Demiocracy, Chapters 6 & 7: Demiocratic Representation of the Voiceless, by Means of a Novel “Bal-lottery” Technique

Posted on January 31, 2024 by Roger Knights

There are certain segments of the population (specified in the next chapter) who are often poorly treated, but who can’t complain about it to their higher-ups—or, really, to anyone—because they can’t speak out as a group, lacking representatives.

These groups, by their nature, are not in a position to allow election campaigns. They would either not be feasible, or would be too disruptive.

Nor would it be feasible for representatives to be selected completely by chance, because: 1) They would be treated dismissively, as mere nobodies, by the officials above them; and 2) They would not be as enthusiastic about, or effective at, their duties as certain others in their group—persons who would tend to be selected by a bal-lottery.

These groups should therefore employ the novel (AFAIK), election-free bal-lottery technique described in Item 2 above to select representatives.

I urge sympathizers of such underdogs to promote this means of representation. Equally, I urge “uber-dogs” to heed it, as it is in their interest to be wise in time.

Here’s a simplified example. Let’s say that some group has 1000 members, and that the agreed-upon ballot-to-lot ratio is 50:50. (For voiceless groups the ratio would be 100:0.) INTO the bal-lottery box might therefore go 10 ballots BY each member, nominating other members, and 10 lots FOR each member, automatically.

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Professor Neil explains the principle of distinction

Posted on January 28, 2024 by Yoram Gat

TikToker Professor Neil is, it turns out, a sortition advocate. In a recent clip Prof. Neil lays out the reason that elected government does not represent the interests of the population.

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Demiocracy, Chapter 5: History’s Hints — The Venetian Republic’s Electoral Procedures

Posted on January 25, 2024 by Roger Knights

[In Venice,] to prevent tensions between the ruling families, sortition was introduced as way of appointing a new doge, but in order to ensure only a competent person could become ruler, the procedure was combined with elections. The result was an unbelievably roundabout system that took place in ten phases over a period of five days….

The Venetian system seems absurdly cumbersome, but recently several computer scientists have shown that this leader election protocol is interesting in that it ensured the more popular candidates actually won, while nevertheless giving minorities a chance and neutralizing corrupt voting behavior. Furthermore, it helped to bring compromise candidates to the fore by amplifying small advantages…. In any case, historians agree, that the extraordinary, lasting stability of the Venetian republic, which endured more than five centuries, until ended by Napoleon, can be attributed in part to the ingenious selection of ballotte. Without sortition the republic would undoubtedly have fallen prey far sooner to disputes between ruling families. (You do quietly wonder whether today’s governments are not similarly falling prey to the bickering between parties.) —David van Reybrouck, Against Elections, 2018, p. 70-71.

My “take” is that what is worth copying from Venice are: a small electorate, a mix of sortition and election, and an indirect, multi-stage process of electing electors.

We compensate, we reconcile, we balance. … From hence arises, not an excellence in simplicity but one far superior, an excellence in composition. —Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790.

These made the office tend to seek the man, baffling the “presuming” ambitions of would-be “Kings of the Mountain.” That’s good, because such persons are often overbearing and blunder-prone once ensconced in office.

We can work up to these commanding heights of politics modestly, step-by-step from below, as follows in Chapters 6 & 7.

Filed under: Books, Elections, History, Sortition | 6 Comments »

Israeli minister: “Ministers can’t make ends meet”

Posted on January 24, 2024 by Yoram Gat

While criticizing tax increases planned by the Israeli government, it was suggested to the Minister for National Goals, Orit Strock, that ministers should “cut back on all the bounty [they] receive”. Strock replied: “What bounty? No minister receives a fat salary. I know ministers who are unable to make ends meet, despite working hard day and night, and even some ministers who are supported financially by their parents”.

The salary of Israeli ministers is about 4 times that of the average worker, and well into the top decile of incomes.

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Demiocracy, Chapter 4: The Nature and Dangers of DeMockery

Posted on January 22, 2024 by Roger Knights

The “classical” justification for democracy was that it is, or should be, rule by an informed public opinion acting, after deliberation, in the public interest.

Investigations, especially by post-war political science, discovered that the democracy we have actually got is not the classical model the Founders had in mind, but in fact mostly the rule of factions and partisans, which the Founders dreaded.

Factions include organized pressure groups and other “players.” They are only fitfully concerned—truly and wisely concerned—with the public interest.

Some political scientists have called this system “pluralism” or “polyarchy” (the rule of many); others have called it “interest group liberalism.” Both have concluded that elections are a mostly ceremonial affair and that it is unrealistic to expect (width-first) democracy to function in any very different way. They have also mostly concluded that polyarchy’s scramble isn’t so bad, especially compared to totalitarianism.

They hope that they may persuade you, that since it is impossible to do any good, you may as well have your share in the profits of doing ill. —Edmund Burke, The Philosophy of Edmund Burke, p. 148.

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Debunking the Citizens’ Assembly

Posted on January 21, 2024 by paulnollen

https://www.academia.edu/113766495/Debunking_the_Citizens_Assembly

Abstract: Most designs of “Citizen Assemblies” appear to establish a representational system without being able to live up to an acceptable explicitly or implicitly claimed representativeness and inclusiveness, or to make a (scientifically) acceptable attempt to demonstrate them. It is a representational system with representativeness based solely on “everyone having an equal chance of being selected”, and even that is not always realized. Then again, in some cases the representativeness or inclusiveness is very targeted and limited. Also, the design seldom has a reasoned relationship to the area of application. Most designs are vulnerable, to very vulnerable, to manipulation. The selection method and choice of operation practices is in the hands of specialists or specialized companies where sortition is just the generic name and is far from the sortition system with the values we spontaneously assign to it such as reliability and fairness. Independent evaluation system/application area/result is virtually non-existent.

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Clay Shentrup: Election by Jury

Posted on January 21, 2024 by Yoram Gat

Clay Shentrup wrote to announce the Election by Jury website he created.

If you were accused of a crime, who would you want deciding your fate?

  • A panel of randomly selected jurors, all of whom have spent multiple weeks sitting in a courtroom, listening to all the relevant facts and arguments put forward by both sides
  • A popular vote open to hundreds of thousands of people in your county, the vast majority of whom only know a few sound bites about the case, which they heard from a biased and one-sided source

The premise behind “Election by Jury” is simple: we believe that our government, just like the criminal justice system, will function better if our representatives are elected after weeks of deliberation by a panel of randomly selected jurors. These jurors would hear from the candidates and their expert-witnesses, deliberate among themselves, and cast their votes in secret.

Here are a few of the most compelling benefits of our proposal:

  1. An “electorate” that is better informed
  2. Better ways of combating misinformation
  3. Breaking away from echo-chambers

Filed under: Elections, Proposals, Sortition | 10 Comments »

Another Crisis-of-Democracy book

Posted on January 20, 2024 by Yoram Gat

Erica Benner is “a political philosopher who has held academic posts at St Antony’s College, Oxford, the London School of Economics and Yale University”. Her new book, Adventures in Democracy: The Turbulent World of People Power, is a contribution to the “Crisis of Demcoracy” genre. In an article in the Financial Times Benner lays out her outlook, rather standard for the genre, which includes a mention of Athens and sortition.

Democracies have always presented themselves as beacons of human progress. In 431BC, the statesman Pericles declared that Athens’s democracy was “the school for all Greece” — while over the past two centuries, democracy warriors everywhere have measured their countries’ success or failure by comparison with western models: American, British, French, Swedish.

It’s harder to do now that these formerly self-congratulating democracies are doing battle with new and older demons. Today, millions of people around the world crave freedom from authoritarian rule. Yet when they hear almost daily that the liberal heartlands are plagued with inflation, strikes, high crime rates, gun violence and ill-informed voters who care little about truth, many of them doubt that democracy is the best alternative.

Note how oppression is carefully left out of what “plagues” the “liberal heartlands”, and how blame for the troubles is laid at the feet of the masses – “ill-informed voters who care little about truth” – rather than at those of the powerful.

Benner concludes with a mention of sortition and some useful bromides:

We see the same urgent need to give more effective authority and voice to people on the ground inside today’s older democracies. There are organisations around the democratic world whose members advocate the creation of citizen assemblies, chosen by lot instead of personality-driven or partisan campaigns, to advise and monitor existing branches of government. By avoiding pathological rivalries among (and within) political parties, such assemblies might stand a better chance of coming up with policies aimed at narrowing the gaps in unbalanced societies.

But even well-crafted institutions can’t function without popular support. Change has to start with our own attitudes. Take other people’s beliefs and discomforts more seriously than ideologies that preach faith in the inevitable progress of whatever you think best. Fight to take power back, of course, from democracy’s most obvious enemies — extremists, insatiable plutocrats and tyrannical leaders. But also take a more modest, closer-to-home kind of responsibility: for getting our own hypercompetitive societies and psyches into better shape.

Filed under: Academia, Books, Press, Sortition | 2 Comments »

Demiocracy, Chapter 3: What’s the Solution? Why

Posted on January 15, 2024 by Roger Knights

By narrowing each electorate’s topical and electoral scope, and by simultaneously and necessarily multiplying the number of electorates, we enable every issue and every candidate to be thoroughly and continuously evaluated by everyday citizens. In other words, we replace P-dominated DeMockery with demos-dominated democracy.

In addition, by restricting each legislator’s topical domain, we enable ordinary citizens, who are not typically fluent in multiple political domains (unlike members of the current “political class”), to become viable political candidates, also vastly expanding the role of the demos.

Democracy should be rule by an informed public opinion acting, after deliberation, in the public interest. But, in a mass-electorate DeMockery, the average voter will NOT be adequately informed, and will engage in little deliberation—resulting in misgovernment.

The problem with letting everybody vote too is that people are really easily manipulated and they’re really undereducated. They don’t have any incentive to pay attention to the real issues, what’s at stake and what are the consequences of each vote. They just vote with whatever feels good. And they’re busy, and they’re tired … and they don’t have the time, and they don’t have the incentive to be enlightened. They don’t have the incentive to have an objective, enlightened approach to how you handle the future of our society. —“Joe Rogan’s harsh truth about American voters” —Podcast, viewed November 6, 2023.

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Filed under: Books, Elections, Proposals, Sortition | 9 Comments »

Gallup poll: Record Low in U.S. Satisfied With Way Democracy Is Working

Posted on January 13, 2024 by Yoram Gat

Gallup finds that “satisfaction with the way democracy is working” in the U.S. has eroded dramatically over the last 4 decades.

Satisfaction has been declining among both Republicans and Democrats as well as among independents. Satisfaction is highly positively correlated with education in the latest poll, but was less so in the previous poll in 2021.

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