Action | Equality by lot

DiEM25 creates a deliberative democracy collective

Posted on May 12, 2023 by Yoram Gat

DiEM25 “is a pan-European, progressive movement that aims to democratise the EU before it disintegrates”. Its most prominent member is economist and former Greek finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis. In a recent speech in the Greek parliament, Varoufakis presented allotted bodies as a central proposal of his party.

DiEM25 is now setting up a “Deliberative Democracy collective” which will “explore” the topic and is inviting members of the public to participate by contacting them at thematic@diem25.org.

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Yanis Varoufakis proposes a Monetary Supervision Jury

Posted on April 9, 2023 by Ahmed R. Teleb

Yanis Varoufakis, former finance minister of Greece, is leader of the MeRA25 party and Professor of Economics at the University of Athens, writes:

Imagine that the central bank provided everyone with a free digital wallet, effectively a free bank account bearing interest at the central bank overnight rate. Given that the current banking system functions like an anti-social cartel, the central bank might as well use modern digital, cloud-based technology to provide free digital transactions and savings storage to all, its net revenues paying for essential public goods. Freed from the compulsion to keep their money in a private bank, and to pay through the nose in order to transact using its system, people will then be free to choose if and when they wish to use private financial institutions offering risk intermediation between savers and borrowers whose monies will, however, live in perfect safety on the central bank’s ledger.

It is at around this point of my proposal that the crypto brotherhood will feign a fit, accusing me of pushing for a Big Brother central bank that sees and controls every transaction we make. Setting aside their stunning hypocrisy, days after they demanded an immediate central bank bailout of their Silicon Valley bankers, let me point out that the Treasury and other organs of the state already have access to each transaction of ours. Indeed, privacy could be better safeguarded if transactions were to be concentrated on the central bank ledger under the supervision of something like a Monetary Supervision Jury comprising randomly selected citizens and experts drawn from a wide range of professions.

In summary, the time has come to reach an inevitable conclusion: the banking system we take for granted is unfixable. That’s the bad news. But there is good news. We no longer need to rely, at least not the way we have so far, on any private, rent-seeking, destabilising network of banks. The time has come to blow up an irredeemable banking system which only delivers for property and share owners at the expense of the majority.

Coal miners have found out the hard way that society does not owe them a permanent subsidy to damage the planet. It is time for the bankers to make a similar discovery.

Filed under: Action, Juries, Proposals, Sortition | Tagged: banking, currency, Varoufakis | 2 Comments »

Goodbye Elections. Hello Democracy.

Posted on February 18, 2023 by Yoram Gat

Goodbye Elections. Hello Democracy. is a documentary film being produced and directed by Adam Cronkright and expected to be released in 2024.

Goodbye Elections. Hello Democracy. tells the true story of 30 everyday Americans, selected by lottery, trying to find common ground on the most charged issue in the most divided state—while a bitter election rages around them.

The text on website seems to indicate, as does the title, that the film is taking a fairly radical attitude:

Why have I never heard of this?

Democratic lotteries have typically been pigeonholed in modern times as merely a way to inject public input into our current dysfunctional and distrusted political system, instead of being framed as a way to transform it.

For the first time ever, this film stands to change that.

Filed under: Action, Elections, Sortition | 5 Comments »

How can a transition be effected?

Posted on November 29, 2022 by Yoram Gat

A reader of the blog wrote asking whether readers of Equality by Lot have ideas about how a transition toward a system in which sortition plays an important role could be achieved.

The reader, who is an Iranian expat, is specifically interested in the case of Iran, which she describes as follows:

There are no political parties in Iran, though there are some syndicates of workers, teachers, …

There are some opposition groups out of Iran, but those who are well-known and are professional politicians, are just promoting their own interests, I think.

The majority of people who are against the regime are still passive as they don’t know what would happen next. They need an image of the future of Iran.

There is so much violence from regime devotees because they are also afraid of the future. Maybe the idea of sortition can soothe them too.

With the appropriate modifications, however, the description applies also to many (possibly all) other countries, specifically including those with the Western-style elections-based systems. Therefore any ideas may very well be relevant for effecting a change in many societies.

The questions then are:

How can a revolution create a deliberative democracy and sortition? What would be a realistic scenario or plan for that? What can international agents/actors, people like you, do to make it possible? Is there any international organization that can help at least us, Iranians who live out of Iran, to have a “citizen assembly based on sortition”, to practice democracy and peer-to-peer conversation between us and to create a feasible image of how could be the democracy like in Iran of future?

And, again, I believe the answers in the context of Iran would not be very different from the answers in other contexts. Sortition activists of all countries should consider these questions in the contexts of their own societies and government systems.

Filed under: Action, Sortition | 23 Comments »

Meeting: Sunday, October 23, 2022 – International Network of Sortition Advocates

Posted on October 17, 2022 by richwbrown

The International Network of Sortition Advocates will have our next meeting on, Sunday, October 23, 2022, at 19:00 GMT (London) [20:00 Europe, 21:00 Israel, 14:00 EST (2:00 PM), 6:00 AED].

The meeting will be held on our Discord platform. You must register on the app to attend the meeting. Here is your Discord invitation: https://discord.gg/6sgnrphp6w.

Once you have completed registration, to join the meeting:

Navigate to the heading “Talekanaler” on the left side of your screen (it’s before the “Linguistic Regions”)
Click on: “🔊General”
Click on: “Video

*Please note our desire to keep the meetings to a maximum of 1-hour in length.

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Meeting: Thursday, September 22, 2022 – International Network of Sortition Advocates

Posted on September 13, 2022 by richwbrown

The International Network of Sortition Advocates will have our next meeting on, Thursday, September 22, 2022, at 19:00 GMT [20:00 Europe, 21:00 Israel, 14:00 EST (2:00 PM), 6:00 AED].

The meeting will be held on our Discord platform. You must register on the app to attend the meeting. If you’re interested in registering on on the Discord platform and attending the upcoming meeting contact: Rich Brown at rbrowncmt@yahoo.com.

*Please note our desire to keep the meetings to a maximum of 1-hour in length.

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Meeting: Sunday, August 21, 2022 – International Network of Sortition Advocates

Posted on August 8, 2022 by richwbrown

The International Network of Sortition Advocates will have our next meeting on, Sunday, August 21, 2022, at 19:00 GMT [20:00 Europe, 21:00 Israel, 14:00 EST (2:00 PM), 6:00 AED].

*Please note our desire to keep the meetings to a maximum of 1-hour in length.

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Meeting: Saturday, July 16, 2022 – International Network of Sortition Advocates

Posted on July 2, 2022 by richwbrown

The International Network of Sortition Advocates will have our next meeting on, Saturday, July 16, 2022, at 15:00 GMT [16:00 Europe, 17:00 Israel, 10:00 AM US EDT, 2:00 Australia AEDT].

*Please note our desire to keep the meetings to a maximum of 1-hour in length.

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Meeting March 24th – International Network of Sortition Advocates

Posted on March 11, 2022 by richwbrown

The International Network of Sortition Advocates (INSA) will have its next meeting Thursday, March 24, 2022 at 19:00 GMT [20:00 Europe, 21:00 Israel, 14:00 EST (2:00 PM), 6:00 AEDT].

Google Meets Link: meet.google.com/xek-kpwx-ofr

Agenda items include:

Update on Google Works account
Configuring Discord app
Regular dates and times for monthly meetings
Shared management and facilitation of the INSA project
Ideas for future projects

*Please note our desire to keep the meetings to 1-hour in length.

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Meeting February 24th – International Network of Sortition Advocates (INSA)

Posted on February 10, 2022 by richwbrown

The International Network of Sortition Advocates (INSA) will have its next meeting Thursday, February 24, 2022 at 19:00 GMT [20:00 Europe, 21:00 Israel, 14:00 EST (2:00 PM), 6:00 AEDT].

Google Meets Link: meet.google.com/oiu-wfxi-vdy.

To make our time together more productive and to limit the amount of work done outside of meetings, there will be a new format for our regular monthly meetings. Beginning this month, instead of a meeting primarily to discuss issues and then dividing up work to complete on our own time, we will use the hour together to actually complete the work that needs to be done. We’re hoping that this new format, requiring only an hour a month commitment, will attract greater numbers of interested people. Future agendas will be set by meeting participants.

Meeting Agenda – February 24, 2022 – Research and select an online platform to facilitate an exchange of information and ideas.

Please let us know if you plan to attend. We welcome your active participation and look forward to seeing you at the February 24th meeting! For more information contact:

Benny Nissen at benny@sortition.dk or Rich Brown at rbrowncmt@yahoo.com

Our Mission: To advocate for the use of Sortition, across the globe, as a better way to make political decisions by:

Creating an international collaborative platform for groups advocating for the use of sortition to share successes, resources, and inspiration to impel a shared global narrative.
Helping to establish and nurture groups to further spread the word about sortition in their local and national context.

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