Demiocracy, Chapter 11: Proxy Electors should also partially choose the elected officials of non-governmental social groups

Posted on February 18, 2024 by Roger Knights

A similar sort of governance-sharing arrangement—i.e., one that incorporates IVES (Inner Voice Entities) as electors—could and should be adopted by so-called “voluntary”, or non-governmental, social groups that elect officeholders. E.g.,

  • union officials,
  • boards of directors,
  • political-party officials,
  • activist/movement NGOs,
  • charitable-organization functionaries,
  • fraternal association officers,
  • homeowner association officials,
  • co-op-building boards,
  • delegates to professional societies, and
  • some hobbyist and special interest groups.

There isn’t much real bottom-up control of or influence over many of these organizations. Cronyism rules, with new directors and top officials being effectively co-opted by an entrenched leadership clique. The members are mere outsiders and have little sense of what’s really going on inside, in the “executive suite”. So elections amount usually to rubber stamping, maybe with some grousing around the edges.

All the difficulties of democratic government in general are reproduced in the labor union, and in exaggerated forms. It would be as hard for the organized slaves of the United States to get rid of such incompetent leaders … as it would for the whole people to get rid of such mountebanks as Calvin Coolidge. —H.L. Mencken, “The Slave and His Ways”, 1924.

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