At its core, a transparent organization is a participatory one. This means there must be clear channels for members to express opinions and add their own expertise.
It also means the organization must be responsive to these at all levels, that it must earn participants’ trust by enacting policy to reflect their feedback.
When this occurs, we have a system of checks and balances in flow, a system with rules defining good practice but also a constant flux of member approval or disapproval.
It’s a rather utopian ideal, but governments have come close to approaching it before. The ancient Greek democracy was grounded in mass participation with debates about policy being held in an open forum. Excluding as it did women and slaves, it did not meet the ideal, but it’s still a compelling basis for action: How far could we take the idea of mass participation in the modern age?
Building this website is an initial step in that direction. We hope it will become one forum where any interested party can participate and tell us what they want to see grow here. In the future we hope to gather in person, to create another space for a meeting (or civil disagreeing) of minds.
The wider dissemination of information will also occur here: meeting agendas and minutes, policy proposals, presentation of revenue streams, the draft of a constitution, all open for commentary.
One criticism of a transparent government is that it rapidly becomes bulky and inefficient, with so many potentially disparate opinions to address. We will try to respond to this issue and base our system on equal representation, on voting early and often, using your own ideas to augment the foundation. We’re all only as strong here as a fair majority opinion!
Taking Over The World