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Citizen Infrastructure

Cargo cult democracy

A “cargo cult” copies the visible trappings of something — building a runway and a control tower out of straw — and waits for the planes to come, having missed what actually made them arrive. Cargo cult democracy, a phrase Seth Frey uses, names the same mistake in self-governance: adopting democracy’s structures — constitutions, procedures, voting rules, the right incantations — and expecting a functioning democratic culture to follow.

The artifact isn’t the thing

Section titled “The artifact isn’t the thing”

The structures we admire were “left over” by skillful people: a constitution or a well-run process is the residue of a community that already had the capacity to govern itself. Copy the artifact without building that capacity, and you get the form without the substance — “we hold these truths to be self-evident” recited over a group that was never developed to live it.

The corrective is blunt: it was the people we had to build. Procedures, platforms, and rules can support self-governance, but they can’t substitute for the skills and relationships that make it work. This is why the Commoning Standard treats self-governance as a literacy to be taught and practised, not just declared.

Why it matters here

Section titled “Why it matters here”

For anyone building civic infrastructure, this is a warning label.

The companion point about where technology does help: technology’s place is education.

Sources

Section titled “Sources”