Equality by lot

Yavor Tarinski

The man who wears the shoe knows best that it pinches and where it pinches. ~John Dewey [1]

One of the main pillars of contemporary oligarchies worldwide is the institution of elections. Every leader and government, regardless of how liberal or authoritarian, claims its ascendance to power through some kind of electoral process. Elections are considered as “the democratic means” per se – if a system is based on elections, then it supposedly is a “democracy”.

The supporters of this view see in electoral processes a means of sustaining popular sovereignty, while avoiding what they see as a danger of popular self-rule – i.e., rule by the incompetent. But as philosopher Jacques Rancière underlines, there is an “evil at once much more serious and much more probable than a government full of incompetents: government comprised of a certain competence, that of individuals skilled at taking power through cunning.”[2]

Electoral processes tend to nurture antagonism and competitiveness, rather than cooperation and dialogue. They give way to a certain anthropological type – the power-hungry political demagogue. Rather than concerned with resolving public issues and problems, it focuses on “winning” elections. The very essence of politics is radically altered in elections-based systems – with their content being emptied of any substantial deliberatory essence and replaced with a lifestylish approach that focuses on candidates – their ways of life, the tricks they pull on each other, etc.

Ultimately, the main agenda that drives the action of the electoral anthropological type is that of opinion polls. Candidates must learn what and when to say things that will be liked by the largest amount of people, so that they can get ahead in the race. The result is a type of craft where electoral competitors outbid each other, play dirty, and resort to all sort of tricks in order to win. This becomes the main occupation of people involved in electoral competitions for office. Because of this political scientist James S. Fishkin suggests:

Candidates do not wish to win the argument on the merits as much as they wish to win the election. If they can do so by distorting or manipulating the argument successfully, many of them are likely to do so. Representatives elected through such processes are looking ahead to the next election while in office.[3]

This attracts specific narcissist and psychopatic type of attitudes, because of which John Gastil and Erik Olin Wright suggest that “elections, and particularly national ones, too often attract the wrong kind of candidate”.[4] These traits are not limited to electoral systems alone, but to all top-down bureaucratic organizations, such as corporations. Or, as author Matt Little insists, “selfish, insensitive individuals invariably dominate hierarchical organizations”.[5]

Once elected in parliament, politicians become part of the political elite, which grants them certain privileges over the rest of society, as well as direct access to economic elites. Thus, once in the halls of power, they develop interest in preserving the status quo, and very soon even those with modest background forget where they came from. Psychologist Dacher Keltner writes that those in power “may be the very people most blind to the problems of powerlessness, poverty and inequality”[6], with self-absorption and insensitivity to the experiences of others inevitably following the attainment of authority.

Anarchist philosopher Pierre-Joseph Proudhon describes his first-hand experience of the inner workings of parliamentary life, after becoming a member of the French Parliament in the aftermath of the Revolution of 1848:

One has to experience this isolation called a national assembly to understand how the men who are the most completely ignorant of the state of a country are nearly always those who represent it.[7]

In a similar line of thought, Trinidadian anti-colonial thinker CLR James writes:

The moment you vote and give your power to some other people, they begin to represent themselves or other interests, not the interests of the people. […] Once you put them there, they acquire, not through malice, not through vice—I am not speaking of the wickedness of men here at all, but from the objective circumstances they acquire a life of their own which is separate from the life and the interests that they are supposed to serve.[8]

But even when such shortcomings are recognized, still an argument persists that nonetheless electoral oligarchies are efficient enough to get jobs done. While societies most certainly manage to function under such regimes, it is questionable, to say the least, of how efficient electoral antagonisms really are. Political parties employ whole armies of staff, whose goal is winning elections. In the same time, billions are spent on election campaigns, often by the super wealthy, in order to excercize influence over political life.[9] Because of this, Gastil and Wright conclude that “ongoing partisan activity often amounts to a tremendous waste of human and financial resources, which are spent not on articulating principled policy and values but instead on posturing, strategizing, fundraising, and advertising”.[10]

Even if inherently top-down decision-making institutions are removed and replaced by a multilayered system of direct democracy, electoral processes must also be omitted from the new setting. If local assemblies continue conducting elections for filling positions in administrations and coordinative regional councils, we run the risk of pertaining the same negative traits as described above. While certain tasks require highly skilled knowledge and experience, like surgeons, pilots, and mechanics, and thus the election of those most suitable for the job, others, like various administrative positions, that require simply overseeing the implementation of decisions already made by grassroots institutions, are best left to an ancient method of selection – that of drawing lots.

Choosing by lot, or sortition, was the process through which the ancient Athenians, during the democratic era, appointed their magistrates and administrators. Aristotle suggested that “it is accepted as democratic when public offices are allocated by lot; and as oligarchic when they are filled by election”.[11] Contemporary voices also point at this direction, like Gastil and Wright, according to whom “sortition has a straightforward rationale as a democratic process of self-government”.[12]

It’s a method that is based on absolute equality, as it clearly places administrative tasks beneath grassroots deliberation. Choosing by lot implies, in one way or another, that all members of society will engage in collective decision-making, stripping political elits of their authority. This creates an environment where there is no competition in the political sphere (which has its implications for all the other social spheres as well), and instead, the principle of radical equality reigns. Thus, rather than electoral competitions for power, a more suitable method is that of leaving the implementation of decisions already taken by the grassroots, to chance – that is, to choosing by lot. As political scientist Dimitri Courant suggests, when using sortition, “only chance distinguishes us, so we remain equals”.[13]

Barbara Goodwin, author of the utopian novel Justice by Lottery, also advances the idea that choosing by lot helps preventing the emergence of elites, writing:

There are, I think, good reasons for believing that a degree of rotation, or even the use of a modified lottery principle, in the allocation of public office would have an ameliorating effect on political institutions. It would prevent the formation of elites — or, rather, undermine existing elites — and produce a wider dispersal of political knowledge, which would surely be desirable.[14]

In the process of choosing by lot, in contrast to electoral procedures, there are no “winners” and “losers”. No one gets to speak on the name of anyone else. It is chance that gets someone to a given administrative position, while real power lays at the participatory institutions of the grassroots. In one such truly democratic setting there is no space for the cocky attitudes of parliamentarian majorities that tend to polarize society into camps. If anything, campism dulls the imagination by getting people taking sides on the basis of a given “political identity”, rather than critically reflecting on public affairs. We can agree with Montesquieu, when suggesting that “the suffrage by lot is a method of electing that offends no one, but animates each citizen”.[15]

Ultimately, choosing by lot is inherently more compatible with direct democracy, than say elections, because of a very basic element – that it presupposes the absence of titles when it comes to dealing with politics. Different forms of aristocratic and oligarchic top-down forms, like elections, presuppose that the ruling class is consisted of “the best” among society, bearers of various titles that bear “proof” of this. The democratic project reverses this. It implies that everyone, regardless of skills, knowledges, etc., is not only allowed, but encouraged by the whole social setting, to take active part in decision-making. Choosing by lot follows this logic, as anyone can be selected by the sortition process. In this line of though philosopher Jacques Rancière insists that “the scandal of democracy, and of the drawing of lots that is its essence, is to reveal that [the title to govern] can be nothing but the absence of title”.[16]

Choosing by lot is also indispensable for drafting administrations that resemble the whole population. Elections often reproduce various prejudices and tropes that are hard rooted in people’s imaginary. Because of that most electoral bodies nowadays are dominated by older white males. Sortition tends to overcome this, as it draws proportionately from the populace, creating administrative council bodies that are micrographs of society. Dimitri Courant puts it very accurately:

If we want representatives who look like the represented, we shall choose sortition, for the democratic ideal of “government by the people.” If we prefer socially distinct elites (an aristocratic view), we shall choose election.[17]

Choosing by lot also follows the self-educational pattern set by face-to-face assembly democracy. In general, as Gastil and Wright suggest, “every form of citizen deliberation has built into it an educational component”.[18] By getting common people to directly participate in political processes, it tends to nurture the emergence of genuine civic culture. Instead of politics dominated by political dynasties with party backing, who dominate electoral processes, popular assemblies and sortition create conditions for the broadest possible participation. Because of this Cornelius Castoriadis writes that “the designation of magistrates through lot or rotation in most cases ensures participation by a great number of citizens in official tasks – and knowledge of those tasks”.[19]

Overall, choosing by lot offers many advantages over electoral processes. But the main advantage is that sortition is inherently democratic, while elections bear the seeds of oligarchic rule. Choosing by lot, along with rotation, short mandates, and the institution of popular assemblies and councils, paves the way for the establishment of radical equality that encompasses all spheres of human life. It is hopeful that, despite of efforts by the ruling classes and party functionaries on both the Left and the Right, the demand for sortition has resurfaced in recent years thanks to social movements like the Nuit Debout in France.[20] And this is indicative – no party bureaucrat or person with authority will agree to willingly give up hers privileges that derive from electoralism. It is up to the grassroots to self-institute a framework that will allow for equality to thrive.

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[1] John Dewey, The Public and Its Problems (Chicago: Chicago Gateway Books, 1946), 207.

[2] Jacques Rancière, Hatred of Democracy (London: Verso, 2006), 42.

[3] John Gastil and Erik Olin Wright, Legislature by Lot: Transformative Designs for Deliberative Governance (London: Verso, 2019), 81.

[4] ibid., 6.

[5] Matt Little, “Will the Disordered Always Rule Us?” New Compass. September 26, 2022. Archived January 23, 2023. https://web.archive.org/web/20230123114511/http://new-compass.net/articles/will-disordered-always-rule-us.

[6] ibid.

[7] Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Les Confessions d’un Revolutionnaire (1849). [available online in English at https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/pierre-joseph-proudhon-parliamentary-isolation%5D

[8] CLR James, Modern Politics (Oakland: PM Press, 2013), 33-34.

[9] Anna Massoglia, “Outside Spending on 2024 Elections Shatters Records, Fueled by Billion-Dollar ‘Dark Money’ Infusion.” OpenSecrets, November 6, 2024. https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2024/11/outside-spending-on-2024-elections-shatters-records-fueled-by-billion-dollar-dark-money-infusion/.

[10] John Gastil and Erik Olin Wright, Legislature by Lot: Transformative Designs for Deliberative Governance (London: Verso, 2019), 7.

[11] Paul Demont, “Allotment and Democracy in Ancient.” La Vie des Idées, December 13 201. https://laviedesidees.fr/Allotment-and-Democracy-in-Ancient.

[12] John Gastil and Erik Olin Wright, Legislature by Lot: Transformative Designs for Deliberative Governance (London: Verso, 2019), 9.

[13] ibid., 238.

[14] Barbara Goodwin, Justice by Lottery (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 38.

[15] Montesquieu, The Complete Works of M. de Montesquieu Vol. 1 (London: T. Evans, 1777). [available online at https://wisc.pb.unizin.org/adef20182019/chapter/montesquieu-on-sortition-voting/%5D

[16] Jacques Rancière, Hatred of Democracy (London: Verso, 2006), 47.

[17] John Gastil and Erik Olin Wright, Legislature by Lot: Transformative Designs for Deliberative Governance (London: Verso, 2019), 233.

[18] ibid., 13.

[19] David Ames Curtis (ed.), The Castoriadis Reader (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1997), 278.

[20] France 24. “Loi Travail et Nuit Debout: Quatre Nuits Place de la République.” France 24, April 4, 2016. https://www.france24.com/fr/20160404-loi-travail-nuit-debout-quatre-nuits-place-republique.

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