In the First World, Greece seems like the ripest country for sortition, mainly because of widespread exasperation with the entire political system in the wake of its March 2023 railway disaster.
The BBC reported on March 12, 2023:
This tragedy has shaken Greece. So many of the lives lost were young and it has unleashed a national outpouring of grief and outrage mostly directed against the country’s ruling classes. Not for the first time, Greeks feel betrayed by their politicians.
According to early polling, 87% say there are other causes beyond human error, and guilt needs to be assigned. Every day new revelations about the sordid state of Greece’s train network cause more horror, anger and distrust of the political class.
A class that neglected the rail system, privatised operations, spent millions on security systems only to let them rot and wasted vital EU funding.
“They don’t care about us. They don’t care about our lives,” said a retired senior manager in my neighbourhood called Giorgos, who knew two of the young victims well: “What do I do? Who do I vote for? No one is worth it.”
This rage against the system is already having a profound influence on Greece’s political landscape. … many fringe and protest parties have gained ground.
For Prof. Hatzis, the greatest danger Greece is now facing is in people losing faith in the political system: ‘Such collapse of legitimacy has historically worked in favour of the extreme right.’
A second reason why Greece might be the European pioneer of sortition is that ancient Athens (and other Greek city-states) employed a lottery to choose certain judges, officials, and members of an oversight council called the Boule. Aristotle considered the lottery system, known as demarchy, more democratic than election. (I assume because it eliminated the influence of Pelf and Propaganda.)
If Greece wants to get rid of its political class, it can simply reach into its past for a replacement.
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Equality by lot 
Theodorestathis
Greece is not more ready than other countries to accept sortition for selecting political officers, just because of the railroad accident. This accident is one of many that has angered and brought the Greek people to the point of not expecting any wonders to happen.
In the period of the economical crisis, especially the years of 2010 to 2015, the idea of the citizens’ assembly appeared as an option and was promoted by a newly formed party, but that did not move much the voters. They considered this so called direct democracy a utopia. Instead they brought to power a left oriented party which cooperated with an ultra right wing party to form a government. This joke lasted 4 years, which the voters don’t forget easily, to the extend that the conservative government has been rewarded, in the recent elections, with an other 4 years term!
There are two reasons that work against the idea of using sortition as alternative.
The first is associated with the way sortition is proposed by many to be applied. Some of its uses have actually discredited the idea of using sortition for every disease and I don’t blame them.
The second reason, a more serious one, is associated with the addiction of the voters to consider the voting as a cure of democracy. Surely the voting cures quite successfully the republican way of doing business, which the voters consider it to be also the democratic way of governing. To that state of affairs specialists, like professor Lawrence Lessing of Harvard, who makes a remarkable effort to expose the system, contribute a lot. His flag of change is the elections, which in fact are responsible for having legislative bodies that do not represent us.
Recently, I have observed that there is a movement, formed by some former politicians together with others still active in politics, which is willing to give a try using my system of government I propose in my book titled: A Therapy of Dying Democracies, published by Dorrance Publishing Co. USA. This system is using sortition subject to constrains for assuring the democratic representation in legislative bodies, which the republican system cannot. In my system politics are done by political parties, but political parties whose operations take collusion and money out of politics, restrict candidate politicians selected by sortition to just one term among other things.
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Theodore – what do you make of Varoufakis’s proposals regarding citizen assemblies? He seems to be giving this idea a major place in his agenda.
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I checked the assemblies of the Congress of Mera25, Varoufakis’ party. I did not notice any difference in their proceedings from those of the usual ones. In any case Varoufakis influence in Greek politics is almost zero.
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[…] of democracy. (For example, see the next Chapter 13 [previously posted on Equality-by-Lot as Is Greece ripe for sortition?], on the Greeks’ disaffection with DeMockery, and the growing menace there of authoritarianism […]
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[…] Is Greece Ripe for Sortition? Equality by Lot […]
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[…] Is Greece Ripe for Sortition? Equality by Lot […]
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