More Pics

Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories. – Thomas Jefferson

Democracy requires the participation of it citizens. Yet, in the United States and other peer democracies, there is a decline civic participation, which I believe is in part due to the bewildering number of voices expounding on increasingly complex topics. Moreover, many of these voices, instigated by political parties and lobby groups, are purposely confusing the conversation to serve their own ends. That is where Citizen CEO comes in.

Citizen CEO is intended to help put citizens back in charge of government by clearly summarizing public policy proposals and research in a way that we can make a practical decision about it. Let’s face it, those guys work for us, but for a variety of reasons that has gotten lost. We have devolved into a form of guardianship democracy where the politicians and other government agents think they know best and the rest of us should just sit back and be quiet. But, achieving political change means we need to take charge. We need to take a seat at the boardroom table and make sure the right people get hired into executive positions and those executives accomplish what they are supposed to do. This requires government official to act effectively in our best interests and to give us a proper accounting of the state of our government and country.

The participation of citizens is more than merely being a shareholder. Shareholders assume that a company will set the proper direction and return value on invested capital. Citizens, on the other hand, want the government to follow a direction that they set, consistent with their own values. We cannot be experts on every social issue or element of public policy, but no CEO is an expert on every detail of the company. Not being expert does not relieve us of being an informed decision maker. The experts can say what might occur if a given action is taken, but only citizens can say if the right values will be served and the right people will benefit. We need to come together as one and set a clear, sustainable, long-term direction that the government will follow.

For United States citizens, Citizen CEO aims to put you back in a position to exercise your power by organizing political/governmental information in a way that you can make a good decision. Citizen CEO will also recommend how you can exercise your decision. In this way, the power can be returned to the people.

Doug Walton, PhD

Your moderator/facilitator in this effort is Doug Walton, PhD. I have a background in economics, business, and human systems change. I teach organizational systems at the Saybrook Graduate School, and I love to research complex public policy issues in depth and simply them to their essential elements. I will put this proclivity to work organizing material for you, American citizens, to be able to make decisions that will lead to a better society, however you define that to be.

My first book, Internet-based Framework for Empowering Social Change- An Application of the Principles and Methodologies of Human Systems Design is now available.

I have also published a number of articles. Two that were published recently are listed below.

Is Modern Information Technology Enabling the Evolution of a More Direct Democracy?

Revitalizing the Public Sphere: The Current System of Discourse and the Need for the Participative Design of Social Action

Toward the end of last year, a chapter that I co-wrote came out in the second volume of Dialogue as a Collective Means of Design Conversation.