Rebuilding Public Trust

Over the past several years it has become increasingly clear to me that we need to rethink many things in American society and culture. It seems to me that we no longer have what we might call "public trust." Maybe we never had all that much of it, but it appears to be slipping away on all fronts.

We seem to have no clear visions of public and private purposes, and no clear demarcations between the two. We seem to have very few well-functioning institutions (any?) and organizations in either the public or the private arena. Remember the Jack Abramoff scandal, amid many other political scandals? Congressional and/or Executive Branch approval ratings? Judicial Activism? Media spin? And so on. Remember Enron? Acounting frim scandals? Government agency bureaucratic incompetence and/or corruption? And so on.

Many things will have to be rethought. In particular we need to rethink, 'public discourse and deliberative democracy,' 'public decision-building,' 'public and private organizational administration and management,' 'ethics,' …. Here are a few ideas:

Public Discourse and Deliberative Democracy

Roles and responsibilities for various institutions, e.g. government, media, corporations, NGOs, individuals etc. have to be rethought. On one aspect, leadership, see, e.g. Margaret Wheatley's It's Just our Turn to Help the World. And whatever happened to Joe Jaworski's American Leadership Forum? Are they working on public as well as private leadership issues? What else are they up to? I must remember to take a closer look at what has happened since Jaworski wrote Synchronicity: The Inner Path of Leadership. And how does the American Leadership Forum interrelate with the National Outdoor Leadership School and other endeavors. Who/What else is out there trying to make a 'leadership difference.' I've bee too long captured by the inner workings of bureaucracies… Time to invest a bit of time/energy on something bigger.

Public Decision-Building

Time to resurrect this old idea that a few of us tried to work up years ago…
See, e.g. here, here, here, here.

Public Lands Project (another idea: plp.org ??)

As a specific, first project we might reevaluate and recast roles, responsibilities practices for government agencies, focusing on, perchance, one I am very familiar with, the US Forest Service. Lessons learned would translate easily to other land management agencies and also to a large extent to military departments, e.g. Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, as well as to other government entities that "do," in addition to what they require of others in their "regulatory" capacity.

It would then be easy to envision, say, a another little project that we might call Military Organizations Project, except that the acronym "mop" might not work too well. :)

Another possibility, with a potentially large payoff is to rethink the missions and practices of the Federal Reserve System and the Treaury. I've been trying to make sense of these, particularly The FED and other central banks relative to geopolitics and international finance on my Econ Dreams—Nightmares blog

Effective Organizations

Here is a little compendium I'm working on: "Effective Organizations".

Maybe someday we will begin to respect government enough to require better governmental practices, and better govermental performance. If so maybe "Effective Organizations", as made better through time, can serve as a touchstone.

{Note to all: This post may be the seed for a new blog, or if I get really ambitious maybe even a new organization: something like 'rpt.org'

Comments

[bailey]

For one, David Walker at GAO comes to mind. Without knowing too many details, I was real impressed with K. Abraham's response to Congress in the CPI hearings (that cpi might just as easily in understated by a point as overstated). On a much smaller scale, Richard Clark & Michael Scheuer also seemed pretty deliberative leaders. I recognize these are stretches, that I'm naming people (leaders of quasi-institutions), not the institutions themselves. But, we're all well aware bureaucratic muck flows downward.
I guess my point is, it's pretty remarkable looking at the continued increase in flowing muck, that we have so many people who do stand up, who do what they believe "right" in the face of enormous pressure.
It's easy to say it all starts with character (J.S. Mill) but how reasonable is it to guarantee independence to pretty powerful positions w/o any assurance of the character of the people assigned to those positions by muck-spreaders? Sorry, don't mean to be a downer, but it all seems very much like just one pretty small sign of a society slouching toward Bethlehem. And, that as I see it, is the problem with Pagenism - it demands personal accountability by all. Have a great day.

[Dave Iverson]

Thanks Bailey,

You are pretty impressive in your "commenting" role, in the many blogs where I see you responding. We all have our part to play in this unfolding social drama. Yes, more people need to stand up. Maybe someday, likely on the other side of crisis, more people will stand up. Right now we "voices in the wilderness" will have to do what we can.. Back at you: Have a great day.