The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All (Paperback)

by Tom Atlee (Author), Rosa Zubizarreta (Author) "For the last ten years, I have been exploring the following question: What would intelligence look like if we took wholeness, interconnectedness and co-creativity seriously?..." (more)
Key Phrases: citizen deliberative councils, resonant intelligence, citizen consensus councils, Wisdom Council, Andhra Pradesh, Dynamic Facilitation (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
With compelling real-life stories, innovative ideas and hands-on guidance, this book shows how to engage the combined wisdom of citizens to solve complex social problems. It describes how powerful new forms of dialogue and deliberation enable diverse ordinary citizens to work together developing sophisticated public policy recommendations - even on technical issues. Demonstrating that groups, communities and whole societies can be more intelligent and wise collectively than most brilliant individuals, Tom Atlee shows how 'collective intelligence' could revolutionise politics and governance, bringing wise common sense to every issue - from city budgets to terrorism to global warming. Readers will find descriptions and links to over a hundred proven approaches to this new form of democracy - organisations, participatory practices, innovations, books and more. The most powerful innovations - citizen deliberative councils - have been used hundreds of times around the world - from Denmark to India, from Brazil to the US. The 2500-year-old Tao Te Ching says that leaders should govern so the people say "We did it ourselves". "The Tao of Democracy" shows how.

About the Author
Tom Atlee has written and spoken extensively on collective intelligence, holism and citizen-based deliberative democracy. His non-profit Co-Intelligence Institute's websites -- co-intelligence.org and democracyinnovations.org -- get over five hundred visitors a day. He consults internationally, publishes popular email bulletins to hundreds of subscribers and has published dozens of articles on social issues and co-intelligent approaches to community health and social change. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 344 pages
• Publisher: Writers' Collective; Revised edition (July 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 193213347X
• ISBN-13: 978-1932133479
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #117,310 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Utterly Sensational--Basic Book for Humanity, November 30, 2003

By	Robert D. Steele (Oakton, VA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)

Edit of 21 Dec 07 to add links and comment.

New comment: Tom Atlee opened a door for me, and because of him I have joined the co-intelligence movement and will be publishing an edited work, COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace, both free in PDF form at OSS.Net/CIB, and on Amazon from mid-February.

I see so many things starting to come together around the world and through books. The Internet has opened the door for a cross-fertilization of knowledge and emotion and concern across all boundaries such as the world has never seen before, and it has made possible a new form of structured collective intelligence such as H.G. Wells (World Brain (Adamantine Classics for the 21st Century)), Howard Bloom (Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century), Pierre Levy (Collective Intelligence: Mankind's Emerging World in Cyberspace), Willis Harman (Global Mind Change: The New Age Revolution in the Way We Think), and I (The New Craft of Intelligence: Personal, Public, & Political--Citizen's Action Handbook for Fighting Terrorism, Genocide, Disease, Toxic Bombs, & Corruption), could never have imagined.

This book is better than all of ours, for the simple reason that it speaks directly to the possibilities of deliberative democracy through citizen study circles and wisdom councils.

The book is also helpful as a pointer to a number of web sites, all of them very immature at this point, but also emergent in a most constructive way--web sites focused on public issues, public agendas, new forms of democratic organization, and so on.

Still lacking--and I plan to encourage special organizations such as the Center for American Progress to implement something like this--is a central hub where a citizen can go, type in their zip code, and immediately be in touch with the following (as illustrated on page 133 of New Craft):

1) a weekly report on the state of any issue (disease, water, security, whatever);

2) distance learning on that issue;

3) an expert forum on that issue;

4) a virtual library on that issue including links to the deep web substance on that issue, not just to home pages of sponsoring organizations;

5) a global calendar of all events scheduled on that issue, including legislation and conferences or hearings;

6) a rolodex or who's who at every level for that issue;

7) a virtual budget showing what is being spent on that issue at every level; and

8) an active map showing the status of that issue in time and space terms, with links to people, documents, etcetera.

I cannot say enough good things about this book. If the authors cited above have been coming at the same challenge from a "top down" perspective, then Tom Atlee, the author of this book, gets credit for defining a "bottom up" approach that is sensible and implementable. This book focuses on what comes next, after everyone gets tired of just "meeting up" or "just blogging." This book is about collective intelligence for the common good, and it is a very fine book.

Five other books (all I am allowed to link):
Leadership and the New Science: Discovering Order in a Chaotic World
Society's Breakthrough!: Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People
One from Many: VISA and the Rise of Chaordic Organization
The World Cafe: Shaping Our Futures Through Conversations That Matter
The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People Are Changing the World

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A thoughtful and philosophical work, May 16, 2003

By	Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

Tom Atlee's The Tao Of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence To Create A World That Works For All offers the reader a positive viewpoint on and for creating a democracy founded upon wisdom, citizen participation, a culture of dialogue, and in an harmonious balance that encourages the best in people. A thoughtful and philosophical work written specifically to stave off the impending self-destructive side of current civilization, The Tao Of Democracy is recommended reading for students of Political Science and Philosophy.

10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars After the inspiration: How to create a future worth living, April 25, 2004

By	Critt Jarvis (Hull, MA United States) - See all my reviews

Tom Atlee's work illustrates the positive impact citizen deliberative councils can have where divisive public issues stall as intractable conflict.

Chapter 3 -- Wholeness, Interconnectedness, and Co-creativity -- provides the Rosetta for understanding "co-intelligence" and the qualitative change in conversation when we embrace wholeness, interconnectedness, and co-creativity.

Want to change the quality of the conversation? Read this book now.