Chapter 12a
The Necessity for a Provisional Government
Learning Democracy takes time


In our estimation the organization cannot be fully democratic from its outset, (from its first day of public existence), without subjecting itself to many kinds of dire risks. Democracy requires practiced discipline. It requires the habituation of its citizens to its procedures and structure. A certain amount of time must be allowed for people who join the organization to adapt themselves to a democratic discipline, and to a democratic culture of attitudes and behavior.

In our experience working with and in various kinds of community and Labor groups over many years, (even among people one had thought would know better), we have found that many, (in fact most), American citizens are very poorly schooled in the necessary workings of democratic procedures. We have found that the general attitudes, beliefs, and habits that comprise a truly democratic culture are a learned skill that has not been widely taught in modern American society, nor absorbed by its citizens, who live under the influence of a hyper-competitive and largely self-centered culture. In our long and wide ranging experience, very few people actually know how to ‘do’ Democracy.

Despite our confidence that the benefits and advantages of Democracy will win people’s support and participation over time, our experience tells us that we must be prepared for the difficulties that are bound to arise among people who come to the organization from lives steeped in our contentious, highly competitive, often isolating and alienating, and largely non-cooperative, society. We all have lived our lifetimes under the example of a hypocritical system that is cynically called ‘democracy’ by those who control it, whose narrowly focused and self-serving interests it serves.

Observing the contorted and corrupted machinations of this system, as we all have for all our lives, could not possibly inspire anyone to the culture and habits of True Democracy. Democracy is learned behavior, and little in modern American culture teaches the nuts and bolts of how people must think and behave to make it work. We must do everything we can to facilitate the learning that must take place for the organization to grow and prosper.

We should plan to provide ample orientation materials, and opportunities to use them, that urge people to think about what this thing we call ‘democracy’ really means. We should plan to try to initiate discussions about democratic culture among Local Groups as they form. We should encourage such discussions throughout the organization as it takes shape. We can make different kinds of informative materials and tools readily available throughout the organization’s communications network, but we cannot be assured that they will be adequately used. We must be prepared to deal creatively with people’s often-uninformed expectations as to what Democracy is, and how it works.

If we can provide trained personnel to lead Local Groups in their early formative stages, this will provide Groups with the best chance of finding their way past possible early frictions to form cooperative working relationships based on mutual civility and respect, and a growing sense of community.

To briefly reiterate a basic principle that we posited early on, we do not think that the organization should set out to pre-qualify its members by having them swear allegiance to an overtly specified political agenda or platform of socially controversial issues. This only serves to disqualify people from participating. We think that a bedrock commitment to being democratic in attitude and behavior should be the sole criteria for membership.

We think that the full potential of True Democracy lies in its ability to allow citizens with disparate points of view to communicate effectively and fairly, and thereby to work together to identify and define our shared interests, our common ground, which are other names for our enlightened self-interest. Enlightened self-interest is derived from our regard and respect for each other’s interests, and our willingness to inhibit our purely selfish desires out of respect for the desires of others, and ultimately out of respect for the well-being of the group as a whole. We will respect others, and their interests, in order that we can rightfully expect that they will respect us, and our interests, in return. That is the most basic moral tenet of True Democracy. We believe that a True Democracy, rooted firmly in that basic moral ethos, cannot help but serve the Common Good.

Thus we believe that our most basic principle, our most basic message, the principle from which every iota of a progressive agenda for social justice cannot help but flow, must be Democracy itself. Our process (Democracy) is our most important policy. We believe that if we can successfully create a True Democracy, all the rest, (in respect to a progressive agenda), will take care of itself. (A big ‘if’ indeed).

Since we are opposed to setting a detailed agenda for the organization in advance of its existence, (to pre-qualify which citizens are welcome to join, with only those that support the agenda being welcome), and since we think that in a truly democratic organization it is the citizen-members themselves who must develop the organization’s agenda, the group will likely (and hopefully) attract people of diverse viewpoints and opinions. We must recognize, and prepare ourselves in advance, for the consequences when people of diverse social backgrounds and political orientations initially come together. In the initial 'coming together' of a diverse cross-section of people who are unpracticed in democratic culture, and democratic ways, there is bound to be a considerable degree of friction and dissension.

In recognition of that, we think that trying to affect fully democratic control of the organization by its members from the outset will make it highly vulnerable to many pitfalls in its nascent period. We believe that our best chance to successfully steer the organization through these early days and difficulties will be to manage the organization through a ‘pre-installed’ provisional government for an initiation period of a few to several months, with a detailed and published plan, set forth in the organization’s constitution, for gradually bringing fully democratic functionality online as circumstances allow. Our sincere and emphatically stated goal must be to replace this provisional government with a fully elected government as soon as is realistically and sensibly possible.

We must be cognizant of, and fully prepared for, the distinct possibility that we might be faced with organized disruption from possibly hostile entities that would regard a powerful democratic citizen’s organization as a threat, or possibly as an opportunity for takeover to augment their own power. A low membership population in the early days might make the organization vulnerable to hostile takeover from larger and more mature organizations, and there are any number of existing organizations that might be highly motivated to try to mount such an attempt.

Once we gain a large and stable population base that is well oriented to fully democratic functionality, our vulnerability to hostile groups and/or individuals will be dramatically reduced. A small, nascent organization with a thousand members would be entirely vulnerable to a takeover by any hostile organization with more than a thousand members, or even by a much smaller but highly organized group that could take advantage of the confusions and dissensions that are likely to occur in a new group just setting out and working to establish its own footing.

A well-organized and smoothly functioning ‘provisional government’, whose only purpose will be to guide the organization through this initial formative period, will be crucial to the organization’s long term success, and to the quality of Democracy that we can build in the longer run.

We must recognize that by its nature and purpose, and by necessity, this temporary interim government will not be fully ‘democratic’. It will rather be, in effect, a temporary ‘benevolent democratic dictatorship’. We imagine that it will derive and ground its authority through a democratic central committee that will comprise the provisional National Congress.

It will be crucial that this provisional National Congress, and the entire provisional government that it forms, will be designed in such a way that will prevent its own self-entrenchment in power. The provisional government must be built upon a carefully self-limiting charter that is set forth in the organization’s constitution, which strictly defines its limited powers, and guarantees the democratic rights of the citizen-members who join. And, the best of good faith aside, the provisional government, and all the people in it, must be under the scrutiny of careful and constant oversight, and the threat of legal enforcement of its limited purpose and scope as legally mandated. A Board of Trustees should be legally empowered, by the provisional government's legal charter, to provide and enforce such oversight.


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