Representative Ingroup Democracy
Source
From Terje Bongaard's Medoss proposal
Description
Terje Bongaard:
"The Representative Ingroup Democracy (RID) hypothesis that we propose is based on modern behavioural sciences like game theory, evolved human behaviour, group strategies and how human universal behaviour is struggling to cope with the evolutionary new situation of mega-societies [1, 2]. We predict that the RID model will enable stable and democratic sustainable production, distribution, equality and social security in all human arenas, by giving each individual equal responsibility and influence. The RID framework will be contrasted with other current theoretical frameworks for social choice. We predict that the RID model will enhance legitimacy and interdependencies and regulate the distribution of power and welfare through democratic decision-making processes. By applying and evaluating this scenario, the project aims to investigate the socio-political consequences of climate change, and related changes in the natural environment. It will thus contribute to improved insight into society’s capacity to respond to either radical changes or gradual processes in its decision-making processes.
...
The Representative Ingroup Democracy hypothesis (RID) builds on the cooperative innate human universals, released through social control and ingroup effects by participation in a limited group size on workplaces, schools and institutions. Workers, pensioners, housewives, students, farmers, the unemployed, every individual over the age of 18 will be included in a group of manageable size, called an ingroup (Figure 1.). Ingroups will manage own workplaces. From each group, an elected representative enters the next level of groups, where he/she is presenting the views of the lower ingroup. Openness and mandate are following democratic rules. Not only what, but also where specific decisions are to be taken, will in themselves be democratically decided. We will use the Norwegian society as a model, but given the universality of human behaviour, the results will be applicable to other countries and societies. The RID model is hypothesized to release strategies of cooperation and contribution, as well as to curb egoism and corruption through social control and ingroup effects. Through democratic ownership, we predict that this will enhance legitimacy and interdependencies and regulate the distribution of power and welfare through democratic decision-making processes. Owning other’s workplaces is one freedom lost in this model. We predict that freedom and influence will increase on most other areas, including sustainable production goals. Just distribution and equality is predicted to increase the overall acceptance of lowering consumption for every individual. An important point is the model’s handling of symbolic values, like economic monetary values. The human universal measure of value is related to short term exchange values. Money releases an evolved feeling of Figure 1. The RID model, applied for a society of Norwegian size. Because of the exponential factor, larger nations will only need one more security and content [9]. Consequently, it is extremely difficult to criticise capitalism’s measure of success in terms of the money symbol, because the human mind itself masks the fact that future goods must be produced by Ecosystem Services (ES) and concrete resources present in the future. In case of shortage of resources and the ES they provide, the value of capital, gold, art or any other symbol will disappear. "
Discussion
Sabrina Loren:
"RID model sounds interesting. The way of scaling in levels in particular. This approach is totally compatible with my torus fractal network.
You define capitalism as a result of outgroups and part of the reality. I see capitalism as a result of money and outgroups as a non-natural effect of capitalism.
Darwin said "natural selection" and it doesnt mean "competition". Capitalism is not natural. It is just a human mistake that we have to solve.
You say: "Unfortunately, the global community is now among outgroups, and the cooperation and generosity found among friends and small groups meet with the evolved human strategies of competition.."
I say: "Competition will soon be the past, strategies of competition are not a symbol of evolution (prosperity at least). We are evolving from competition to cooperation. And this is what I want to focus on. On big scale (global) cooperation groups"
You suggest "Game theory" as a good tool. I see "Game theory" good only for competition models. I suggest "group consciousness" as a cooperating tool instead.
You focus on economic, political, social, cultural, ethical and ecology as the problems to solve. All of these are chaotic systems. You will need chaos modeling tools, like fractals, to approach them. And I am sure it is a big big big research.
I, instead, focus on the geometry of the human group connections in order to create a self-organized global structure that can balance according to the needs. My network can addapt to support any human way of working.
I feel you are trying to model a cooperative-competitive present and I am trying to model a cooperative future. You include goverments and money and I think they will dessapear in the future, in my system at least." (via email, June 2015)
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