Demiocracy: Less is more

Posted on November 6, 2024 by Roger Knights

Once our “allotteds” have had their names drawn, what role should they play? I suggest that of elector rather than officeholder, for these reasons.

Most importantly, imposing a low burden on the participating-allotteds means that many of them will be available to oversee officeholders for the entirety of their terms, not just at Election Day. (Electors will see, over a private Internet channel, monthly reports from “their” officeholders and their critics. For which they will be well paid.)

Electors can throw their weight around during inter-election periods by signaling to their officeholders, e.g. via straw votes, their preference regarding bills up for debate. So there is not much real loss of power in being an elector.

Perhaps the most important advantage of elevating the allotteds only to electorhood is that it leaves existing officeholders in place, at least until the next election. This will arouse less opposition from members of the status quo, and make for a smoother transition.

Not only that, but opening up or democratizing access to legislative seats through low-cost elections will be very attractive to many members of the political class, and even to inactive political observers, who likely have many unfulfilled “bees in their bonnets” that they would like to promote. Including their belief that they could be a better legislator than those now in office. Especially if it involves only a subset of political concerns (see later).

Thus we see, I hope, how offering a more modest office to allotteds actually enables more extensive random citizen oversight and control of the entire governmental apparatus.

I have one more major-modesty step in mind, with a similar goal: Demi-legislatures. There would be about 20 of these per legislative house, each one corresponding to a currently existing “standing committee” devoted to 5% of the legislative workload, in the form of such specific topics as health, education, commerce, etc. Nearly all electors would oversee only members of these Demi-legislatures. Thus their mental workload would be manageable by All. Making permanent and extensive representative random-citizen rule more feasible.

Filed under: Elections, Proposals, Sortition |

8 Responses

Roger Knights, on November 6, 2024 at 9:31 pm said:

Link to Demiocracy, the book:

https://1drv.ms/w/c/80e697e38b9451de/Ed5RlIvjl-YggIA2AQAAAAABYL7yDj3XHPxOzRp3xRr35w

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Anonymous, on November 7, 2024 at 11:49 am said:

>Once our “allotteds” have had their names drawn, what role should they play? I suggest that of elector rather than officeholder,

Thereby fulfilling Madison’s ideal:

“the total exclusion of the people, in their collective capacity, from any share in” governing directly

I’m sure that will go down well.

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Roger Knights, on November 7, 2024 at 6:43 pm said:

Anonymous wrote: “>Once our “allotteds” have had their names drawn, what role should they play? I suggest that of elector rather than officeholder,

Thereby fulfilling Madison’s ideal: “the total exclusion of the people, in their collective capacity, from any share in” governing directly

I’m sure that will go down well.”

Google’s AI explains:
- “Key points about Madison’s view:
- Fear of tyranny by the majority:
  Madison was concerned that if the people were allowed to directly govern, a large majority could you easily oppress minority groups.
  Importance of representation:
  He believed that a system of elected representatives would filter and refine the public will, leading to more thoughtful and stable governance.”
- Under Demiocracy a self-selected sample of the people in their collective capacity would be considerably empowered beyond the mass voting public, even as mere electors. That should go down well enough.
- And, as I mentioned, electors needn’t formally be granted legislative power to decisively influence what legislation gets passed, by straw votes or polling.
- Therefore the other considerations I offered in favor of electorhood should prevail.
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Anonymous, on November 8, 2024 at 5:15 am said:

Roger: we know that Madison was opposed to popular sovereignty but you also made an approving reference to Rousseau (for whom it was sine qua non). Rousseau regarded the election of parliamentary representatives as the arrogation of natural sovereign right, but at least Englishmen were free at the moment of election (before returning to slavery). Your proposal limits that momentary freedom to a tiny self-selected sample.

>That should go down well enough.

As the well-known philosopher John McEnroe put it “You cannot be serious”.

Anon [Keith Sutherland]

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Roger Knights, on November 8, 2024 at 8:45 am said:
- Anon [Keith Sutherland] wrote: “Roger: we know that Madison was opposed to popular sovereignty ….”
- Google says: “Popular sovereignty is the idea that the people are the source of a government’s authority and that the government’s power is only legitimate if it serves the will of the people.
- “In the United States, popular sovereignty is a founding principle that is expressed in constitutional law. It means that the majority of the people or their representatives must ratify a country’s constitution.”
- So Madison wasn’t opposed to popular sovereignty.
- Anon [Keith Sutherland] wrote: “Your proposal limits that momentary freedom to a tiny self-selected sample.”
- I should have written: “Under Demiocracy a self-selected REPRESENTATIVE sample of the people BY THE PEOPLE in their collective capacity would be considerably empowered beyond the mass voting public, even as mere electors..”
- This involvement of the whole public was explained in detail in my preceding Ballottocracy post. It is uncharitable to infer that I meant for a tiny sample self-select itself.
  I view the ability of the whole public to spontaneously generate a representative self that incarnates the general will instead of the will of all via mass approval voting as an innovation Rousseau would have favored.
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Anonymous, on November 8, 2024 at 9:05 am said:

Madison’s proposal for the American republic was predicated upon “the total exclusion of the people in their collective capacity” (Federalist, 63). And Rousseau would have totally rejected the election of representatives by a self-selecting sample as a variant of popular sovereignty. His rejection of English parliamentarianism was on principle (the alienation of sovereign will), not the limitations of the franchise. By all means make your own case for Demiocracy, but your claims for intellectual provenance are unfounded.

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Roger Knights, on November 8, 2024 at 3:35 pm said:
- Anonymous [Keith Sutherland] on November 8, 2024 at 9:05 am wrote:
- “Madison’s proposal for the American republic was predicated upon “the total exclusion of the people in their collective capacity” (Federalist, 63). … your claims for intellectual provenance are unfounded.”
- Madison was opposed only to direct democracy, not indirect. He wanted the whole people to select the best of themselves from amongst themselves to constitute an electoral search committee for the best man to be president. He was distressed when candidates for the electoral college pledged themselves to vote for specific presidential candidates. He wanted the office to seek the man, like me. It makes sense that he would have approved of the mass approval-voting process I advocate in Demiocracy, which would exclude or severely diminish the influence of office-seeking men and political parties. (His dislike of political parties is also congruent with the incentives of Demiocracy, which do not implicitly advantage them.)
- I admit I’m guessing about how Rousseau would have regarded Ballottocracy. If he would have approved of lottocracy, I don’t see how he would have objected to it. He didn’t condemn direct democracy, which lottocracy mimics, did he?
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Anonymous, on November 8, 2024 at 6:48 pm said:

I’m sure Madison would approve, as his goal was rule by an elected aristocracy of merit. Rousseau insisted on popular sovereignty by direct democracy. My claim is that this can be achieved via allotted juries (under certain demanding constraints), but I’ve yet to find a Rousseau scholar who agrees.

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