Linker: An absolute democracy would assign political offices by lot

Posted on July 27, 2015 by Yoram Gat

Damon Linker’s argument against compulsory voting weaves in Plato and the Socratic argument for aristocracy. His reasoning is an interesting modernization of the classical aristocratic mindset. His point about the contestability of excellence is good, and he makes use of it as a justification of electoralism.

A democracy gives every adult citizen a very small say in who rules. An individual doesn’t have to prove that he’s thoughtful or informed to exercise that right. As Plato argued 2,300 years ago, this makes democratic politics exceedingly peculiar. We don’t take a vote to determine the medical treatments that doctors prescribe, and neither do we ask for a show of hands about how to construct a bridge or a building. And yet we think it’s perfectly reasonable to ask for everyone’s opinion about what policies our country should pursue at home and abroad.

That’s because in politics, unlike in medicine and engineering, the act of determining who does and does not possess knowledge and wisdom is exceedingly contentious. (One might say it’s a political act in itself.) So we solve — or rather, we sidestep — the problem by letting everyone have a say.
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Filed under: Athens, Elections, History, Participation, Press, Proposals, Sortition | Tagged: , , | 14 Comments »

Short refutations of common objections to sortition (part 1)

Posted on May 24, 2015 by Yoram Gat

1. It would be madness to appoint public officials by lot. No one would choose a pilot or builder or flutist by lot, nor any other craftsman for work in which mistakes are far less disastrous than mistakes in statecraft.

The problem with this ancient argument against sortition (attributed to Socrates) is that it implicitly assumes that there is some consensus around who should be running the state (those are the pilots, builders or flutists of politics). If there was such consensus politics would be very simple. Politics to a large extent is about identifying whose advice should be taken on which subject. The pretense of elections is that the voters can identify such people. This is a fantasy.

A small group, meeting together and discussing and examining matters in depth, would be able to do a much better job of getting the best advice than the citizens can do as isolated individuals. In fact, most voters already know that – they tend to be very disapproving of elected officials – the very people whom they supposedly selected as being the best suited to handle statecraft.

2. Average people suffer a great many shortcomings (some combination of stupidity, laziness, apathy, greed, selfishness, lack of education, lack of experience, inability to work together with others, etc.).

This dismissive view of the average person is offensive and unsubstantiated by the facts. Continue reading →

Filed under: Athens, Elections, History, Participation, Sortition | 47 Comments »

Arriaga: Democracy Does Not Live by Tech Alone

Posted on May 13, 2015 by Yoram Gat

Manuel Arriaga‘s Foreign Policy magazine article is a well-aimed, much needed corrective to the techno-progressivist formula of popular political theory:

Democracy Does Not Live by Tech Alone

Democracy is in crisis — and more apps won’t save it. Instead, bring decision-making back to the people.

Enthusiasm for reforming our democracies has been gaining momentum. From the pages of FP to the colorful criticisms of comedian Russell Brand, it is evident that a long-overdue public conversation on this topic is finally getting started.

There is no lack of proposals. For example, in their recent FP piece, John Boik and colleagues focus on decentralized, emergent, tech-driven solutions such as participatory budgeting, local currency systems, and open government. They are confident that such innovations have a good chance of “spreading virally” and bringing about major change. Internet-based solutions, in particular, have captured our collective imagination. From Pia Mancini’s blockbuster TED presentation to New Scientist‘s recent coverage of “digital democracy,” we’re eager to believe that smartphone apps and novel online platforms hold the key to reinventing our way of governance. This seems only natural: after all, the same technologies have already radically reconfigured large swaths of our daily lives.

To put it bluntly, I believe that focusing on innovations of this sort is a dangerous distraction. Continue reading →

Filed under: Athens, Books, History, Participation, Sortition | Tagged: , | 1 Comment »

Humor in Article Based on Erroneous Assumption About Athenian Democracy

Posted on May 12, 2015 by Yoram Gat

A rather amusing article in the Onion makes the mistake of assuming that the Athenian democracy was an electoralist system and therefore subject to the same elitist control:

Anthropologists Discover Ancient Greek Super PAC That Helped Shape First Democracy

ATHENS, GREECE—In a finding that provides new insight into the roots of Western civilization, a team of anthropologists from Cambridge University announced Monday the discovery of an ancient Greek super PAC that helped shape the world’s first democracy. “At the same time Cleisthenes first instituted a representative form of government in Athens, it appears that a group of wealthy citizens and merchants created an organization to influence these new voters by bombarding them with around-the-clock political messages,” lead researcher Daniel Rogers said of the early political action committee, named Athenians for a Better City-State, which is said to have received millions of drachmas’ worth of funding in gold, lambs, dates, loaves of bread, and slaves from Athens’ largest and most influential trade groups. “While the committee was prohibited from coordinating directly with candidates seeking public office, AFBCS nevertheless spent astonishing sums on orators hired to stand in the Agora and recite the negative traits of politicians that the super PAC opposed, as well as on writers who were hired to pen slanderous epic poems.”

Filed under: Athens, Elections, Fiction, History, Sortition | Tagged: , | Leave a comment »

A 5-minute video lesson about sortition

Posted on March 25, 2015 by Yoram Gat

Melissa Schwartzberg is a professor of Politics at NYU.

Transcription:

What did democracy really mean in Athens? – Melissa Schwartzberg

Hey, congratulations! You just won the lottery. Only the prize isn’t cash or a luxury cruise. It’s a position in your country’s national legislature. And you aren’t the only lucky winner. All of your fellow lawmakers were chosen in the same way.

This might strike you as a strange way to run a government, let alone a democracy. Elections are the epitome of democracy, right? Well, the ancient Athenians, who coined the word, had another view. In fact elections only played a small role in Athenian democracy, with most offices filled by random lottery from a pool of citizen volunteers.
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Filed under: Academia, Athens, Elections, History, Juries, Participation, Sortition | Tagged: , | 13 Comments »

Down with Elections! Part 4

Posted on January 30, 2015 by campbellwallace

DOWN WITH ELECTIONS!

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6

PART 4

Theoretical Considerations and Explanations

Athens

Proponents of sortition usually refer to the fact that it was used in Athens, and sometimes use the Athenian constitution as a yardstick for comparing other proposals. There is no attempt here to reproduce or imitate the Athenian democracy, which had several features which would now be considered objectionable, among which are:

  1. The exclusion of the majority of persons living under the control of the government from any say in that government. One can argue about the relative numbers of adult male citizens, adult female citizens, metics (metoikoi, foreigners living and working in Athens) children of citizens, and slaves, but clearly the adult male citizens were a small minority of those affected by the laws which they alone could vote on. Amongst adult male citizens, the Athenian constitution was eminently democratic, amongst those who were subject to its laws, it was oligarchic.
  2. The lack of separation of justice and legislature.
  3. Ostracism. It was not necessary to commit a crime to be ostracised and exiled, merely to be feared.
  4. Dokimasia. This was an examination, not to determine whether a citizen was competent, but whether he was eligible for office, and if so, whether his political views were offensive (usually meaning that he had oligarchic sympathies).

    5. Continue reading →

Filed under: Athens, Fiction, History, Juries, Sortition, Theory | 33 Comments »

Robbins: Democracy: What Would It Be Like?

Posted on January 14, 2015 by Yoram Gat

Arthur D. Robbins writes in the Sri Lanka Guardian:

What would it be like if we really lived in a democracy? These days just about everybody seems to be enjoying the benefits democratic government, that is if you believe government propaganda and you are one of the credulous many who are eager for a sense of well being at any price. But what is usually called democracy is in fact an oligarchy of elected representatives responsible to the business interests who bankrolled their campaign. If people were actually given the opportunity to choose democracy, they might do so, provided they understood what the word actually means. Our one uncontested example is ancient Athens.

Note the difference between “equal speech,” or “political speech,” the right to debate and legislate, and what today we call “free speech,” the prohibition against being denied the right to speak. We could be speaking on a street corner or marching in a protest. “Free speech” says we have the right to do that. It says the right cannot be taken away. “Free speech” has no particular context. We are granted the right to say what we want, provided, it turns out, we do not threaten the governing powers. “Free speech” is a civil right. It is not a political right. It does not give us the right to set national policy. “Equal speech” in ancient Athens did.
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Filed under: Athens, Elections, History, Participation, Press, Sortition | Tagged: , , , | 32 Comments »

Chwalisz: Are we electoral fundamentalists?

Posted on January 10, 2015 by Yoram Gat

Claudia Chwalisz writes in 3am magazine:

Representative democracy today seems to be at an impasse. Low voter turnout, falling party membership, plummeting trust in politicians, the fierce rise of populist parties. These trends, together with political fragmentation, disengagement among young generations, and backlash against the political elite who have failed to govern responsibly, highlight democracy’s dilemma. Though much has been written about this democratic crisis, less has been proposed in terms of solutions. Belgian historian David Van Reybrouck’s recent book, Contre les élections [Against Elections], attempts to fill this gap of ideas. Although it has not yet been translated into English, as is obvious from what I discuss below, his analyses are critically important in the current climate.

Chwalisz’s long article mostly revolves around Van Reybrouk’s book, but also mentions Gilens and Page. She seems to some extent skeptical of Van Reybrouck’s progressivist outlook and ends thusly:

[T]he dilemma of how to get elected elites to relinquish their grip on the seats of power remains unresolved. Perhaps the starting point is to question ourselves: are we, in fact, electoral fundamentalists?

Filed under: Athens, Books, History, Juries, Press, Proposals, Sortition | 4 Comments »

Sen. Elizabeth Warren could be a sortition spokesperson

Posted on December 26, 2014 by Ahmed R. Teleb

Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s recent remarks on the Senate floor have been viewed half a million times. She decries the coziness of the big banks with government and names names, coming close to Russell Brand and unknowingly making a case for the use of lot.

The questions these sort of sharp, honest protests raise are the following. Must someone as sophisticated as Sen. Warren draw the connection between contributor-driven electioneering and corruption or could one simply attribute it to the acts of an unscrupulous few who break the rules? When does a critic of a system ceased to simply criticize the system’s non-conformity to its own ideals and begin to question the system itself?

Filed under: Applications, Elections, History, Press | Tagged: , , | 2 Comments »

Malkin: Reviving sortition, first within the parties

Posted on December 13, 2014 by Yoram Gat

Elections in Israel are in the offing again. Prof. Irad Malkin, a professor of Ancient History in Tel Aviv University and winner of the 2014 Israel Prize for history, again offers sortition to the readers of the Israeli newspaper Haaretz:

Lottery instead of voting, like in Athens

In these days, in which parties are preparing for elections, especially in view of the increase of the electoral threshold, an exhausting process of political fighting, deals, backstabbing and ideological infighting can be expected. Even if a new party is formed and wins seats in the Knesset, residues of bitterness and animosity that have accumulated during the formation struggle will remain. This problem can be solved – greatly shortening the process and dissolving the conflicts in advance – by adopting a mechanism that was used in ancient Athens, the city that gave us democracy.

In the Athenian democracy people were selected by lottery to most positions in the executive, religious and judicial organization. […] The difference between oligrachy and democracy, say Aristotle, is that oligarchy has elections while democracy has the lottery.

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Filed under: Academia, Athens, Elections, History, Participation, Press, Proposals, Sortition | Tagged: , , | 6 Comments »

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