DOWN WITH ELECTIONS!

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PART 5

The “Loose-Leaf” Approach

I have touched on the fact that elected politicians may become “locked into” a bad policy. (see §20 above) It is not simply a question of damage to the ego, or the embarrassment of publicly changing their stance after several TV or newspaper interviews. There may be the inertia of a whole political and publicity machine brought into being to push a policy which was once thought to be important for gaining office, and which later turns out to be doubtful or disastrous. (Examples include climate change denial, the “war on drugs”, and the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.)

Changing policy means that the whole team of bullocks: tame journalists and editorialists, other politicians of the same party, public relations staff, and grass-roots party members have to change direction as well. A large part of the public may need to be convinced, not only of the need for the change, but also of the politicians’ sincerity in advocating first one policy, then another. Some sources of party finance may dry up overnight and other sources may have to be found. To make the change, some heads may have to roll, and there will not be many volunteers to rush in to make the sacrifice. All this is risky politically, and time-consuming.

An Assembly chosen by lot will not suffer from these disadvantages, of course. Members will be quite free to change their minds, and in any case, with a secret ballot, there is no need for anyone else even to be aware of a change of mind. This will permit errors of judgement to be quickly corrected, and policies which are no longer desirable because of changed circumstances to be altered.
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