Chapter 5b
The Inverse Principle of Democratic Hierarchy


In order for an organization to be truly democratic, in order to ensure that power resides constantly with The People, a democratic hierarchy must be built according to an inverse principle of responsibility, authority, and accountability. Those at ‘higher’ levels in the hierarchy are responsible to, accountable to, and under the ultimate authority of, those at ‘lower’ levels. Those at lower levels are the ‘bosses’. Those at higher levels are the ‘employees’.

In order for a system of representative democracy to avoid the pitfalls that threaten it, in order for it to avoid devolving into a bureaucracy of entrenched power, measures must be provided to ensure that bottom up communications are effectively received by those who have been entrusted with office. To be ‘effective’, communications must include enforcement tools that obligate officeholders to respond to those from whom this communication emanates, including consequences for not meeting these obligations.

Provisions must exist that give those at lower levels of the hierarchy the power to enforce their expressed will when necessary, to ensure that those at higher levels do not fail to understand that they are under the authority of, (and entirely accountable to), those at lower levels..

A bedrock ‘mantra’ must permeate a truly democratic organization (or nation) at every level. This bedrock idea must flow through every rule, tenet, procedure, and deliberation of the organization. It must exude from the organization’s every pore. Those who hold office are the ‘employees’ of those who entrust them with the responsibility of office, NOT their ‘bosses’. That is the very essence of True Democracy. (And as we know all too well, that is the ethos that is sorely lacking in the ‘democracy’ through which our nation is ruled by ‘special interests’.)

The measures that must be provided, as described in the following chapters in brief, (in proposed ‘prototype’ form), will include free and constant access to channels of communications within and between all hierarchical levels. They will also include electoral systems that provide representation for diverse opinions within and between Groups and Congresses at every level, including representation, and iron-clad protections, for the dissenting opinions of minorities, (not just of prevailing majority opinion, as we have in our ‘winner take all’ US system).

They will also include measures, such as a proposed ‘citizen’s veto’, that will provide the means through which direct accountability and authority can be exerted by those at lower levels on those above them in the hierarchy. And of course measures must be provided for The People to ‘fire’, (recall, and/or impeach), anyone they hire who does not do the job as they promised, or as expected.

The measures provided to define and enforce this ‘inverse principle of democratic hierarchy’, if properly designed, and properly facilitated, (using the full power of the direct access to interactive communications provided by digital technology), can assure that communications from the bottom up are properly heeded to ensure that they constitute the foundational ‘trunk-line’, or ‘backbone’, of the flow of power within the organization.

If we accept that hierarchy is a necessary ‘evil’ within any organization of size, (and in the following section we will argue that ‘organization IS hierarchy’), then we must be ever vigilant in our realization that effective tools of communication, and enforcement of accountability, are the only ‘antidote’ to the possible development of an anti-democratic hierarchical bureaucracy of entrenched power. Provision of such tools must be our highest priority in the design of the organization we set out to build.


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