In a message dated 2000/08/23 03:42:38 AM:
>John Cowan wrote:
>> As Winston Churchill said.
>
Nik Tailor wrote:
>None that we know of, at any rate. I've often felt that there MUST be a
>better way to choose leaders than what is essentially a popularity
>contest.
I kinda like - for instance - the Borneo Iban (ex-headhunters) habit of
choosing the best suited person or persons for various social functions. It
kinda appeals to my Taoist and Anarchist sensibilities to see a society run
from the bottom up (rather than top down) and that the choosing process tends
to be by consensus (rather than majority rule... in another words, the whole
tribe discusses the issues/people at hand and talk things through till all
are agreed).
Another example that is closer to our society were the Anarchist
cooperatives in Spain before and during the Spanish Civil War. The Fascists
specifically targeted the cooperatives for total liquidation partly because
of their politics and partly because some - not all - were highly successful
(esp'ly the cooperatives in and around Barcelona). It seems like this sort of
political theory and history has been purposely relegated to footnotes in
books if mentioned at all...
Another example in our times is the Village Movement in India... a
grass-roots movement that seems to be much like a direct heritage of Gandhi
and sorta like an Indianized Green Party ... whole areas of villages have
been cooperating together without government aid or interference... villages
which in decades past were impoverished & dependent on the government.
czHANg