Ohio is known as a home rule state. This continues to smack squarely in the face of anyone that pushes too hard for regional cooperation.
Legislators at the local, county and state level worry that voters will revolt if he/she gives away local control to a regional plan. Until the voters can see the benefits that allow regional cooperation to succeed, true regional efforts will be thwarted by public misconception.
The biggest obstacle is the perceived loss of local community identity and the ability to control their own future. The regional 911 dispatch center discussions proved this point when vocal community sentiment was heard at council meetings. It is easier to fall back on the status quo than try scary new ideas.
Regionalization does not have to be scary. Leaders are already talking about how to bring the public on board. They realize there is work to do.
Any regional plan should strive to improve services while reducing costs, provide for more sustained preservation of each locality’s quality of life, and allow for improvements that benefit the region’s ability to remain economically viable.
There is a balancing act that needs to be explained that accommodates the interests of the municipalities that make up the region. They also must realize that not all things bigger are better. Specific services might need to be excluded that cannot benefit from economies of scale.
There is also concern that the smaller entities would be bullied into programs. For instance at the MVRPC larger cities are given more votes. This would need to be worked out.
Regional efforts come in different shapes and sizes like the combined city/county government now in Louisville KY or the Metro Council in Portland OR. There is not a one size fits all plan to rush into the Dayton metro area. Our own cooperative plan needs to be defined.
The public must be a large part of the process. Their active participation should be sought and welcomed. An occasional ‘show and tell’ town hall meeting is just not enough.
The process needs to reach all the way to Columbus since new state legislation will be needed to give the final products the teeth to succeed. A broader educational component is needed to get the word out so even your neighbor can understand the benefits and comment on each revision.
Some of the learning has begun with the efforts of the First Tier Suburbs Committee but more entities need to be included. It is time to get this process moving so the region can work strongly together. Let us be led by good policy, not herded by fear.
There is also an option like the one in NC- where the State mandated no more than one school district per county. There are so many places in Ohio where we are inefficient- for the sake of being inefficient.
Many states have county-wide school districts with a variety of different implementations. Some have already looked at this idea in Ohio and so far it has not received much support. I think that initial rejection is the fear of losing identity and lack of an informed populace.
This effort may need to reach out to the residents in much the same way the Boston transportation officials went out neighborhood to neighborhood and door to door in some cases to get input before finalizing the designs for the I-95 ‘Big Dig’ project. Allow the people to become assistant planners and give them ownership.
Bruce, I agree, “Let us be led by good policy, not herded by fear.”
You write, “Our own cooperative plan needs to be defined.”
I would like to know more. What is the good policy that you are thinking about? I am wondering if you would develop an article, and post it here on DaytonOS, that would develop and explain ideas about regional cooperation? I think such an article could generate a good discussion.
Mike, Bruce-
I’m thinking of adding a wiki to Dayton OS- to develop a suggested best practices for reform. What do you think about that?
David – WIKIs take time to become useful especially with a smaller audience. I’ve been trying to get the Trotwood Historical Society interested too. Our discussions reveal that no one so far has the time to build up the base info to attract others to post. With relatively few ‘subscribers’ on Dayton OS it might be better to broaden it to include more than just ‘best practices’. One person that comes to mind is Jeffery from http://www.daytonology.com who has lots of Dayon info that might be easy to plug into the WIKI to get it started.
Mike – My leaning is not to necessaily come up with a recommended policy. I have some thinking points to get discussion started but I would rather see the policy developed as a process that takes into account various shareholder concerns that pop up along the way. It would be very easy for you and I to like a particular policy suggestion only to have it hit a brick wall when someone like Esrati sees its effects in a different way. It would be better to conduct an interactivly designed policy that is not any one person’s idea. In that way each person who has a suggestion earns partial ownership of the plan. After that they are more likely to help fight for the overall plan’s success as it develops further, even if there are other parts they don’t fully embrace.
I will think about your suggestion and come back with a couple starting points. I need to do a little more reading first and learn from other efforts (both successful and unsucsessful).
Do you have any suggestions or comments on how you think this should get started?
ps: I can spell, I just can’t type!
There have to be some other examples of open source policy debates on the web.
When I have some time- I’ll look into them.
I’m thinking policy proposals on everything from campaign finance reforms, election reform, tax policy, regionalism, transportation policy- etc.
We’ll see what pops up.
Bruce,
Your post indicates that regional planning is a topic that you care about and a topic that you have given some thought to. I’m interested in knowing more about your thoughts about regional planning.
I appreciate what you are saying about group processes, but, if there is a possibility of a conversation about a topic, someone needs to get the conversation started. Often conversations about change start by an impassioned person in a group explaining his or her vision for change.
I like the idea of creating long term conversations on big topics — within an internet learning community. I’ve never participated in a WIKI. I’m interested in learning more about how they work. I’m wondering if creating a WIKI might be one strategy for building a learning community (?)
Mike- and others interested in education via web 2.0, there is a group of edu-bloggers that has this site as a fulcrum: http://edublogs.org/
There is a lot of material about digital learning and groupware there.
One thing to point up regarding school boards–when every little community has its own board, then you wind up with dozens, maybe hundreds, of board members. DPS board members earn something like $120 per board meeting–comes out to maybe $3K per year–I’m imagining smaller communities pay less or nothing. Since the job doesn’t provide means for a living, the members who aren’t independently wealthy or otherwise supported wind up working part-time. States with county-wide districts pay something substantial, so that board members can afford to be available during school hours.
Moreover, electing a separate board for Oakwood, Centerville, Enon, Bradford, and Arcanum generally dilutes the talent pool. Get us a county-wide system with seven elected board members who can work at it full-time, and we’ll benefit from reduced administrative costs (every one of those local boards requires secretarial services, photocopying, and other services) as well as from a higher grade of board candidates generally.
Having taught several hundred hours of online college courses, I feel a high degree of skepticism about the notions of “online learning communities” and the like. The internet does facilitate communication–but by itself it will not create the desired revolution in human relations and in education. I’ve found that people will not learn in new ways nor communicate more effectively online. Communicating is easier and cheaper in some ways, and learning is more difficult as the new levels of technology add extra strange attractors to the chaos–but it’s up to people to want to communicate and to learn, and I don’t see a change in the raw numbers who are prone to either.
As I’ve often joked, we’ve had online college courses for a century–only we used to call them “correspondence courses”. Similarly, we’ve had learning communities far longer than we’ve had electronics. If the culture inspires people to make something a priority, they’ll make the time and find the means to do it.
T-
Same goes for local governments- diluted talent pool. One mayor and commission for all of Greater Dayton- and pay them well- and we may see some real progress.
David, I just can’t imagine why long established cities like West Carrollton, Kettering, or Oakwood would ever agree with your suggestion that there be “one mayor and commission for all of Greater Dayton.” There were groups of citizens in Kettering who actively worked to defeat the 911 regional idea and I was asked three different times by different neighbors and friends to sign anti-911 regional center petitions. Change usually requires motivation — sometimes a lot of motivation. I don’t understand how citizens, who are comfortable with the status quo, would be motivated to agree to to the change you propose.
You and Dr. Ruddick, it seems to me, are turning upside down what, I think, is a core idea of democracy: the more local control the better. A parent’s voice is more effective in a school district of 5000 students than the parent’s voice in a school district of 80,000 students, etc.
A central idea that I’ve come to believe is that our democracy is dangerously ineffective and that we need to make our first priority actions that will be most helpful in vitalizing our democracy. We need to be willing to change the structure of how we do things — but all change must pass the test: will this change improve or hurt the chance that our democracy will be vitalized? It seems to me that changing structure you suggest — toward less local control and toward more regional control — is the wrong way to go, because, it seems to me, such change would weaken, not strengthen, the chance that our democracy would work more effectively.
Dr. Ruddick you write, “The internet does facilitate communication–but by itself it will not create the desired revolution in human relations and in education.” Yes. But the point is the internet is a structure of great power and potential. You would not think to say, “Electricity, by itself will not create a revolution of improvement.” No, someone also needed to invent the light bulb, the refrigerator, the computer in order that the great power of electricity could be channeled to effective use. The educational community needs to invent ways to channel the power of the internet to effective use.
A college class, at any traditional college, which may last 10 weeks or so, rarely if ever is an authentic “learning community.” So there is no reason to think that an on-line college class would be a learning community either.
A learning community used to be called a “school.” Now the word, “school,” is so corrupted that its deeper meaning is generally lost. How to use the power of the internet to create authentic learning communities is something I want to think more about.
Mike-
One mayor, one city- one vision.
We can still have community councils- and neighborhoods- it still works like that in Columbus. The reality is- we don’t have much for choice, with such a diluted talent pool. I’d rather have one really great general, than a bunch of inexperienced second lieutenants any day.
David,
We don’t have a diluted talent pool. We have a huge talent pool, but our democracy is working so poorly that our huge talent pool has not been developed nor activated to positive involvement. One reason our talent pool has not been developed is because our democracy can’t seem to create an educational system that works. We need to vitalize our democracy. And one important component of vitalizing our democracy is vitalizing our system of public education.
I would have a hard time supporting the major changes you are advocating unless I see that somehow they would help our democracy work more effectively, and your thought about finding a “great general” throws me. Where in the world do you propose finding a “great general”? By what processes do you see this person being chosen so that the person is not simply highly credentialed and connected, not simply given a lot of authority, but that this person actually is “great.” We already have a system by which this should happen and it is called democracy — but it is not working.
Before changing the structure of what we have, why not try to get the present structure to work? The chance that Dayton itself might grow into greater greatness hinges on whether, as a community, we can make our system of democracy work.
Why don’t we find a way to use the democratic structures that are already in existence to help raise up “great” leaders via democracy? Our structure is set up — if it was working it would be creating great mayors, great school board members, great county commissions. We need to find a way to make our democracy work.
Mike Bock wrote:
“A parent’s voice is more effective in a school district of 5000 students than the parent’s voice in a school district of 80,000 students, etc. ”
In reality, the effectiveness of a parent’s voice depends more on the quality of school board members and administrators than on the number of students in a district.
I have known parents in smaller communities whose school board and superintendent have treated them dismally, and I have known board members in urban centers who took personal phone calls from parents and followed up to see the problem to resolution.
And so a diluted talent pool means that fewer parents’ voices are heard, regardless of size of district.
And while we’re talking about “parents’ voices” I once again want to cast doubt on that Libertarian notion that a parent is the final authority on a child’s education. Parents’ concerns ought to be respected, but I believe that most parents lack the time or expertise to make an informed choice regarding education–give me the opinion of a competent professional instead, please. (And–sigh–there are too many incompetent professionals nowadays. But one problem at a time!)
Oh–one other thing, Mike.
A few decades back, Kettering and Oakwood and other suburbs were petitioning FOR incorporation into Dayton. What an interesting milieu we’d have today if the city commission, back then, had not been so haughty!
If you want to see the differences between regionalism and fiefdoms, you might compare services in the USA with those in European nations. They generally have centralized authorities for education, health services, etc.–and then we can note that their students out-perform ours by far on standardized tests, their health care systems cost far less and score much better on objective measures, etc.
So, casting hypotheticals aside, the facts on the ground say that less local control and more centralized authority works better.
We might also remember what went on in the USA when elections were entirely left up to local officials, prior to the voting rights act. I doubt you’d want to go back to those “good old days”.
T reminds me of another example- right now, look at the euro. If Germany and France can join in the European Union- I think we should be able to put differences between Kettering and Dayton aside.
Give me a fricken break with the “home rule”- if we had so many good local politicians to choose from, how would a neo-con mouthpiece like Mike Turner rise to the top so fast?
The system is broken.
Dr. Ruddick, you write, “Casting hypotheticals aside, the facts on the ground say that less local control and more centralized authority works better.”
My point is that a change of the magnitude that you and David are proposing simply won’t happen unless a lot of people in the suburbs want to make that change. Your belief that “facts on the ground” is interesting and starting with such facts might be a good place to start. I’ve not been paying much attention to any discussion about this idea, but I haven’t seen a presentation that outlines the need for change. And I certainly haven’t noticed anyone making a compelling argument for change that could be the energy for motivation that your ideas, if they ever have a chance to be implement, would require.
David. I agree the system is broken. Mike Turner’s rise to leadership, I agree, is a symptom of a deeper problem. So, we need to envision a scenario of practical actions that will help the system improve. My impulse is to think that advancing regional control ideas — “one mayor, one city- one vision,” as you say — would detract effort from dealing with the more essential problem of a failed democracy.
And, Dr. Ruddick, you write, “In reality, the effectiveness of a parent’s voice depends more on the quality of school board members and administrators than on the number of students in a district.”
You make a good point as to what the reality of the present system is. But, it seems to me, if we look harder, the central reality that needs to be addressed is that our system of democracy, that should be the source of vitality for local schools, is simply not working as it should. I think the energy and effort needed for long term improvement would be more effectively spent in improving and vitalizing the infrastructure of the present system rather than advancing the radical new constructions that you propose.
What you are suggesting seems to me would absorb huge amounts of effort and at the end of the day, most probably, there would be no change because much of the effort would essentially be wasted. The energy that went into the anti-911 regional centers campaigns, for example, because it was focused simply on maintaining the status quo, was essentially wasted.
We need to advance ideas that from the beginning have a good chance of gaining positive, broad-based and non-partisan support from ordinary citizens. We need ideas that will inspire citizens to work to change the status quo, not work to defend the status quo. We need to develop ideas that have a chance of gaining consensus.
Mike-
We have to advance the best possible solutions. In a global economy, you can’t get away with good enough. We can’t compromise if we want to win.
Mike, when you write:
“I’ve not been paying much attention to any discussion about this idea, but I haven’t seen a presentation that outlines the need for change. And I certainly haven’t noticed anyone making a compelling argument for change that could be the energy for motivation that your ideas, if they ever have a chance to be implement, would require.”
I think that there have been those arguing for a more efficient government. Seems to me that Thomas Friedman has advanced information supporting, for example, centralized health care systems. Bill Moyers has advanced similar ideas. They’re out there, just not as noisy (and noisome) as the viewpoints presented without rebuttal (or decency) on WHIO talk radio.
Local school board members (well, at least those who are genuinely interested in schools) make Herculean efforts to improve conditions and raise student outcomes, only to find their efforts scuttled by overly chaotic turnover in board membership and the next set of lunacies from the state. I honor their efforts, but the system has to be fixed right at the top before it will remain healthy at the bottom.
And many of those well-intentioned board members don’t really know how to improve performance even if they had the means.
I don’t object to local control over certain issues, like zoning, planning, recreation, or parking. But too often, we think that one sort of rule is best for all aspects of governance–hard experience shows that assumption to be invalid.
Can we start by asking what exactly democracy is supposed to look like? The question came up as we started to impose “democray” in Iraq, and it became pretty clear that it was not what we cared about much. (Many American pundits and presumably administrated leaders thought the US should just remove the elected Maliki and install someone else if he didn’t get the results we wanted.) Perhaps most important is what democracy in America is supposed to look like, particularly with the present system. Large distant institutions, manipulative advertising paid for by campaign contributions from the wealthiest of the governed, patronage, corruption. Probably the view of many people that it is not worth being bothered unless you personally feel your values are being threatened, usually by things like abortions, gays, immigrants and secular humanists. Throw in the unsettling effects of more and better gadgets of information technology, that make it hard to figure out. This enables people to talk to each other if they agree with each other, but what effect does that have on democracy?
Two obvious weaknesses in our setup is, 1. we can’t prevent the huge effect money has, mostly on eliminating those who don’t have large amounts of it, like the poor and working classes. Still some can remember when the cost of elections began to price those of moderate means out of the election process, which has coincided with the period of Republican domination. 2. The drawing of legislative districts is now manipulated to the extent that politicians seek voters rather than the other way around. Few ideas to deal with these (publicly financed elections, a mandate for evenhanded opportunities to access the media, various ways to insulate the drawing of districts from the political pros, proportional representation as in some of these complex European systems) have much credence or ownership from voters. Another area showed itself in the Bush v Gore election where it turned out there was no way anyone was really in charge of an election so close that every little gap and error matters. Eventually the Supreme Court became the partisan tiebreaker, perhaps as likely a solution as any given our institutions. Ideally perhaps you would ahve gotten a deal where there was 2 years of Bush and 2 years of Gore. Instead we got 8 years of exceptionally conservative government, which is supported by much of the establishment and some but certainly not a majority of the people. Still any of these options probably meet our definition of democracy.
I think most leaders see democracy, or the appearance of democracy anyway, as an obstacle to be overcome in getting the things they want done done. But what kind of system has the kind of staying power to make and plan policy, carry it out, and adjust to the things that will go wrong, if you are involving large numbers of people? There may be an element of feedback. People who feel powerless offense react to things out of emotion or feelings of offense and exclusion, while those who feel less threatened can adapt to setbacks. So the less real democracy we have and the less power people really have, the worse the democracy we have works.
Take the present presidential election, clearly the most important issue of democracy in the land if not the world. Right now we have something like 8 viable candidates for at least 4 and probably 8 years in this highly powerful office. 11 months away we have very little idea who is going to win and why. The incumbent has a legacy, much of which the candidate will have to argue against continuing. The most important issue, what kind of administration the person will run, is one that barely registers. The biggest issues are the extent that the candidate will bond with voters in the right states through the media, and related to that, diversity issues about the candidates, Obama’s race, Clinton’s sex, Romney and Huckabee’s religion, Guiliani’s marital history. This may resemble more determining who wins the Heisman Trophy than a democratic system for running a country.
Is democracy a system where an elite run the country but the people have some sort of check how badly things get? If so, how much power do the people have to have to count as a democracy? Places that aren’t democracies, like Myanmar or China or Saddam’s Iraq, all have powerful institutions but are supported or at least tolerated by significant groups of people. Other places like Iran or Venezuela or Russia, obviously have some mix of these. Opposition to the elite in these places is often fragmented and kept so by the powerful. To the extent that corporations are what really runs the world, these are not democratic institutions but many try to make the most of the ideas of the people who work there and other stakeholders, even if these groups have no legal power.
What do we want and what do we think it means based on US ideals? Probably more where people participate in policy decisions, which means more involvement and work on the part of people, which will probably mean that people expect to be listened to more than they are now. How do we do this?
Stan,
How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.
Campaign finance reform needs to begin at local levels. The outrageous money spent on the Dayton Mayors race is proof positive that we’ve taken leave of our senses.
It’s all gotta be in baby steps- and the first ones can be taken here in Dayton.
Thanks for your insight.
If we all work on this- it may happen.
Dr. Ruddick, if I am reading you right, you are advocating a system where regional county boards control all of the schools in a county. OK. Suppose, through a great deal of effort, a Regional Board was created and filled with high quality board members. Then what? I don’t see how this change, by itself, would deliver the big leap in quality improvement that the system needs.
You say that in the current system of local control, “many well-intentioned board members don’t really know how to improve performance even if they had the means.” You seem to be saying that quality leaders at the top, with the means, could make the present system work– that the system is OK, but it needs to be greatly souped up. I don’t agree. My opinion is that putting the present system on steroids is not the answer — the system itself must be fundamentally changed.
In order to get support, the proposals for school reform must be driven by big ideas that can generate a lot of enthusiasm. One big idea about school reform, I feel, that could generate enthusiasm is the idea that quality comes from system organization. In my article, “Strickland Should Use Charter Schools To Help Fulfill His Promise: ‘Reform and Renew the System of Education Itself’,” I quote Deming about the central importance of system organization and compare Ohio’s public school system to the pre-1989 communist East German car manufacturing system. I write, “To change Ohio’s education system from one focused on producing government minimums, ala the Trabant (the east German car), to one focused on releasing the tremendous potential for quality of Ohio citizens, ala the Mercedes, is an awesome goal.”
I am saying that souping up the factories that produce the Trabant — via better management, tighter controls, more accountability, or whatever — is not the answer because the result is still the production of a Trabant. My point: if all Dayton area schools were rated “excellent,” according to state standards, our schools would still be of poor quality.
The current purpose of schools — as reflected in state standards — is simply not big enough. A lot of enthusiasm for school reform, I feel, could be generated based around a compelling vision of school purpose. My article, “What Is The Education That Matters?” attempts to begin a discussion about school purpose.
Any idea for reform, because it must overcome the powerful forces of the status quo, must be compelling. Coming up with a good sounding idea of school purpose — “all students will reach their potential” — is not enough. Everyone knows that schools have always made big claims about their purpose and that such claims are as empty as the inspiring slogans that were written in large letters at the Trabant factory. Everyone knows that ideas of school purpose are just wishful thinking without a sound plan for implementation. The articulation of a plan that shows how to make the system work is what would generate enthusiasm.
It is difficult to have objective discussions about reform because what often directs the discussion is not dispassionate objectivity but very passionate self-interest. The phrase, “Where I stand is a function of where I sit,” comes to mind. I think the forces of the status quo — regardless of how you package the idea — would not allow the creation of the Regional School Board that you advocate.
I may try to organize and expand these thoughts and post a better organized article.
Mike – “very passionate self-interest” is ok to hear during these discussions. It helps to fine tune how the ultimate message should be delivered. You are right on track to talk about the benefits and purpose before trying to determine how to get there.
Some of the benefits through school consolidation I have been thinking about are consolidation and cost savings in the front office areas starting with payroll and accounts payable. There should also be significant efficiencies for transportation costs when busses can easily be used in multiple areas. But you may be on to something to think about how this could actually improve education, not just save money. I would like to hear more.
Stan, you make a lot of good points and ask a lot of good questions. The essential question you ask, it seems to me, is: What should our democracy look like?
My Nov. 28 post Our Democracy Must Be Revived — If We Hope To Achieve The Dreams of Our Wisest and Best points out that if our democracy was working as it should, it would produce what the best and the wisest among us want it to produce; it would look like what the best and the wisest among us would want it to look like.
The democratic belief is that when communities are organized democratically — of the people, by the people — then in the competition of ideas, that such a community creates, the best ideas, the best practices emerge.
This democratic belief may be true in theory, however, though we have the structure for democracy, we do not have an effective democracy. We are a long way from enjoying a system blessed with the best ideas and best practices. You point out how gerrymandering and money distorts our structure for democracy. Yes. But the foundational problem of our democracy, I feel, is the fact that we have lost community. The essential condition for democracy, it seems to me, is community. Without community, democracy is impossible.
A community is a group of people who come together by reason of geography, economics, history, faith, or family. But a group of people can be thrown together and never experience or operate as a community, where they think and work together to find and bring about the common good. Some churches, schools, and families have found a way to act as a community and, by working to make each of their members successful, as an entity have themselves become successful.
The 37th Ohio House District, where I live, has over 110,000 voters mostly connected by geography. But the 37th District is not acting a community and therefore democracy in the 37th District is failing.
So how do we create community? The internet provides a big opportunity and I feel that it is possible that DaytonOS can become a force for creating community that the 37th District needs — as well as all Montgomery County needs.
One place that we should work to create strong communities is within our political parties. This vision of political parties as democratic communities is quite at odds with the reality of political parties centering power in a “boss,” or in a handful of entrenched activists. The work needed to transform political parties overall would be enormous, but at the county level the amount of work required to reform our political parties seems doable. If our political parties in Montgomery County were transformed — to vital communities that, through their structures and processes, would demonstrate and celebrate effective democracy — all of Montgomery County, I feel, would eventually be transformed.
I want to write a better organized post to more fully explore the questions you raise.
[...] In a previous post were presented some ideas on how to define a regional plan in Ohio. Several respondents suggested [...]
Mike Bock said “if our democracy was working as it should, it would produce what the best and the wisest among us want it to produce; it would look like what the best and the wisest among us would want it to look like.” That sounds as much like elitism, or even dictatorship, as democracy.
Thee are some business consultants who argue that there are two models for businesses. One is the military model, the general knows everything and the organization’s job is to carry out his instructions. The other is that the people in the organization know everything and the leader’s job is to bring it out and put it together. The second sounds good to a lot of people, but the reality of power is such that the first tends to happen a lot more in practice. Bush conservatives, for example, have essentially used the former to achieve their domestic and world agendas. They have a combination of certainty and anixety that keeps them from listening to anyone else, and instead overpowering them by whatever means necessary. You might say that Bush is just not the best and wisest among us and his election is due to defects in the system. However really none of the US Presidents in our lifetime have been all that great, at best.
Democracy may be more about process than necessarily that a result that the best and wisest among us, whoever they are, would approve of. Bock hits on this when he talks about community. The archtypical ideal is the New England town meeting. I have not been in New England enough to know if that still finctions anywhere as intended. However today the most significant issues of power are national or increasingly globel. Certainly economic power is global and it has arguably overwhelmed the ability of nation states to deal with it. At the national level, democracy is speeches in the media, perhaps in front of preselected audiences with pre-selected questions, then there is commentary by a number of pundits (a sociologically narrow if ideologically diverse group) and in the internet age, some bloggers who talk to each other. Legislative districts, as Bock points out, are not communities. Rep Turner’s district was drawn to ensure his victory, and is certainly not a community. There may be some community amoung say the City of Dayton or even the communities of the county, and here political campaigns may get you a candidate on your front porch talking to you. However local entities lack the resources to do anything about the problems they face. How much does it matter who the mayor or commission of of Dayton is if all they do is preside over a poverty of resources?
For Democracy to work, people must have some ability to influence the outcome that justifies the effort. And of course they must have the time and opportunity to make the effort, as well as the inclination. And in addition you have to be able to stand the “heat” of the kitchen which has certainly gotten much hotter since Truman made that statement. Today’s media snapshots and ability to find out evrything bad about everyone, and then distort it, leads many people to leave public leadership to professionals, often driven by ideology or ego. While you still have a lot of decent poitical leaders at the local level you can only wonder how long it will be before say Strahorn, Lovelace, Whaley, Foley and Lehner become like the Clintons, Cheneys and Roves if they chose to move up the chain.
Anyway I am not sure that political parties would ever be communities, and certainly they are not now, for the most part. A real issue is what kind of communities can you have, in the world of “bowling alone.” Many of the things people relate to personally are affinity organizations, based on hobbies or common specialized interests, that are too fragmented to function as a basis for democracy. Larger groups are essentially private coorporate entities with processes that can be captured. Presidential elections are often won by people who capture or manipulate the system, but then have no constituency to do anything, as happened with Carter and Clinton. Republicans have managed to combine diverse special interest groups whose goals conflict less (business power people, social conservatives and anti tax people for instance) whose most successful candidates (for winning anyway) are backed by and do the bidding of several of these groups, as with Reagan and W Bush. This is what we call democracy, although it may be described better as government by insiders who must win periodic approval from the governed through a somehwat rigged mechanism. It is more like a focus group than a democracy. To improve it would have to encourage input, opportuntiy and initiative more than it does now. Those are in fact characteristics of community. This suggests that the system needs to foster community more than take decisions out of its hands, broaden more than concentrate power. Perhaps to do that there must be more appreciation of the value of the process rather than seeing it as an obstacle to be overcome on the way to getting your agenda done.
Mike, the fact is that power can be abused regardless of whether it comes from an enlightened intellectual elite or some heavily monied captains of industry or from the vagarities of pure majority-rule democracy.
It’s been said that the best form of government, insofar as personal freedom and prosperity is concerned, is a benevolent, intelligent dictatorship.
I’m of the opinion that democracy, monarchy, oligarchy, dictatorship, or republic are all secondary; the primary concern is that there are mechanisms in the government that protect fundamental rights for individuals, that enforce fairness and punish fraud, and that promote community. That’s what’s made America great–when it’s been great.
Where has there been a benevolent intelligent dictatorship in which there are freedom, fundamental rights, fairness, community and where fraud is punished? Few if any dictators tolerate criticism or dissent against themselves. Most are corrupt or are kept in power by corrupt cronies. Some may “keep the lid on” internal conflicts(Saddam Hussein for instance), allow business to flourish so long as there is no political dissent, or leave the general public alone to do their cultural thing. That’s about as benevolent as dictators get. Mostly they, by definition, rule by violence and are subject to the necessities and corruptions of power, concerned that someone else will be better at violence and use violence against them, and are not inclined to recognize their own limitations. Freedom fundamental rights and fairness require limitations on power that must be part of the culture as well as the law and social institutions.
Stan – here’s a list of candidates for benevolent dictators of the past. Perhaps a modern day version could be President Bush but I digress… I’m not sure I would have imcluded Napoleon because of his penchant for the guillotine.
**From a link in Wikpedia***
It might help to first define what an enlightened despots is; strictly
speaking, enlightened despots were rulers of the 18th Century who
followed the ideas of the Age of the Enlightenment. They believed they
were rulers in order to do what was best for the people—-even if the
people disagreed with them. Similar is the term “benevolent
dictators,” who are absolute rulers who “do good” for their people.
Clearly, this is a matter of opinion; therefore, I haven’t listed
anyone here unless more than one website listed them as either an
enlightened despot or a benevolent dictator. The links next to each
name go to an article about the individual; all are from
Encyclopedia.com, unless otherwise noted.
1. Frederick the Great ( http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/x/x-f1redg1r.asp )
2. Catherine the Great (http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/x/x-c1athring1rt.asp )
3. Maria Theresa ( http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/m/mariat1he.asp )
4. Joseph II ( http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/F/FrancisJ1.asp )
5. Louis XV (http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/section/louis15fr_earlyreign.asp )
6. Louis XVI ( http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/l/louis16f1r.asp )
7. Charles III ( http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/c/charles3s1p.asp )
8. Gustav II ( http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/G/Gustavus2.asp )
9. Leopold II ( http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/l/leopo2h1r1e1.asp )
10. Napoleon I ( http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/section/napoleon1_theempire.asp
)
11. Anwar Sadat (Wikipedia link on Sadat:
http://haiti.asinah.net/en/wikipedia/a/an/anwar_sadat.html )
12. Francisco Franco ( http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/f/franco-f1.asp )
13. Augusto Pinochet ( http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/p/pinochet.asp )
14. The Medici ( http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/section/medici_familymembers.asp
)
15. King David, King Joash, King Amaziah, King Azariah, King Jotham,
King Hezekiah, and Deborah, and Moses of the Bible
16. Charles Augustus ( http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/c/charlesa1u.asp )
17. Kemal Atatürk ( Ataturk website article: http://www.ataturk.com/index2.html )
18. Marquis of Pombal ( Wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marquis_of_Pombal )
19. The Achaemenids (
http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/section/persia_theachaemenids.asp )
20.Fidel Castro ( http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/c/castro-f1.asp )
I wish I could have found more folks to include on this list, but
enlightened despots or a benevolent dictators are few and far between!
Nice scholarship there, Bruce.
Confounding any analysis, we should recognize that old saw “there’s so much bad in the best of us, and so much good in the worst of us.”
Stan, we might turn your own question back at you. When has there been ANY government, any time, that was 100% successful in those conditions we all desire?
I’m certainly in disagreement about many of the figures on Bruce’s list–Louis XVI??? but then again I don’t find that the USA has consistently upheld freedoms or punished fraud. If you were a U.S. communist in 1952, your freedoms were curtailed. If you are Rush Limbaugh in 2007, you defraud the public continually and there’s no requirement for his media outlets to even correct his falsehoods–much less to demand a degree of accuracy beforehand.
I am not much of an expert on European history, and the links I tried no longer worked. I really don’t think that monarchy is a serious issue for us today (although some in the US might consider reinstalling monarchs in Russia, Iran and maybe even Iraq, although more to advance US power than for their enlightenment qualities. The US arguably has elements of “enlightened” despotism, in the federal reserve system, the federal judiciary, and perhaps a presidency in which one or two elite colleges and even one or two families seem to be producing most of the presidents. The degree of enlightenment is in the eye of the beholder. More at issue is the viability of despotism itself.)
Of people on the list I am familiar with, certainly Franco was a fascist ally of Hitler and Mussolini, and Pinochet tortured and killed his opponents, Napoleon tried several times to conquer the world by force. There were apparently a couple of Leopold IIs. the Belgian one was famous for his brutal treatment of the Congo so maybe you mean the other one. Some good things can be said about results produced under Sadat, Castro and Ataturk but they had iron fists that I don’t think I would want to be smashed by. The Biblical kings were valued by the Bible for their intolerance for the other religions of the area, and even David, who murdered his loyal general to cover up his affair with his wife and provoked and put down revolts by his sons, is at least a mixed bag,
Has the US ever been the country it claims to be, and lived up to its ideals? No, its history is and always has been a conflict between its ideal side and its dark side, the latter usually involving wealth, power and exploiting others to get them. The Patriot Act and Guantanamo bay are the latest in a long line of efforts, going back to the Alien and Sedition Acts, Palmers Red Raids, the Japanese Internment, the McCarthy Era, and abuses in the Nixon and Reagan Administrations. Mistreatment of Native Americans, Africans and immigrants, as well as laborers and their organizers, and women are part of the story. And while things are certainly better then when only white male property-owners were in charge, progress has come only in fits and starts, and sometimes steps backwards. You can look at legal changes, expansion of the franchise, civil rights laws and the fitful willingness of the courts to throw hurdles at presidents when they try to become Napoleon. A lot of people have tried to make it better, which was not always conducive to their well being. However the legal structures are only as valuable as the unwillingness of the people to tolerate less, and that possibility is always in play.
A more serious issue may be whether the enlightenment itself is only a temporary blip in history, a product of unusual conditions of social and intellectual change among certain elites, which can be extinquished because of the power of despots to use surveillance and violence and who knows what else in the future, brain implants maybe, to control dissent. Or just because people value other things more. The idea that we value workers, the uneducated, the poor, victims of abuse caught in a downward spiral; that we value individuals and not just the characteristics they share or groups that they belong to. We have an era where high technology global capitalism creates cultures of consumerism using mass media, while at the same time there is an exceptionally lopsided imbalance of power and resources in the world, which is running up against limits of necessary items like water and fossil fuels. At the same time people search for meaning and are anxiously aware of their vulnerability. Those who sieze power seem to know little except for the tactics that got them there. And while Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin and other despots failed in their efforts to rule the world by force, this may just be seen as a challenge to take advantage of new opportunities.
Still the history of the US or more accurately of the West with the US being an alternative that was too far off to control, is also a history of people fighting for things to be better, not just for themselves but for others, ultimately for everyone. These seem to be the people we admire, at least in hindsight. There is of course a questrion of the best way to balance freedom, social organization and meaning let alone “security” if auch a thing is even possible.
A lot of these discussions are about what the best society would look like (there is certainly no consensus about that) and then how to get there without having the means destroy the ends. A lot are about structures of public institutions, how we limit the powers of wealth and insider knowledge of how to manipulate whatever structures exist, as well as whatever values motivate us. A lot is how to recognize complexity and make the most of it, how to deal with change, the anxiety it creates and the tendency of things to go overboard.
Makes for intersting discussions.