Draft:
The Deficit Challenge
While national attention is drawn to the U.S. budget deficit caused by fighting wars
abroad and the Bush era tax breaks for the wealthy,1 little attention is paid to our two most serious deficits: the democracy deficit and the jobs deficit. Occupy Claremont challenges Claremont citizens and the townʼs elected leaders to take concrete steps to address the democracy and jobs deficits. We are at an historical turning point much like we experienced during the populist, progressive and civil rights eras. In the past, such movements have produced institutional changes that have expanded democratic rights and economic opportunities. Claremonters, we can meet our current challenge and contribute to the history being written in public arenas around the nation by adding a layer of democracy to our local governance and by promoting programs as favorable to the unemployed as are Claremontʼs programs to assist business. To expand Claremontʼs democracy we challenge the town to establish a commission devoted to finding ways to increase citizen participation in the townʼs decision-making process by institutionalizing a general assembly of citizens that would come together annually or semiannually to either formally or informally advise the City Council on the townʼs budget and policies. There are a variety of models that could be implemented. Claremont is too large for the traditional New England model in which every citizen participates in the Town Meeting.2 There are, however, a number of other New England Town Meeting models. Larger New England towns use the Representative Town Meeting system. Framingham, Massachusetts, a town twice the size of Claremont, elects 216 Town Meeting representatives from twelve town precincts. Some New England Town Meetings have authority over all town policies, while other Town Meetings vote only on the townʼs annual budget. Claremont could also invent its own procedures. For example, Claremont could hold three simultaneous Town Meetings in three Claremont neighborhoods to allow for maximum participation, combing votes taken in each neighborhood to establish town policy. There are many other possibilities. The question is, does Claremont have the courage to embrace democracy?
Occupy Claremont also challenges Claremont to provide the same level of assistance to workers and the unemployed that is provided for business. Claremont has several programs designed to assist business, and none for labor. While it is true that assisting businesses can indirectly assist workers, we can not rely on indirect trickle down effects and expect the fundamental inequalities of our society to be redressed. Occupy Claremont calls upon town officials to establish a Claremont Labor Bank that will assist unemployed and underemployed workers to come together, combine skills, and form worker owned and operated enterprises that will set up businesses in Claremontʼs empty store fronts. The Claremont Labor Bank will provide training in worker managed enterprises, skill matching data banks, bureaucratic facilitation, loan guarantees and seed money equivalent to the programs currently provided Claremont businesses. There are many models of successful worker owned and operated enterprises. These enterprises repeatedly have been demonstrated to be more productive, safer, egalitarian
and profitable than traditional enterprises and include the U.S. plywood industry3 in the North
West, Mondragon4 in Spain, and the Recuperated Enterprise Movement5 in Argentina. Claremont can be in the forefront of a more horizontal future if it has the courage to rethink priorities and give equal weight to the needs of workers and employers. Worker owned and operated enterprises are the key to a prosperous, egalitarian future that eliminates the antagonism between workers and owners.
Claremonters, let us unite around more inclusive, more egalitarian, more democratic values. The rising generation is challenging us to remake our democracy and economy. Together we can build a future that works not just for the 1%, but for all. Such a future begins by adding a layer of democracy to Claremontʼs governance and by stimulating the economy by bringing under utilized workers and office spaces back into production!
1 Center of Budget and Policy Priorities found that “Together with the economic downturn, the Bush tax cuts and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq explain virtually the entire deficit over the next ten years” : http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3036
2 Yale professors Robert Dahl and Edward Tufte found that the upper limit for unitary democracy is around 10,000 people: Size an Democracy (1973), Stanford University Press.
3 Ben Craig and John Pencavel, (1993). “Worker-Owned Plyood Companies of the Pacific Northwest.” Available: sfp.ucdavis.edu/cooperatives/reports/plywood.pdf
4 William Foote (1991). Making Mondragon. IRL Press.
5 Dana Ward (2006), “Occupy, Resist, and Produce: Workers Take Control in Argentina,”
Divergences, Vol. 1, No. 4. Available: http://divergences.be/article.php3?id_article=212&lang=fr
