Raise the Hammer

So nice to see a reference to Saul Alinsky. I was beginning to think the world had forgotten him.

This situation seems to me to reflect the constant flux between the centralization and decentralization of power. Much more can be accomplished, and with greater ease, when decision making is centralized, and when accomplishments are seen as positive more centralization is inspired. The problem is that humans don't have an inevitable history of positive achievements. Sooner or later everyone screws up, and then the more eggs there are in the basket, the bigger the mess.

We're at a cross-roads. The mass-culture, industrial-based economy is in recession and inclined to shore up its powers to endure what it sees as a temporary glitch. The newer, information-based economy is still testing and developing its tools that enable more individualized media empowerment.

Larger, more directly powerful municipalities have evolved throughout Ontario in recent decades, and we're now building intra-municipal structures to co-ordinate regional transportation systems, etc. This was to have been accompanied by neighbourhood councils, which has happened, I think, only to a small degree. Such neighbourhood groups are seen as "legitimate" and empowerment by the larger, municipal bodies, when in fact the reverse should be the case. Municipal politicians should be empowered by their neighbourhood constituencies.

To me, the greatest success of democratic capitalism (when it occurs) is that it disperses power, allowing a lot of people to try a lot of different ways of doing a lot of different things. Some work, many may fail but most survive to try again, learning from the success of others. It's called hard work and has to be undertaken by significant numbers of people in their own communities. Success depends more upon broad and diverse educational resources than upon the political skills of a few community "leaders."