Government
From Metagovernment - Government of, by, and for all the people
Government is the organizing principle of a community, granted authority to maintain that organization. For the purposes of this project, a government can be the authority over a geopolitical area and/or it can be the authority over a self-defined group of people, such as a professional society. See the Wikipedia article on Government.
Traditionally, governments are divided into levels of government, where smaller geographic units are collectively managed by a surrounding larger geographic unit. This form of organization can serve to aggregate issues which have regional significance. It is also frequently a mechanism by which historic groups of people who associate with each other (nations) organize themselves.
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Problems with current governmental structures
The Metagovernment project intends to address some of the inherent problems with current governmental structures by creating a more open community structure. Some of the identified problems include:
Over-segmentation
Multiple layers of government (community, township, city, county, metro, province, region, nation, multinational organization) sometimes can be overly burdensome and/or contradictory.
Strict geographic focus
All governments are focused on geography. As society moves further onto the internet, this becomes increasingly impractical. (As an important side-note, geographic governments also might be a necessary factor for war. If governments become more divorced from geography, they may find it unnecessary -- or even logistically impossible -- to conduct military actions against each other.)
Disenfranchisement by geography
People who do not live within a particular region may nonetheless be severely impacted by actions taken within that region; yet they usually have absolutely no say in the law-making within that region because they are not residents there. (Their typical recourse, then, is war or terrorism.)
Empowered leaders
All governments give power to specific individuals, all of whom are naturally tempted toward corruption.
Lack of transparency
Frequently, governments see a need to hide their actions from the citizenry. At times, this may serve national interests, but it is also a wide gateway for corruption: allowing the leaders to take self-serving actions which may not be of benefit to the citizenry.
