Meet the New Boss: You

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This approach, which is still the dominant ideology of the left, assumes that a class of people, the Haves, jealously guard power that they use to their own personal advantage. It also requires that a second class of people, the Have-Nots, are excluded from power and so must seize it. Finally (and this is where the ideology gets its romantic juice), it assumes a third class of people, we'll call them the Organizers, can intuit the needs of the Have-Nots and, given the right issues and skills, marshal them into a force to be reckoned with. It's easy to see why these assumptions remain compelling: You've got a villain in the Haves and a hero in the Organizers. But the Have-Nots? Well, at the end of the day, they're basically extras in this drama.

Sometimes these assumptions resonate. When lawyer-activists overturn a wrongful death row conviction, for example, they are correcting injustice on behalf of the powerless. More often, however, old-school political conflict leads to frustration and failure. 'Community organizers schooled in this tradition are finding that they're not getting the outcomes they want,' says Leighninger, 'while public officials feel scarred and wonder why they ever got into public service. And for citizens, even when they get their way, the process is so disempowering that they don't come out with any sense that they have control.'

In its ideal form, the new style of self-governance Leighninger sees emerging calls on all parties to bring their best qualities to the table. Self-governance assumes that we are not cartoon villains and heroes, but equal parties with an equal stake in the issues and policies that affect our lives; that all of us, including public servants, are simply citizens who wish to place their expertise in service to the commons. And self- governance seeks, rather than a fight for what's right, solutions that arise from collaboration and consensus.

'The people who are being organized have a bigger role to play,' Leighninger says. 'We're not just talking about negotiation versus confrontation. The more important piece is reaching out and bringing in a broader range of ordinary citizens, as well as other stakeholders -- police officers, schoolteachers, people who maybe have been on opposite sides of the barrier.'

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