3 ways of getting things done.

There is this unpopular book called "3 ways of getting things done" which I think sums up all power relationships, though I would redefine things just a little.

Hierarchy: Superiors issue orders to subordinates and they obey.
Democracy: Voting or some other system of representation.
Autonomy: Individuals or groups are allowed free reign, usually in the context of certain boundaries and limitations.

I don't know what the big deal is, it seems pretty straight forward to me, we need to use the best system for the task or 2 or 3 when we are unsure. What is the need for all these ideologies?

>Democracy: Voting or some other system of representation.

Only representative democracy is a system of representation. Real or Direct democracy uses delegates.

>Autonomy: Individuals or groups are allowed free reign, usually in the context of certain boundaries and limitations.

The underlined parts are quite contradicting don't you think?

>>1
It's become technologically possible to have the whole people vote directly on all kinds of major issues, including "voting with tax dollars" (checking boxes on the tax form specifying what that money is to be spent on). Question is how ready some people are to allow us some real democracy.

(And that's as far I go down that particular road for now. There already is one Alex Jones.)


>>2
contradicting parts
Depends how strict those boundaries are.

Telling people "don't commit murder" (with a reasonable definition of "murder") doesn't mean you can't shoot someone in self-defence if he tries to kill you. It does, however, mean that nobody's free to murder you, i.e. you're free to not be murdered. And it's not just extremes like murder, either; it goes all the way down to queue behaviour and how to address people and stuff.

In short, it's that old anarchist slogan of "my freedom ends where yours begins"; there's a balance that you inescapably have to strike. (meaning they at least got one thing straight...)

And, of course, it includes such simple things as technical standards; 110 vs 240 volts, 50 vs 60 Hz, NTSC vs PAL, etc. You want your equipment to work properly and not be fried the moment you plug it in, right?

Or traffic standards, like what side of the road to drive on, or which colour on the traffic lights mean what.

I could go on, but you should get the picture by now ;-)

>>3 I get the picture and it makes sense. Shall we push it a bit further though?

 Is it the individual that limits him/her self to these boundaries and limitations or are they forced upon everyone by an authority like the police? And in the second case (policing), who writes the rules and who controls the police?

 Of course these are rhetoric questions and depending on how we reply can lead us from pure anarchy to absolute totalitarianism.

 This is exactly why I noted >>1's contradiction. Because depending on how each of us interprets the sentence, it can mean a world of different and contradicting things. It is practically a non-sentence that instead of clarifying the subject (autonomy), it blurs it.

 So according to that sentence and your interpretation of it, the system you have in any country right now is autonomy because from Burma to Sweden, individuals are allowed free reign in the context of certain boundaries and limitations. The boundaries and limitations in Burma are a tat harsher than the Swedish :p

What does that say about anything?

>>2
By democracy I meant any system which represents a group of people, it could be direct democratic, a system of representation or it could be the court of a king where there is no bureaucracy and the king tries to represent the views of his lords at court. The "3 ways of getting things done" describes this as heterarchy but that isn't a well known term.

By "boundaries and limitations" I meant the autonomy lies within those boundaries and limitations. For instance a business has autonomy within the constraints of the law, in this situation we have examples of 2 ways of getting things done, hierachical control and autonomy, 3 if the government is democratically controlled.

>>3
It's true that most people know what's best for them but most people are not experts and don't know how best to obtain what is best for them, direct democracy is not the best way of getting things done when it comes to complex things like the budget. Representative democracy is a combination of hierarchical control and direct democracy, you vote to give someone authority for a number of years because they are usually better administrators than the average voter thereby catering for the fact that voters know what's best for them and the fact experts know how best to obtain it, though I suppose allowing people to sign petitions or give their voting power to another representative to prevent representatives from misbehaving would be a good idea.

>>4
the system you have in any country right now is autonomy because from Burma to Sweden
What does that say about anything?
That's exactly what I'm saying. Burma and Sweden use all 3 ways of getting things done, the Burmese government does not tell people how to wipe their assholes clean, Sweden does not democratically decide how to put out a fire when a large number of decisions have to be made within a few second's notice as events arise, they give authority to a fire captain to smash windows and drag hysterical paniccing people away from danger.

Look at it this way, the 3 ways of getting things done are combinations of 2 properties of power relationships. The first property is whether an individual or group is making the decision. The second property is whether the decision affects themselves or everyone.

Autonomy = Individuals or groups make decisions that only affect themselves.
Heterarchy = Many individuals or groups make decisions that affect everyone.
Hierarchy = One individual or group makes decisions that affect everyone.

I suppose I could add...

Society = Many individuals or groups make decisions that only affect themselves.

Ok, i can see where you're coming from. You're taking a management approach to politics. I pointed out the contradiction of the phrase because depending on interpretation it can completely change the meaning of your sentence. I won't take it further down the philosophical side of things because I can see that this is not what you're looking for in this thread.

Now, on the point. I found it quite interesting when i was reading about the zapatista revolution that they used two different structures in parallel. For making political decisions they used a federal system of direct democracies. But being realistic, they knew that their army could not organize itself this way. Decisions would take too long to make and this can be the difference between victory and defeat. So, even the zapatistas who are the closest to an anarchy in contemporary times can understand that different organizational systems fit different situations.

I guess you've got a good point there.

>>1
Okay, I like 3.