Beyond politics: Rethinking the future of democracy

The problem of order is central to all societies. Bacon, Hobbes and Smith e ach proposed to resolve the problem of order by investing moral authority i n a "Leviathan" that would guarantee order: science, state and market, resp ectively. Later scholars adapted their works to other ends. But putting the Leviathans into practice had the unintended effect of relieving individual s of moral responsibility and creating widespread disorder. Widespread netw orks of democracy in all spheres of social life are proposed as an alternat ive solution to the problem of order, one that encourages the collective di scovery of moral values. Such networks put moral responsibility neither on the shoulders of individuals where it becomes crushingly heavy, nor on soci ety where it becomes unbearably light.