Through Sortition to democracy

Posted on September 11, 2023 by theodorestathis

Sortition is a tool and not an end in itself. For that matter democracy, a super tool, is not an end in itself either. What is an end in itself is the welfare of all, not of the few, nor of the many, but for all people in a community, in a region, in a nation, in the planet. This can only be achieved if the well-known axiomatic principles of democracy can be satisfied. Having this always in our mind we will avoid into falling into a dogmatic trap, into which Adam Smith and his followers or Marx and his followers fell.

The introduction of sortition with constraints to politics was done by the ancient Greeks in Athens, around 509 B.C., for the purpose of serving the first democratic system of government instituted by Klisthenis. That first experiment of democracy was partially successful, mainly because sortition was used to select political officers. What prevented it from succeeding in all of its objectives were the workings of the citizens’ assembly.

The objective of using sortition in politics is to obtain assemblies of political officers that will be free from any dependence, especially the type of dependence that is a result of collusion or corruption. On the basis that the tool of election, always, produces collusion and corruption, if we really are for democracy, the option is one that of sortition with appropriate constraints. The use of constraints is necessary in order for the process to be completed successfully and thus for those noble objectives of democracy to become a reality. The constraints come in the form of prerequisites which have to be satisfied by those who will be allotted for the assembly.

Today in most of the countries of the planet political parties is the basis of all political activities. So, if we want to make a peaceful transition from today’s so called democracies to real democracies, we have to start with what we have. The first job we all have to do is obtain, eventually, political parties that will be freed from all the types of cliques that dance with collusion and corruption, so as to operate democratically. This can be achieved by using an appropriate sortition process, instead of elections, for selecting the members of all the party organs. This constitutes a major step towards democracy, which will bring more people to party activities which now stay out of them because of the operations of the cliques. A development of this type will further enhance the quality of representation, which will be also reflected in assemblies like parliaments and city hall councils. Changes of this sort in party operations need no constitutional changes for them to proceed. Political parties may not like this idea, but they may be forced to follow once new parties start appearing with these new democratic face. More details on this can be found in my book A Therapy for Dying Democracies, published by Dorrance Publishing Co., USA.

Filed under: Books, Sortition | 7 Comments »

The problem with an election

Posted on September 11, 2023 by theodorestathis

Election is a tool and not an end in itself. It was first used by the Latins around 500 B.C. under the republican system of government. It is used today to elect political and other type of officers. The thinking behind its use is that it expresses the wishes of the majority of the people and therefore it is considered, from time immemorial, to be a democratic action. In fact the tool named election is considered to be synonymous with the word democracy. You use elections to select officers of any kind? Then you have democracy. It is difficult for one to have an objection to a process like this, if it is free of any kind of interference. But even so, as the result is being interpreted, the process does suffer from the syndrome of the tyranny of the majority.

At this point we have to answer the question: can the election process be free of interference? The answer, on the basis of the up to date experience, is: Never! No matter what precautions one may invent in order to take interference out of the electoral process at the end no one succeeds. The political candidate has as an objective to be elected and the voter or voters of all kinds have as an objective to benefit in some way, or to profit, to exploit, or to control the officer’s future actions because of his need to be reelected. The voter may be a simple citizen who wants to benefit just himself not all citizens. He may be a business man, a company, a syndicate, and much more badly an enemy of the nation!

The interference, sooner or later, is, objectively, produced. Collusion and many times corruption, as well, go always hand in hand with the election. It is a couple that never gets divorced. There is a possibility that this may happen and that is the case when the nation enjoys the benefits provided by a truly democratic state. Even then this will not happen immediately after democracy sets in, because it will take a lot of time and effort for the values of the members of the whole society to change from values that have been promoted for centuries by the axiomatic principle: everybody for himself to values where the priority of all members of the society is the good for all, not the few, not the many but for all. For the same reason all the different types of citizens’ assemblies of our days face the same problem. What we need to have is a cultured society, whose characteristic trait is the humane stand of life, which only democracy can provide.

I find it difficult to believe that the citizens of the world prefer to have a type of democracy in which collusion and corruption dominate its vital business, which is the wellbeing of all citizens and that is the reason I am optimistic that with effort the change will come.

Filed under: Elections | 3 Comments »