Earth Rights Institute

Module 4, Section 10.1-6

Decentralization and Geo-Confederation

10.1 Geo-Confederation can work harmoniously with decentralized, local governance. The historian Tertius Chandler noted that perhaps the strongest root of democracy was tribal. American democracy has its roots in the local democracies of the English colonies. Sound governance, especially for a country having little or no parliamentary experience, needs to be grounded in the villages and their traditional authorities. Power would then be delegated up from below rather than being centrally imposed from above. In conjunction, the land rent must be shared to prevent land value from becoming a glittering prize, loot ripe for conquest.

10.2 Where there is treasure such as oil or diamonds, the people will not benefit unless there are both sound governing structures and a constitutionally mandated sharing of the natural wealth.

10.3 Village-centered governance would also prevent the fraud and violence associated with countrywide elections in countries lacking historical voting experience and a deeply ingrained democratic culture. Voting would instead take place only in the villages, and the village councils would in turn elect higher-level governments. Mass elections often just invite trouble.

10.4 As noted by Jack Snyder in his book From Voting to Violence: Democratization and Nationalist Conflict:
"The centerpiece of foreign policy in the 1990s was the claim that promoting the spread of democracy would also promote peace. We have seen that these attempts fail unless there are also federal structures to provide self-governance for ethnic parties and to prevent an excessive centralization of power. Naively pressuring ethnically divided authoritarian states to hold instant elections can lead to disastrous results."

10.5 It is also evident that democracy as presently constituted is insufficient to provide peace. It is also necessary to assure economic justice, and the foundation of economic justice is the compensation of land rent paid to all the members of the community for the private use of the land which rightfully belongs to everyone.

10.6 This form of land tenure – private use rights secured on condition of payment of full land rent to the community – furthers both individual initiatives for wealth production AND a fair distribution of wealth. There is no trade-off of one or the other. There is instead a full social synergy.