We have an ongoing series of articles on substack about panocracy which explain some of the motivations, questions and issues with it.
If you want to dig deeper, here's what's on substack so far:
Panocracy is a political system in which power is divided equally between all the stakeholders, a sort of political cooperative.
The objective of government ought to be the prosperity, well-being and happiness of the citizenry but it's been an eye-opener over the past few decades in general and the past couple of years in particular to see how such noble aims can be perverted by ambition, wilful blindness and plain old incompetence.
Last time, I promised a first cut at the way a panocracy might work and this is it. It's a deliberately over-simplified picture to get us on the road.
The agenda is the series of laws and regulations on which the panocracy will be asked to vote.
Panocracy isn't an ideology; it's a system for getting good outcomes.
Panocracy is founded in optimism. We believe in unleashing people's creativity; in bringing meaning back into their lives; in releasing them from their despair.
To understand what has happened to our own institutions over the past few decades and how they might have been different under a panocracy, we need to understand what an institution is.
“The ghastly thing about postal strikes is that after they are over, the service returns to normal.”
What we are saying in these posts is that our current system of government is no longer fit for purpose. The delusion and corruption in political circles cannot be reversed. The swamp cannot be drained.
Our objective is a State that is entirely administrative in its day to day operation.
This time we're going to look briefly another scare story to afflict our culture – Global Warming.
Panocracy is about running our affairs using the wisdom of the many, not the hubris of the few.
Our interests are only represented on the rare occasions when they coincide with those of the elite.
Health Care? No prizes for guessing that a Panocracy would have protected us far better.
“You are to a politician what a dollar bill is to a banker”
Despite claims to the contrary, the credentialed classes don't believe in democracy - or populism as they term it.
This time we're going to have a brief glance at another bogeyman lurking in the bright light of day – the so-called Great Reset.
Totalitarianism is not dictatorship or fascism as many seem to think. It's characterised by a master/servant relationship in which both parties devoutly believe in a particular ideology - the masters more than the servants.
A reminder that the panocracy we are talking about here doesn't require the election of people but it does require the election of laws and regulations and you, dear reader, are encouraged to take part.
Government is borne of the belief that human society needs direction. Where that direction comes from is the big question and it's a question has become mired in sophistry and disguised by phony gravitas.
This time we're looking at one of the oldest professions, the military, and how it sits with panocratic principles.
There are many threads to this: the first is that CO2, everyone's favourite greenhouse gas, is actually a bit of an imposter.
It's arguably the job of the police to act as ‘society's conscience’: to set us straight when we stray into behaviour that hurts others and which might if unchecked lead to a societal breakdown.
If we're to find a suitable replacement for the failing system of government often misdescribed as representational democracy then we need to look at what has been tried so far and what has not.
This time we're examining the tendency of people to 'follow the crowd', how it plays into the hands of tyrants, demagogues and technocrats - and how Panocracy will defend against that happening.
Panocracy is the kind of democracy which puts the ordinary person in control of decisions that affect their lives. This is not what we have at the moment.
The sun is setting on our current democracies and we're going to have to find something to replace them. Whether that's good or bad is entirely up to us.
The societies we have just now allow those in power to propagandise and dissemble in the pursuit of their own fetishes: it doesn't matter whether their bete-noir is capitalism, anti-semitism, communism, Covid19 or climate change. It's always the same: we find ourselves herded into hasty actions that we're going to have to pay for
As with all religious and quasi-religious institutions, public health has its high priests and each country has its own health supremo, archbishops, bishops, lay preachers and laity who are more or less committed to the cause. Thus the holy health emperor can pronounce upon elements of faith and be confident that his underlings and footsoldiers will do the right thing.
The Great American Dream is that someone who can raise himself from zero to Nero is a genius and the tacit assumption that follows is that he can therefore be trusted to do the best thing on every issue.
It has always been the case that governments and their acolytes have resorted to dirty tricks to get their own way. Our predecessors were used to it, we expect it, and as long as we have our current systems of government it will not go away.
The past 3 years have shown us quite clearly that any freedom we think we have can be removed with relative ease. Like tail fins on cars, our basic freedoms went out of style too.
An administrative system like our Panocracy has to be robust against takeover by daft ideologies and the formation of cults – as this happens regularly in human societies and causes us all untold damage.
When they've run out of other species to annihilate, humans sometimes turn their attention on each other. They have specialised workers for this very task - known as politicians – who set other humans against each other and keep nudging them until they're so fired up they'll go to war.
Unlike most western countries, Switzerland’s debt-to-GDP ratio has been falling for the last two decades. Ever since it enshrined the idea of a debt brake into its constitution in a 2002 national referendum.
Our panocracy is a free market of ideas and policies where individuals decide for themselves whether to participate, what to sell, what to buy and how much to pay. Not a rigged market in which dissembling demagogues determine what and whom is bought and sold and at what price.
Panocracy welcomes left- and right-wingers, Christians and Moslems, Black Lives Matterers and Ku Klux Klanners and invites them to joust in the lists that are the RFCs. Panocracy itself is unflinchingly, politically and religiously neutral.
How can we make the institutions and agencies in our panocracy and their leaders feel safe and secure in their own futures so that they don't feel the need to act ultra vires and waste their time and our money?
The free market is a powerful creator of economic wealth but it has no interest in those who don't wish to partake. This is not because capitalism is evil or wicked, it's simply that Christian ethics and capitalism are independent of each other and complementary. The free market is amoral, not immoral.
Here at Panocracy HQ, we have a big vision. It's called democracy and our proposal is to replace the current failed representational version with a Panocracy in which everyone represents their own interests.
A note from a friend made me realise that some of what I've said about the workings of panocracy so far hasn't been as clear as I'd hoped so I hope to address this here.
Convenience is the driver of modern decision making. We choose in life what we believe will make our lives easier.
In the positive, pro-humanist spirit of panocracy I wanted to concentrate on how we might give all the 8bn good folks currently on our little blue dot the means to live the good life.