Equality by lot

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.

Every condition that makes self-rule possible, let alone a reality, is lacking within most trade unions. … This is why “trade-union democracy” is so transparent a farce, and why most union chiefs reign uncontested for decades and readily pick their own successors. —Walter Karp, Indispensable Enemies: The Politics of Misrule in America, 1973.

Apathy on the part of members has often been matched by the unrepresentativeness of [union] officials and their remoteness from the body of trade unionists. The problem here of course is partly one of size …. —H.R.G. Greaves, Democratic Participation and Public Enterprise, 1964.

Co-operative meetings are ill-attended … and … the committee members virtually appoint one another. … The [co-op] manager is subject to an interfering lay committee of dedicated but unrepresentative nonentities. —C.N. Parkinson, Left Luggage, 1965.

The history of productive cooperation shows that all the societies have been faced with the following dilemma: either they succumb rapidly owing to discord and powerlessness resulting from the fact that too many individuals have the right to interfere in their administration; or else they end by submitting to the will of one or of a few persons, and thus lose their truly cooperative character. —Robert Michels, Political Parties, 1915, p. 148.

The voluntary organizations … have themselves become oligarchically governed hierarchies. — Henry Kariel, Open Systems: Arenas for Political Action, 1969 (quoted by Thomas Dye and Harmon Zeigler, The Irony of Democracy, 1970, p. 16).

Mrs. Harriet Stanton Blotch then took the floor for suffrage, and … I realized again, as I have often and often before, how much more favorably one is impressed with the rank and file of any movement than its constituted leaders. In my experience this is true of them all …. —A.J. Nock, Selected Letters (1911-1945), 1962, p. 48-49.

The result is that current officeholders aren’t very representative and don’t do a good job, on the whole. (E.g., GE’s board of directors passively oversaw the company’s disastrous decline under CEO Inmelt.) And shocking instances of corruption can flourish in such a lax, cozy environment. (E.g., by the convicted presidents of the United Auto Workers union and the United Way charity.)

If a choice “extract” of their membership were to oversee those officials closely, and have a voice in their recruitment, there would be a big change for the better. And charities that put themselves under such oversight would be viewed more “charitably” by potential donors.

These nongovernmental entities should of course adopt demiocracy tentatively and experimentally—i.e., for a limited period of time unless subsequently endorsed, perhaps by a super-majority.

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