Oldal 146 [146]
144 | Tue Puitosopuy or Eco-Po.itics
voluntary agreement (and reasonable non-agreement). ‘This program,
which our authors previously characterised with the expressions self¬
organisation, self-regulation, conviviality and deliberation, is not at all
new. It is well-known from the lives of the new types of communities
which formed at least as indispensable a role around the development
of modern civic society as the state and the market. It is also true,
however, that dependence on our communities and its concomitant, the
demand of agreement, can be just as cruel a tyrant towards the
individual, if not more so, than the order of the state or the compulsion
of economic efficiency. It is clear that only the balance of these three
forces has any promise of tolerable conditions for man, insofar as they
relativise and neutralise each other. Though one cannot be too careful
with drawing biological parallels when examining social phenomena,
it can be observed that the balance of processes in living systems is never
maintained by a single regulatory system. The more complicated a
system is and the more achievements it is capable of, the more complex
its regulation and the more complicated the relation of the regulatory
subsystems to one another.
What can be said for sure is that this ceaselessly collapsing dynamic
balance — the essence of self-organisation — can only be restored as long
as the size of the organisation fits the nature of the association. This is
why we emphasised that the ecological turn in politics means, above all,
the restoration of the human scale of things, i.e., decentralisation in all
areas of life. It encourages us to follow patterns formed in the local
communities fighting for their self-determination. To quote from Simone
Weil’s notebook once more: After the collapse of our civilization there must
be one of two things: either the whole of it will perish like the ancient
civilizations, or it will adopt itself to a decentralized world. It rests with us,
not to break up the centralization (for it automatically goes on increasing like
a snowball until the catastrophe comes), but to prepare to the future."
136 Jhid. p.177.