The Political Body: The Law of the Heart

Politics is the art of collective decision-making. But most political systems have been captured by those who use them for control and extraction rather than genuine collective wellbeing.

The Current Reality

Representative democracy was a brilliant innovation when communication was slow and populations were dispersed. But it's also created a class of professional politicians more responsive to donors and special interests than to the people they supposedly serve.

The Law of the Heart

True governance emerges from coherence—from decisions made in service of the whole rather than in service of narrow interests. This requires:

Distributed Authority: Power held by those closest to the decisions being made, rather than concentrated in distant bureaucracies.

Transparent Process: Open, visible decision-making that invites participation and accountability.

Conflict as Information: Disagreement seen as valuable feedback showing where needs aren't being met, rather than as threat to be suppressed.

Consent-Based Decision Making: Seeking decisions that work for everyone rather than majority rule that creates permanent minorities.

The Council Model

Many indigenous cultures practiced council governance—circles where all voices are heard, where decisions emerge from collective wisdom, and where leadership is service rather than domination. These models can scale through networks of nested councils at different levels.

The Call Forward

Peace Engineers experiment with new governance structures in their communities, workplaces, and organizations. We demonstrate that self-organization can be more effective than command-and-control, and that collective intelligence emerges when we create the right conditions.

The regenerative future requires governance systems based on wisdom rather than force, on consent rather than coercion, and on service rather than domination.