Dear Luke — and Ezio, Victor, and All,

This is an important and timely initiative. One of the several great issue of our times is whether democracy can survive. This is not the only great issue of our times, but it seems to me that the fate of democracy is one among the several issues that relates to the others.

This issue has been on my mind for years. I don’t say this from a design perspective. The call from Ezio and Victor launches an initiative from the design perspective. My perspective has been that of a citizen and resident of several democracies. 

A few years ago, Eric X. Li wrote an op-ed piece in the New York Times questioning the assumption that democracies serve human needs as the best model. While I don’t agree with him in all respects, he offers salient points, and relatively few of us consider these issues in the long term of history.   

Li points out that the first great experiment in democracy in ancient Greece lasted little longer than a century and a half. Democracy in the modern West is the second such experiment. Our current version of democracy as a system in which each citizen has one vote is less than a century old. Our experiment today faces great challenges. Nobel Laureate Michael Spence notes a shift in the way we understand the political structure of the great Western democracies, from  “one propertied man, one vote; to one man, one vote; to one person, one vote; trending to one dollar, one vote.”

You can read Li’s viewpoint in the New York Times archives:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/16/opinion/why-chinas-political-model-is-superior.html

While respecting the multiplicity of systems, I nevertheless agree with Luke on the virtues and benefits of democracy. 

At the end of the twentieth century, the philosopher Richard Rorty (1998) gave a series of lectures published in a book titled Achieving Our Country. We can speak of the larger global challenge we face as achieving democracy. Rorty speaks of a tradition of what he calls “democratic intellectual labor.” Rorty takes Walt Whitman and John Dewey as exemplars. 

There is a long tradition of political scientists, political economists, and philosophers who have focused on different aspects of these issues. These include Mary Parker Follett, Michael Polanyi, and Amartya Sen, to name only three of the great twentieth-century thinkers from whose work we can still learn. 

One useful thinker is Nobel Laureate Elinor Ostrom. Her 1990 book on Governing the Commons shows ways forward. We face serious challenges in adopting these principles on a large scale. What works in a 16th century Swiss village doesn’t work in a world of seven billion people. 

Consider, for example, the simple and sensible proposal to “ensure that those affected by the rules can participate in modifying the rules.” How can we do this in a world where several billion people cannot read, while others can’t get access to communications — and where many of these billions live in such extreme poverty that they lack access to clean water or steady food. 

I have a nice summary of Ostrom’s 8 Principles for Managing a Commons:

1. Define clear group boundaries.
2. Match rules governing use of common goods to local needs and conditions.
3. Ensure that those affected by the rules can participate in modifying the rules.
4. Make sure the rule-making rights of community members are respected by outside authorities.
5. Develop a system, carried out by community members, for monitoring members’ behavior.
6. Use graduated sanctions for rule violators.
7. Provide accessible, low-cost means for dispute resolution.
8. Build responsibility for governing the common resource in nested tiers from the lowest level up to the entire interconnected system. 

To see more, read Ostrom’s (1990) book.

There is more, but one interesting aspect of Ostrom’s approach is that it is a large-scale design approach. Nevertheless, there are many steps from proposing this world to achieving it. 

I appreciate Ezio and Victor’s initiative. I’ve got to think carefully before attempting to write my 500 words. As in so many areas where designers struggle with complex issues in a social setting, it is one thing to aspire — another to develop the knowledge, information, and skills we require for effective action.

Ken Friedman    

References

Li, Eric X. 2012. Why China’s Political Model Is Superior. The New York Times, February
16. URL
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/16/opinion/why-chinas-political-model-is-superior.html
Accessed 2017 May 20

Ostrom, Elinor. 1990. Governing the Commons. The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Rorty, Richard. 1998. Achieving Our Country. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.


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