History | Equality by lot

Demiocracy, Chapter 19: Advantages of this army-of-Davids (multiple-Demi-legislature) arrangement

Posted on April 23, 2024 by Roger Knights

1. There would be less susceptibility to emotional proposals too motivated by fear or hope. Proxy electorates, which are specialized (expert on some topic), seasoned (from years of semi-monthly oversight sessions), and “select” (sifted upward through multiple ballotteries) at the state and national levels, would have more information, and would have acquired greater insight through discussion and debate. So they would more realistically assess what is possible (including adventurous proposals that just might work but affront conventional wisdom) and be less likely to divert down false trails and garden paths, and to ignore possible second-order effects. Their lesser credulity would insulate them from panics and propaganda. Their greater experience would simultaneously deliver aspiring politicians from the temptation to take advantage of their immaturity—of the virtual standing invitation that big-electorate, big-arena voters present to be played for Suckers. This inbuilt temptation of mass susceptibility eternally fuels the demonic dynamic—the co-dependent tragedy and farce—of DeMockery. (Its hidden “root,” to repeat, is its seemingly righteous, too-“wide,” electorate.)

2. Demiocracy’s decentralization would make a putsch more difficult, especially if it includes decentralization of the executive branch. (I.e., substantial independence of the executive departments from the chief executive, via PE-election of their heads.) Thus making tyranny less likely, a big concern of the Founders. Also insulating the government from a potty (barmy) POTUS. (“There is, of course, no such thing as a harmlessly mad emperor.” —Gore Vidal, Julian, Ch. 19.)

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Demiocracy, Chapter 5b: Three Long-Term Cases of sortition from a nominated sample, Like Demiocracy’s “Ballottery”

Posted on April 18, 2024 by Roger Knights

Amish Religious Practices

Amish ministers and deacons are selected by lot out of a group of men nominated by the congregation. They serve for life and have no formal training. Amish bishops are similarly chosen by lot from those selected as preachers. — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amish_religious_practices.

The Amish employ something akin to what I call a ballottery to select ministers. The congregation (= the general public) nominates (= ballots for) those it considers worthy, and a lottery selects a minister from among those worthies. A second lottery (structurally similar to what I call a “stacked” ballottery) selects a bishop from those selected ministers.

It should be obvious that if those clerics were selected at random from the congregation, they would not perform as well as those drawn from a democratically pre-approved group, and that they would have less legitimacy because of that poorer performance, and of the mechanical way they had been chosen. These considerations of competence and legitimacy apply equally to the next two cases below.

It will be objected that these cases all have to do with the the choice of executive officeholders. But the importance of elevating competence and credibility still applies to deciding on the method of choosing legislators and electors, although incapacity among them would not be as blindingly obvious. Nevertheless, that is hardly a reason to prefer mediocrity, or accept it. Indeed, its subtler manifestation is an even stronger reason to guard against it.

PS, from Wikipedia:

(Note that the Greek word for “lot” (kleros) serves as the etymological root for English words like “cleric” and “clergy” as well as for “cleromancy”.)

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Filed under: Athens, Elections, History, Religion, Sortition | 4 Comments »

Sortition in the New Testament

Posted on April 15, 2024 by Roger Knights

A notable example [of cleromancy] in the New Testament occurs in the Acts of the Apostles 1:23-26 where the eleven remaining apostles cast lots to determine whether to select Matthias, or Barsabbas (surnamed Justus) to replace Judas.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleromancy

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Demiocracy, Chapter 14b, Postscript: Reasons for Britain & France to Abhor DeMockery

Posted on March 6, 2024 by Roger Knights

WWI: Even if the analysis below can be disputed or disproved, it illustrates the common sort of situation where, when “the ruler’s imperative”—political survival—is threatened, it will take precedence over the common good.

I reminded my friends of the formidable domestic difficulties which the British regime was facing in 1914, and how [they] made it politically impracticable for it to declare its intentions until after the first gun had been fired.

[“Its intentions”—i.e., to declare war if Germany invaded Belgium; the Germans believed that Britain’s pre-war statements in support of Belgian neutrality were merely pro forma waffle. The Germans were amazed and felt betrayed when Britain entered the war. They thought they should have been clearly warned if Britain had really intended to do this.]

These difficulties were: the impending consolidation of labour into One Big Union; the pressure for home rule in Scotland and Wales, as well as for Ireland; and the pressure for land-value taxation. All these matters were due to come to a head simultaneously in the summer of 1914.

If in July 1914 Sir Edward Grey had served Prince Lichnowsky with a firm notice of the regime’s intentions, it is a hundred to one that the war would have been considerably deferred; but England would have been split up by convulsions far worse than those of the eighteen-forties, and the Liberal regime would be tossed to the dogs. —A.J. Nock, Memoirs of a Superfluous Man, 1943, p. 248.

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Ndongo Samba Sylla on the Senegalese exception

Posted on February 19, 2024 by Yoram Gat

Senegal, which “is considered one of West Africa’s more stable democracies and is the only country in the region never to have had a military coup”, has recently been in the news, as its electoralist system is being shaken by the government’s attempt to postpone the upcoming elections.

Back in 2012, the Senegalese economist Ndongo Samba Sylla wrote the following assessment of the situation in Senegal (and elsewhere).

By praising the Senegalese “democratic” model, we are in fact glorifying an oligarchic system based on a legitimacy which, for its effectiveness, is no less artificial. This artificial character derives from the fact that the label “democratic” is conferred more by the certification of established political rating agencies than by an ability to really address the needs of the population. At a time when demagogic flights of fancy regarding the “Senegalese exception” are all the rage on the web, the most needy are quietly suffering in structural poverty which “democracy” will probably never pull them out of.
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Filed under: Athens, Elections, History | 6 Comments »

Demiocracy, Chapter 5: History’s Hints — The Venetian Republic’s Electoral Procedures

Posted on January 25, 2024 by Roger Knights

[In Venice,] to prevent tensions between the ruling families, sortition was introduced as way of appointing a new doge, but in order to ensure only a competent person could become ruler, the procedure was combined with elections. The result was an unbelievably roundabout system that took place in ten phases over a period of five days….

The Venetian system seems absurdly cumbersome, but recently several computer scientists have shown that this leader election protocol is interesting in that it ensured the more popular candidates actually won, while nevertheless giving minorities a chance and neutralizing corrupt voting behavior. Furthermore, it helped to bring compromise candidates to the fore by amplifying small advantages…. In any case, historians agree, that the extraordinary, lasting stability of the Venetian republic, which endured more than five centuries, until ended by Napoleon, can be attributed in part to the ingenious selection of ballotte. Without sortition the republic would undoubtedly have fallen prey far sooner to disputes between ruling families. (You do quietly wonder whether today’s governments are not similarly falling prey to the bickering between parties.) —David van Reybrouck, Against Elections, 2018, p. 70-71.

My “take” is that what is worth copying from Venice are: a small electorate, a mix of sortition and election, and an indirect, multi-stage process of electing electors.

We compensate, we reconcile, we balance. … From hence arises, not an excellence in simplicity but one far superior, an excellence in composition. —Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790.

These made the office tend to seek the man, baffling the “presuming” ambitions of would-be “Kings of the Mountain.” That’s good, because such persons are often overbearing and blunder-prone once ensconced in office.

We can work up to these commanding heights of politics modestly, step-by-step from below, as follows in Chapters 6 & 7.

Filed under: Books, Elections, History, Sortition | 6 Comments »

Demiocracy, Chapter 4: The Nature and Dangers of DeMockery

Posted on January 22, 2024 by Roger Knights

The “classical” justification for democracy was that it is, or should be, rule by an informed public opinion acting, after deliberation, in the public interest.

Investigations, especially by post-war political science, discovered that the democracy we have actually got is not the classical model the Founders had in mind, but in fact mostly the rule of factions and partisans, which the Founders dreaded.

Factions include organized pressure groups and other “players.” They are only fitfully concerned—truly and wisely concerned—with the public interest.

Some political scientists have called this system “pluralism” or “polyarchy” (the rule of many); others have called it “interest group liberalism.” Both have concluded that elections are a mostly ceremonial affair and that it is unrealistic to expect (width-first) democracy to function in any very different way. They have also mostly concluded that polyarchy’s scramble isn’t so bad, especially compared to totalitarianism.

They hope that they may persuade you, that since it is impossible to do any good, you may as well have your share in the profits of doing ill. —Edmund Burke, The Philosophy of Edmund Burke, p. 148.

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Filed under: Books, Deliberation, Elections, History | 2 Comments »

America Should Be Ripe for Sortition

Posted on January 5, 2024 by Roger Knights

Here are a few instances where DeMockery has badly failed us, and where Demiocracy [to be explained later] would have done a better job—and had greater legitimacy with the public, because of its Everyman composition. The priorities of common folk are not as much warped by the Pernicious P’s. (Their relative resistance to Propaganda, for instance, was portrayed by the cynicism of the “proles” in the saloon-set scenes in 1984.)

To me, as to the alienated Greeks I posted about yesterday, these outrages are not just incidental accidents, but revelations of the essential objectionable character of the political class that is nurtured and sustained by DeMockery.

There’s no such thing as a cheap politician. — Ferdinand Lundberg, Scoundrels All, 1968.

The Great Depression, Part 1. I’ve read that some officials wanted the Federal Reserve to be more hawkish in 1927, because a house of cards was a-building due to its loose credit policy. But moderating the roaring Twenties then would have impinged on the wealth of Wall Streeters and dimmed the GOP’s presidential prospects in 1928, so pressure was applied to keep the party going. Even if this speculation isn’t 100% correct, it is the SORT of thing that is likely occur under DeMockery. For instance:

Also to blame is former President Donald Trump, who repeatedly pressured and even threatened to fire Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell to continue to keep the interest rates low to aid his re-election campaign. When Mr. Trump was first elected, the 2007-09 recession and its aftereffects had more or less ended. But he wanted low interest rates to artificially boost the economy at great expense. He met with the Fed chairman to remind him of his expectations. —Letter to the WSJ, April 10, 2023, by A. Salinity.

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Filed under: Books, Elections, History, Press, Sortition | 10 Comments »

Tom Paine’s “Common Sense” Says: “Saul Was by Lot”

Posted on January 2, 2024 by Roger Knights

Common Sense is a pamphlet written by Thomas Paine in 1775–1776 advocating independence from Great Britain to people in the Thirteen Colonies. In it he writes:

Yet I should be glad to ask how they [monarchists] suppose kings came at first? The question admits but of three answers, viz. either by lot, by election, or by usurpation. If the first king was taken by lot, it establishes a precedent for the next, which excludes hereditary succession. Saul was by lot, yet the succession was not hereditary, neither does it appear from that transaction there was any intention it ever should be. If the first king of any country was by election, that likewise establishes a precedent for the next; for to say, that the RIGHT of all future generations is taken away, by the act of the first electors, in their choice not only of a king, but of a family of kings for ever, hath no parallel in or out of scripture but the doctrine of original sin.

Filed under: Elections, History, Sortition | 2 Comments »

Point of View: Shoring Up Democracy

Posted on December 4, 2023 by Yoram Gat

Jack Graves writes in the East Hampton Star:

An Op-Ed in The Times not long ago [the author presumably refers to this. -YG] suggested that the ballot in this country be replaced by “sortition” — appointment by lot, which democratic Athens used in the 5th and 4th centuries B.C.E. to stock its populous Council, Assembly, and jury courts.

While the level of participation was very high, putting to shame our apathetic turnouts, Athenian democracy wasn’t at the root all that democratic: Women had no voice, neither did resident aliens, who could not own property; there were slaves, as many as 100,000 in the 4th century, it’s estimated in Thomas N. Mitchell’s “Athens: A History of the World’s First Democracy,” and in its Golden Age an aristocratic general and gifted orator, Pericles, essentially called the tune.

Socrates, who was to be sentenced to death for impiety, wasn’t a fan, nor were Plato and Aristotle, though he saw some potential good in it. Socrates said, “It is absurd to choose magistrates by lot where no one would dream of drawing lots for a pilot, a mason, a flute player, or any craftsman at all though the shortcomings of such men are far less harmful than those that disorder our government.”

Frankly, I see no reason why sortition would work any better in the United States, a vastly larger country, than the representative democracy (or democratic republic, if you will) that we already have; though it’s clear that the Electoral College has skewed things, according to smaller states’ disproportionate power, and, because of the winner-take-all allocation of electoral votes, focuses presidential campaigns on battleground states.

Filed under: Athens, Elections, History, Press, Sortition | 3 Comments »