Village building for true democracy

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

This has nothing to do with buildings in a village and neither – directly – with bricks and mortar building of a village.

True democracy, proper participatory democracy, as it is intended does not and cannot function in any way, shape or form, in the setting of a nation state and even less so in an even larger one still, such as the federation of states, such as the European Union.

Democracy was born out of the village and to the village it must return. That is to say we need a new system at village (size) level.

True participatory democracy can only work in small groups of 150 souls or less and thus even most of today's villages are already too large and will have to be broken down to a ward level.

The village must be built and rebuilt both in the countryside and in the urban arena, the cities and suburbs, in order for our society to be able to function for man and Planet.

Remaking the village block by block in the city is being done by North Korean refugees in the South, in Seoul, and that and other models can be used as an idea and guide.

It is possible to create a village structure as much in the city as in the countryside and we must, in fact, remake the village in both locations as the villages in the countryside no longer are functioning in many cases and places.

And those village communities must become true communities that are self-governing and self-sustaining, as far as the latter is possible, in all aspects. While being autarkical and self-reliant at the same those villages are interdependent on those around them. No man is an island and neither is a village.

However, as far as government, or none, is concerned, those village communities are islands and are but responsible to themselves and for themselves. They must pull the cart together themselves, as the translation of true democracy would state.

The 19th century social reformer Robert Owen had the vision of self-governed and self-sustained villages run on truly socialist principles and while it is decried as utopian by the powers-that-be (and was so also by those of the day), as will be everything that does not fit with their agenda, that is no reason why it should not be attempted.

In the Hippie age some communities that exist and function to this very day sprang up that are of a similar nature those not in the same style and layout, so to speak, as, say, New Harmony envisioned by Robert Owen. You do not have to build new; you adapt what already exists, as was done in Copenhagen with Christiania, and other such communes. On the other hand the village can be created and must be created in every street and on every city block, even within apartment buildings, and it can be done.

So, let's go village building and true participatory democracy...

© 2014