Do people really think pure direct democracy is a good idea? Why?
We already have a problem with legislators not understanding anything about many areas they are expected to create policy on. Why would Average Joe do any better?
We already have a problem with legislators not understanding anything about many areas they are expected to create policy on. Why would Average Joe do any better?
Much easier to bribe 500 people in a 300 million people. Actually, you may just have to bribe 100 or so, enough to tilt partisan things in your favor.
2. Direct democracy would not follow party lines, there is no need to.
You can have gun rights and abortion rights. You can have social safety net programs and curb illegal immigration. You can be tough on crimes and treat drug addiction as mental issue. You can have higher taxes but lower regulations. You can have higher military spending but no wasteful spending. You can have higher marginal tax rate while having simple tax code.
3. Because any other forms of rulers get disconnected form people as soon as they start ruling
4. No "too-big-to-fail" ruler (dictator, king, plutocrat, oligarch, meritocratic, strongman). Entire country doesn't depend on single charismatic person.
5. It might have been difficult in the past, but in the internet age in USA, direct democracy has less things that would work against it. More information available, more means to communicate available, decent education available.
6. Find best people for the job. Ideas can come from anywhere. Implementer can come from anywhere. You won't get "I implement my idea, not you". "You stole my idea". etc.
It's easy to influence all Joes on the social media platforms virtually all of them use.
> 2. Direct democracy would not follow party lines, there is no need to.
Party line is less of a problem in countries with sensible representative democracies, i.e not FPTP.
> You can have gun rights and abortion rights. You can have social safety net programs and curb illegal immigration. You can be tough on crimes and treat drug addiction as mental issue. You can have higher taxes but lower regulations. You can have higher military spending but no wasteful spending. You can have higher marginal tax rate while having simple tax code.
I completely agree with you here, but like others you only talk about the big issues. Not the small day-to-day operation that must also be handled as well as all the small "boring" issues that face any real government.
> 3. Because any other forms of rulers get disconnected form people as soon as they start ruling.
Representatives are not rulers.
> 4. No "too-big-to-fail" ruler (dictator, king, plutocrat, oligarch, meritocratic, strongman). Entire country doesn't depend on single charismatic person.
I guarantee that if direct democracy was implemented you would have charismatic personalities telling people how to vote on day one. And they would be much better than influencers trying to use reason too.
> 5. It might have been difficult in the past, but in the internet age in USA, direct democracy has less things that would work against it. More information available, more means to communicate available, decent education available.
More information overload. More false information supporting your preexisting views.
> 6. Find best people for the job. Ideas can come from anywhere. Implementer can come from anywhere. You won't get "I implement my idea, not you". "You stole my idea". etc.
Just like today it would be the most charismatic that flow to the top. Perhaps it would be even worse since today only the representatives have to be charismatic. At least their aides and bureaucrats can be ugly and socially inept as long as they are good at what they do.
>It's easy to influence all Joes on the social media platforms virtually all of them use.
And that is a good thing. If they can be influenced in a bad way quickly, then they can be influenced in a good way, or away from bad way, quickly as well.
Representative democracy was a compromise of the days where direct democracy was not possible due to limits of communication. Not so in this day and age, you can have answer from people over the internet in few hours. Thought leaders would still continue to exist and influence people. But, representatives with limited attention span, limited brain power, limited time of the day, demands from multiple concerns, personal influences of experience and needs, won't wield so much power.
>I completely agree with you here, but like others you only talk about the big issues. Not the small day-to-day operation that must also be handled as well as all the small "boring" issues that face any real government.
Bureaucracy exists in representatives democracy as well. It will continue to exist in direct democracy. Hire the best that people want, not political appointments.
>Representatives are not rulers.
I don't know. We, in USA, has developed a class of people, who "represent" people for ages and generations. They do polling of people to find issues that would result into they winning the race to be representative and then do what they want to do once they win. Electing a representative has a huge disconnect with what people want done.
>I guarantee that if direct democracy was implemented you would have charismatic personalities telling people how to vote on day one. And they would be much better than influencers trying to use reason too.
Absolutely. No different than a representative trying to secure vote. But, with representative democracy people cede control for two years, four years, six years at a time. With direct democracy you get a chance every day to influence decision making.
>More information overload. More false information supporting your preexisting views.
really? Who is this external arbitrator of what is false and what is true? Can that arbitrator make mistakes? I believe there are more good people than bad, and many eyes examining what is true vs few arbitrators of truth, is better.
>At least their aides and bureaucrats can be ugly and socially inept as long as they are good at what they do.
A case for entertaining plumber or soldier, ha? I wouldn't mind knowing if the plumber can sing. lol. People would vote on a policy, a plan and a cost and an executive (Roman Consul) to carry it out. Hiring decisions would be left to the Consul. There would be a sense of Civic Duty and people would pay more attention, in a generation or two, education in schools would emphasize Civic Duties. Representative democracy, almost half the people don't even vote, knowing it doesn't matter much what the representative claimed in the election and what transpired.
Are you just interested in making arguments for arguments' sake? Besides that, all of your comments are good examples about why direct democracy is not a always a good idea - because most people don't have enough time/desire to think issues through, and yet they are willing to be adamant about their opinions on them.
Arguing for 500 congressman with all the power is arguing for all the "Research Institutes" which write the laws for them.
How many years would it have taken if we had forced those 500 to write just 2300 page ACA/Obamacare?
> why direct democracy is not a always a good idea
Always? When did I say always? I specifically said it had least things working against it compared to other methods. You could have second coming of Christ and these lands will be blessed again in his kingdom, but we are discussing state of affairs till that happens, aren't we?
People are massively influenced by the information they consume. We tend to live in filter bubbles (we're discussing within one right now). Breaking people out of those filter bubbles is not straightforward, as you're asking them to trade the certainty of the world they know with the uncertainty of the world they don't. It takes a certain amount of curiosity to want to do that, and that's something that has to come from within, you can't bring it about directly.
Are you willing to say that you support the President, because he is result of representative democracy?
>It takes a certain amount of curiosity to want to do that, and that's something that has to come from within, you can't bring it about directly.
Is that "something within" a requirement for our elected representatives? If not, aren't they just as equally susceptible to the same bubble think?
I'm not suggesting we wait for elected representatives to get better, a more direct form of democracy would be preferable, but there needs to be a shift in the way we engage with information and debate before that will make a positive difference. In other words, the priority should be sorting out the news media first.
What do you think is going on while, as you suggest, entire population of the country updates its capability to deal with information presented? Are we not being influenced?
Is that an achievable goal? Why in a highly educated, highly liberal, highly resourceful society like USA we still lack this capability? Is it because at the end of the day we are emotional beings, not rational?
>What I'm suggesting is that if big business and mass media can can effectively control the population, it doesn't matter if they have to control 500 or 500,000,000.
They would try to control as many as they could for their benefit. Do you think we should make it easy for them by asking them to influence 500 or should we band together and use our numbers as a deterrent to mass influence?
"If they can effectively control...", but you are assuming it to be foregone conclusion. I think the battle is still raging on and more people we have on our side that they must influence the better, instead of just 500.
>In other words, the priority should be sorting out the news media first.
Will it ever be completed sorted out to be fair all the time, to all the parties?
I believe we have created this current phenomenal prosperity, not by assuming people doing right thing all the time, but despite there being bad elements. Hence, I appreciate what we have much more.
Anytime I hear, "and, over here all of us do the right thing.", I bet against that solution being successful.
If there is one thing that I agree with bible is that humanity is fallen. We must work with that assumption as we design or evaluate solutions.
Let me put it another way. If we started using direct democracy tomorrow, which areas of policy do you feel informed enough to make policy decisions on? The economy? Foreign policy? Education? Healthcare? The military? Any others?
Well, you can. But will that really happen? Especially in the area of civil rights, it is difficult to defend a right of interest to a minority group from ill-informed or simply emtionaly-driven majority opinion.
Supreme Court can still function to validate laws against founding constitutional rights.
But, I do agree, majority will have its way most of the time. If minority has a grievance, it has to address the same way people holding any other minority of opinion would deal with it... make majority see things your way.
Gay partners should be able to adopt. Make majority see it your way. We should have not criminalize marijuana use. Make majority see it your way.
In fact Civil rights have more advantages than people with majority race, ethnicity, religion but holding a minority opinion e.g. euthanasia. At least for Civil Rights there are courts to go to, majority has agreed to have that as a recourse just for Civil Rights opinions.
I honestly think minority Civil Rights are only possible when majority is doing good, economically and emotionally. Because, Civil Rights need to be enforced through education, and might of the state, which is the majority at the end of the day.
Sure, Gay rights and no slavery exists in USA, mostly because majority sees it that way. In Saudi Arabia or in ISIS territories those rights don't exist.
Civil Rights only exists where majority agrees that Civil Rights deserve to be honored. If they didn't, it wouldn't. We can feel as uncomfortable as we want about it, but that's just how the world operates. Unless there are technological advantages where one assumes god position enforcing Civil Rights of each individual without any external dependency, I don't see if that way of how the world operates could ever be changed.
You could have direct democracy on issues (Brexit e.g.) within representative democracy.
Majority agrees with this form of government including Supreme Court and Constitutional Rights. If 99% of USA agreed to not follow constitution, would Supreme Courts be able to enforce their opinions? Majority agrees to give that power to Supreme Court and is upholding it everyday.
If you think we gave our constitution to ISIS today, they would function the same way, without buying into it?
The authors are proposing that for everything? Say good bye to civil rights.
It's also much easier to force individual accountability on 500 people than 300 million. That sense of accountability is what drives compromise. Consider how often the electoral base drives compromise versus it occurring as a top-down necessity.
Both parties are spending to please base as much as they want.
Put it to people if they want military or healthcare.
However, modern DD systems should support delegator/liquid democracy (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delegative_democracy) which subsumes the benefits of representative democracy, while letting voters take back their vote from their delegate at any time.
Sometimes I feel like people think politics is only about debating the big things that split party lines like gay marriage and abortion.
You can have salami makers lobby for 6,5% import tax then salami sellers lobby for 4% import tax for years before the same parliament, this consuming resources of society but bringing zero value to society at large.
On other hand, we can still leave such decisions to relevant professionals and pass laws to gauge their work.
Why not do this for everything? In fact, politicians already have armies of expert advisors that they just choose not to listen to when their analysis does not conform to party lines or personal agenda. This is what should be fixed instead of trying to pass such a huge reform.
Society should be able to command them on issues that raise enough attention. "So what if you think that you should scan everybody at airports, admit 2M immigrants annually and log all phone calls? You're not doing that, effective immediately."
An educated electorate does not imply subject matter expertise, it means ubiquitous critical thinking abilities... the ability to debate, ask good questions, analyze the credibility and argument of a subject matter expert, and having the humbleness to be persuaded.
That is assuming of course you could make everyone rational.
Representatives would still exist as subject matter experts that develop policy within their domain and act to convince the public. Ubiquitous critical thinking is sufficient to protect the public from demagogues and conmen - and that is an achievable goal (albeit politically challenging today)
See under "Variance and standard deviation" in https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Galton for a well known example.
That said I personally think this is an extreme case.
I'll also admit that people - including me - are scaringly easy to manipulate in cases that are more complicated than this.
Generally I'm more in favour of the Swiss system where you meet in town and vote by raising your sword. (disclaimer: I think this might have changed now - I heard this was how it used to be done by someone I know who grew up there a decade or two (I guess) before I was born. )
Grossly simplified, the populace can force a decision, but the specific implementation of the decision is created by lawmakers and later accepted by the population. If it is rejected the lawmakers get to have another go.
It is of course more direct than in America, though it is more a case of voters saying "We want this" and legislators saying "Ok, we tried to implement it in the best way we could. Do you accept?".
They wouldn't. It only works when the electorate is educated and rational - and that is almost never the case.
What's the correct decision? All the people voting completely against their interests now think they're making the correct decision. Not all decisions or votes are equal and the outcome of an election can change what can even be voted on and by whom for the next round.
Don't think too much about how to define 'right' because you'll drive yourself mad. All that matters is the belief that in the long run people tend to make 'right' choices slightly more often than wrong ones.
Do they though? I see people making the "wrong" choices very often when the "right" choice is inconvenient for them. I would include myself in that description too.
Why won't it? Provided that it's deployed slowly and tenderly.
Maybe Average Joe doesn't understand your area. Then you have two options:
- Educate Average Joe about the issue.
- Make sure that Average Joe doesn't vote on the issue and only concerned citizens do. This usually requires that issue poses no nuisances for Average Joe.
But right now, when legislators don't understand anything and create bad policy, we have ZERO options. Zero is less than two.
Direct democracy would be handing over the machinery of government to marketing companies fed by lobbies.
Just give Joe 100 voting credits at the start of cycle and let him spend in on whatever votes he likes - or not.
Separation of scope also helps - a.k.a. moving issues from statewide scope and to relevant provinces/communes.
In most western democracies, not necessarily America. Representatives can be held accountable and any corruption is usually exposed with dire consequences for their party.
What's the point of "ramming through" if it gets repealed in terror at the start of next cycle? Very potent point is that laws should be tried and then most of them should be repealed. Only a minority of laws should survive to permanence.
Right now we pretend that we're capable of writing good laws from the first attempt.
You just characterized the see-saw retributionary populist democracies that trashed Latin America's economies over the 20th century. Policy instability is anathema for lower-level civic and economic self-organization.
Maybe they had bad policies, maybe whey didn't, I'm not sure they'll be massively better off under any other system. If we're not talking about Cuba and Venezuela which have exactly opposite problem of failing to turn evidently unsuccessful decisions.
Policy volatility is about as significant a driver of Latin American per-capita economic growth as income inequality. Capital inflows and debt are insignificant; only U.S. interest rate volatility is comparable to domestic factors.
"Regarding macroeconomic policies, the higher the volatility of discretionary fiscal policy, the lower the growth.
...
Despite several episodes of reform reversals, most countries made progress in market-oriented structural reforms during 1970–2004, except Venezuela. The intensity of reversals was highest in Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Venezuela. Chile, Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Uruguay made the most progress during the 35 years. Greater market-oriented reforms and fewer reform reversals were associated with higher growth."
https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2016/12/31/Vol... pages 26 and 28; also see Table 17 on page 45
Take it with a grain of salt.
It chronicles his experiences in the Occupy Wall Street movement and expounds upon the value of direct democracy.
Direct democracy incentivizes the citizen to learn the issues.
My opinions aside, TFA details a system to relieve "voter fatigue" and knowledge domain issues (delegating a committee of experts to craft votable resolutions)
Direct democracy, I'm guessing, would amortise absolute power corrupting absolutely by spreading the power thinly across the population.
What you get is design by committee. Or more accurate design by committee of factions.
The idea that democracy is a great way of solving all problems is just as much an ideology as rule by technocrat.