4,000 Years of Democracy

http://www.mapsofwar.com/

Euphoric Purpose is the Aim of Democratic Business

Euphoric purpose is the motivation, beyond profits, that drives people to excellence. The transparency, decentralization, consensus, and participatory ownership that embody democratic business exists to create passionate and engaged workers. According to Steven R. Covey, passionate, engaged people spend 60-80 percent of their time working on non-urgent, important activities (e.g., skill building, planning, relationship building, and thinking). People driven by fear spend most of their time on everything else (e.g., deadlines, interruptions, and distractions). According to Covey, not only do passionate, engaged people spend more time on non-urgent, important activities, but they are consequently more productive, successful, and happy.

If Covey's research is right, then we should ask ourselves, 'How many business owners are willing to free up 80 percent or even 60 percent of their workers' time to focus on the important, but not urgent, activities of the business?' For most people, the thought of doing so inspires visions of chaos, diminished productivity, and lost profits. And yet, A study done by Kenexa Research Institute found that of 4,000 worldwide companies, the top 25 engaged workplaces outperformed the 25 lowest engaged businesses 7-to-1 (based on shareholder return, on a five-year basis). Furthermore, a Gallup study of three million employees, published in 2005, calculated that disengagement costs U.S. businesses $350 billion in annual profits. Gallup found that 71 percent of American employees are either “not engaged” or “actively disengaged” from their work. If you think this is only indicative of lazy workers, read on. The Corporate Executive Board reported in 2010 that high-potential employees are increasingly disengaged and seeking new career opportunities. Some 25 percent plan to leave their current employers in the next year compared to 10 percent in 2006. About one in five (21 percent) identify themselves as 'highly disengaged'--a three-fold increase since 2007. With numbers like these, it is no wonder that shows like "the Office" are so popular.

As demonstrated, passionate and engaging workplaces retain better talent and increase profits. Transparency, decentralization, consensus, and participatory ownership are proven ways to inspire and engage workers. We can fix our economy by implementing these principles into American business. The first step is to realize that numbers do not drive people, but people and relationships drive numbers.
 
(Information taken from http://www.kenexa.com/getattachment/8c36e336-3935-4406-8b7b-777f1afaa57d/The-Impact-of-Employee-Engagement.aspx, http://corporatecranium.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/ActionCoachNovember20101.pdf, http://www.hrmguide.net/usa/commitment/actively_disengaged.htm, and http://www.worldblu.com/live/2005/presentations/Traci%20Fenton.pdf)

(See also, http://www.workplacementalhealth.org/Publications-Surveys/Research-Works/Employee-Engagement-Best-Practices-for-Employers.aspx?FT=.pdf)

Alexis De Tocqueville Attributed America's Prosperity to Local, Participatory Democracy

 Alexis De Tocqueville in Democracy in America attributed America's prosperity and wealth to the experience American's derive from local, participatory democracy:

"Local assemblies of citizens constitute the strength of free nations. Town-meetings are to liberty what primary schools are to science...A nation may establish a system of free government, but without the spirit of municipal institutions it cannot have the spirit of liberty."

"I have no doubt that the democratic institutions of the United States, joined to the physical constitution of the country, are the cause of the prodigious commercial activity of the inhabitants. It is not engendered by the laws, but the people learns how to promote it by the experience derived from legislation."

"In America I met with men who secretly aspired to destroy the democratic institutions of the Union...but I know of no one who does not...place the advantages of local institutions in the foremost rank...The only nations which deny the utility of provincial liberties are those who have fewest of them."

Although our townmeetings are poorly attended and our neighbors are often strangers, there is reason to believe that the Local Spirit has not fled America. The internet has, in many ways, revived our Local Spirit. The 2010 Elections saw the greatest turnover in American congressmen since the Great Depression. Political debate and idealism have returned to our conversation on Facebook and Twitter.

Another example of Local Spirit on the internet is in Egypt, Tunisia, and Iran. Democratic revolutions have been coordinated as a result of Local Spirit through the internet. Moreover, I believe that this is only the beginning. Entrepreneurship, liberty, and solidarity will accelerate in the 21st Century as the Local Spirit of liberty sweeps across the world.

Men Can Govern Themselves without a Master

" I have no fear that the result of our American experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master." -- Thomas Jefferson

I have no fear that the result of the democratic-business experiment  will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master.

From Guevara and Marxism to Morales and Democracy

 In Latin America, the armed revolutionaries of yesteryears have been replaced with the ballot-box revolutionaries of today. The buzz words and icons of Latin America have changed from Marxism and dialectical materialism to solidarity and indigenous rights & from Che Guevara and Fidel Castro to Evo Morales, Lula Da Silva, and Rafael Correa. The democratization of Central and South America, has unified Latinos and is revolutionizing their standard of living.

Read more...http://www.reuters.com/assets/print?aid=USN05433017

U.S. no Longer Part of Top 20 Least Corrupt Nations

For the first time in the index's 15 year history, the United States was removed from Transparency International's Top 20 Least Corrupt Nations. United States' drop in the index (to 7.1 out of 10) was in part due to political funding disputes, the subprime mortgage crisis, and the disclosure of Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme. The Top 20 Least Corrupt Countries include Denmark (1), New Zealand (1), Singapore (1), Finland (4), Sweden (4), Canada (6), Australia (8), Switzerland (8), Iceland (11), Hong Kong (13), Ireland (14), Germany (15), Japan (17), United Kingdom (20). The United States ranked 22nd behind Chile (21).

To see the interactive map click here.

Democratize Public Education

Public schools are suffering from a dearth of good teachers and good curriculums. Extracurricular activities, the arts, physical education programs, and the love of learning are disappearing from public schools. Home schooling, "hybrid" educations, and charter schools are moving to the mainstream. The consolidated control of public schools into bureaucratic structures has stifled education, progress, and creativity. If we are to save the public school system in America, we must deconsolidate and decentralize control down to the local level and involve parents more.

The mass consolidation of public education has occurred alongside the mass consolidation of banking, media, and business in the United States. In 1932, there were 127,531 independent school districts in the U.S., many of them operating a single school. By 1990 there were only 17,995 school districts left. As a result of the 80's and 90's obsession with consolidation, we have suffered the collapse of consolidated banking institutions, the poor reporting of consolidated media, the diminishing quality of our food supply, and the failure of public education.

Deconsolidated and decentralized school districts were the aims of an American education from the founding of this country. Thomas Jefferson proposed "to divide every county into wards of five or six miles square;... to establish in each ward a free school for reading, writing and common arithmetic; to provide for the annual selection of the best subjects (i.e., students) from these schools, who might receive at the public expense a higher degree of education at a district school...for defeating the competition of wealth and birth for public trusts." (Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1813. ME 13:399) Jefferson argued that small school districts were "necessary for better administration of our government, and the eternal preservation of its republican principles." As Jefferson points out, small, school districts uphold the principles of republican democracy; i.e., trust, local ownership, and equality.

Deconsolidation and decentralization give control to parents to make the best decisions for their children. In general, no one looks out for the interests of children better than parents. Data shows that there has been an increase of 74 percent in homeschooling over the past 10 years and much larger increase in "hybrid educated" students. A "hybrid education" means choosing from a menu of educational offerings including online classes and public school courses. In addition, from 1999-2000 to 2007-2008, the number of students enrolled in charter schools, in the United States, more than tripled, from 340,000 to 1.3 million students. This unparalleled rise in homeschooling, charter schools, and "hybrid educations" indicates that parents want to have more choice and greater influence upon the education of their children.

Whether your concern is political, educational, or ethical, deconsolidation and decentralization of public school districts is the answer. We can continue to consolidate power over public schools through programs like "No Child Left Behind" and more recently "The Race to the Top", or we can return to our "republican principles" that have served us so well all of these years. Our decision will determine the success of our children and our country.

(Sources: http://www.battlefortruth.org/ArticlesDetail.asp?id=393&rr=1#resp & http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/39342787/ns/today-parenting/ & http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=30)

The Father of Economics Believed That Employees Should Own the Company

Adam Smith, the father of economics, pointed out in his book The Wealth of Nations,

"The directors of such [joint-stock] companies, however, being the managers rather of other people’s money than of their own, it cannot well be expected, that they should watch over it with the same anxious vigilance with which the partners in a private copartnery frequently watch over their own.... Negligence and profusion, therefore, must always prevail, more or less, in the management of the affairs of such a company."

In other words, when ownership is separated from those who manage the company, the managers will inevitably neglect the interests of the owners, leading to imprudent decision making within the company.

(Taken from http://www.ask.com/wiki/Criticisms_of_Corporations?qsrc=3044)

Why We Need WikiLeaks

Studies Show that Carrot-Stick Incentives Don't Work

The Tree of Liberty Must be Refreshed

Thomas Jefferson said, after Shay's Rebellion,...

“I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions, indeed, generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people, which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions, as not to discourage them too much. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government.”

Ricardo Semler: Revolutionizing the Business Model

Ricardo Semler is a revolutionary in the business world. For centuries we have improved and evolved our government, technology, science, etc., but the structure of businesses has hardly changed at all. All of that changed when Ricardo Semler proved to the world that he could create a democratic business with record profits, record growth, and happy workers.





Favorite quotes:"When you look at your past and my past and anybodies past and say, 'When did I actually learn something' it was when you were very interested at the exact moment and there was somebody who was passionate on the other side--never in any other situation."

Detroit: The Perfect Example

My interest in Detroit peaked after a recent trip by my parents-in-law to the "Motor City" for the 2010 Ford Convention. To them, Detroit was like nothing they had ever seen or could put into words. They told us that no one walks on the streets alone and that you can see the desperation in the faces of everyone you meet. Since then, I have done some research of my own and found that Detroit's devastation and ruination did not begin with the latest economic downturn, but has continued for several decades, and it is not over. 77 parks will be shut down this month and demolition crews are planning to tear down 10,000 residential buildings over the next four years. Yet, the best way I can describe Detroit to you is with the latest TIME magazine pictures of the city's ruins: 

Detroit is the end result of a global economic system where employees have no say in the way their businesses are run. The same employees that built these corporations have been denied a piece of the ownership and thus the wealth that they created. These corporations have uprooted and moved across the planet in search of cheaper labor and lower working, pollution, & corruption standards--taking their pillage with them.

Ironically, only now that these oligarchical coporations have turned their backs on Detroit are real, local solutions being implemented. With the city’s current leadership hypnotized by what they see as a civic death spiral, new leadership is coming from the place it always does in the end–from the bottom up. There are now eight hundred community gardens on abandoned lots, peace zones for public safety, green retrofitting of empty houses, new open source media projects and an exploding hip hop and poetry scene. 500-1000 young people come to Detroit every summer for the Allied Media Conference where they create new ways to use participatory media as a strategy for social justice organizing. From June 22-26, as many as 10,000 people from around the world are convening in Detroit for the US Social Forum to discuss solutions for Detroit and the U.S. that include sustainable urban planning departments, student environmental organizations, food security, renewable energy, green building, new media, and alternative currencies.

The problem that remains is that this progress is likely to be pillaged again by oligarchical corporations. When money returns to Detroit, oligarchical corporations will take root again and the cycle will start over. Until the people of this nation and the world understand that oligarchical corporations within democracies do not yield democracy at all, we will continue this cycle. We must change the organizational structure of the corporation. If all we did was demand employee ownership, decentralized decision making, and financial transparency, we would eliminate the majority of our economic problems.
 
(Information from freespeech.org and boggsblog.org)

Bill Moyers' Last Broadcast

The long-standing PBS anchor, Bill Moyers, signed off yesterday (May 3, 2010) for the last time. During his final address, he spoke of democracy and the state of our union.

Bolivians to Reforest their Country...Without Money

What would happen if every person in the world walked outside and planted one tree? The effect on atmospheric CO2 levels would be greater than any multi-billion dollar, government project. According to TreesAreGood.com, in one year, an acre of trees can absorb as much carbon as is produced by a car driven up to 8700 miles.

This week, Bolivia hosted the World Peoples’ Summit on Climate Change. Among other resolutions, Bolivians decided that on Earth Day 2011, they would each plant one tree in order to reforest the country. Bolivian President Evo Morales, in an interview on 4/23/2010, spoke of the peoples' plan:

In Bolivia, we are going to begin reforestation...We are going to begin to plant them as of next year on April 22 (Earth Day). We will plant ten million trees. What does that mean? That a Bolivian, whether a child or an older person, will plant a plant or a tree--and we are ten million, and there will be ten million--without any international contribution. This would just be an effort by Bolivians to reforest our country.

What would be the effect if every person in the world planted one tree on April 22, 2011? Or two? Or three? Is there a better example of democracy, in the world, than the people of the world solving the problems of the world themselves?

The Most Democratic Workplaces of 2010

WorldBlu is a non-profit organization with the goal to inspire the formation of 20,000 democratic organizations by the year 2020. Each year WorldBlu recognizes, on it's website, the most democratic organizations in the world. Check out this year's achievers!

Union Cab of Madison Is a Democratic Business

I believe that one day, the majority of businesses will be run democratically because the standard business model will struggle to compete.

I'm a Podcaster Now!

I just signed up for Odiogo's (http://www.odiogo.com/) free service that converts your blog posts into podcasts, automatically. Now DemocraticBusiness.blogspot.com is a podcast! Click the "listen now" button in the top left hand corner of this post to listen.

Beyond Borders' Emergeny Efforts in Haiti

Beyond Borders is a democratic organization who's sole purpose has been to assist the people of Haiti--since the late '70s. Beyond Borders has the trust & support of the Haitian people. I can think of no better organization to donate to in order to help the people of Haiti, at this time.

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Fascism= The Marriage of Big Business and Big Government

On January 22, the Supreme Court of the United States decided that any corporation or union from any country in the world can spend as much money as it wants to win in any political campaign. Corporations can now recruit and finance, openly, its own candidates with however much money it is willing to spend. If, for example, Exxon Mobil decides that it will spend one percent of its earnings on it's own candidate, it will have spent more money on a Presidential Campaign than any candidate in history.

If left unchecked, this will be the straw that breaks the back of democracy in the United States. The sadest part is that, once again, the Republicans & Democrats are too busy fighting with one another to see that our country has just been hijacked.