Making decisions as a group is one of the defining features of of the human species. Effective practice of democracy is essential to our sustainability.

Pluralist democracy allows for all the shades of social-individual spectrum to be represented, but two party politics prevents simultaneous representation of the spectrum components, and forces an unnatural swing between individual and social progress. That is why functional democracy must be proportional.

Monolithic (single party) systems necessarily coerce either individual or social in service of the other, and do so in secret. This loses the wisdom of the masses and determines their relative failure over the long run.

The best form of democracy:

• Is multi-layered, all operating under a common constitution. Starting with communities, and going up through regions and nations, to continents and the whole world.
• Takes decisions at the lowest level practical.
• Uses single transferable votes, with a Hare quota, to elect multi-member assemblies at every layer. Votes above the quota are retained and members vote in the assembly with the weight of their total vote count.
• Allows for the granular transfer of policy sovereignty up and down the layers, one layer at a time.
• Defines boundaries through the voluntary association of citizens with communities, and with each constituency voluntarily associating with other geographic peers to form the next layer up.