Chapter 3g
Three Basic Types of Channels of Communication


There are three basic types of channels of communication that must be established and kept open for True Democracy to function: 1) Communication from ‘the few’ to ‘the many’, (top-down); 2) communication from ‘the many’ to ‘the few’ (bottom-up); 3) communication from ‘the many’ to ‘the many’, (free access for citizens to communicate with other citizens).


Top-Down Communications
From ‘the few’ to ‘the many’

Top-down communications are relatively easy to establish and maintain. It is easy for the relative ‘few’ who are entrusted with office to promulgate messages to be received by ‘the many’, and it is easy for ‘the many’ to absorb these relatively few messages. This top-down channel is important to the smooth functioning of any organization, in order that office holders can properly inform, educate, and, (where appropriate), lead their constituents.

But great pains must be taken to ensure that the easy capacity for top-down communications is not abused, and that access to these top-down channels is made available to diverse agencies of office that provide checks and balances over the ability of other agencies to abuse this power. And channels must exist whereby the opinions and ideas that originate with ‘the many’ find their way into these top-down channels through a system of accountable representation.

When only a very select ‘few’ have the power to communicate with ‘the many’, they will soon have effective control, whether of a nation, or of an organization. This is, in fact, the grave situation that we face in our nation. (This is THE principle problem that the organization we create must address and solve in the larger society. We cannot gain political power until we develop the capacity to communicate effectively with the masses of the population. More about that later).

Access to channels of top-down communications must be carefully regulated, and adequately diverse access must be ensured, to provide proper and effective checks and balances on the entrenchment of power.


Bottom-Up Communications
From ‘the many’ to ‘the few’

Bottom-up communications, from ‘the many’ to ‘the few’, are the very lifeblood of Democracy. If power is going to reside with The People, then The People must have the means to communicate their will to those entrusted with offices of responsibility and authority. They must have effective channels of communication open to them that will allow them to ensure that office holders remain constantly accountable to their will.

But communications from ‘the many’ to ‘the few’ are inherently difficult to establish and maintain, simply due to the physical limitations involved. Once an organization reaches a certain size, it becomes physically impossible for ‘the few’ to have time to absorb messages from ‘the many’. An official with ten, or a hundred, constituents will have no problem receiving messages from all of them on an ongoing basis. But an official with ten or a hundred thousand (or million) constituents will obviously not have time, even if she or he did nothing else, to receive messages from so many people.

But a means MUST be created to overcome these physical limitations. If bottom-up communications are not well established and maintained, then Democracy within the organization will continually and progressively erode. Whatever difficulties exist, a way must be found.

Elections themselves are one obvious means of bottom-up communications. But we have seen that elections alone, or even provisions for recall elections, are not sufficient, in and of themselves, to ensure that elected officials remain accountable to the Will of The People. Citizens must have other channels of communication available to them through which they can directly and freely express their will to those they have ‘hired’ to bear the responsibility and authority of elected office.

In the society at large the inalienable right to freedom of assembly provides one powerful means for ‘the many’ to communicate with ‘the few’. Mass demonstrations have long been used for this purpose, although in recent years we have seen their effectiveness in the US steadily and dramatically erode as effective control of mass communications has fallen into the hands of a few.

Within an organization, the primary means through which bottom-up communications can realistically be accomplished is through a progressively layered hierarchical system of representation, with clear channels of accountability existing at every level between The People and those they entrust (hire) to represent them.

Modern interactive communications technology offers us the capacity to affect a system of representation that can maintain ease of communications and accountability between representatives and their constituents. This is the potential power that this True Democracy Project proposes that we must exploit. We must set our sights on the goal of developing the full power that interactive digital communications technology offers us. Properly developed tools can provide us the means to both communicate directly ‘up the line’ of the hierarchy of representation, and to hold those ‘up the line’ directly accountable for what they say and do on our behalf.

Ideas for accomplishing this goal appear in subsequent chapters, in the prototype structures and procedures posited for the organization, but these ideas require much analysis and scrutiny in order that they can be improved, or laid aside in favor of better ideas, so that the best ideas can be identified and actualized.


General Communications
From ‘the many’ to ‘the many’

Communications from ‘the many’ to ‘the many’ are also crucial to the functioning of a True Democracy. Every citizen must have reasonable access to channels of communication through which she or he can communicate and advocate for her or his own ideas and interests among her or his fellow citizens. Control of access to these ‘many to many’ channels, (often in the claimed interest of ‘security’), is a principle means of subverting Democracy in many groups, (many labor unions are a good example), that claim to be ‘democratic’. Member rosters are controlled and kept secret by those at the top, with the result that only they can communicate with all the members. Such groups are never truly democratic. Power always becomes heavily entrenched in the hands of those who have and control this ease of communications with ‘the many’, and the members, (The People, where power should reside), become effectively powerless.

Again, proper exploitation of digital communications technology can easily facilitate diverse channels of ‘many to many’ communications. The organization we imagine will function through a complex web of Internet based communications that will be designed to prevent anyone from controlling it.


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