I have been pondering this idea CWB is the thing to transform all things and this confirms my suspicions it isn’t. I haven’t heard anyone claim it is yet it still feels hyped up to me without some formal form of the handing over of power to communities. That in itself sounds more straightforward than it is. Communities are themselves loaded with power struggles and challenges and often given very narrow windows and long tables to exercise power. So people who just throw ‘community power’ around as the thing to shift the current paradigm alone also are guilty of over hyping. So people revert to easier but still ‘nice’ solutions like CWB. Feels we need an example of doing both and doing it well. Whatever well means!
Thanks for posting this - really incisive point made. I agree that a form of local democracy which breaks away from our current model definitely needs new mechanisms of decision-making to empower local citizens.
Personally, I am really excited by quadratic voting and quadratic funding. "QV allows voters to express the intensity of their votes (whilst having a fixed budget of votes/'voice credits'), rather than simply voting yes/no or ranking their choices. In
doing so, QV protects minority interests and discourages polarization."
Quadratic Finance (QF) is a public funding model based off QV. "QF solves the classic “free rider” problem and addresses under-investment in public goods. With QF, individuals can contribute directly to local public projects. Projects with wider bases of support receive larger matches from public funds. QF has the potential to revolutionize campaign funding and local infrastructure projects, among many other areas."
Hi Tom - thanks for taking the time to comment! I've not come across quadratic voting/funding/finance before... thanks for signposting, you've now sent me down a rabbit hole.
In general though, I think that it's absolutely essential that things like CWB are accompanied by some kind of transfer of democratic control, whether that's the models your referring to or more traditional deliberation. If we really want things to change, we have to let new forces into our politics - we can't just hope that some new approach, when implemented by the same people in the same institutions, is going to magically fix things. But giving up control is scary for bureaucracies and bureaucrats! So my optimism levels are not high
I have been pondering this idea CWB is the thing to transform all things and this confirms my suspicions it isn’t. I haven’t heard anyone claim it is yet it still feels hyped up to me without some formal form of the handing over of power to communities. That in itself sounds more straightforward than it is. Communities are themselves loaded with power struggles and challenges and often given very narrow windows and long tables to exercise power. So people who just throw ‘community power’ around as the thing to shift the current paradigm alone also are guilty of over hyping. So people revert to easier but still ‘nice’ solutions like CWB. Feels we need an example of doing both and doing it well. Whatever well means!
Thanks for posting this - really incisive point made. I agree that a form of local democracy which breaks away from our current model definitely needs new mechanisms of decision-making to empower local citizens.
Personally, I am really excited by quadratic voting and quadratic funding. "QV allows voters to express the intensity of their votes (whilst having a fixed budget of votes/'voice credits'), rather than simply voting yes/no or ranking their choices. In
doing so, QV protects minority interests and discourages polarization."
Quadratic Finance (QF) is a public funding model based off QV. "QF solves the classic “free rider” problem and addresses under-investment in public goods. With QF, individuals can contribute directly to local public projects. Projects with wider bases of support receive larger matches from public funds. QF has the potential to revolutionize campaign funding and local infrastructure projects, among many other areas."
More of this is available in the RadicalXChange Handbook for Radical Local Democracy: https://www.radicalxchange.org/media/papers/The_Handbook_for_Radical_Local_Democracy.pdf
Would be curious for your thoughts on this.
Anyways, thanks again for posting, and looking forward to reading more
Hi Tom - thanks for taking the time to comment! I've not come across quadratic voting/funding/finance before... thanks for signposting, you've now sent me down a rabbit hole.
In general though, I think that it's absolutely essential that things like CWB are accompanied by some kind of transfer of democratic control, whether that's the models your referring to or more traditional deliberation. If we really want things to change, we have to let new forces into our politics - we can't just hope that some new approach, when implemented by the same people in the same institutions, is going to magically fix things. But giving up control is scary for bureaucracies and bureaucrats! So my optimism levels are not high