Yoram Gat

Brandon Joyce on sortition

Posted on January 7, 2014 by Yoram Gat

Commenter ee points to a couple of videos in which Brandon Joyce makes a presentation about sortition on Channel 9 WPDN Public Distribution Network in Kensington, Philadelphia, PA.

Joyce got to the idea of sortition by reading Rancière. He starts out by pointing out the aristocratic or oligarchical nature of elections. He then puts out up a list of advantages of sortition over elections:

Dispenses with elections, campaigns, campaign finance
Partially free us from “particratic” polarization, ideologies, loyalties
Results in a far more accurate representation of “We, the People.” (“Get politicians out of politics!”)
Engages and empowers populace
Mitigates the corruption of long-entrenched power an d political class (for a time, at least)

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Filed under: Proposals, Sortition | 2 Comments »

The rewards of the political elite

Posted on January 4, 2014 by Yoram Gat

While the bulk of the material rewards of high political office is not in the form of the officials’ pay, the salaries, allowances and benefits of the typical national legislator are quite generous. The report linked to below provides some data about the benefits of elected officials in the European Union. According to the report, the benefits of members of the national legislatures in the EU are on average about 3 times the average income of the citizens of their respective countries, while EU legislators make about 10 times the average income in EU countries.

Salary Atlas in the 27 EU countries

The following survey results show the huge income disparities between the EU citizens battered by the economic crisis and their EU parliamentarians, concluding with one thesis only: We are dealing in Brussels and some national parliaments of the EU countries with conditions similar to ancient Rome because just like in the former Roman Senate none of these “new class EU senators” are controlled in any way. For example, MEPs of France have a salary of around 740 percent higher than the salary level of the average French (25,469 Euros annually).
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Filed under: Elections | 9 Comments »

2013 review – sortition-related events

Posted on December 30, 2013 by Yoram Gat

Ahmed Teleb suggested the following as the most noteworthy sortition-related events of 2013:

the publication of Hélène Landemore’s book, Democratic Reason: Politics, Collective Intelligence, and the Rule of the Many, which has a section called “Elections versus Random Selection”:

Random lotteries would indeed produce what is known as ‘descriptive representation’ of the people […] ensuring statistical similarity of thoughts and preferences of the rulers and the ruled.” (p. 108),

and

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Filed under: Books, Elections, meta, Press, Sortition | Tagged: 2013, year end review | 23 Comments »

Teleb: If Crowds Are Wise, Why Isn’t Congress?

Posted on December 21, 2013 by Yoram Gat

Ahmed Teleb makes the wisdom-by-diversity argument against elections and more specifically against first-past-the-post systems:

We’ve all heard of the “wisdom of crowds” especially after James Surowiecki’s 2004 best-selling book by that name and Scott Page’s 2007 “The Difference.” […]

So why does the US Congress, a crowd of 535, seem so remarkably un-wise?
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Filed under: Books, Elections | Tagged: wisdom of the crowds | 43 Comments »

2013 review – statistics

Posted on December 20, 2013 by Yoram Gat

Below are some statistics about the fourth year of Equality-by-Lot. Comparable numbers for last year can be found here.

2013	Page views	Posts	Comments
Jan	1,665	9	118
Feb	1,273	3	17
Mar	1,329	5	111
Apr	1,783	12	163
May	1,628	11	84
June	1,499	11	118
July	1,801	9	148
Aug	1,578	5	82
Sept	1,730	10	182
Oct	2,518	12	234
Nov	1,629	9	147
Dec (to 20th)	950	4	34
Total	19,383	100	1,438

Note that page views do not include visits by logged-in contributors – the wordpress system does not count those visits.

Posts were made by 10 authors during 2013. (There were, of course, many other authors quoted and linked to.)

There are currently 116 email and WordPress followers of this blog. In addition there are 24 Twitter followers (@Klerotarian) and 43 Facebook followers.

Searching for “distribution by lot” (with quotes) using Google returns Equality-by-Lot as the second result (out of “about 109,000 results”), as well as the third and fourth results. Searching for “sortition” returns Equality-by-Lot as the 9th result (out of “about 60,800 results”).

Filed under: Elections, meta, Sortition | 1 Comment »

No equality for women without sortition

Posted on December 16, 2013 by Yoram Gat

The essay below was written at the suggestion of Campbell Wallace. It is meant as an attempt to recruit feminists to the cause of sortition. As an aside, it is worth mentioning, I think, that while, of course, men could be feminists, and some are, it is still somewhat embarrassing that all of the regular writers on Equality-by-Lot are men (I believe).

Almost 100 years ago, as the suffragist struggle in the US was approaching its successful culmination with the 19th Amendment, the feminist-anarchist activist Emma Goldman wrote her essay “Woman Suffrage”. It opens so:

We boast of the age of advancement, of science, and progress. Is it not strange, then, that we still believe in fetich [sic] worship? True, our fetiches have different form and substance, yet in their power over the human mind they are still as disastrous as were those of old. Our modern fetich is universal suffrage. Those who have not yet achieved that goal fight bloody revolutions to obtain it, and those who have enjoyed its reign bring heavy sacrifice to the altar of this omnipotent deity. Woe to the heretic who dare question that divinity!

And later:

There is no reason whatever to assume that woman, in her climb to emancipation, has been, or will be, helped by the ballot.

Electoral fetish

The veracity of Goldman’s opening statements has not diminished by the passage of time. Indeed, “electoral fetish” is a two-word description of most of the political discourse of the last 100 years, both public and academic. As for Goldman’s last assertion, it may be considered somewhat extreme, but what is clear is that 100 years of women’s suffrage have not brought women anywhere near equality with men. If attaining suffrage was a tool of emancipation (rather than merely the milestone it surely was), then it is evident that this tool was not nearly as powerful as its most ardent promoters believed it would be¹.
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Filed under: Elections, History, Sortition | 46 Comments »

Call for 2013 review input

Posted on December 15, 2013 by Yoram Gat

As in the past years (2012, 2011, 2010), I would like to create a post or two summarizing the sortition- and distribution-by-lot-related developments of the year and the activity here on Equality-by-Lot.

Please use the comments to give your input on what you think are the most mention-worthy events or essays of the past year.

Filed under: Distribution by lot, meta, Sortition | 7 Comments »

Making A Case for Democracy By Sortition

Posted on December 8, 2013 by Yoram Gat

Google Alerts found the following proposal and discussion, going much along the standard lines.

The Athenian magistrate system had many problems during it’s long life, and one of them was the issue of rule via oligarchy: in a democratic system driven by voter elections (as championed by Socrates), magistrates could effectively buy their seats. In turn, the Greek administration created by popular vote came represent only the interests of the wealthy.

This problem was solved by discarding elections in favor of sortition – simply drawing from the public at random whom would hold what seat for a given term.

I think this is a system that ought to be seriously considered for use today (of course it will never be, but whatever, I can pretend that this is totes up for debate somehow & somewhere).

…So you just pick people at random, and boom, there’s your government?

In essence, yes. There’s an annual lottery (or bi-annual, or however many times over ‘X’ time period you want to rotate people out), and everyone that meets eligibility criteria (so, presumably, no children) are included in said lottery. If your name / SSN / whatever is drawn, you fill a seat. It’s a paid position, just like today, and you otherwise do exactly what government officials do (or are supposed to do) right now.

Filed under: Athens, Sortition | 3 Comments »

Madison on mass politics and on the dangers of a representative chamber

Posted on November 21, 2013 by Yoram Gat

The Federalist Papers, No. 48:

In a democracy, where a multitude of people exercise in person the legislative functions, and are continually exposed, by their incapacity for regular deliberation and concerted measures, to the ambitious intrigues of their executive magistrates, tyranny may well be apprehended, on some favorable emergency, to start up in the same quarter. But in a representative republic, […] where the legislative power is exercised by an assembly, which is inspired, by a supposed influence over the people, with an intrepid confidence in its own strength; which is sufficiently numerous to feel all the passions which actuate a multitude, yet not so numerous as to be incapable of pursuing the objects of its passions, by means which reason prescribes; it is against the enterprising ambition of this department that the people ought to indulge all their jealousy and exhaust all their precautions.

Filed under: History | Tagged: democracy, James Madison, Mass politics, The Federalist Papers | 17 Comments »

Russell Brand doesn’t vote

Posted on November 3, 2013 by Yoram Gat

A small media disturbance has been caused by Russell Brand‘s anti-voting message. Jeremy Paxman scolds him on TV with the usual threadbare formulas of electoralism. Robert Webb re-joins Labour. Brand has even found the occasional supporter.

I particularly like this:

I know, I know my grandparents fought in two world wars (and one World Cup) so that I’d have the right to vote. Well, they were conned.

I only wish that when Paxman asked Brand what his alternative to the current system is, he would have replied: “sortition!” It seemed like Brand himself wished he had something concrete to say. Please consider writing to Brand to tell him what he has been missing. He could be the high-profile champion sortition needs.