Direct Democracy

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White Rock: Jul 14, 2007; Creativity flows in the bored and the angry!

I think a good and intresting model for direct democracy is the one found in "Towards a new socialism" by W. Paul Cockshott(nice) and Allin F. Cottrell.

The book rejects representative democracy as inherently undemocratic. Instead, the authors describe a mix between councils and direct vote. Councils would be created for mainstay day to day work but it would work like Jury duty. You might be drafted into "local water management council" or "board of state road infrastructure". Along with the people drafted from the general public, experts will be drafted who assist with the process: Health care professionals for the medical system council, engineers for infrastructure.

Councils then put out suggestions and plans, and if nobody objects they get put into action by the appropriate ministry. Citizens can vote on major proposals and can override the council decisions in a form of direct democracy. (the original book is from the 1993 and thus predates the internet, and suggest a system of "TV's and Voting phones" to be provided to all ) Vote results are thus essentially are open to all.

On a national level there is a national council creating different proposals for budgets which are then voted on by the public.

Of course it's socialist book so most of the book talks about the need and how to of structuring a planned economy, dealing with scarcity for example.
The whole thing is available online for free, chapter 13 regarding direct democracy is a short read:
http://ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu/~cottrell/socialism_book/new_socialism.pdf

White Rock fucked around with this message at 15:59 on Jun 30, 2020

# ¿ Jun 30, 2020 11:20

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White Rock: Jul 14, 2007; Creativity flows in the bored and the angry!

Baronash posted:

This is some serious "What if the best ruler is the one who doesn't want to rule" bullshit. You're taking folks with little interest in a topic and forcing them to engage with it on a part-time basis for a comically short period of time. At best, they'll be rubber stamping the efforts of the professionals who actually work in the departments they oversee. At worst, you'll have a mess of shifting priorities, corporate influence, and grift that will halt progress in its tracks.

And yeah, I'm sure someone is gonna quote that last line and lay some sick burn about how that's the state of the country today. "Yes it sucks, but so does X" isn't a very strong argument in favor of direct democracy. I want a representative government run by professional legislators who use full-time support staff to seek out the best information from experts in order to make informed decisions. In turn, I want well-funded government agencies that rely on the combined experience of their staff to carry out those decisions.

It's been a long time since i read the book and re-reading the chapter it seems i misrepresented quite heavily:

quote:

Since only a minority of the decisions that have to be taken in a country can be put to a full popular vote, other public institutions would be supervised by a plurality of juries.

The broadcasting authority, the water authority, the posts, the railways and so on would all be under councils chosen by lot from among their users and workers. Such councils would not be answerable to any government minister, instead the democracy relies upon the principle that a sufficiently large random sample will be representative of the public.

A system of democratic control over all public bodies would mean that at some time in their lives citizens could expect to be called up to serve on some sort of council. Not everyone would serve on national councils, but one could expect to have to serve on some school council, local health council or workplace council. If people were to participate directly in the running of the state, we would not see the cynicism and apathy which characterise the typical modern voter

quote:

For economic planning we envisage a system in which teams of professional economists draw up alternative plans to put before a planning jury which would then choose between them. Only the very major decisions (the level of taxes, the percentage of national income going towards investment, health, education, etc.) would have to be put to direct popular vote.

quote:

In many cases these regulations affect only the internal operation of particular branches of production or social activity, and the composition of their regulating councils should remain limited to people who participate in that area.

In others�areas like broadcasting or processes which may impinge upon public health�general social interests are affected.

In these cases the regulating council would have to be extended to include a majority of other citizens, selected by lot to represent the public interest,

Also i couldn't find the mention of the term limits.

Anyway i don't see how a a random selection of people is in any way grift friendly, in fact a random selection is the least grift friendly system there is.

# ¿ Jun 30, 2020 16:14

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Direct Democracy