Creating and Maintaining "the public"

Democracy is based on the idea of "the public", to which everyone belongs and has responsibilities.

The public creates a government for itself, and conveys 'sovereignty' to the government. The government is not a party to a contract with citizens: it is the product of a contract among citizens.

In a democracy, the public is inclusive, so self-selected communities and stakeholder groups are not "the public". The public is everyone, including the minority, and the minority must be respected. The public is enduring, so a plurality on one issue -- or many issues -- is not "the public".

In many places democratic government is incomplete and/or weak because citizens do not understand and maintain "the public". In such situations, politics and government becomes oriented toward special interests. The rationale for decisions moves from being made in the public interest to being made in the best interests of sectors (such as "business", or "labour", or "health", or "the environment".

Governments should make public policy decisions that are creative, comprehensive, and compelling. For example, a good decision about education will also be a good decision about health, the environment, and the economy.

Public Education

What is it that makes public education unique, vital, and attractive? In Alberta, as in many other jurisdictions, the provincial government allows, regulates, funds, and protects separate school education, charter schools, independent schools, and home schooling, as well as public education.

Unlike all other forms of education, public education is inclusive, as a matter of conviction and by design. It is inclusive in the classroom and also in its system of governance. It is inclusive in that inclusion is both and equally a right and a responsibility. All children have a right to be included in public education. All members of the community have a right to participate in the government of public education (universal adult suffrage). Everyone in the classroom has a responsibility to include all others, and everyone in the community has a responsibility to allow and encourage all other adults to participate in the government of public education.

Unlike all other forms of education, public education is designed and provided to be a deliberate model of a civil democratic community rather than any other form of community. This aspect of public education is one of the foremost reasons that public education tries to represent self-government, grounded in the local community.

"Post-manufacturing economy"?

I have just read a recent editorial by Gwyn Morgan, thought provoking as always.

I agree that our economy -- provincially, nationally, and globally, will never return to the status quo ante (pre-2008).

I don't think the editorial is very suggestive of what lies ahead.

I read Wealth of Nations to a different conclusion than do many others. I don't see Smith promoting competition: I see him promoting collaboration (in a framework that was understandable in the late 18th century). I always find it interesting that David Ricardo's two laws (of Comparative Advantage and of Absolute Advantage) both lead to the conclusion that competition -- and impoverishment -- should be avoided. Perhaps in the 21st century we will see a more sophisticated understanding of what Smith and Ricardo were arguing more than 200 years ago.

Over the same 200 years another unhappy outcome has been to 'externalize' many of the real and significant costs of entrepreneurs (and consumers). On the one hand we have treated waste disposal as 'free' (dump the garbage in the stream, send it up the smokestack, plow it into the ground), and on the other hand we have off-loaded real and significant input costs (of gathering resources and workers) onto the community.

What will happen to our economy, especially its global span, as we start to adopt full cost accounting that includes embedded energy costs and life-cycle costs, and then start to require closed extraction/production/manufacturing systems?

If we don't like the delay of commerce at the American border now, what will happen as more and more borders become more and more stiffling, in response to increased concerns about terrorism, pandemics, the arrival of new species of plants and animals that would be threatening locally, environmental refugees, etc.

A thriving society will have an economic sub-system (whether it is growing larger, or not) including some critical requirements:
1. a well-educated citizenry, most of whom must be the products of public school education;
2. tthe will to be better;
3. a culture of honesty;
4. an extensive commons (infra-structure) for which all citizens accept respnsibility; and,
5. a strong sense of the public -- of being 'all in this together'.

My own expectation is that the world 30 years from now will be more global in the way it thinks, and more local in the way it acts.

Team of Rivals

It is 1:00 a.m. and I have just finished a marathon reading session, bringing me to the end of a difficult -- but engrossing -- book. Team of Rivals does an exceptional job of telling an exceptional story about Abraham LIncoln. Everyone who is interested in politics and the human condition should read this book. I cried when I read the Gettysburg Address, and I cried when I finished the book.

I think about the ghastly conditions of so many Unionists and Confederates 150 years ago, and the mind and spirit of a President who willed a different future into place for them. As Seward said when Lincoln died: "He belongs to the ages." The question is, why haven't we taken his will, and his character, and his habits, and made them manifest? Why, 150 years later, do so many people, in so many democracies, feel that not only they but democracy itself is abused, betrayed, and sold into slavery?

The time for a new emanicpation proclamation is now. "It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work... that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth." (A. Lincoln, Gettysburg Address, 1863)

What is our mindset?

Author Carol Dweck asks whether individuals have a fixed mindset or a growth mindset. The question should be asked of organizations, communities, and societies and nations, as well. (Mindset [How we can learn to fulfil our potential])

Dweck offers much argument and evidence in support of her propositions that the fixed mindset is an eventually abusive and suffocating dead end, while the growth mindset is enlivening, with unending opportunities; and, no matter which mindset one holds at any moment, life constantly offers us opportunities to move to the other mindset. Most important, Dweck offers innumerable ways in which we can encourage (for ourselves or others) letting go of the fixed mindset and adopting and inhabiting the growth mindset.

Albertans (and Canadians) should be asking the question about our province and our nation -- do we have a growth mindset, or a fixed mindset. We seem to be displaying all the characteristics of a fixed mindset.

I am reminded of the choice between trust and fear, between altruism and selfishness.

First Democracy -- Current Democracy

I am re-reading First Democracy, by Paul Woodruff. This is one of the few books I re-read from time to time. Woodruff argues that seven conditions are essential for the continued existence of democracy: freedom from tyranny (including the tyranny of the majority); harmony; the rule of law; equality; citizen wisdom (read the Wisdom of Crowds, by James Surowieki); reasoning without knowledge; and, general education.

Actually, I am multi-tasking, reading two other books at the same time -- Team of Rivals, by Doris Kearns Goodwin; and, Mindset, by Carol Dweck.

Some people express fear that our spirit is shrinking and growing mean, and our condition deteriorates. This begs the question: why?

The answer, from 2,000 years ago, or from 150 years ago, or from to-day is: there is no reason to be small, or fearful -- we should shake off our mindset, and transform ourselves and our communities