The interplay between political, economic and social interests will function differently in Council Democracy than how they function in Parliamentary Democracy. This is made possible because of how the electoral process was designed when it was originally discussed in The Work-Standard (2^nd Ed.) and later in The Third Place (1^st Ed.). Political parties in this context become Factions speaking on behalf of the various interests which comprise segments of the Totality.

The Political Governance of Council Democracy

Within any given local jurisdiction, the Council of Municipal Government consist of “Municipal Civil Chambers” and “Economic Chambers.” Delegates of Civil Chambers are from the Offices and Departments of Municipal Government, the Delegates of Economic Chambers from the Guilds and Enterprises of the Municipal Economy. Both Chambers must work together to decide who among them shall become the “Municipal Councilors” that not only preside over the entire Council, but also will choose both their Mayor and the Municipal Government’s “Regional Delegate” to the Regional Government.  

The same process repeats at the Regional Government. “Regional Civil Chambers” and “Regional Economic Chambers” choose their Regional Councilors to elect their Governors and State Delegates.  At the State Council of the Central Government, State Delegates of the “General Economic Chambers” and “General Civil Chambers” choose who among them will become the “State Councilors” and “State-Electors,” the latter of whom is responsible for choosing the next Head of State. The Head of State in turn will appoint their Head of Government and State Ministers with the approval of the State Council.   

The Council State’s Head of State and Head of Government here are the “State President” and the “State Chancellor.” The State President’s Cabinet, the “Council of Ministers,” consists of the Ministers who preside over their respective Ministries within the Council State. The State President and State Chancellor shall both serve no more than two consecutive terms of five years.

The Social Rank of Guilds and Enterprises will affect the size and composition of the Economic Chambers. Generally, the Economic Chambers among the Councils of the Municipal Governments are going to be larger than the one found at the State Council. The size and composition are to be correlated by the Quality of Arbeit contributed by each and every Enterprise.

Note that the Delegates from the Social Forums of the National Intranet and the Student Councils of the SSE maintain their own seats inside the Civil Chambers of the Municipal, Regional and Central governments. This is because the Social Forums, like the Student Government, are accountable to the Council State for ensuring that the Legal Code and the Constitution will be upheld on the National Intranet. The SSE, meanwhile, is self-explanatory in the context of The Third Place (1st Ed.) insofar as the Student Government is split between State Functionaries from the Ministry of Education and the Youth Leaders among the Student Body.

Under the Work-Standard, the Council State is governed by a ruling party, the “People’s Party,” leading the nation alongside the other parties in its “United Front.” The political parties of the United Front, including the People’s Party, will try to gain the support of the Totality. Gaining the support of the Totality is correlated by the number of Delegates and Councilors affiliated with any of the political parties within the United Front. If the Totality thinks the People’s Party ruling the Council State is failing to uphold its own Constitutional Intents and Constitutional Obligations, they will recall their Delegates, replacing them with new Delegates from the other parties within the United Front. If the People’s Party loses the majority among the State Delegates, they will no longer choose the next State Chancellor. If the People’s Party loses the majority among the State Councilors, they will no longer choose the next State President.     

As I had discovered over the course of writing The Work-Standard (2^nd Ed.) and The Third Place (1^st Ed.), no matter how I articulate the hierarchical command structure, the functions of Council Democracy remain constant. The exact details on how the Council State will be organized, including whether the State Council will be bicameral or unicameral, is dependent on the nation ultimately adopting the Work-Standard. What will always be certain is that everyone’s choices do matter, and they go beyond the simple act of voting. The United Front exists within the Council State because the political forces of the Totality have united themselves around a fundamental set of common interests commensurate with the National Interest, the shared interests of the Totality and the State as the Nation. Such thinking is only possible because everyone, regardless of their Ideology, draws their perspectives from the same Weltanschauung. The Freedom of Conscience is to be upheld for those who also dissent from within the framework of that Weltanschauung.   

The Totality’s ability to choose their Delegates and Councilors will determine who governs the Councils and their various Chambers, from the Municipal Government to the Regional and Central Governments. Given the People’s Party and its United Front, Factionalism will emerge among the Factions and it is important for the Head of State, the State President, to prevent those Factions from disrupting the Central Government. Similar pressures will also be imposed on the “Governor” and the “Mayor” of the Regional and Municipal Governments respectively, even though theirs will be much less intense compared to those of the State President.

As one might surmise from this expanded description of Council Democracy, political power emanates from the bottom and becomes concentrated at the top. The purpose of this Entry will be to outline a set of procedures on how to address the issue of Factionalism under Council Democracy.

Dealing with Factionalism in Council Democracy

Factions arise when a minority segment of the State, the Totality or both dissents from the rest of the nation. It is important to realize that, because the State is governed by the Totality, the Totality is hardly monolithic. There are various political, economic, social, and organizational interests that intend to ensure that their voices will be heard and that their concerns will be met in the Council Democratic process. Factions may coalesce around specific personalities or policies that may not necessarily be upheld by the rest of the Totality. Consider the following situations that are relevant to Scenario 1999:

• Multiple State Enterprises are competing with each other to have their NSFIs, namely Fiefs and Work-Plans, be issued by the Kontore and given greater attention by the Student Body of the SSE. A growing share of young people within the SSE have developed an interest in taking their Vocations to those State Enterprises, but there is only so much Zeit in the workweek to devote Life-Energy toward those NSFIs.   
• The Transportation Ministry is interested in expanding the railways of a large town several kilometers outside the capital, but there are protestations from local residents that the proposal will result in them losing their Households as the proposed rail track runs through them.
• Religious leaders, Youth Leaders, Cooperatives and Small Businesses have vested stakes in the historical legacy of abandoned cathedral. The cathedral fell into disrepair decades ago and there is now renewed interest in renovating and restoring it among the priesthood. Youth Leaders of the SSE, meanwhile, insist on razing the cathedral in favor of building a new Shopping Citadel. Small Business Guilds offer an alternate proposal of building a recreational park.
• The Navy is interested in procuring the blueprints for a new class of amphibious warships, but the funding that could have gone toward production within the Defense Ministry has instead gone toward the Air Force’s interest in expanding its fleet of close air support warplanes.
• Administrators and Civil Servants from Social Enterprises in the Manufacturing Sector are bickering with each other over whether their Quality of Arbeit should be altered by the State Commissariats. The Civil Servants claim that because of the increased transactional sales for the finished products, the Prices for them should increase. The Administrators disagree, insisting that the Prices should remain unchanged because the Frequency of transactional sales will gradually decrease in the coming weeks.
• In the State Council, a policy debate is unfolding among the affiliated parties of the United Front. Some are divided over aligning with the Soviet Union or aligning with the People’s Republic of China as the Sino-Soviet Split shows no signs of ending. The Foreign Ministry is in the process of two drafting a bilateral Real Trade Agreement with the Intent of presenting it to the State Council. Both drafts involve the importation of new sport cars, except one draft proposes Soviet imports and the other preferring Chinese imports. A group of State Delegates have submitted a counterproposal: a proposal to import Germanic sport cars from the German Reich’s Automotive Industry.

In each of those examples, there is some issue that compels entire groups within the State or the Totality to coalesce around Factions with their own proposals, interests, and concerns. The issue gets raised in the Council Democratic process, people discuss the nature of the topic in question, provide a number of options and proposals, and begin weighing the benefits of choosing one option over another. Even here, the Totality and the State are both expecting the decisions from the Head of State to be favorable to them. At the same time, everyone is also expecting the Head of Government to act in everyone’s interests insofar as these constellations of seemingly different factional interests constitute the entirety of the National Interest.

Under these conditions, the Head of State must reserve whatever judgments they may have toward the various Factions in the United Front, the rest of the State and the Totality at large. Whatever decision they make must always be in the interests of both the Totality and the State. Sometimes, there are decisions where it is a simple matter of supporting or opposing something. But most policy issues in Council Democracy are not always going to be that straightforward. There will oftentimes be policy issues whose responses, whatever they may be, are so broad in their implications that making any decision will be interpreted by everyone as indirectly siding with a particular Faction and opposing another. Unfortunately, the Head of State shall not dwell on any given issue forever. At some point, they must make their decision and stick to that decision until the outcomes have been made apparent by Totality and State.

For an “energetic executive” to be considered “apolitical,” the Head of State has to realize that the proposals of the same Faction may not always be the best choice from hindsight. What is said about the State President, the Head of State, is also true for the Governors and Mayors of the Regional and Municipal Governments. Think back to those situations mentioned earlier.

• Should State Enterprises be discouraged to find out that not all young people find their Vocations residing at their workplaces? Would it make more sense for them to attract Investors from outside the SSE?
• Should the Transportation Ministry go ahead with its decision to expand the rail track? Is that the only way this could be achieved? Could there be some other option which has not yet been made apparent to both the Transportation Ministry and the local residents?   
• Should the abandoned cathedral be renovated and restored or should it be replaced by an entirely new and different building altogether? Would something be lost from its demolishment and subsequent replacement? How does any of the given options stand to benefit the Totality and the State?
• Should the Navy work with the shipbuilders to have those new amphibious warships built? Should the Air Force be expanding the existing fleet of warplanes? What are the strategies priorities of the nation and is there a genuine for either or both plans to be achieved through the Military-Industrial Complex?
• Should the overall Quality of Arbeit across the Manufacturing Sector be allowed to increase? If so, what are the benefits and downsides of letting that happen? How about the reverse? Would the Civil Servants and Administrators involved be interested in a compromise? If so, what?
• Should the nation build better relations with the Soviets or should the nation be building better relations with the Chinese? Is the nation supposed to be taking sides in the Sino-Soviet Dispute? If so, where does the nation in relation to the Soviet Union and the PRC? If not, would trading with the German Reich be a suitable alternative?

In Council Democracy, personal thought takes higher precedence over personal action. It is always important to think critically about the policy issue, know the existing options, and weigh the benefits and consequences of choosing any one of them. If neither option is suitable for the Totality and the State, consider positing counterproposals. At the end of the day, the Head of State remains the final authority, and the Judiciary will judge the constitutionality of their actions accordingly. The decision is to be upheld and enforced by the Council State until the outcomes of policy responses have emerged, regardless of whether the outcomes in question happen to be most ideal or the least ideal, the most desirable or the least desirable.          

Categories: Digital Realm

Tags: Council Democracy, Digital Realm, Economics, Finance, National Intranet, Philosophy, Politics, Psychology, Socialist Finance, Third Place, Total Educational Effort, Total Mobilization, Work-Standard