The Earth Holocracy Proposal’s advocated method for building the new decentralized political system of ‘real global democracy’ is up for discussion, honing and revision in the Vital Conversation: Building the New Decentralized System of Participatory Democracy From the Grassroots. Clearly, the process of establishing a new, decentralized, genuine ‘Public Service Body’ (as advocated) will naturally involve generating a new Map of the World – a map which authentically represents the world’s peoples, a map which is created upon the basis of peoples’ clear collective identity, the decision of local people, and a collective commitment to justice.
Determination of the jurisdictional territory of a Local and/or Regional Community is a decision founded upon historical, geographical and practical considerations. PROUT, the socio-politico-economic theory which greatly informs the Earth Holocracy Proposal’s strategy for economic decentralisation and territorial sovereignty, suggests:
PROUTIST WRITERS GROUP – NEW YORK SECTOR:
In order to accomplish decentralisation, PROUT seeks to formulate ‘units of economic self-sufficiency’, or socio-economic units. The formation of such a unit would be the decision of local people. Such a decision would be based upon such factors as common economic and social problems, common geographic potentialities and problems, common cultural legacy and language etc. Cultural and ethnic factors are quite relative, and they may or may not be helpful in establishing economic divisions. More to the point is that there should be a sentiment for cooperation among the local people to meet the common goal of economic self-reliance. Local people are those who have merged their economic interests in a particular region. Anyone may settle in any socio-economic unit. Current political bodies (countries, federations, states, etc.) may contain one or several socio-economic units.
For planning purposes, each socio-economic unit is further divided into ‘blocks’, based upon economic, geographic and population considerations. The goal of a decentralized economy is to make each block self-reliant.
The Proutist Writers Group Of New York Sector, The Progressive Utilization Theory: A Comprehensive Guide to the Study of PROUT, Chapter Three
THE SPANISH MOVEMENT FOR DEMOCRACY – ‘CHARTER FOR DEMOCRACY’:
This charter invites discussion for a new territorial agreement at all levels, based on a radically democratic model. It is based on the assumption that decisions about the management of resources and services should be developed at the minimum level of the territorial unit, and forms of the distribution of wealth must be organized within the larger Commons to ensure equity between the territories.
The new territorial agreement model shall be the result of democratic consultation and cooperation among the various territorial units. It should acknowledge the widest possible plurality, and build itself up from its residents’ right to democratically decide on their belonging or not to the different territorial units.
The management of resources and services as well as decisions on matters of public interest must be reduced to the minimum territorial unit in which it is most accessible to those residents responsible for such management or decisions. All services that can be better managed at smaller territorial scales will be managed at this level.
Financial autonomy and sufficiency: Each territorial unit must have an appropriate budget for the provision of those services for which it is responsible. This budget will be autonomously administered by the democratically managed citizen organisms established for this purpose. Moreover, this budget will not only be guaranteed by its binding resources, but additionally by territorial compensation mechanisms established at different territorial scales. Autonomy in the management of said budget does not exempt those territorial units from the provision of certain services and fiscal obligations to the supra-territorial treasury.
Spanish Movement for Democracy, 2014, ‘A Charter for Democracy’
Translated by Jaron Rowan, Jaime Palomera, Lucía Lara, Lotta, Diego and Stacco Troncoso, edited by Jane Loes Lipton, www.MovimientoDemocracia.net
Traditional Indigenous Territorial Boundaries
The world’s largest minority – the Indigenous Peoples of the world – are often represented, as minorities of the entire population now living within the area of their peoples’ traditional lands and territories. An authentic democratization of society must involve genuine measures to honor the rights of Indigenous Peoples, while the endeavor to meet the sustainability challenge – implementing ‘best-practice’, locally-tuned solutions – will naturally look to the time-tested knowledge of locals, and ‘the quintessential locals’, the Indigenous Peoples. The Earth Holocracy Proposal stands side by side its proposed “Local Community Declaration of Rights” and its Local Community’s “Declaration on the Rights of the Local Indigenous People“. The Indigenous People’s contribution to the process of newly defining the borders (and jurisdiction) of Local Communities will, no doubt, prove valuable to facilitating meaningful (and practical) dialogue and resolution… as the map created by millennia of empire-building will not suffice at this time:
As Local and Regional Communities stand together as unique, Self-Defined Peoples claiming and exercising their rights and obligations to care for the long-term well-being of their Communities, and to act as the rightful and sovereign beneficiaries and stewards of their own local and regional natural environments, an authentic World Map will automatically take shape.
Displacement: A Knotty Issue
The displacement of so many of the world’s peoples due to relentless, unconscionable empire-building, is an issue that will have to be addressed for this process to have credibility – focusing upon the Right of Return for the refugee and the displaced; the Rights of Indigenous Peoples; and the challenge of ‘righting’ the historical processes so that each person and each People may again have their right relationship with the earth, their sense of ‘home’, their community, and their cultural roots in the unique history, language, beliefs, customs, material culture, knowledge, practices and ways that are the legacy of their ancestry.
Clearly, these issues must be addressed as effectively as possible and as soon as possible.
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