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Ten Key Values

Grassroots Democracy

By Lansing Scott

Democracy is one of America's great unfinished projects. The American Revolution took democracy to a new level in human history, but it still took many years before people of color and women secured the right to vote. Today the lack of voter participation and widespread cynicism about the political process demonstrates that simply granting people the right to vote does not guarantee a healthy democracy. More and more people are feeling like their votes don't matter, that the choices are meaningless, and that powerful moneyed interests have hijacked the democratic process. The Greens believe it's time to push democracy to the next level.

The basic premise of democracy -- that anyone impacted by a decision should have a voice in that decision -- is simple to articulate but difficult to implement. In what ways are the Greens working to strengthen democracy?

First of all, Greens choose to participate in the political process, not by joining existing party institutions, but by creating a new party. Since both Republican and Democratic parties have forsaken the interests of common people and the planet, strengthening democracy requires creating alternatives.

Of course, the present political system is rigged against creating alternatives, hence electoral reform measures are essential to the Green mission.

One such reform the Greens are exploring is to offer voters the option to choose "none of the above" on their ballots. What if we had elections where the majority of voters chose "none of the above"? It would send a powerful message that voters want different choices.

Campaign finance reform is also necessary, of course, in order to reduce the stranglehold big business interests have on American politics.

More profound in impact than finance reform or the "none-of-the-above" option is abandoning our present "winner-take-all" system in favor of a system of proportional representation. "Winner-take-all" virtually guarantees the entrenchment of the Republicrats, whereas proportional representation opens the door to a greater variety of parties better representing the interests and philosophies across the full spectrum of society. This is vital in a time of rapid change and cultural diversification. Most democracies around the world have multiparty systems using some form of proportional representation.

But strengthening democracy -- making it more "grassroots" -- means more than just reforming and participating in the electoral system, it also means expanding the realm of decision-making subject to democratic control. What good does it do to give citizens more control over government when many of the decisions most crucial to our lives and futures are made outside of government in distant corporate boardrooms where the only consideration is the interest of the stockholders? What about the "stakeholders" -- those elements of the public impacted by these "private" decisions? When a transnational corporation can throw a whole company town out of work by moving operations to another country with cheaper labor, what kind of democracy is that?

Greens advocate expanding economic democracy: giving workers greater control over the workplace, and giving communities greater control over business practices in their midst. Such measures would include employee stock ownership plans, worker and consumer cooperatives, citizen review boards, and other institutional forms just being developed (and yet to be developed).

Achieving a true, grassroots democracy means all these changes and more. Now is the time; our future depends on it.