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?
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.
"...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..."
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.
So, let's trust a few who are even more distracted because of demands on their time and brain power.
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?
> "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."
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 waiting to bet that current President can be "educated" to change his views because he has intellectual curiosity? He is representative democracy in action, isn't he?
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?
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.
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.
>there needs to be a shift in the way we engage with information and debate before that will make a positive difference.
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.
> "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?"
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?
> 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.
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.
I didn't say it was full proof. It was the best compromise given how the world works.
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.
That's explicitly not how our system works. If you have a claim to a right rooted in the Constitution, you do not need to convince the majority to see things your way. Your rights emanating from the Constitution (and further from the Constitution of your state) trump the majority.
You could have Supreme Courts without representative Democracy.
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?
> Much easier to bribe 500 people in a 300 million people
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.
It depends on ow you organize it, but ideally most decisions would be taken on the level of the people who are affected by it. If Joe doesn't understand before the election, he will understand after, and if he doesn't like the result, he can call for a new election.
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.
Maybe it doesn't make much difference? Maybe fine-tuning salami tarriffs is something that should not be done, and relevant legislators should be freed to perhaps produce salami themself?
I don't have any confirmations that these small decisions actually matter much.
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.
> 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.
I don't have faith in expert advisors. They often live in their own bubble and resist reality with impunity.
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."
Direct democracy works IF we have an educated electorate. Which America does not have, and will not have for at least a generation... all the same, it can work.
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.
Who says they would have to? Direct democracy = direct voting, not intimate involvement with every stage of policy.
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)
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.
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The Swiss have expert legislators that actually make the laws the way they want.
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?".
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.
I'm responding to the point that voters need to be rational and educated for a direct democracy to function. It only requires that voters have a bias, however slight, to making the 'right' decision.
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.
> "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.
That wasn't the point. The question is whether it's a good idea - and it's not when people don't know or don't care about what they're voting on, both of which requires education and rational (long-term) thinking.
These days I think that direct democracy is better than bureaucracy.
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.
Joe does not have the time to be informed about the pros and cons of every decision that the government needs to ask him about. It's simply not practical.
Direct democracy would be handing over the machinery of government to marketing companies fed by lobbies.
If you give out voting credits, influencers will call for votes on many small, but hot, topics to expend all votes and then ram through what they want. It's too easy to hack.
In most western democracies, not necessarily America. Representatives can be held accountable and any corruption is usually exposed with dire consequences for their party.
It's also easy to counter. I can think how and so can you.
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.
> What's the point of "ramming through" if it gets repealed in terror at the start of next cycle?
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.
I'm not sure you are right. Many Latin American countries fair just fine when you adjust for their inherent handicap.
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.
> Many Latin American countries fair just fine when you adjust for their inherent handicap
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."
I don't necessarily ascribe to direct democracy ideas, but if you want to learn about why some people think it's a good idea, check out "The Democracy Project: A History, a Crisis, a Movement" by David Graeber.
It chronicles his experiences in the Occupy Wall Street movement and expounds upon the value of direct democracy.
Legislators aren't ignorant, they just vote according to their corporate sponsors.
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)
I like the idea of visualising the decisions. Break down an issue into its constituent parts, then show all the graphs and see-saws - if you vote x, then it a, b, c will change like this, and l,m,n will change like this.
Arguing the converse would be arguing that one representatives soul has more inherent decisive import than those represented and that's difficult to qualify or quantify unless the representative entity's God himself.
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?