Equality by lot

The left-leaning Jacobin magazine has offered its readers the idea of sortition back in 2018 and then last December had a couple of pieces advocating for sortition – one being an interview with Alexander Guerrero and one being an article by Terry Bouricius. Jacobin now has a debate of sorts [paywalled, but full text here] in which Anand Gopal takes the ostensibly pro-sortition position and Ben Burgis plays the skeptic.

The text methodically checks off the squares on the sortition debate bingo card: “democracy is in retreat”, “big money”, “popular sovereignty”, “democracy is not just [a system that] happens to work out best but [where] the public actually has a right to manage its own affairs”, not wanting to pick your lawyer or book agent[!] at random, “technocratic objections to democracy”, “a multicameral approach, with both lotteries and elections”, “demographic similarities”, “atomized individuals”, “we want a chamber that has a place for parties”, “accountability”, “for a country of 350 million, it doesn’t really make sense to have 350 people sitting in council”, “smaller scales”, “people systematically shirk jury duty”, “[w]ith the Zohran election, there was a tremendous sense that “we did this””, “instant recall”, etc., etc.

As usual, this format of discussion provides no rational way out of the on-the-one-hand-but-on-the-other-hand conundrum. Jacobin‘s readers are left to their own prejudices to decide which hand they prefer – the one with some sortition (but not without elected officials to balance things out), or the one where sortition is deemed altogether undesirable due to this or that principle (even if it may result in better outcomes).

Filed under: Elections, Press, Sortition |