Chapter ten. The Oneida Nation
The Oneida project is a beautiful manifestation of the systems theory of development. It is a developmental process that seeks to create both ability and desire among the members of a Native American nation, the Oneida, to serve themselves and their community by doing more and more with less and less. The conception is urgent and competent enough to challenge the sustainability of the wasteful and consumption driven growth paradigm. The essence of the project is to create a participative membership system and use design thinking to create a shared image of a desired future and the abilities to bring it about. The process capitalizes extensively on an old practice of the Oneida culture that amazingly not only favors participation but also values the separation of defining the problem from that of developing a solution. The case demonstrates how compatibility of the old cultural norms with our theory of development became instrumental in the generation of the necessary trust and cooperation that results in development of a unique and potent modular architecture for the Oneida nation.
Keywords: Collective identity, Collectivity, Democratic challenge, Desired specification, Duplication of power, Early-warning system, Financial system, Franchise development, Human systems, Individuality, Knowledge bank, Learning cell, Learning to be, Learning to do, Learning to learn, Membership systems, Multiversity, New social calculus, Oneida ownership, Partnership, Pathfinders (wolves), Performance centers, Primary cells, Problem formulator (turtles), Problem solvers (bears), Self-determination, Self-reliance, Self-sustaining business, Strategic alliances, Systems architecture, Technical system
The Oneida Nation project has been a beauty. It is probably one of the most emotionally satisfying projects I have worked on. Oneidas certainly have been the kindest, warmest, and most fascinating people to work with. They have treated us as their own and in return we have given them our best.
The members of the Oneida design team who have given their time and ideas generously are Neil Cornelius (general manager, gaming), Debra Doxtator (chairperson), Kathy Hughes (treasurer), and Bruce King (CFO). Artly Skenandore (general manager), with his profound knowledge of the language and the culture and an incredible ability and desire to learn, provided the critical link between past and future.
The members of the work team, whose commitment, support, and hard work made this project possible, include Jacque Boyle, Elaine Cornelius, Michelle Cornelius, Toni House, Jessica Oudenhoven, Diana Peterson, Terry Pouliquen, and Jackie Smith. Finally, our able project manager, Kathy King, kept us all together with her ample modesty, sincerity, and insight to finish the task.
My old friend and colleague Bijan Khorram has been my partner in three of the four designs selected for this book. That alone should say all that is necessary about his valuable contribution to the outcomes.
This is yet an ongoing project. The version of the design presented here is the outcome of the fifth iteration.
10.1. Desired Specifications
The following set of properties represents the desired set of specifications that are expected to guide the development of the intended design.
1. We would like to learn from our history and combine it with today's emerging values to create a successful way of life that will be a model for other communities to follow.
2. We would like to create a social order that would:
• Simultaneously encourage social integration and differentiation needed to promote individuality while being mindful of collective identity
• Produce goods and services effectively and distribute them equitably while ensuring compatibility among the interests of past, present, and future generations
• Identify, develop, and operationalize core competencies that give us distinction and competitive/comparative advantage
• Capitalize on the essence of our core values and enable us to evolve them in response to the requirements of present realities and emerging challenges
• Encourage the openness of the system to new learning, experimentation, and diversification
• Provide us with opportunities to take care of our own and those unable to fend for their basic needs
3. We would like to see the Nation serve its members and its environment in such a way that:
• It would project a group identity that will generate internal commitment and external respect.
• We would be an open culture with a desire to share our rich traditions with others while trying to learn and understand other cultures so we can create mutually beneficial relationships.
• There would be a complementary educational system to provide each member with opportunities to develop both personally and professionally and aspire to his/her full potential.
• We would create employment opportunities for each member of our Nation so all can be productively active in generating goods and services that will enhance the quality of our lives.
• There would be a platform for participation and meaningful interaction among our people so that together we can build an integrated Nation with a shared vision of a desired future to empower leaders to effectively pursue and realize our dreams.
• We would be a sovereign nation with self-determination and self-reliance free from one-sided dependencies.
• We would be equal partners, of the same height, in every kind of relationship we forge with local, state, and federal authorities.
• We would be a preferred neighbor in every community we choose to live in, a preferred customer for every provider we choose as our supplier, and a preferred supplier for every customer who chooses to use our products and services.
• We would make the most of our limited resources by outsourcing those services offered more cost-effectively by the environment without imposing undue vulnerability on the Nation.
• We would strike a balance between the material achievement and spiritual fulfillment in our lives.
10.2. Systems architecture
Architecture is a general description of a system. It identifies its vital functions, major elements and their relationships, and the organizational processes that define the nature of the whole. An architecture consists of a set of distinct but interrelated platforms (see Figure 10.1). Each platform represents a dimension of the system signifying a unique context, output, and mode of behavior controlled by a predefined set of performance criteria and measures. These dimensions and their complementary processes are individually necessary and collectively sufficient to give rise to a viable system capable of realizing its desired specifications.
The Oneida Nation's architecture consists of seven dimensions: five operating, one governing, and one judicial. All dimensions of the architecture function under the guidance and leadership of a Business Committee. They are identified as
• Governance
• Membership systems
• Learning systems
• Business systems
• Core services
• External environment
• Judicial system
These seven dimensions are identified as necessary and sufficient to create a viable nation capable of realizing its desired specifications.
None of the five operating dimensions should be subordinate to the others. Each one must be treated with the same attention and pursued with the same vigor as the others. However, the performance criteria for these dimensions will not necessarily be the same. For example, whereas units in the core services dimension will be performance centers (their budget will be based on a given percentage of total throughput), the units in the business dimension will all be profit centers. Creation of a new social calculus, in the long term, should facilitate, to the extent that it will be compatible with the interests of the system as a whole, the shift from cost to performance and, eventually, to a profit-centered mode of operation, ultimately maturing them from an input to an output orientation.
10.3. Governance
For the governance dimension to be effective, the context in which it will be operating should be explicitly specified. According to the Oneida Nation's constitution, all powers, legislative, executive, and judicial, rest with the General Tribal Council (GTC; see Figure 10.2). The GTC, in reality, is the meeting of the membership at large. Unfortunately, discharging all three responsibilities directly in a general meeting is a practical impossibility. The GTC, therefore, has delegated its authority to an elected body, the Business Committee (BC). Thus, the BC, by default, has come to assume all the responsibilities of legislation, executive, and judicial concerns. This was a reasonably practical solution at the time. However, increasing complexities and phenomenal expansion and development of the system in all dimensions have resulted in an unprecedented level of overload for the BC. In spite of all efforts for a timely discharge of its responsibilities, the BC is faced with an impossible task. Inevitably, it has become the bottleneck.
To reflect the expanded governance responsibility of BC, its name will be changed to the Governing Body (GB). In the new format, the GB will increasingly concentrate on its legislative and policy setting authority and relegate parts of its executive responsibility and judicial function to the relevant platforms of the architecture.
To enhance the monitoring authority of the GB and properly duplicate its power in each platform, a Planning, Learning, and Control Board (PLCB) will be established on each platform. A designated member of the GB and the chief of staff will be on the board of each platform. Creation and composition of the PLCBs will effectively empower the system to be centralized and decentralized at the same time. The focus of GB activities on legislation, policy setting, and oversight, along with the relegation of some of its executive authority to the executive office and operating platforms, will enhance the decision-making ability of the system and increase its responsiveness. Delegation of the judicial responsibility to an independent judicial system will also be a welcome move toward proper separation of judicial and executive powers. This separation will also serve as a safety valve. It will channel a major portion of the conflicts to the judicial system where they belong, thus relieving the political system from the untenable situation of being the only channel to absorb the pressures of a polarized nation.
The governance platform will consist of
• GB
• Chief of staff
• Planning, Learning, and Control System (PLCS)
• PLCB
10.3.1. Governing Body
The GB is the highest elected authority of the Oneida Nation. On behalf of the membership at large and the GTC, it acts as the main legislative body and the governing authority of the Nation. It will appoint the chief of staff, approve the appointment of the directors of the PLCS and general managers, and coordinate and monitor the activities of the operating platforms and judicial system.
10.3.2. Chief of Staff
The chief of staff will focus on managing two sets of interactions: (1) internally, dimensions of architecture and (2) externally, between Oneida and its environment. The chief of staff will help define and build consensus around an enduring set of core ideals, purposes, and values that will guide and inspire the organizational culture in relation to itself, its mission, and its community.
The chief of staff will also be responsible to
• Conduct periodic systems analyses and submit Mess Formulation reports to the GB and the membership at large
• Make sure that the needs of the system and its constituent parts are prioritized in terms of their contribution to the national mission
• Develop and recommend assumptions and policies that will identify the social indicators and set the expected direction and quality of work life of the system
• Help develop and recommend organizational and departmental standards and measures of performance that are consistent with maintaining a high level of quality of work life
• Conduct holistic quality assurance audits of the current and contingency game plans of the system
10.3.3. Planning, Learning, and Control System
To assist the chief of staff in carrying out the responsibilities of governance, a PLCS will be created. It will consist of a group of experts who are assigned to and operate in three complementary activities: financial system, technical system, and human system.
10.3.3.1. Director of financial systems
The director of financial systems is responsible for making sure that the financial resources of Oneida are safe and their utilization sound. The director will develop financial policies and monitor their implementation, once approved by the GB. To do that, the director will:
• Develop and recommend the criteria, assumptions, and expectations with regard to the operation and management of financial resources
• Develop and recommend financial policies for resource allocation and management
• Develop and recommend the standards and measures of performance for resource utilization
• Identify systemic deviations and initiate corrective action
• Monitor flows of funds and act as an early warning system
• Prioritize the investment and divestment needs of the system and its parts
• Conduct holistic and departmental quality assurance audits of the viability of financial systems and assess their effectiveness
• Provide the information required by the PLCB to carry out its integrative management function
The director of financial systems, in addition to managing its core of financial experts, will supervise the operations of general accounting, grants, and internal audits.
10.3.3.2. Director of technical systems
The director of technical systems, in addition to managing its core of technical experts, will supervise the operations of the information system. Other functions include:
• Help and facilitate development of the system architecture and a detailed design of throughput systems
• Advocate and coordinate the development and recommendation of the proper standards and measures for assuring organizational effectiveness
• Monitor and make sure that policies regarding system management and operations, once established, are properly implemented by those involved
• Develop and recommend policies regarding the collection, operation, integration, dissemination, and management of information
• Develop and recommend the standards and measures of performance for managing information systems
10.3.3.3. Director of human systems
The director of human systems, in addition to managing its core of human system experts, will supervise the operations of the Human Resources Department (HRD) and communications, and will also:
• Define the specifications, directives, and values by which the most qualified, committed, and productive workforce can be attracted, maintained, and motivated to ensure the continued success of the system
• Monitor significant human systems trends and act as an early warning system
• Advocate, facilitate, and coordinate the development and recommendation of the human resource policies such as hiring, training, compensation and benefits, career development, and related issues
10.3.4. Planning, Learning, and Control Board
To create compatibility and manage the interactions among the five operating dimensions of architecture, an integrative function is needed. This integrative function, the critical element of the governance of the system, will include development of master plans and general guidelines concerning the performance of each dimension.
The members of the PLCB will consist of the chairperson of the GB, the chief of staff, the treasurer, the directors of financial systems, technical systems, and human systems, and the five general managers (GMs), each representing one of the operating platforms. The PLCB is responsible for (1) defining problems, (2) designing solutions, and (3) making recommendations regarding policies and decision criteria to be approved by the GB. However, the primary function of the PLCB will be to create synergy among the operations of the membership systems, learning systems, business systems, core services systems, and environmental systems.
The nature of control, as intended here, reconceptualizes the traditional notion of control from “supervision” to “learning” and the nature of authority from “power-over” to “power-to-do.” Effective control involves the duplication of power. Duplication of power will be achieved if the decision process, rather than the individual decision maker, is the subject of control. This will happen when decision makers collectively develop a shared understanding and ownership of decision criteria in all dimensions.
Learning results from being surprised: detecting a mismatch between what was expected to happen and what actually did happen. If one understands why the mismatch occurred (diagnosis) and is able to avoid a mismatch in the future (prescription), one has learned.
Learning will include an early warning system that will call for corrective action before the problem has occurred. Such a system will monitor, on an ongoing basis, the validity of the assumptions on which the decision was made, the implementation process, and intermediate results.
10.4. Membership systems
The membership systems are about nation building. Membership provides a platform for participation to dissolve conflict, create a shared image of a desired future, and empower leaders to act effectively and decisively on behalf of their constituents.
10.4.1. Empowerment
Empowerment is not about sharing of power. Sharing implies a zero-sum relationship and, therefore, abdication of power. Empowerment is duplication of power. It requires a collective understanding of the reasons why we are doing what we are doing. Such a shared understanding not only empowers the members to act in harmony, but also empowers the leaders to act effectively and decisively on behalf of their people.
The role of leadership is as critical here as the role of the people. The leader cannot afford to leave the people behind or fall behind them. The leaders are empowered to the degree of trust and support they generate among their people. The support or trust does not necessarily require conformity or uniformity. It means that members can agree to disagree, providing they understand the decision criteria and are willing to live with the consequences of collective decisions. Development of this political maturity, an ability to convert dichotomy to complementarity, will be the central aim of the membership network.
Polarization is, perhaps, the most obstructive feature of a traditional society on the verge of transformation. The march of events, voluntary or not, makes the conventional solutions ineffective, calling into question the efficacy of the traditional leader–follower relationships. Under these circumstances, the seemingly irresolvable dichotomies between tradition versus modernity, collectivity versus individuality, capital formation versus consumption, and openness versus closedness drive the people into opposite camps. The negative consequence of this polarization manifests itself not only in an obvious breakdown of communication, but, most important, in the hidden sense of paralysis and widespread inability to act. At a time when the Nation must be in its most proactive mode, it tends to absolve (benign neglect) rather than dissolve the conflicts (seek complementarities). The purpose of the membership dimension is to empower the Nation out of this dilemma.
Nation building is an evolutionary process. It is participative, highly time-consuming, and uniquely value driven. Contrary to road building, it is not a one-time proposition. It cannot be brought about by declaration. Dealing with why questions, nation building is necessarily an agreement on a set of organizing principles and common objectives.
10.4.2. The Tie That Bonds
The distinction between a system and an aggregate is the bond that ties the otherwise scattered elements together. The strongest bond that holds a nation together is a shared image of a desired future and a set of organizing principles reflecting the essence of the system's unique historical experiences and its value system.
The membership dimension provides structures and processes that deal with political empowerment, participation, legitimacy, consensus building, self-determination, and sovereignty. As such, the membership dimension is the most critical dimension of the architecture. In a sense, it is about the Nation itself. Direct involvement creates a feeling of nationhood; thereby it makes an environment in which members can and will make a difference in the evolution of the system.
The real challenge to building a viable social system is the ability to create unity in diversity, meeting the varying interests of independent members operating in an interdependent whole. Generation of agreement on a series of organizing principles will permit the Nation to act in spite of its diversity. Society's need for integration is as legitimate as an individual's need for differentiation. Integration and differentiation are two sides of the same coin. Alone, they self-destruct. Together, they synergize.
Collectivity at the expense of individuality leads to totalitarianism and suffocation. Individualism at the expense of collectivity leads to chaos and social Darwinism. In the long run, the society and the individual either stand together or fall separately. A win/win relationship is achieved not through zero-sum or even compromise. For both of them to win requires reconceptualization of the nature and the relationship of the whole and the parts. You cannot build a great society with belittled people just as you cannot build great people in a belittled society. The greatness of each is preconditioned by the other. An environment should be created in which each can help itself by helping the other.
Once again, the question is not a self-imposed choice between the past and the future; that answer would be an easy one, albeit with disastrous consequences. Roots as well as wings are indispensable to a viable nation. None should come at the expense of the other. The need to fly should not mean rootlessness, just as the need to attach should not negate the need for flight.
10.4.3. Membership Network
Design of the membership network will consist of a multilevel network of nested membership cells. Each cell will have nine members who will engage in a process of deliberation to produce a shared understanding about the realities facing the Nation. Working together, the cell members will try to understand the context (how the environment is evolving), define the problem (formulating the mess), and produce a recommended solution (designing a solution). The outcome of each cell, once agreed upon, will be passed on either to the lower level cell for further deliberation or higher level cells for integration with others. The process will continue until all the critical issues facing the Nation are collected, deliberated, resolved, and bought into by all the active members participating in their respective cells at different levels of the membership network.
To start the development of the membership network, up to nine primary cells will be initially created. A designated member of the GB along with a selected member of the management team and a designated member of the work team will form the initial composition of these primary cells. Each cell will then recruit six primary members from the membership at large (preferably from active participants of the GTC). The primary cell of the membership network will therefore consist of 81 members working in nine cells.
Each one of the members of the primary cells, after sufficient deliberation and generation of consensus, will form other nine-member cells operating on the second level of the network. The second level will therefore be made up of 81 cells consisting of 729 members. The third level of the membership network will be populated by 6,561 participants working in 729 cells. It seems that a three-level network will provide adequate national coverage. If need be, other successive levels could be added to the membership network until every eligible member is included and nobody is left out.
The interactive design document will serve as the starting point of the process of deliberation. After the design team provides the first version of the design, the GB will deliberate on it to generate necessary consensus. Then the design will be taken to the primary cells, where 81 active members of the Tribal Council will have their chance to produce the second iteration of the interactive design. The second iteration will then move down to the second level of the membership network for the next iteration. Successive iterations will be continued throughout the network until all active members can have a chance to participate in the design process and make a commitment to its implementation.
The realization of this network (Figure 10.3) requires an effective management and support system responsible for such critical complementary services as
• Collecting and feeding relevant issues and background materials
• Providing logistics, scheduling meetings, and keeping members informed of upcoming events and agendas
• Taking, recording, and following up on the minutes of the meetings
• Facilitating the processes and making sure that participants understand the protocols and implications of their assigned roles
10.4.4. Consensus-Building Process
Creation of a platform for participation, although necessary, is not sufficient for proper bonding of the membership. To enhance the bonding process, we strongly recommend that a new approach based on the Oneida Nation's traditional means of consensus building, which so serendipitously and beautifully corresponds with the emerging notion of systems thinking, be adopted.
To appreciate the underlying assumptions and organizing principles of systems thinking, it is important to note the following concerns:
1. Appreciate the all-important context. We have a tendency to start with the problem as though it exists in isolation. A phenomenon that can be a problem in one context may not be one in another. Likewise, a solution that may prove effective in a given context may not work in another. In a systems view, neither the problem nor the solution is regarded free of context.
2. There is a need to deal with the problem independent of the solutions at hand. We have a tendency to define the problem in terms of the solution we already have. We fail most often not because we fail to solve the problem we face, but because we fail to face the right problem. Rather than doing what we should, we do what we can. In the systems view, it is the solution that has to fit the problem, not vice versa.
3. There is a need to redesign as opposed to invoking the same set of predefined solutions. We have a tendency to entertain only the tried and true. If a solution is unprecedented, it is automatically rejected as suspect. The habitual default of so-called problem solving, left to its own devices, can turn into a self-reproducing vicious circle militating against any difference that can make a real difference. Thus, in the name of reinventing the future, we keep on reproducing the past, wondering all along why it is that history repeats itself as though no lesson has ever been learned.
Separation of the three phases of understanding the context, defining the problem, and designing the solution is, therefore, an important element of systems methodology. Viewed in this context, problem solvers and problem formulators exhibit two different sets of characteristics (Figure 10.4). Problem solvers are scientifically oriented. They have a tendency to find similarities in things that are different. They are generalizers. They are concerned with the immediate result as a check on the efficacy of the solution. Problem formulators are artistically oriented. They have a tendency to find differences among things that are similar. They are particularizers. They are concerned with the consequences.
Both aspects are important. They complement each other. The two, however, should not be confused or mixed up. The more the two activities are kept separate, the higher the likelihood of affecting a dissolution of the problem as a way of achieving a higher order synthesis. For a problem to be actually dissolved, two other actors are required: innovators and doers. Innovators are pathfinders. They see the bigger picture. They have a systematic orientation. They exhibit purposeful behavior. They set the direction based on which (1) problems are defined and formulated and (2) solutions are synthesized and integrated to make sure that they complement each other by getting unified into synergistic wholes.
Doers, however, are practitioners. They are concerned neither with the bigger picture nor the long-term consequences. They enjoy producing, or doing things, using a predefined algorithm. On the other hand, a reflection on the recorded history and the culture of the Oneida Nation points to a similar process of consensus building.
Central to the historical experience, this process was adopted by the Great Law of Peace as an effective means for the Great Council where governing interclan communication, conflict resolution, decision making, and generating agreement was done. It is referred to as “getting to be of the same mind” (Figure 10.5).
Using different attributes and characteristics for each of the three symbols of turtle, wolf, and bear, the culture, to its credit, had identified and separated the three distinct roles of pathfinder, problem formulator, and problem solver. The role played out by the wolves is that of pathfinder/synthesizer. Wolves display purposeful behavior by setting the direction, dealing with why questions, identifying relevant issues, and defining the agenda and context before they are presented to the turtles, the problem formulators, to define them. The defined problems are, in turn, passed on by the turtles to the bears, the problem solvers. Bears generate alternatives and recommend solutions. Solutions are returned to the turtles to check on their relevance and potency before referring them back to the wolves to check on their relevance. Wolves are finally responsible for integrating the solutions, keeping the records, and ratifying and communicating the final agreements. Wolves keep the fire alive by motivating and monitoring actions.
Considering that the unit of a social system is not so much the individual but the role one plays in different settings, the wolf/turtle/bear role playing presents an excellent vehicle for group learning and consensus building — the essential ingredients of nation building.
10.4.5. Back to the Future
The design of the membership network is intended to approximate and build, as much as possible, on the Oneida's traditional model of forming consensus (Figure 10.6). Symbolism is neither value-free nor inconsequential. There is more to it than meets the eye. We need to appreciate the significance and the implications of what lies hidden at the heart of cultural norms and practices. The insight is indispensable for getting to the bottom of what might otherwise come to pass as a collection of age-old customs. It is by rediscovering the true organizing principles implicit in the culture that people can take stock of their history and know who they are and why they behave the way they do.
This process of consensus building differs from the conventional model of majority rule based on a simple voting routine. The “majority rule,” a special feature of the Western model of democracy, presupposes existence of public debate and formation of public opinion aided by mass communication. The voting process is only the means for bringing the process to its ultimate closure. But the cultures that are participative, interactive, and symbolically expressive are far more spontaneous. They go through a less rigid process involving both verbal and nonverbal modes of consensus building, referred to as “getting to be of the same mind,” before the community arrives at a collectively agreed-upon position. The open, patient, unstructured, and well-drawn-out discussions will continue until an acceptable and practical solution is reached.
This open-ended mode of deliberation transcends majority rule. In fact, majority rule is, in essence, but a special case of consensus building. The limitations imposed by the formal “rules of order,” intended to manage time more effectively, prove incompatible with the inherently slow process of consensus building in dealing with critical issues. In such contexts, reaching widely supported agreements cannot afford to compromise the prerequisites of consensus building in the name of majority rule. If it did, the outcome would not only debunk public commitment but would lead to widespread suspicion, if not wholesale alienation.
By capitalizing on the valuable tradition of generating a common understanding, the Nation will benefit from multiple advantages: it is effective because it engages everyone in the development process, it is legitimizing because it resorts to an indigenous device already sanctioned by the culture, and it is exciting because it frees up the richness contained in the past to become an effective vehicle for future progress. The process is liberating because it empowers us to achieve the freedom that we need to establish ourselves as the masters of our future rather than prisoners of our past. The future need not be a mere extension of the past. By reinterpreting the underlying drivers of our behavior, we can both preserve and renew our culture in ways that make it consistent with what we are and supportive of what we desire to be.
10.4.6. Performance Criteria and Measures
Creation of the capacity to act is the greatest single function of the membership platform. Although diversity is at the heart of a free society, lack of agreement on a set of organizing principles and operating procedures will rob it of the minimum requirement to act effectively. As such, creation of a capacity to convert the paralyzing dichotomies and structural conflicts to an enabling complementarity will be the basis on which the success of the membership dimension will be measured. The performance system will therefore establish the measures and criteria to determine the degree to which the membership platform has been able to institutionalize the consensus basis for united action in the face of diversity. This should be the outcome of an ongoing and nationwide dialog, the capacity to listen and empathize, leading to a reduction of the existing levels of tension and frustration while producing a shared understanding and commitment to a set of organizing principles and operating procedures.
To accomplish this purpose, a set of organizing principles, representing the underlying assumptions at the core of the Nation's entrenched polarization, will be identified. For each principle, a pair of pro and con arguments will be developed. Using a predesigned index, the attitude of the membership as a whole with regard to these principles will be periodically measured and tabulated. Successive measurements will yield the pattern of change along the organizing principles. This exercise will not act as a mirror only. It will serve as a medium by which the membership can both understand and influence what makes it behave the way it does. Thus, performance criteria and measures will help the Nation shed its paralyzing “mess” and move voluntarily toward its desired state.
10.4.6.1. Interdimensional and interest group activities
The membership platform will support and manage all interest group activities requiring voluntarism and participation of active members, such as Pow Wow, Arts, and Aging. The activities and interactions of the membership, learning, and business dimensions will be coordinated at the PLCB. It is imperative that each one take the initiative to coordinate itself with the other two. To facilitate this coordination, members in the membership network will be encouraged to join a cultural or professional group. The cultural, professional, and other interest groups will act as advisors for the learning and business dimensions.
10.5. Learning systems
The success of the Oneida Nation will ultimately depend on the competence of its members. Oneidas are both the ends and the means of the system of which they are the parts. Like any other human system, the Oneida Nation is only as good as its members. The development of Oneidas, the system's human assets, therefore constitutes the second most critical dimension of the architecture.
The function of the learning dimension is the development of human assets. It is about reinvigorating the ability and desire of the members to satisfy their needs and desires both individually and collectively. Ability without desire is impotent, just as desire without ability is sterile.
Cultural development involves desires while professional development involves abilities. Desires are the essential ingredients for creating an achieving society. Cultural and spiritual mobilization deals with the desire dimension. Abilities, no matter how high, are only the necessary condition for success. To the extent that they are not energized by relevant desires, abilities tend to remain latent. In the absence of desires, abilities would be mere potentials.
The vitality of a culture is in its potency to act as a vehicle for the realization of the society's shared dreams. A potent culture can rekindle the necessary desires without which dreams degenerate into daydreams. Renaissance requires reinterpretation of the cultural symbols in such a way that new goals can be collectively legitimized and effectively pursued while the continuity of group identity is preserved. Ultimately, cultural vitality is measured by success in getting the traditional symbols and images to support the emerging needs of a progressive society. Respect for culture does not imply regression nor should progress mean a break with the past. Old values were born in response to new needs. In the context of national development, innovation is getting these powerful engines reconnected to the emerging needs that keep replacing the ones that may have outlived the reason for which they were born.
Abilities, on the other hand, involve operationalization of the knowledge required for formulating effective responses to new challenges. They involve a whole set of approaches, know-how, and skills for defining problems and designing solutions. Professional development, therefore, is the vehicle to leverage the ability dimension. It requires a professional-based system of education. The system should be designed so that it can be (1) compatible with the system's special needs and, at the same time, (2) capable of meeting licensing requirements of the external environment (federal and state) of which it is a part. The external requirements are so easily achievable that the educational system of the Oneida Nation should position itself to function as complementary to, rather than a redundant duplication of, the U.S. educational system. The system should therefore avoid producing what it can procure from the outside.
The learning systems will be responsible for three basic outputs: learning to learn, or formal education; learning to do, or professional education; and learning to be, or cultural education (Figure 10.7).
10.5.1. Learning to Learn (Formal Education)
Given the accelerated rate of change that keeps transforming everything, and with it the useful life of learned subject matter, the real responsibility of an educational system is to convert the learners to self-educators. It can achieve this by increasing the students' desire and ability to embark on a never-ending process of learning, unlearning, and relearning, both within and beyond the conventional frameworks. The responsibility for these first- and second-order learnings should be common to all levels of formal education, from elementary to higher education. Formal education, a licensing activity, covers the whole spectrum of K-12, college, and postgraduate studies.
To ensure the quality and availability of formal education, the learning system will:
• Be responsible for identifying and publicizing the Nation's educational needs and priorities and making sure that there will be sufficient information and resources available to help the members make informed decisions in terms of their educational goals
• Provide financial support (i.e., scholarships) to eligible students who will otherwise be deprived of pursuing courses of study that are needed/endorsed by the Nation
• Create a trust fund to offer interest-free loans to eligible students, who will be allowed to write them off by working in the Nation's governance or its business development efforts
• Generate and continually develop a national database to monitor the educational progress of each member throughout his/her life
• Consider all Oneidas, regardless of their residence, as its constituency and do its best to (1) keep itself informed about their educational history and progress and (2) make itself accessible to them when conditions require and justify supporting the members' academic pursuits
10.5.2. Learning to Be (Cultural Education)
Cultural education covers the whole spectrum of learning experiences that result in both individual and collective development in arts, languages, sports, traditional ceremonies, and other quality-of-life-enhancing activities that involve leisure time. Learning to be is essentially a character-building activity. It is about values, worldviews, and identities. It involves desires as opposed to abilities, the capacity rather than the content, the direction rather than the speed, the whys rather than the hows, the feeling rather than the thinking, the meaning rather than the action, and the process of becoming rather than the state of having. It is about doing the right thing rather than doing it right.
Learning to be, in essence, involves aesthetics. If history is a lesson, national declines are preceded by cultural declines. Aesthetics, contrary to popular belief, is not a luxury. Societies that were antithetical to aesthetics invariably proved to be anti-human and anti-development as well.
10.5.3. Learning to Do (Professional Education)
Professional education is responsible for creating the marketable competency of the members. In doing this, it will avoid reducing the context of learning to theoretical inputs and rigid classroom formats. Conventional formats, the predominant mode of instruction in higher education, are either incompatible or very expensive. The world does not divide itself the way universities do. Small communities cannot afford the luxury of having a proliferating number of specialists who enjoy knowing more and more about a smaller and smaller set of problems facing the Oneida Nation. What the Nation requires is a people capable of performing multiple roles and able to deal with the totality of a problem.
Professional education should carry out its own survey and draw up its own conclusion about the Nation's professional needs and desires. It can then set out to create plans and programs that will match the nation's business and developmental potentials.
Professional education's best option would be to launch apprentice models of training. To the extent possible, it should recruit its indigenous experts who have proven competence in the needed areas. Such mentors will then be supplied with the necessary resources and trainees to produce the needed technicians (accountants, carpenters, librarians, computer experts, health technicians, etc.). The system can forge alliances or affiliations with known colleges and universities to get its programs accredited.
10.5.4. Support Functions
The support arm of the learning system will consist of shared facilities and the knowledge bank. They will represent those resources commonly utilized by other dimensions of the learning system.
10.5.4.1. Shared facilities
Shared facilities cannot belong to any one of the output units acting as a supplier to others. Otherwise, the ensuing power imbalance would favor the owning unit at the expense of the other users, rather than letting different units duplicate and diffuse scarce physical resources (buildings, facilities, equipment, etc.).
10.5.4.2. Knowledge bank
The knowledge bank will host the core competencies of the Nation. Membership in the knowledge bank should be considered a privilege. The bank will consist of full- and part-time members. Part-time members are those who have parallel responsibilities in other platforms, but their expertise is so much in demand for the system as a whole that their membership will be necessitated by the bank. This will make it possible for the system to capitalize on this rare expertise. For example, experts serving in the PLCS will also be part-time members of the knowledge bank.
The knowledge bank will be the “think tank” of the Nation. It will be involved on a project basis in all three areas of consulting, education, and research, both for internal and external clients. The bank will be able to recruit specialized and/or complementary talent from internal and external sources on a temporary project basis.
10.5.5. Advocacy Functions
Advocacy will make sure that the learning needs of all members, children, adults, and elders, are actively catered to. For this to happen, all of the members will be registered with one of the three advocacy groups of the learning system.
Advocacy services will:
• Interact with the three output dimensions to make sure that members, especially the youth, are receiving the proper education at the right time, in the right amount, and of the right quality
• Intervene, coordinate, and take whatever action is necessary to make sure that constituencies are properly treated and their individualized needs satisfactorily met
• Keep in touch with parents and enlist their active support for the success of educational efforts
• Create special programs for members who are in need of rehabilitation services
10.5.6. Oneida Multiversity
The educational effort of the Oneida Nation will be leveraged to operate far more effectively by making a fundamental break with the conventional models. Conventional models of education, relevant in the previous era, have outlived their useful life. They are proving to be more of a constraint than instruments of the kind of education needed to create the contemporary citizen. There is a real need for an alternative model grounded in an open learning paradigm. The new learning experience, which can be called Oneida Multiversity, will:
• Cover all levels of education from kindergarten to postgraduate
• Create a learning society by turning the whole Nation into a school without walls where learning can be freed from time and place restrictions
• Provide formal, professional, and cultural education
• Use learners as educators and educators as learners in the same course
• Remove boundaries between the worlds of work, hobby, and learning
• Remove the boundaries between theoretical, vocational, and artistic studies so that members can be learning while earning, and vice versa
• Provide opportunities for every member of the Nation to be, potentially, a teacher and a student at all times
• Allow sufficient flexibility so that noncompulsory (ages six to sixteen) learners can get in and out of the system at will
• Introduce learning cells, research cells, and practice cells that allow the participants to carry out multiple roles in all of them (as educators and/or researchers and/or practitioners) at the same time
• Be open to all kinds of pedagogic approaches, formats, methodologies, and curricula in addition to useful conventional ones
• Be accessible by all members — anytime, anywhere
The learning system employs the following educational vehicles.
10.5.6.1. Learning cells
A learning cell is a vehicle for increasing the knowledge and understanding of the participants in a collaborative context. By operationalizing the idea that the best way of learning is teaching, it will make the learners responsible for both teaching to and learning from each other. The success of students assigned to a learner–teacher will then be a measure for evaluating the success of the learner–teacher.
Language dissemination, adult literacy, and vocational education and training, for example, can best be achieved through learning cells, which produce cascade effects by making learning by teaching and training by trainers happen at the same time. Such a system of learning could be made exponentially effective by providing added extrinsic incentives to learner–teachers, whose students could demonstrate proficiency in their subject matter. The students who pass the standard can, in turn, go on teaching other learners and get compensated for it on an output-oriented basis. Thus the motivation of learning to learn is multiplied by learning to teach and learning by teaching.
By taking advantage of what is already available in the environment and concentrating on an internally generated supply of services in the areas unique to the system, the education system can maximize its effectiveness. It does so by capitalizing on the available resources in its environment and complementing them when they are lacking. One such example would be to make the externally hired contractors commit themselves to the task of training counterparts from the internal pool of personnel as an integral part of their professional responsibilities. They should expect not to receive the balance of their compensation unless the pre-assigned trainees achieve the requisite level of competence.
This pyramidal structure of group learning requires its own system of organization, management, and support services to take care of such arrangements as assignment of roles, interconnectivity with training cells in the business dimension, and the action plans for future application of learned skills in professional/vocational contexts.
10.5.6.2. Research cells
Research cells, like learning cells, have a participant-centered focus. Among other things, they are charged with cultural reinterpretation. Research cells are to find out how the future can be built with the aid of the past. In this regard, a shared vision of the desired future will help them identify and select — from a rich and, at times, quite heterogeneous content of cultural heritage — the values, the symbolism, the meanings, and the rituals that will be relevant to reinventing the future and helpful in the nation-building effort.
10.5.6.3. Practice cells
Practice cells will involve all kinds of participatory group activities such as theater, arts festivals, fashion shows, and sporting events. Practice cells will promote those activities that are high in their experiential learning content. They will be instrumental in the cultivation of those tastes that will ultimately result in the creation of an environment promoting ever-increasing generation and consumption of aesthetic creations, artistic values, and cultural commodities. The idea is to erase the conventional boundaries of education, work, and fun and integrate art, sports, and pastime into creative activities that attract and engage all the members, especially the young, wherever they are.
Practice cells, mediums of competency development, will be run by members with proven capabilities in specific activities. These mentors design the projects and are provided with a budget to develop the participants as well as the market for their services. Each cell is typically made up of five to six participants.
10.5.7. Performance Criteria and Measures
The learning system will be a performance center. It will be a throughput-oriented operation with a built-in tendency to keep the consumption in check and not allow it to grow beyond a healthy percentage of value generation. The operating budget will therefore be a percentage of its actual throughput.
Participating learners pay a tuition in the form of vouchers they have obtained. Tuition is considered as income only when the voucher is cashed in. The budget, therefore, is on a per-head basis. The source of vouchers, and ultimately the budget of the learning system, is the education trust fund set up to finance the system as a performance center. The designated fund will only be realized by the system once the participant is actually picked up for processing by the learning system.
The design of the performance measures will be informed by the degree to which the following indicators are realized:
• Cultural, educational, and professional integration
• Widespread and active interest in learning to be, learning to learn, and learning to do
• Demand, both internal and external, for the graduates of the system
• Multidimensionality, as manifested by the participants (being a learner, a teacher, and practitioner at the same time), as well as resource utilization (multiple use of facilities and resources for all kinds of learning activities in the system)
• Cultural vitality through revitalization, adaptation, and adoption of the norms that prove relevant to the preservation and continued development of the Nation
The measures will be eclectic; they will be both objectively and subjectively devised and applied. Objectivity, after all, is collective subjectivity.
10.5.7.1. Governance and intersystem relationships
Since compatibility among the membership, learning, and business dimensions is of utmost importance to the success of the Nation, their interactions will be coordinated at the PLCB. In addition, the learning system will operate under a PLC Learning Board that will be made up of a member of the BC, the GM, the director of the learning platform, and his/her direct reports. Each basic unit of the system will also be assisted by an advisory group whose members will be selected from cultural and professional cells operating in the membership network.
10.6. Business systems
To be viable and self-reliant, a nation should be able to generate and disseminate wealth, products, and services effectively. It should be capable of addressing all those factors that affect the standard of living, such as health, food, housing, and other material needs of the membership. Generation and dissemination are two sides of the same coin. Generation without proper distribution breeds alienation, whereas distribution without adequate generation will lead to equitable distribution of poverty. Self-reliance, to be self-sustaining, needs to be grounded in diversity. History has not been kind to societies that relied on a single source of survival.
The business system is the dimension of architecture responsible for expanding and mobilizing the Nation's capacity for viability. In charge of entrepreneurial and business development, it will be involved in creating business opportunities and supporting the members to successfully detect, seize, manage, and exploit the emerging opportunities.
Ultimately, real wealth is about the competence to convert opportunities into values that are essential for satisfying both one's own needs and desires and those of others. Success in contributing to both collective and individual life-achievement goals is a vital sign of people who have earned the right to be in charge of their destinies. Economic success is, ultimately, about freedom to exercise choice. The ugliest manifestation of poverty is powerlessness.
Perhaps no other mission of the business function is as important as helping communities to prosper while learning to attain higher levels of self-reliance. The Indians have always been proud and resourceful people. Their culture is replete with qualities that are essentially entrepreneurial. Although they valued communitarianism, they have also celebrated rugged individualism, self-reliance, and bravery.
Success is about desires and abilities. Desires and abilities do not have substitutes. They cannot be given nor be imposed from the outside. That is perhaps the reason why trusteeship, no matter how noble the intentions, has the potential of defeating the very purposes for which it was originally set up. Intended to help, it can lead to helplessness. Mandated to create autonomy, it can degenerate into dependency. Meant to preserve ideals, it can end up corrupting them. Experience shows that well-intentioned systems of bureaucratized assistance can prove, counterintuitively, devastating. This trend, however limited, needs to be reversed. The answer is subsidizing demand instead of subsidizing the supply.
To realize its mission in serving the Nation's economic interests, the business system will engage in all of the activities that are primarily designed to
• Ensure the long-term financial self-sufficiency of the Nation
• Diversify the sources of revenue
• Eliminate the Nation's reliance on a single source of income
• Create employment opportunities
Business development includes identification of business opportunities, raising capital, infusion of seed money, investment, partnership, management of operation, and provision of management support services. It will actively explore and identify the potential opportunities for Oneida entrepreneurs. It will also support Oneidas about, and encourage them to take advantage of, the available federal provisions for securing special business privileges for specific minorities.
All of the units in the business dimension will be profit centers. If and when management finds it necessary, for whatever reason, to subsidize a particular service to a particular user, it will have to do so by subsidizing the demand and never the supply. Such a market-based discipline will protect both the provider and the user of the service from the unhealthy effects of bureaucratized relations leading to providers' arrogance and insensitivity toward the user and the users' helplessness and dependency on its supplier.
In this context, the business system will consist of a series of business units formed as profit centers organized into five dimensions: services, industry, leisure, land and agriculture, and marketing (Figure 10.8).
10.6.1. Services Sector
This platform will consist of businesses in the services sector. The service providers, operating within the government division, will eventually be transformed into a profit center and become a member of this group. However, initially, the service units in this sector will consist of: financial services, such as investment or commercial banks, and ancillary services, such as engineering and business development.
10.6.2. Industry Sector
This will include suppliers and technology companies whose output will be bought and integrated into the outputs of other platforms or sold directly to external clients.
10.6.3. Leisure Sector
This will include gaming, restaurants, hotels, and entertainment operations. Generically, gaming belongs to the entertainment industry. It is but one of the wide-ranging business activities that capitalizes on the vast opportunities emerging from ever-growing leisure time. Approached from a leisure-based vantage point, gaming can be treated as one link in a long value chain providing a whole array of services in response to the entire spectrum of vacationing families' needs. Hotels, resorts, amusement and/or theme parks, zoos, transportation, and other tourism-related services are promising pieces of the entertainment jigsaw. Other than lodging requirements, adequate land and air accessibility, from as many points as possible, is crucial to the success of a broad leisure-based portfolio. Gaming, in terms of its functional properties, belongs to the leisure dimension. However, because of its sheer size and stage of maturation, it will be managed as a separate entity until such time that other nascent leisure-related businesses reach a level of growth that removes the threat of their being overshadowed by gaming's presence.
10.6.4. Land and Agriculture Sector
This will include housing, food processing, and farming operations. Land is a precious resource. Although it has extrinsic value in terms of national sovereignty, its opportunity cost is too high to let it lie fallow simply as a piece of property. Once the ownership of land is established, it should be managed by this platform in the most effective manner.
10.6.5. Marketing Sector
The marketing arm of the business system will consist of the retail business and distribution channel, which will aggressively search and exploit the existing and potential needs of the current and emerging markets in and outside of the United States. This sector will work closely with all output units and act as their marketing arm.
Each platform is intended to house all three distinct types of ownership as follows.
10.6.5.1. Collective ownership
This type of ownership will consist of all the business activities that are collectively owned by the Nation. This type of ownership can be used in all platforms. Collective ownership can be formed in agriculture, services, industry, land management, housing, and leisure/entertainment. For example, because of the significant role that gaming plays in the operation of the Nation, it is only natural that it continue to be collectively owned. However, peripheral activities that are related to gaming that can enhance the leisure dimension could be created by means of individual ownership.
10.6.5.2. Individual ownership and strategic alliances
Business units created by entrepreneurial members, alone, in groups, or in strategic alliances with outsiders (in all platforms), will be supported by the Nation. These units will be licensed to operate for a minimal fee as long as their activities are compatible with the economic interests of the Nation and provide employment opportunities for its members.
10.6.5.3. Partnership and franchise development
Franchising will be an appropriate format to create partnership between the Nation and the individual members to encourage the proliferation of business activities that can be packaged and duplicated within or outside the reservation.
The franchise model would be a powerful entrepreneurial tool for economic development. Well planned, it can easily create hundreds of outside businesspersons who would otherwise have no chance of ever becoming such for lack of capital, training, or access to professional assistance, or all of those factors combined.
10.6.6. Governance and Intersystem Relationships
Activities and interactions among the membership, learning, and business dimensions will be coordinated by the PLCB. However, business systems will be governed by a PLC Business Board that will act as a holding company. Membership of this board will consist of the treasurer, chief of staff, GM of gaming, director of financial systems, director of technical systems, GM of business systems, and his or her direct reports. In addition, each sector of the business platform (services, industry, leisure, land and agriculture, retail) may choose to have an Advisory Group selected from the members of the professional cells in the membership network.
10.7. Core services
Core services will consist of three basic services that are necessary to maintain the physical infrastructure and social stability of the Nation. These services will benefit all the members collectively and indiscriminately.
10.7.1. Government Services Division
Health services and social services are the major function of the government services division.
10.7.1.1. Health services
Delivery of all health services, preventive and interventive, including dental and medicinal, will be organized and managed through this department. In addition, the department will be responsible for all of the environmental services such as sanitation, industrial hygiene, safety, and community health.
It is recommended that the department be redesigned in such a way that it will, in general, subsidize the demand instead of the supply of health delivery. Delivery units should be gradually converted to profit centers and moved to the services dimension of the business platform.
10.7.1.2. Social services
The social services department will be responsible for three basic outputs:
• Counseling: Relief and treatment of all chemical dependencies, domestic abuse, and other social ills. Provision of paralegal services as well as support of senior citizens and veterans are also the responsibility of this unit.
• Economic support and income maintenance: This unit will support those who are not able to support themselves. However, as much as possible, it is the responsibility of this unit to work closely with the learning and business systems to create meaningful employment opportunities for the able-bodied in the Nation.
• Housing authority: This unit will make sure that all those who need a home or shelter will get one. It will develop and manage all group homes and shelters and provide assistance to those families that need help in securing housing. The overriding policy should be aimed at integrating rather than segregating people.
10.7.2. Infrastructure Development Division
This division will be responsible for space planning and engineering as well as public works.
10.7.2.1. Space planning and engineering
This department will plan the space for the Nation. It will deal with all environmental concerns, land use, housing, utilities, and transportation. It will be responsible for project coordination and construction management. Development of zoning, issuing permits, and inspection and enforcement of space plans are the responsibilities of this department.
10.7.2.2. Public works
This department will manage the operation of all utilities, wells, septic maintenance of buildings, facilities, grounds, parks, and recreational centers, and automotive and Oneida Transit services.
10.7.3. Ordinance Division
This division will be responsible for compliance and records management.
10.7.3.1. Compliance
This department will be responsible for law enforcement (the police), conservation, preferences, vendor licensing, and collection of any taxes required.
10.7.3.2. Records management
This department will house all the national historical documents as well as registry of individual membership, identification records, and land and property titles.
10.7.4. Performance Criteria and Measures
These services will have to be incented to act in a cost-effective manner, doing more with less. They will have to operate on a throughput-oriented basis with a budget that will be kept as a portion of their revenues. The success of these units should never be measured by their size (amount of budget, number of employees, or size of populations served), but by the cost effectiveness of their delivery.
10.7.5. Governance and Oversight
In addition to the PLCB, which will coordinate the activities of the core services with other platforms, core services will be governed by the PLC Services Board. Members of the PLC Services Board will consist of a designated member of the GB, chief of staff, GM of the platform, and his/her direct reports.
It is imperative that core services act as servers and not, as is often the case, controllers. Since membership at large is the beneficiary of these services, a number of advisory committees, as deemed necessary, may be set up to oversee the operation of these services.
10.8. External environment
The external environment dimension will provide mutual interfaces between the system and its containing environment. This dimension will operate on the assumption that, in order to survive and grow, Oneida Nation, like any viable social system, must remain open and continuously interact with the other actors in its environment. It is, therefore, a means of channeling the scattered energies of the Nation that would otherwise be wasted in nonstrategic, and even conflicting, activities to focus on external opportunities and threats facing the Nation as a whole.
No nation is capable of satisfying all of its needs by itself. Self-determination and self-reliance should not be confused with self-sufficiency. Interdependence implies two-way relationships. It requires giving and taking at the same time. Ultimately, a developed society, given the same level of resources, can do more with less.
Environmental interface, especially where one represents a minority, requires recognition of special burdens and responsibilities that go with it. External perceptions and the group image are crucial. As far as minority groups are concerned, an individual's actions tend to receive much greater attention because one is automatically perceived as a typical representative of the group. Thus, the actions of a few, for better or worse, reflect disproportionately on the image of the whole. Minorities, therefore, ought to be that much more sensitive to the image they project. They need to take much greater care of the way their image is received. Minorities can hardly afford to neglect their public relations sensitivities. Negligence and complacency can prove too costly.
The external environment dimension will operate at the following three levels:
• Federal and state government
• Local and business environment
• Other Indian Nations
All three levels will make sure that the system is kept adequately informed. By constantly monitoring the environment, they will provide timely inputs on significant trends and developments representing emerging threats and/or opportunities. They will also relentlessly pursue the interests of the Oneida Nation by influencing the events in their respective environments. The idea is to influence where one cannot control and appreciate where one cannot influence.
10.9. Judicial system
The two basic functions of an Oneida judicial system are as follows:
• Consummation of the national sovereignty; the ability to interpret and modify the constitution and to ensure equal protection of members under the law
• Creation of an independent and legitimate channel for conflict resolution and redress of grievances, thus relieving the government from becoming diverted by concerns that are basically judicial in nature
10.9.1. Contextual Analysis
Designing an effective judicial system for the Oneida Nation requires that the unique characteristics of the system in which it is intended to operate be fully understood, explicitly stated, and widely agreed upon. This understanding is essential to clarify such questions as
• Why a separate judicial system is needed
• How it will relate to the existing order
• What the main source and nature of different conflicts are
That the Oneida Nation is a unique social system should not be so difficult to understand. The relationship between the Oneidas and their government is different from that of nations whose governments play a much smaller role, and a purely noncommercial one at that, in the lives of their people. Therefore, the overriding concern for the Oneida judicial system would involve the relationship between the individual and the collectivity.
Government responsibility for collective ownership of critical resources, while it may serve a useful purpose in special contexts, is fraught with powerful political implications. For nations whose governments are saddled with the responsibility for collective ownership in addition to governance, the way the two functions are arranged and prosecuted impacts their systemic consequences enormously. The following points underline some of the adverse consequences of bundling up the two functions:
• The governance and business management roles would get so mixed up that neither of them, even under the most ideal circumstances, could be achieved and assessed satisfactorily.
• Government becomes responsible, not only for normal governance functions, but also for providing employment as a means of distributing wealth. Loss of clear-cut accountability would then be the first casualty of such an arrangement. The natural consequence of regarding government employment as a right rather than a privilege eliminates competence as a requirement for employment. The result would be an irresponsible tendency to do less for more, and a burgeoning attitude characterized by hostility and negativity.
• In a single-employer environment, the individual's dependency on the state would take on larger and more complex dimensions. Losing one's job would then be tantamount to permanent unemployment and condemnation to abject poverty. Chronic dependency would breed learned helplessness, frustration, alienation, and a culture of insatiable demand for free services. Natural conflicts arising out of the normal interactions between a manager and his or her subordinate would take on a political tone and be referred to the political system. In this context, development and enforcement of equitable employment contracts (HR policies) will become the most sensitive and vital concern of every member.
• Based on personal interests and even stylistic preferences, dissatisfactions with any decisions could metastasize into disruptive political pressures. Proliferation and increased intransigence of pressure groups would then further strain the citizen–state interdependencies until they reach explosive proportions. The ensuing fragmentation of the majority into several interest groups would give rise to ever-marginalized pressure groups striking volatile coalitions of convenience based on agreements on means rather than on ends. People would abandon their affiliations around the national mandates and, instead, become subdivided around hidden and irrational agendas maliciously intended to threaten, paralyze, and ultimately undermine the system of which they are a part. As a consequence, the administration cannot help but become increasingly bogged down and eventually truncated from its normal functions by a nightmare of ever-proliferating complaints. This overwhelming tendency, if allowed to continue, would force the system to either resort to an authoritarian style intended to silence all opposition or just cave in to total paralysis.
10.9.2. Contextual Challenge
When the state is the only game in town, existence of an effective mechanism to mediate between the individual and the state becomes a must. Otherwise, political pressure would become more pronounced and present itself as the only possible recourse for redressing grievances that are originally nonpolitical.
The success of a judicial system lies in its effectiveness in handling normal conflicts that are the inevitable by-products of human interactions. If, however, the design suffers from structural conflicts (conflicts whose generation is a function of adversarially designed structures rather than clashes of personalities), then no robust judicial system would ever be capable of coping with the conflictual side effects of such an inherently flawed system. The constant tugs-of-war, arising, for example, from a common tendency to commingle governance proper with management of collective ownership, would produce a no-win situation for any judicial system. The usual never-ending contest between conflict generation and conflict resolution, where public sense of fairness would be the ultimate loser, is symptomatic of such a flawed approach.
When particular socioeconomic conditions make it imperative for the government to assume a collective-ownership role, it is best to make sure that the managements of the two functions are kept separate from each other as much as possible. The stewardship of public resources should be treated as a trusteeship undertaken on behalf of the people, who are the real owners of the assets. As far as this trusteeship responsibility is concerned, the system would have to be designed to reflect the commercial nature of such an operation.
This concern has been a critical element in designing Oneida's new architecture. The overall design is intended, among other things, to generate a system free from structural conflict. It separates the conduct of governance from the conduct of the business management by assigning them to distinct, though interrelated, platforms with different performance criteria and measures.
To capitalize on the positives and minimize the negatives of combining governance with collective ownership, it is recommended that the learning and business systems platforms become additional and independent sources of employment (each with a separate HR department). This move will create a propensity to expand and increase internal sources of variety in the system, instead of creating a single monopoly that reduces the choices of members. Under these conditions, redundancy of some critical functions is, despite the conventional wisdom, the solution rather than the problem. The business platform should provide additional sources of variety by expanding opportunities for private as well as collective ownership.
10.9.3. Democratic Challenge
When creating, within the context of collective ownership, a viable society based on democratic conventions, it is crucial to define the notion and parameters of majority rule. It is imperative to forge a widespread agreement on what constitutes a legitimate majority: its powers, its boundaries, and whether it has a right to override the individual or trample minorities in the name of the whole. It should define the limits of the minority and majority rights so that they may complement, rather than encroach on, the rights of others. If the rule of law finds its legitimacy in the will of the majority, then tyranny of the majority would be a fait accompli unless it transcends, and reigns supreme over, the majority itself. The majority, for example, has no right to disown its right to democracy and, thus, democratically undermine democracy itself.
Collective ownership carries a series of responsibilities that saddle it with commensurate powers. By the same token, the individual has certain rights that correspond with commensurate duties. The judicial system should therefore make sure that there exists a four-pronged balance and reciprocity between rights and responsibilities: both within those of the individual and those of the Nation on the one hand, as well as between the individual's and the Nation's on the other. Rights and responsibilities are indivisible; they are two sides of the same coin. Neither could exist without the other.
The system should have a built-in capability to differentiate between entitlements and privileges of the individual on the one hand, and the governance and commercial responsibilities of the government on the other. The individual and the collectivity, which is represented by the government, both have separate, and yet interrelated, rights and responsibilities. Not only are these two sets of rights and responsibilities not exclusive, but they are essentially complementary. In fact, they are so interdependent that one could not be dealt with without touching the other.
Collectivity has distinct rights to security, viability, and sovereignty. It has a right to act; its decision process cannot be taken hostage. It is also responsible for making sure that the individual, even as a minority of one, is provided with enough alternatives to make his/her choices meaningful.
An individual citizen has inalienable rights, such as the right to privacy and the right not to be discriminated against. In addition to the rights, the individual can enjoy certain privileges, which he/she may acquire or lose, provided certain conditions are, or are not, satisfied. The individual, however, stands to lose the privileges that he/she abuses; irresponsible driving would be one obvious example.
10.9.3.1. A critical concern
The existing judicial alternative in the environment has turned out to be too costly. The exorbitant cost of justice has pushed it increasingly out of the reach of the non-wealthy. As far as ordinary people are concerned, it has become an unaffordable commodity. The amount of time and money required to sustain almost any litigation makes the pursuit of justice a luxury not many can afford. More often than not, even winning would be illusory. The Oneida judicial system should therefore be designed in such a way that it will be both accessible to and affordable for all Oneidas, and be capable of addressing those concerns of the citizens versus the collectivity that would otherwise remain unmet by the containing system.
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