Philosophy

​Using democratic community planning to combine freedom with responsibility

​We all have two basic needs - freedom and responsibility. 

Freedom

We need freedom to express ourselves joyfully, lovingly, creatively, articulately and effectively (and, by implication, freedom from practical or emotional obstacles to this). 

​Responsibility
 
Secondly, we need an equitable share of responsibility for the well-being of others, as this generates a sense of connection, human warmth and self worth. This is especially important in our local neighbourhood community, because it is vital to feel that we are living among friends who care for us, rather than strangers who couldn't care less whether we live or die.  

This creates a conundrum, for if community responsibilities are imposed on us, they automatically undermine our freedom. 

To overcome this difficulty, we must create democratic systems that bring community members together to plan their shared social, economic and environmental future, and negotiate their mutual responsibilities. Responsibilities that have been freely negotiated become part of our freedom of expression, forming a fusion of the two elements. It is in the fusion of freedom and responsibility that we find our place in the World. By working together like this, we can foster mutual understanding, empathy, trust and friendship.  

The dangers of groupness, and using local democracy to overcome them

Henri Tajfel identified a problem with what he called groupness; the human tendency to prefer people we regard as part of the same group as us, and to dislike those we identify as outside of that group. Obviously such dislike can build into mistrust and hostility.

The Robbers' Cave Experiment was a series of studies led by Muzafer Sherif in the 1940s and 1950s (click here for more details). It showed that building trust between groups requires them to cooperate to achieve mutual goals over a sustained period. Therefore any system of local democracy should incorporate mechanisms that promote cooperation between neighbourhoods. This is especially important in today’s multi-cultural society in which adjacent communities may have strikingly different cultural profiles.

The upward transmission of power

Genuine local democracy must also provide pathways for the transmission of power upwards through higher levels of governance, enabling neighbourhood communities to influence all decisions affecting them. At the same time it must incorporate democratic safeguards to ensure those same pathways are not used to impose authority from above in a dictatorial manner. 

The question is: does modern-day Scotland provide the sort of local democracy described above? The answer must be a resounding “no”.

Over the past century Scotland’s neighbourhood communities have been stripped of all control over, and responsibility for, their own governance and well-being, starting with the abolition of parish councils in 1930. By contrast, parish councils in England have considerable powers and budgets. The process of centralisation continued with the abolition of Scotland's town councils in 1975 and the transfer of their powers to district councils. 

As a result, Scotland’s neighbourhood communities have neither freedom to harness their creative energies nor responsibility for their well-being beyond litter picks and flower basket planting. Neighbours no longer have any need to know each other. Similarly, different ethnic and religious communities have no need to mix. 

The toxic effects of this centralisation include isolation, lack of trust, interracial tension, mental illness, drug and alcohol misuse, violence, suicide and of course the boredom and frustration that are caused by the stifling of collective creativity. 

However, the most insidious effect of over-centralised governance is that it turns the focus of our lives inwards so that we lose the ability and the instinct to act co-operatively. This has grave implications for the future of our planet, which will depend on co-operative action to avert the most serious consequences of global warming.

Our goal must be to create a society in which people work together and help each other constructively and compassionately. This must begin with the creation of a system of participative democracy with roots that run deep in our neighbourhood communities, enabling collective decision-making and the exercise of negotiated responsibilities. The alternative is an increasingly fractured society that ultimately will require the strictures of a police state to survive.