Equality by lot

The imbecility of men is always inviting the impudence of power. —Emerson, Representative Men, ch. 1.

The incompetence of the masses … furnishes the leaders with a practical and to some extent a moral justification. —Robert Michels, Political Parties, 1915, 111.

The weaker the interest and knowledge of the electorate, the more decisive become the efforts of organized groups in molding opinion. This situation alone implies a tendency toward oligarchy within democracy …. —Herbert Tingsten, The Problem of Democracy, 1965, p. 102.

Democracy is the most difficult of all forms of government, since it requires the widest spread of intelligence, and we forgot to make ourselves intelligent when we made ourselves sovereign. —Will and Ariel Durant, The Lessons of History, 1968, p. 273.

Proxy Electors will be better informed than effectively “imbecilic” mass-voters, because they will be focused on a single responsibility. They will not have a dozen other political issues competing for their attention. They will instead be exposed to opportunities to delve deeply into their sole topical area, such as online lectures by experts, testimony by insiders and whistleblowers, audiobooks by investigative reporters, etc. Much of it should soak in.

Knowledge is power. —Francis Bacon

An informed electorate is a must for democracy—if it is to prosper and persist. Thousands of Proxy Electorates can get informed enough about their topic to knowledgeably oversee thousands of topic-focused Demi-legislators. Being thus informed, plus not being part of a mob-like mass, Proxies will not act like “imbecilic” mass-men.

Those Proxy-electorates will have coherent “selves” and a real presence. They will have the leverage to dig as deep as they wish, with the aid of investigators, either courtesy of the Secretariat or as hired independents. They can become true “insiders,” with real awareness.

But mass electorates are the opposite. They lack embodied selves. They are pitiful, helpless giants—ghosts in the machine. They have, half the time, only a shallow, slogan-type level of understanding. They are perpetual outsiders, misdirected by smoke and mirrors, lacking an institutional memory, eternally surprised by scandals and perplexed by unhappy outcomes. Rarely are they wise-in-time (proactive), too-often do they merely react—and badly. Nuanced understanding is uncommon.

… the recuse every now and then to organized lying … and the more or less constant dissemination of partial or inaccurate information by all sorts of interested groups, together with the distraction of the sensational press, are coming to constitute, in their combined effect, a formidable obstacle to the cultivation in the mass of the people of the capacity for that sober, critical judgment without which it is vain to hope that the institutions of democracy can continue to be successfully operated. —James Hogan, Election and Representation, 1945, XXXV.

In a mass electorate, inchoate or mild majority preferences are too often unable to coalesce and overrule intense special interests (e.g., NIMBYs) and other Pressure groups. (Example: Pressure groups (especially Hollywood) pushed through a law extending the length of copyright protection far beyond where the public interest justified it.)

The civil service has become heavily and dangerously dependent on material and advice emanating from outside pressure groups.  —Max Nicholson, The System: The misgovernment of modern Britain, 1967, p. 407.

In the face of this general apathy, the theory of the “general will” becomes reduced to operations by small groups rather than by the people as a whole. Rule by majority as predicted in democratic theory, when deprived of popular dynamism, is vitiated. …

In too many instances, we see democratic man, or man in democratic society, easily manipulatable by socially irresponsible mass media, by self-interested pressure groups, and by other special interests. —Saul Padover, The Meaning of Democracy, 1963.

But, it might (and will) be objected, a mass electorate of 150 million has greater “width” than one of 1.5 million or 150,000, so on that basis it could be called more democratic than a mini-electorate 1% or 0.1% its size.

The main responses to that objection are that a Wide, or Mass, democracy:

1. Does not behave with the competence and consideration that each of its citizens would have behaved if they had been in charge, as has been shown, and 
2. Cannot function like the Founders’ classical-model democracy—one with a well-informed and responsible electorate—as argued below.

Classical democracy implies that citizens have an “open duty” to be informed on every aspect of politics (which is impossible in a mass democracy). For instance, Madison wrote:

How devoutly is it to be wished that the public opinion of the United States should be enlightened; that … every citizen shall be an Argus to espy, and an Ægeon to avenge, the unhallowed deed.

To which Emerson replied:

We wish for a thousand heads, a thousand bodies…. Well, in good faith, we are multiplied by our proxies. — Emerson, Representative Men, ch. 1.

In other words, an individual cannot be a thousand-eyed Argus, nor can a massive, unstructured mob of individuals, because “everybody’s job is nobody’s job”—so the job doesn’t get done, or not done well. Nor can the mass offload that job to the Pernicious P’s, as it has mostly done—that just makes things worse.

Only our Proxies can act as our Argus and Ægeon. A thousand Proxy groups can each be designated as an “eye” to look in some specific direction, providing depth. Added up, the eyes see widely, too.

Reverting to point 1 above, about public-pleasing performance, Demi-electorates are (or can be) more insulated than massive ones from manipulation by the Pernicious P’s, enabling them to produce results more pleasing to the public, especially on the whole and in the long run.

On those bases narrow electorates can justly be called more democratic than wide ones.

In summary,

1. Issues are too numerous and complex for individuals to adequately master, especially in the complicating centuries since Madison’s time;
2. Political Parties and Politicians cannot be trusted to master them for us; and
3. There is no payoff in being a rational, civic-minded voter, because a single vote can’t make a difference, except in the rare instance that one resides in a “battleground” (evenly balanced) constituency.

BS is the glue that holds America together. [E.g.,] … Your vote counts. —George Carlin.

(Note: Contrariwise, in Demiocracy, a ballot within an electorate can always make a difference, possibly even a decisive one, because it has a chance of being drawn, regardless of the composition of one’s electorate. So there is less reason to be abstain from participation.)

Less is more—this should not boggle the mind. “Less,” in the form of smaller, topic-limited electorates, is necessary to eliminate or restrain the influence of the “more” (big-electorate)-emergent Pernicious P’s: Political parties, Professional politicians, Pressure groups, Propaganda, Pelf-power (money), and the Press. It is better for us to delegate our electoral power to a few fellow citizens whom we trust, and elevate them to the bridge, than for us to try to steer the ship from its bowels. Persons, not politicians!

On most of the issues that affect us most of us have no strong opinions. …There can only be conventions to accept certain results or decision procedures for the sake of getting things done. … Let the convention for deciding what is our common will be that we will accept the decision of a group of people who are well informed about the question, we’ll-motivated to find as good a decision as possible, and representative of our range of interests…. —John Burnheim, Is Democracy Possible?, 1985, p. 93 & 114.

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