Shadow Government and Socio-Economic Consensus

A “Request for Proposals: Socio-economic monitoring baseline data and data collection methodology and template” was recently issued by the Amador-Calaveras Consensus Group. Not understanding why this data is necessary, what the Amador-Calaveras Consensus Group really does and how consensus groups came into being I started investigating.

In the 1880’s Karl Marx and Frederick Engels propagated the idea that hunter-gatherer peoples lived communally and made decisions by consensus.  This was called primitive communism, a romanticized state of being to which we all could blissfully return. While this probably happened to some extent, the evidence is scant even today relying mostly on some scattered oral tradition and isolated observations. With the thousands of hunter gatherer groups that once existed, any honest generalization is impossible. Theories about these early human societies seem to flip completely with every new discovery. But the mythology persisted and has since flourished in various circles. 

It merged with Quaker sentiment and morphed into Sociocracy guided by the principle “…that the interests of all members must be considered, the individual bowing to the interests of the whole.” These feed into the Movement for a New Society which believed in “sensitivity training… (and to) challenge members to excise oppressive aspects of their traditional patterns of behavior.” This group influenced many in the 1960’s and that set the stage for its later adoption by the environmentalists.

While I don’t know how they started, the “Amador-Calaveras Consensus Group is a community-based organization that works to create fire-safe communities, healthy forests and watersheds, and sustainable local economies.” (Sustainable is their favorite word) They support projects we all like such as fire breaks, forest cleaning, biomass plants, etc but are also concerned with spotted owls, greenhouse gases and wildlife corridor connectivity. Their members include the Foothill Conservancy, Sierra Nevada Conservancy, Sierra Forest Legacy, PG&E, forest service, firesafe councils and many others with John Hoffmann representing Amador County. Supervisor Lynn Morgan attended a recent meeting.

Their decisions are made by consensus. “If consensus cannot be reached, the person or persons expressing concern are responsible for proposing an alternative which meets the same end goal. If alternatives cannot not be defined immediately, the person opposing a decision is responsible for convening a meeting with relevant persons to clearly define the alternative for consideration at a subsequent meeting.” Many people may find this process not that dissimilar from reeducation in Maoist China. But despite extensive study I couldn’t find the consensus for Daniel Boone crossing the Cumberland Gap or inspiring those for the long journey on the Oregon Trail. They appear to be a shadow government ruled differently than the concept of majority rule and minority rights I learned in what now seems to be an archaic America.

The prosperity we all enjoy, including the poorest among us, was undreamed of 250 years ago when the free enterprise system began. Private enterprise and the human spirit it harnesses, despite its imperfections, is the best way to get things done. However, I am not categorically opposed to consensus groups, non-profits, governments sponsored enterprises or a host of other organizational forms.  We are a big, diverse nation and should have a variety of venues to choose from for the task at hand.  But we need to choose wisely and be aware of where we are trending.  And while I wish it began by other means and had a less elaborate structure, I strongly support the Amador-Calaveras Consensus Group’s participation in the Wilseyville biomass plant proposal. If they could have received the waste how many of the recent out of control burn pile fires could have been avoided?

Adding more layers and complexity to decision making has its cost. When a group of architects and such were discussing where to pave walkways between new classroom buildings at Columbia University then university president Dwight Eisenhower stopped them. He suggested letting the students walk between the buildings and then paving the paths they found convenient. Sometimes expertise lacks the simple elegance of common sense.

But micro management, at the very least, must have motivated the Amador-Calaveras Consensus Group to issue “Request for Proposals: Socio-economic monitoring baseline data and data collection methodology and template”.  This proposal involves “sustainable local economies” and “will comply with the mandates of the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program”.  It is concerned with “community development challenges …to better monitor socio-economic conditions in our communities” and requires a “recommended frequency of data collection”. But the Demographic Research Unit of the California Department of Finance estimates and forecasts population, school enrollments, etc by county. Washington’s Bureau of Labor Statistics issues quarterly employment and wage data by county. The General Plan, the General Plan EIR, the separate Housing Element, the various transportation and transit plans and the plans of social service agencies contain reams of socio economic data.  The benefit this proposal could contribute to what is already available is very marginal at best and hardly seems sufficient to justify additional expense.  

Most people are aware of what is happening in their local community by daily observation and experience. The more curious ask those they encounter. The well being of a community is hardly obscure. A few decades ago the dollar rose or fell based on the monthly balance of trade figures. Software was primitive then and one investment firm spent a million dollars to produce projections slightly better than the others. But no matter how hard they all tried, one investment firm always beat them.  After this phase of investing ended they revealed their secret: they went down to the docks and asked about upcoming ship arrivals and departures. 

Aside from the more frightening social control aspect of consensus groups’ shadow government and the proposed even more elaborate monitoring of daily life, this is just another example of pencil pushing rather than beneficial production. How much do the fire safe councils spend on promotion, study and overhead versus projects like the firebreaks that we created them for? As I have stated previously groups like these and especially the EIR process serve a primary purpose to create employment for those interested in archaeology, for example, who would otherwise be unemployable.  Having more people producing less and less tangible result is creating a downward economic spiral that will engulf all of us.

Endnotes: Katherine Evatt recently asked me to join the Amador- Calaveras Consensus Group and I turned her down. It was not because of anything I’ve said above, most of which I didn’t know then, but because I don’t have the time. That hasn’t changed. Also I am a pension board trustee and we generally make decisions on a consensus basis. This is because no one individual wants to be on the hook for a multimillion dollar blunder. And do not confuse the primitive communism discussed with spiritual communism, an obscure late 1800’s French group that utilized repetitive work to induce meditative trance. But the primitive communism concept still remained as exhibited by the oil field workers’ homes in Baku being between the oil derricks due to their alleged mystical attachment to their work. Needless to say they all died prematurely from cancer.

Copyright 2015, Mark L. Bennett