Radical Consultation

The Charter of Neighbourhood Communities
Conference Draft approved by Radcon III Planning Group on 5th August 2006

The small, localised community dates back to the stone-age and is the oldest social unit in the human record. It has been the seedbed of all human progress in culture and civilisation for many centuries.

Within the past 100 years the powers and prerogatives of these communities have been abolished, swept aside, constrained or undermined by the ever increasing powers of central governments.

We declare that this development has resulted in the most destructive, demeaning, degraded and dangerous form of social organisation in all history, the mass society and must be reversed. The evidence of modern experience is overwhelming that the mass society does not deliver because it cannot.

People want peace and they get more and bigger wars;

They want justice and they get unending abuse of their rights;

They want stable jobs and incomes and they get a constant eruption of giant economic upheavals involving loss of jobs and the means of subsistence;

They want a secure social order and they get a constant increase of criminality, drug trafficking, violence, fraud, intimidation and other forms of lawlessness which the police show themselves increasingly incapable of controlling;

They want decent health services and they get a nationally organised one that is ill-managed and constantly skirting bankruptcy as it continues to shrink, whilst demand for it increases;

They want a decent education for their children and they get giant overlarge schools which teach nothing about health, decent food or civic responsibility and produce a giant sub-class of semi-literate, ferally disposed morons who are making urban centres unsafe and no-go areas for the police;

They want honest, democratic government in their local communities and they get an elected local council shorn of any power or responsibility for their governance which are prisoners of centralised national schemes they are powerless effectively to challenge, even in such essentially local matters as education, health and planning.

We need to face up to the truth embedded in Leopold Kohr’s observation ‘If anything is wrong it is because it is too big’.

Today the dangers which have developed from the increasing degree of centralised power and the virtual emasculation of even such local powers as once prevailed (all in the name of democracy), are so imposing that a drastic restructuring of the entire governmental process is now the only realistic prospect of resolving them.

We therefore hereby resolve at the meeting of THE THIRD RADICAL CONSULTATION in September 2006 in Swindon that every community has the right to democratically elect its own governing council with full powers:

1. To assume decision-making power sufficient to ensure that local governance be properly responsive to democratic control.
2. To elect its own representatives to bodies providing household services such as utilities, post, transport and broadcasting.
3. To maintain its own law and order and elect persons to represent it on bodies responsible for law maintenance over wider areas.
4. To maintain and oversee public educational services to ensure adequate provision and prevent outside interference.
5. To maintain and oversee trading of goods and services and, subject to due process, prevent public trading without permission.
6. To establish its own currency and local mints, manage its own banking and credit arrangements and regulate local exchange.
7. To establish its own broadcasting stations and prevent intrusion by outside interests into its private households and public places.
8. To strive to end the abuses inflicted on the environment, on the social process and structure, and on countless individual lives.
9. To strive to enable technology to be used to elevate and ennoble the human spirit compatible with human dignity and well-being.

The Charter of Real Nations
Conference Draft approved by Radcon Planning Group on 5th August 2006

When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Such has been the patient sufferance of many suppressed peoples; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.

To that end we solemnly declare our right and our full intention to establish our own government of our own people exercising all the powers pertaining to an independent, free and democratic nation.

To that end we also declare our right to make such treaties as we deem right. And in the spirit of liberty and democracy we hereby announce our intention to seek membership of the League of Real Nations with the clearly declared support of at least two thirds of the people we represent for both the Charter of Real Nations and for any terms that might be attached to the approval of our application.

We seek full acknowledgement of our rightful status in no spirit of animosity or revenge of our oppressors. We aim to live in peace, friendship and harmony with all nations everywhere and to make our own special contribution to the adventure of civilisation.

We therefore acknowledge the origin of the foregoing in the historic Declaration of Independence of the Founding Fathers of the United States of America and hereby declare at the meeting of THE THIRD RADICAL CONSULTATION in September 2006 in Swindon that The League be established with the following purpose:

1. To defend the political, economic, geographic and cultural integrity of its members especially against the expansionist tendencies of larger nations and federations of larger states.
2. To support human scale groupings such as ethnic groups and bioregions in their struggle for autonomous independence by providing such financial support and diplomatic status as such peoples may need to establish a viable government in exile.
3. To achieve the maximum degree of non-centralised political and economic operation within its own frontiers by the empowerment of village communities whether urban or rural.
4. To reduce global war dangers by refusing to participate in any military, political or economic alliance with bigger nations.
5. To promote the principle of the human scale.
6. To promote the concept of dual nationality so people dwelling in a homeland will bear passports to homeland and nation state.
7. To promote the concept of dual internationality to enable homelands, nations or states to be a member both of the League of Real Nations and of the United Nations Organisation.

Time To Rethink Failed World Trade Agenda by Professor Jane Kelsey

The collapse of the Doha round negotiations at the World Trade Organisation is cause for celebration by poor people and powerless governments around the world. Such a statement is tantamount to heresy in New Zealand. For years we have been fed a diet of simplistic free trade rhetoric – the WTO is about freeing up world agriculture markets, New Zealand's exports depend on agriculture, therefore the Doha round is critical to the country's economic survival.

With the WTO Director General Pascal Lamy expected to announce the indefinite suspension of the Doha round of WTO negotiations formally in Geneva on Thursday, it is time for some more sober and informed reflection on what is really happening in the name of 'trade'.

The Doha round began in the shadow of September 11, 2001. The governments of poorer countries were told by US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick that opposing a new round would be siding with the terrorists. The merger of US economic and foreign policy objectives has become more prominent in the years that followed. That arrogance and belligerence underpinned the US's refusal to move in the back room discussions in Geneva on Sunday that saw the round collapse. It is mirrored by the self-interest of all the other major players who sit at the high table.

But the collapse of the Doha round is not simply because the 'G-6' have failed to strike a deal among themselves. The organisation itself is deeply flawed. The very idea that six of the most powerful exporting states in the world – the US, European Union, India, Brazil, Japan and Australia - should dictate an outcome to the other 144 WTO Members shows how untenable its 'consensus decision making' has become.

More importantly, the WTO's rules are crippling poor people and poor countries. When pressure mounted for a new round of negotiations back in the 1990s, many Third World countries insisted it should revisit novel agreements they had signed in the Uruguay round without understanding the consequences. These included rules on foreign investment, intellectual property and services that allowed transnational companies to strip mine their natural resources and local economies and export the profits.

The major powers never intended to address those concerns. So in 2001 the representatives of poorer countries rejected attempts to name this a 'Doha development round'. Claims to the contrary are a cynical deceit. Whenever poorer countries tried to make the rhetoric match the reality, deadlines passed or transparent buy-offs were tabled. As one negotiator summed up the 'trade of aid' package that was announced in Hong Kong ministerial meeting last year: "First they kill us, then they offer to pay for the funeral".

All sorts of fanciful projections have been quoted to disguise this reality. Yet in December 2005 even the World Bank reduced its projections of the gains from a 'successful' Doha round to $96 billion, less than one-fifth of what it predicted in a now-discredited 2003 report. Rich countries would secure four-fifths of those gains and the largest 'developing countries' most of the rest. A more sophisticated report from the Carnegie Foundation concluded the world's poorest countries would lose under all scenarios. The tragedy is that even the smallest and poorest countries – most recently Tonga – have felt they have no choice but to join the organization on crippling terms. The collapse of the Doha round should strip away the illusion that poverty and gross global inequalities can be fixed by fiddling with free trade rules.

We can expect the New Zealand government to respond to this crisis with a knee jerk response and frenetically seek to negotiate bilateral deals with anyone who will talk to it. That exercise is doomed to similar failure. Already a 'spaghetti bowl' of regional and bilateral agreements is imposing inconsistent and uneven obligations among richer countries, while poorer countries succumb to pressure and sign deals they cannot afford to deliver.

US moves to condition trade concessions in Africa and Latin America on endorsing US foreign policy show the intimate relationship between trade rules and military power in the world today. Our government and other champions of free trade should treat the crisis now confronting the WTO as an overdue opportunity to rethink their flawed model of international trade rules and address the real questions of global poverty, inequality and war.

Thursday, 27 July 2006, 3:32 pm
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0607/S00424.htm

Secession and Economic Regionalism by Thomas H. Greco, Jr.

A paper prepared for radcon III in September 2006and based upon an outline proposal made in June 2006 to the Second Vermont Republic, the Vermont Commons.

Thomas H. Greco, Jr. is a community and monetary economist, educator, writer, consultant, and former tenured college teacher who for more than 30 years has been working at the leading edge of transformational restructuring. His special interest is monetary and financial innovation. Among other books and articles, he is the author of, Money: Understanding and Creating Alternatives to Legal Tender (Chelsea Green Publishing Company, 2001). He can be reached via his website www.reinventingmoney.com, which contains a large volume of text and visual material related to these topics.

As imperial initiatives increasingly misfire and democratic institutions corrode in the face of centralized power and concentrated wealth, there is increasing talk of secession. But what is the point of secession if not to gain a greater measure of independence, self-determination, and community wellbeing, and to escape the debilitating effects of parasitic relationships with central government? That was the reason why the American colonies sought independence from the British Empire and that is the reason why latter day domestic colonies seek independence from the American Empire. It is in the nature of empires to dominate and exploit, and they are inclined to cling tenaciously to whichever hosts they have been able to conquer.

While it is true that artificial nation states are, in various places, disintegrating, the political approach to local and regional self-determination is, in my view, both futile and suicidal, particularly in America. A bloody war was fought during the nineteenth century in order to prevent the southern states from separating from the union. Barring a state of chaos induced by such as an unimaginable natural disaster or a global financial meltdown, why should anyone expect that it would be any different today?

But it does not require direct political confrontation to achieve the goals of regional independence and self-determination. There is another approach that is both peaceful and more likely to succeed. What is required is a deep understanding of the economic and financial mechanisms by which elites are able to dominate from the center. Once it is understood how empire manages to maintain its hold, it becomes possible to disengage in meaningful ways. The keystone in the arch of centralized power, the main element that enables the few to concentrate power and wealth at the expense of the many, is control of the exchange process through the present regime of money and banking.

I propose that groups like the Second Vermont Republic that seek to promote greater degrees of regional autonomy, community solidarity, and healthy local economies should make it a priority to organize a Regional Mutual Credit Clearing Association. That, more than anything else, has the potential to provide a large measure of regional autonomy and to stimulate regional economic, social, and political resurgence. As that association develops and grows it will provide the region with the strength and vitality that is necessary to resist domination by the center, and will provide a large measure of immunity from the national and global monetary and financial turbulence that threatens to intensify in the future. The Vermont association might be called VeRTEx, for “Vermont Regional Trade Exchange.”

The possibilities inherent in such a plan should not be judged by past experience with exchange alternatives. Just as a Boeing 747 bears little resemblance to the Wright Brothers’ Flyer, so too will VeRTEx be quite unlike any LETSystem or community currency with which people are familiar. VeRTEx will be engineered and built to carry heavy economic loads within the local bioregion. This will be a multi-phase project.

Phase I

The first phase would look to be quite conventional. It would begin by organizing solidarity groups that include ALL sectors of the constituent communities, particularly the locally owned and controlled businesses, municipal governments, the non-profit sector, and social entrepreneurs and activists. Out of this must come a general willingness to do the hard work necessary to move together toward regional economic self-sufficiency. The first major project would be the launching of a “buy-local” campaign in which the economic bases and business relationships within the region are clearly mapped. The administrative office would then assist businesses in finding local sources for the things they buy and local customers for the things they sell.

Phase II

But unlike conventional buy-local initiatives, this project would soon implement the second phase, which would be to provide an alternative means of payment – mutual credit clearing. Working capital in the form of conventional money is always scarce and expensive for most businesses. Mutual credit clearing is an extension of the common business practice of selling on “open account,” but it is done on a more organized multi-lateral basis, which has the effect of sharing the risks and enabling a participant’s sales to pay for his/her purchases without the use of any third-party credit instrument (like conventional money).

As a member of a mutual credit clearing exchange, a business can have an interest-free line of credit, it will be able to acquire the things it needs without the use of cash, and, because it accepts payment in the form of exchange credit, will be a preferred source for others who are members of the exchange. In the credit clearing process, a member’s sales pay directly for its purchases.

In allocating lines of credit, it is important, especially in the beginning, to allocate the greatest share to “trusted issuers,” i.e., those that have the largest sales volume and whose products and services are in greatest demand within the local region. This is the key to maintaining a rapid circulation of credit through the system. The value and usefulness of the system credits must be beyond doubt.

Like any network, this clearing system will become more valuable and useful as it continues to expand. The first fax machine was very expensive but useless. As more fax machines were deployed and connected, the fax became more valuable to ALL users. The same will happen with clearing networks, but it is essential that a network be properly designed and operated from the very start.

Phase III

The third phase of the program is the joint issuance by the members of the clearing association of credits into the general community. This is done by the association members buying goods and services from non-members using some form of uniform credit instrument, which all association members are obligated to redeem, not for cash, but for the goods and services that are their normal stock in trade. Now there is a sound regional currency based on the productive capacity of the region’s leading enterprises that can circulate among any and all. The availability of such currency to supplement the flow of official money insulates but does not isolate the local economy. Just as a sea wall protects a small boat harbor from the turbulence of the open sea, a sound regional currency provides a measure of protection from the turbulence of the global economy and from the machinations of the financial and monetary regime that is operated to serve some else’s agenda.

The externalization of credits from the clearing association can be achieved using any of several available devices. They may take the form of paper notes, coupons, or certificates or they might be placed on stored value cards, like the gift cards that are so common and popular these days, or they could manifest as credits in accounts that reside on a central server that would be accessed by use of a debit card.

Phase IV and Beyond

As the effectiveness of this general approach becomes manifest, additional refinements and adjuncts will suggest themselves and be added in later phases. One eventual necessity will be the definition and use of an independent value measure and unit of account. Credit units originally defined as being equivalent to the dominant political currency unit, like dollars, pounds, yen, etc., will shift over to a value unit that will not suffer the inflationary effects of mismanaged national currencies.

The remaining design details and implementation strategies need not be described here. Suffice it to say that all of the necessary science is well established and all of the major system components are readily available. With a modest amount of funding, such a system could be quickly launched and will reach critical mass within a short period of time. But each such initiative needs a local champion who is passionate about the project and willing to dedicate themselves to its implementation and success.

July 14, 2006

Sir Halford Mackinder was a geographer at the London School of Economics in 1906 when he wrote a short book entitled Democratic Ideals and Reality published after the Kaiser War in 1919. MacKinder was guaranteed a bad 20th century press once Hitler’s Nazis latched on to his ideas and set off on their quest for Lebensraum by way of MacKinder’s Heartland. MacKinder’s thinking is first-rate but like everyone else last century he failed to anticipate the Reverse Colonialism that crept up on the old imperial powers at the end of the 20th century...something that fails to fit with any Nazi or Zionist chosen race theories. India provides a good example of the new world we inhabit.

Two thirds of India’s population of 1100 million live in 638365 villages...some very remote and without water or electricity. Yet at the same time there are 25 million Indians living around the world in the Indian Diaspora. Two million of them live in this country. Hundreds of them are millionaires and a couple are billionaires. India has eighteen official languages and 1600 regional dialects but fifty million Indians speak English and this is likely to rise to seventy million quite soon...overtaking the English-speaking population of these European offshore islands.

In cricket test matches one of the questions asked is whether Our Indians...like Monty Panesar...are better than Their Indians. Heathrow to Bombay is looked upon as domestic travel by many Indians...and there are suggestions that if Shakespeare were alive today he would be writing Bollywood scripts. There are successful Indian populations all over the world...in America, South Africa, the Middle East, the Caribbean...tied together by family links, mobile phones, the internet, Bollywood, cricket and travel. But the capital of this Greater India is London not Delhi.

Statecraft needs new words to deal with this new world...or wordsmiths to breathe new meanings into old words. We should start with the word State. Any group can get together and call themselves a State. Historically the word has been reserved for City States like Firenze, Bruges, Hamburg or the City of London...a state within a state if ever there was one. People with shared interests preferred to see themselves as Tribes where there were blood ties...or as Guilds and Livery Companies where bonding took some other form like shared work skills or common trading interests.

It is ironic that in 1776 a group of Freedom Fighters...they would be called Terrorists or Insurgents nowadays...in the thirteen breakaway English colonies of Virginia, New England and the Carolinas were the first to register as the United States. When the League of Nations collapsed in the 1930s the only collective name available was the United Nations. But this is not a good name for a league of states bound by a treaty of confederation ruled by a Gang of Gun Runners. China along with the other four permanent members of the UN Security Council...America, Britain, France and Russia...top the league of Global Armaments Manufacturers...and Killingry Exporters.

Outsiders arrive in our towns and villages in several guises. Commercial Outsiders like Tescos are the most obvious Outside Interests threatening a small town. But Administrative Outsiders like District Councils also pose a grave threat to a locality because of their presumptuous claims to rule over the people who live in small Town States within the geographic area of their administrative jurisdiction. However there is also a third category who we can call Personal Outsiders who come to the nicer small town in pursuit of their own selfish interests. Perhaps the most obvious sub-group in this category are the Second Home Owners.

George Bernard Shaw...a key contributor to The Fabian Papers in 1884...always insisted that Socialism is Equal Money. For Shaw dividing the Economic World into a Public and Private sector was a rhetorical device that obscured reality. Shaw understood that the Man on the Clapham Omnibus had his own meagre supply of Personal Possessions and was regularly being ripped off by the rich and powerful with their Private Property and the One Pound One Vote theology with which they sought to legitimise this wide scale theft of the Commons by enclosures, clearances and other legal trickery. Shaw called this third category of property Common Wealth.

The Common Wealth of a particular group of people might relate to a particular place and could be looked after by people in some other place. But this is only a weak tendency. The largest Hedge Fund in the world is run by a civil servant from a small office in Oslo. The Norwegian Government set up a savings fund so that the descendants of today’s two million Norwegians could enjoy the fruits of the natural mineral resources being extracted from the Norwegian North Sea. The Scots could have done the same had they focussed their considerable political skills on breaking away from their union with England...as Vermont is intent on seceding from the other American states.

But instead the Scots have allowed themselves to be deluded into believing that a few million feuding Catholics and Presbyterians from north of the border could wield long-term power over England’s 44 million Elizabethan Subjects by means of a decade of ineffectual and unprincipled rule from Labour Party headquarters in Glasgow and Dundee. The Indians are taking a different route by becoming an economic superpower. As a white middle-class Englishman I have little doubt which side my bread is buttered.

RADCON III
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Human life has reached
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