentioned: voting is based on good character and capacity for governance and no electioneering. These cultural features will take time to develop and the early TDG builders will be responsible for teaching them to the members so that voting will become more effective at selecting the better people.

Another aspect of the TDG culture is making decisions with “consultation.”

While consultation has been so easily stated by people in many current leadership positions, the reality is that many of us have found our knowledge, wisdom, and experience not being utilized in many decision-making processes. Conversely, many of us have also — consciously or unconsciously — ignored or suppressed viewpoints that are a little contrary to our own. Clearly consultation is much more than a platitude.

To explain consultation, it may be helpful to explain what consultation is not. I have created a paradigm of decision-making processes that I have encountered in my life.

1. Power Based Decision Making

In a power decision-making process, one individual has the authority to decide and the subordinates are there to carry out the orders. Viewpoints that are contrary to the decision maker are not welcome. The decision maker has means to suppress contrary opinions.

2. Democratic Based Decision Making

In a democratic decision-making process, all members are free to speak — but no one is obligated to listen. Members with competing agendas use the formal and informal rules of democracy to get their way implemented. Often an idea moves forward not based on its merit, but how well its principal supporter works the democratic process to implement it.

3. Consultative Decision-Making

Consultation is combining the knowledge, wisdom, and experience of all participants into one mindset. It is like an adult moving into old age where he or she realizes that decisions made in youth were not very good. The reason is that the person did not have the knowledge, wisdom, and experience to make better decisions when he or she was 20 years old.

Consultation requires an acceptance that regardless of how much knowledge, wisdom, and experience we currently have, we could always use more. We get these extras by listening to other people. If they are listening to us, then we won’t have to live several lifetimes to expand our knowledge, wisdom, and experience to reach that level of understanding that is needed to make the effective decisions we really need to be making.

To briefly demonstrate consultation, if you are a person who enters a meeting with a certain agenda and leaves the meeting with the same agenda, you are probably operating with a power or democratic mindset. But if what other people say actually changes your mind, you are probably operating under a consultative mindset. You are ready to learn from other people — and your knowledge, wisdom, and experience can be combined with theirs.

Developing a culture of consultation is necessary for the TDG to work well. It will require TDG members to understand the difference between power, democracy, and consultation so that they can vote more wisely in TDG elections. Part of that good character and capacity for governance will be the ability to consult. Members with the better consultative skills should be moved up the TDG tiers.

The New Check-and-Balance

While the TDG will find great people to fill its elected bodies and give them the culture of consultation to make decisions, it still needs a check-and-balance. While the one-year term is important to ensure that people who shouldn’t be in government are not in government and the tiers keep not-so-effective people at the lower levels, perhaps the next most important check-and-balance is the TDG’s advisory board.

This board will be made up of advisors who will have access to any meeting of the elected bodies. When an advisor attends such a meeting, the advisory position will be one of respect and trust, so those elected bodies will listen carefully to whatever the advisor says. The advisors have no voting power in the elected bodies. The elected bodies are not obligated to take the advice of the advisor.

A good question: “Without any tangible influence, what then is the role of the advisor?” Here are the attributes of an advisory position:

1. Advisors should have had experience in the elected bodies of the TDG. This experience can be passed on in those meetings.

2. Advisors can frame issues that will cause elected representatives to think differently, giving new and fresh perspectives to the deliberations.

3. Elected bodies may not be able to reach consensus. An advisor can help unravel their issues so that they can find consensus by combining their wisdom, knowledge, and experience.

4. Advisors will be meeting with different parts of the TDG. They will be a source of knowledge about what the other parts are doing.

5. Advisors can investigate whether a citizen’s concern was addressed at a meeting and seriously considered. If so, the advisor can assure that citizen their concerns did somehow contribute to the decision.

6. Advisors will be the educator of the TDG principle to both the elected bodies and the general citizenry.

7. Advisors might have a better ear to the mood of the citizenry. They can alert the elected bodies that some issues need to be addressed in a timely manner.

8. Advisors can conduct and oversee the elections of the elected bodies.

The highest tier will appoint a few individuals to serve as the highest tier of advisors for a three-year term. Ideally, these advisors should have some experience on the elected side of the TDG to understand the formal and informal mechanism of the elected bodies in the TDG.

When appointed to the advisory board, the advisor must resign any elected position within the TDG. No one is allowed to serve on both sides of the TDG (elected and appointed) at the same time.

While the highest tier on the elected side appoints the highest tier of the advisory board, the TDG constitution should provide structure for the lower advisory tiers. The high-tier advisors will appoint members to those tiers. The tiers of the advisory board will meet to discuss other advisors’ findings and assign responsibilities.

For the elected bodies, advisors will be a source of new perspectives, experience, encouragement, and maybe even a little chastisement. This makes the advisory board a positive check-and-balance, which should work better than the various negative check-and-balances of western democracy.

The New Relationship

There will be a new relationship between a citizen and the government. When a citizen disagrees with a decision from the TDG, he or she will know that decision didn’t come from some powerful person successfully applying an expedient agenda. Rather, that decision will come from three positive attributes of the TDG. First, the neighborhood and higher tiered elections found great people to work through to the final decision. Second, these great people will be working with a consultative mindset. And third, the advisors will be helping (or maybe just watching) the elected representatives making those decisions.

Even though the citizen might still not be happy with the final decision, he or she will realize there were good reasons for the TDG decision. While TDG decisions are not infallible, they are worthy of an experiment. Time will prove whether the TDG’s decision or the citizen’s position was the better path to take.

Many citizens under a TDG will put a lot of trust into this system of governance. They will not have the angst or anxiety or attempts to surveil the actions of government to affect their psyche. They can put their time and energy into more productive facets of their lives.

The Transition

Moving from western democracy to the TDG will take at least a decade of conscious thought from the early TDG builders. The main challenge is that the TDG builders will have to build a new culture for the TDG. This culture will include voting for good character and capacity for governance, no electioneering, indirect elections, consultative decision making, and respecting the decisions of the elected bodies. This culture won’t come easily for many early TDG builders because the idea that our opinions and perspectives are superior to those who disagree with us has become so ingrained. It will take us time to get over this arrogance.

The early TDG builders won’t gain this culture by reading this essay or the bigger TDG book. They will learn by practicing it, making mistakes, and watching others make mistakes. And maybe some formal and informal training. But the TDG culture will eventually rise from all these lessons learned. When the culture is in place, then the TDG will be in a position to earn the trust of the general citizenry as the replacement for western democracy.

TDG builders in a specific neighborhood should meet to start building their local TDG. They should prepare a constitution that includes:

1. TDG and humanistic principles

2. Boundaries of the neighborhood

3. Definition of the member of the neighborhood TDG

4. Electoral rules to elect an early TDG committee

5. Responsibilities and authority of that committee

6. Amending formula for the constitution

7. Amending formula for merging with other TDGs

The early TDG builders for neighborhoods will create their constitution with a consultative mindset. All members should be free to discuss their ideas, and no one should feel suppressed. When a viewpoint that finds itself a little contrary to the consensus should first assess whether it has been heard and understood by the other members. If so, then the owner of that viewpoint should yield to that consensus rather than continuing to battle it.

Another reason to “let a viewpoint go” is that the TDG constitutions are going to undergo a lot of change in their evolution. Any constitutional clause or directive attained by consensus, while probably the best decision the builders could collectively reach at the time, is only a social experiment that is worthy to be tried out. There is no guarantee it will work — or won’t work. If a certain TDG feature bears good things for the TDG, it can be retained. If not, it should be replaced. Hence, from whatever wording created in the early constitutions, there will likely be little remaining in future constitutions. So there really is no reason for any TDG builder to insist that his or her way is the only way to build the TDG. By yielding to the consensus and observing the experiment unfold, the builders will learn the process and patience of consultation.

When the early builders are building their first constitution for their neighborhood, they should draft for an elected executive committee to take control of affairs for the TDG. Shortly after their constitution is finalized, they should conduct an election under the rules of their constitution. This committee should be charged with increasing its membership within the neighborhood, analyzing the past election for improvements to the constitution, and making necessary amendments to the constitution. When the committee feels its affairs have stabilized, it will be time for it consider merging with a nearby TDG.

Two adjacent or overlapping TDG neighborhoods are great candidates for a merger. Representatives from the two TDG committees should meet and compare their two constitutions. Remember that these two constitutions were created by different people with different perspectives for different geographical areas. Differences in their constitutions should be expected — and be seen as great experiments both TDGs can learn from.

By merging, the representatives of the two TDGs are essentially building a new constitution for the merged area. Again, this is great practice to build that consultative culture for the TDG. When the two elected committees approve of the new constitution, it is put to a vote by the membership of both TDGs. If approved, the two TDGs become one TDG. An election is held to determine the new committee — or perhaps neighborhood representatives. Eventually this new TDG will merge with another TDG.

An early TDG that fails to merge with other TDGs will eventually become redundant. There is nothing to stop another TDG gaining members in the territory of the TDG that seems stuck in its ways and unwilling to change.

The Four Stages

This “early TDG” is the first stage of the evolution of the TDG. This includes building the constitution, conducting an election, and maybe amending the constitution and merging with another TDG.

There will be three other stages. Next comes the “middle TDG” where the TDG starts getting serious attention and needs to become a legal entity. After that is the “maturing TDG” when the TDG can start commenting on societal issues — and be of some influence on current public policy. Last is the TDG-in-waiting when the TDG starts preparing itself to replace the western democratic model. Building of the TDG will take at least a decade.

It should be understood that this transfer of one system of governance to another will not occur unless the TDG-in-waiting has gained the trust and respect of a significant majority of citizens. If it is not obvious that western democracy needs to be retired, then the TDG-in-waiting has to do more work on itself.

Because the TDG-in-waiting will have had considerable experience shadowing government, the transfer from western democracy to the TDG will not be any more tumultuous than when a victorious political party takes governance from the previous political party. The big changes will be when electoral laws have changed from voting for political parties to voting for citizens of good character and capacity for governance at the neighborhood level. But if most citizens understand the nature of the TDG (and why western democracy is flawed), this change will be fairly acceptable.

Conclusion

When a new president or new prime minister comes into power, there is usually a lot of optimism from that person’s supporters that “finally, things are going to be different.” But after a year or two of being in office, that person fails to meet many of those expectations and starts losing their optimistic support.

So, when another election comes around, different supporters rally with the same optimism behind a new political leader. If the new person is cast into power, he or she soon loses his or her optimistic support — and is cast into the dustbin of “just another politician.” This cycle repeats itself election after election after election.

Albert Einstein said: “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” If we continue with western democracy, we truly must be insane.

This essay points out the repairs that should be made to western democracy. But there are too many repairs to make, leading to the alternative system “Tiered Democratic Governance.” This alternative does away with political parties and electioneering. To work, the TDG needs to develop a new culture, one that employs consultation throughout its decision-making processes. The early TDG builders need to understand their culture-building role. And the evolution of the early TDG to the TDG-in-waiting will give the builders the practice to create this new culture.

There is quite a bit more to the TDG than the brief explanation in this essay. I have spent considerable effort anticipating questions about the TDG, and these details are on my website: http://www.tiereddemocraticgovernance.org/tdg.php

If you have read this essay to this point, I commend you on your open mind and willingness to consider new ideas. Many open minds will be integral to the building of the TDG.

Dave Volek

Brooks, Alberta

December 2016