Throughout human history, there have been two predominant organizational models of governance used by organizations, businesses, communities, and countries. These are still in existence today.
- Centralized Ownership and Governance. One model of governance is to have centralized control by a few elite, wealthy, and/or well armed people. In this model, a variety of economic mechanisms are used to move wealth and power to those in control. This is generally represented by the image of a pyramid where a few people at the top benefit from the labors of the many (indeed how pyramids were made). Under ideal circumstances, those in control are benevolent, generous, compassionate, and seeking the best for those under their dominion.
- Collective Ownership and Governance. The other model of governance is based on distributive, collaborative, and collective ownership and control. It is crowd sourced governance. This could be described as a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people.” Democracy is a term used to describe this kind of government.
Examples of Benevolent Leaders
There are many examples of benevolent leaders, such as King Wenceslas giving to the poor, the New Deal by Franklin D. Roosevelt, and other good leaders.
Meritocracy
A meritocracy has the appearance of being similar to both models above because the power is in the hands of a few, but those few are placed into office democratically because they are viewed to be the most competent for a position (not because of PAC money received from corporations).
A Government of the People 