A thought experiment

This is a fantasy world, a thought experiment. This is what I would like to see in ‘RichardWorld’. It’s going to be hated. Tough.

Let me start with geography. Currently I live in England — and more specifically London. I would love to see the concept of the nation state dead. No UK. No England. London would be a self governing city state. For the purposes of this I don’t care how the rest of the regions choose to organise themselves.

There are many loose ends in this thought experiment. What to do about trans men for example? Or with gender non-conforming or non-binary people? My society doesn’t account and recognise them. These are problems that I haven’t yet chewed over and come to a satisfactory answer over.

I deliberately set out to keep this at a high level and first principle level. I haven’t gone into the rabbit hole of how to get to this construct from where we are now.

Constitutions aren’t my speciality, indeed rather the opposite. This is therefore going to be badly structured and badly constructed. Never mind. Its some ideas to try and help me work out the fallacies and incompatibilities of some of the ideas I have in my head!

First principles for the governing committee

1. The city would be divided into five region. Each segment will contain the same population. The boundaries will be redrawn every 15 years to account for population change.
2. Each region will have two representatives who form part of the ruling council.
3. There will not be elections, rather there will be a lottery from which the eligible names are drawn.
4. Each selected committee member will serve one ten year term. In the first ever committee, five members will serve for only five years so there is a rolling rotation of one representative from each region being replaced every five years.
5. The ruling committee will be selected by lottery but the following principles must be observed:

(i) No man can be part of the ruling committee.

(ii) Cis white women can hold a maximum of three places on the committee and no region can be represented by two cis white women solely.

(iii) There can never be more than three representatives of any particular religious, cultural, ethnic, racial or sexual orientation special interest group on the committee at any one time and there must be a divergency in regional representatives.

(iv) At any time there must be a minimum of two transwomen on the ruling committee.

(v) There must be a balance of ages represented on the Ruling Committee and the principles of 5(iii) will be applied in so far as it is practicable.

6. There will be an age limit applied. No woman older than 50 at the start of her term will serve.

7. The minimum age to serve on the Ruling Committee will be 14.

8. The lottery will be drawn until a suitable candidate is selected for each vacancy and no results will be ratified until the five candidates were all selected to ensure the balancing principles were maintained.

9. In the event that any woman on the ruling committee transitions during their term, they must resign their position from the point they start to live as a man.

10. In the event of any event that leads to a mid term vacancy such as death or gender transition, the position will stand vacant until the next lottery cycle if the ruling committee member had served more than six years.

11. In the event that a replacement ruling committee member replacement is needed, then a volunteer will be sought from the region that is as near to a doppelgänger for the vacating member as is practicably possible.

12. In the event that there is no suitable volunteer, the position will remain vacant by the choice of the affected region.

13. There will be a bureaucracies needed to administer the region. I envisage that this will be based (at least initially) on a model that looks like an existing top tier (English) local authority, bolstered by the creation of five regional bureaucracies formed by the amalgamation of the existing LAs that fall within the regional boundaries.

14. There will be no board for any individual organisation such as a school, university or hospital. There will be an organisational chief administrator charged with acting in accordance to the directives of the Ruling Committee. This administrator can not be a man.

15. Men may work within the bureaucracies (either at a city state, regional or organisational level) but must never be more than 45 percent of the workforce of any individual bureaucracy.

16. There will be no referenda. The Ruling Committee is there to make rules and regulations and they can’t abdicate that responsibility.

17. Wide consultation will be expected. The regional representatives are required to be just that. They must be closely connected to the communities they represent.

18. There will be no parties, cohorts, alliances or any other formal or informal grouping within the Ruling Committee. Each member will lead on an area of special interest to them.

19. There will be no contested decisions. All decisions must be made by unanimous decision.

20. Once the Ruling Committee has made a decision, the bureaucracy must develop the detailed plans for implementation of the decision.

21. It is for the Ruling Committee to decide how to organise and manage this process. For example, the Ruling Committee could adopt a sub-committee structure to review, test and approve the detailed implementation planning, or it may be that this must be brought back to the full Ruling Committee.

22. The need to minimise human activity on the environment must be of paramount importance and at the forefront of decision making. The ruling committee must not just acknowledge the arrival of the climate emergency that we are in but every action and decision taking must be based on taking an action to tackle this emergency.

That’s the Ruling Committee dealt with.

You’ll sense some themes emerging:

1. I don’t really believe that elections are anything other than theatre. We’ve kidded ourselves about how wonderful western democracy is and there are better models. I’m not really sold on the entire concept as we have constructed it of democratic or electoral participation.
2. I want this community to transition away from capitalism. There would be a plan to move away from any from of currency. Capitalism can’t be made kinder and gentler. Exploitation, the wielding of power and the use of oppression is baked into the philosophy of capitalism.
3. There will be a move away from materiality. Things don’t need to be owned, they need to be shared and used for the benefit of the community and of the people. Amassing capital is again a key tenant of capitalism. It leads to a wealth gap, it leads to inequality of life chances and outcomes and it damages social cohesion. If you don’t fixate on the gathering and holding of possessions that frees you to do things that mean more to you.
4. Resources are shared. This does not mean that at all times everything is equal. To care for and help those who need more assistance isn’t a bad thing. If a community, an individual or a co-operative needed additional help then this should be available.
5. People are free to devote themselves to things they want to do. To work individually, to work with others, to not work at all, to educate themselves, to educate others, to care for themselves, to care for others. There is no moral obligation to do anything. Work does not set you free.
6. I’m not anti-man. Men have over dominated and been over represented in far too many societies and for too long. It is time to rebalance that. The principle in point 4 sits behind this.
7. I’m not anti-white. Black and Brown people have been harmed by white Europeans for centuries. My model recognises and acknowledges that and would be a meaningful and real step to fix some of that harm.