Book: The Power of Scale by John H. Bodley

Posted on October 10, 2018 by Roger Knights

Here’s an intriguing book: The Power of Scale: A Global History Approach (2002), Routlledge, by John H. Bodley. Its price varies depending on format but is generally over $30. It seems to have been overlooked—it has only one Amazon review. But it could be mined for some good Kleroterian ammo; here’s its blurb:

“Throughout history, the natural human inclination to accumulate social power has led to growth and scale increases that benefit the few at the expense of the many. John Bodley looks at global history through the lens of power and scale theory, and draws on history, economics, anthropology, and sociology to demonstrate how individuals have been the agents of social change, not social classes. Filled with tables and data to support his argument, this book considers how increases in scale necessarily lead to an increasingly small elite gaining disproportionate power, making democratic control more difficult to achieve and maintain.”

Its shorty link in the American Amazon site is: https://goo.gl/sxP81t Its link in the UK Amazon site is: https://goo.gl/2nofcS 

Speaking of “scale,” here’s some lagniappe that also might be useful ammo: two quotes on scale’s effect on elections:

”The larger the mob, the harder the test. In small areas, before small electorates, a first-rate man occasionally fights his way through, carrying even the mob with him by the force of his personality. But when the field is nationwide, and the fight must be waged chiefly at second and third hand, and the force of personality cannot so readily make itself felt, then all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre—the man who can most adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum.”

—H.L. Mencken, “Bayard vs. Lionheart,” July 26, 1920, in H.L. Mencken on Politics: A Carnival of Buncombe (1960), page 21. 

(On U.S. Amazon it’s atop a list of other H.L. Mencken books at this shorty link: https://goo.gl/tvnDs5 On UK Amazon it’s at https://goo.gl/LVAEkX, but thrice as expensive.)

“Something like republicanism or ‘democracy’ will work after a fashion in a village or even a township, where everybody knows everybody and keeps an eye on what goes on. Why not, then, in a county, a state, a nation? Simply because the law of diminishing returns is against it.”

—A.J. Nock, Memoirs of a Superfluous Man (1943), page 134. (Available in the U.S. in a $3 Kindle edition at: https://goo.gl/6HGHoM, or in the UK more expensively in paper at; https://goo.gl/Zi7xs7) 

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25 Books under “Sortition” on Amazon

Posted on October 8, 2018 by Roger Knights

Sortition fans can type “sortition” into the Amazon search box (with the setting set to Books) and bring up a list of about 25 books on sortition. (You might also try “demarchy” or “election by lot”.) About one-third of the Kindle versions are under $5.

Americans can get to that page merely by clicking the shorty link https://goo.gl/Jw8Xfg 

Britons can do likewise at https://goo.gl/6RN8R7

Burnheim’s book, Is Democracy Possible? isn’t among the 25, probably because the word “sortition” isn’t in its text (I assume), but its Kindle version can be had in the U.S. for $3 at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IMOCMLG/ref=pe_385040_118058080_TE_M1DP 

Probably its UK version is likewise inexpensive, but you’ll have to type in the title to get to it.

Filed under: Books, Distribution by lot, Sortition | 2 Comments »

Mencken: A Purge for Legislatures

Posted on October 6, 2018 by Yoram Gat

The book A Mencken Chrestomathy contains a reprint of an article by H.L. Mencken called “A Purge for Legislatures”. The article, originally published in 1926, may be the first modern piece of advocacy for sortition. Thanks to Roger Knights for writing to draw attention to this article.

A MOOD of constructive criticism being upon me, I propose forthwith that the method of choosing legislators now prevailing in the United States be abandoned and that the method used in choosing juries be substituted. That is to say, I propose that the men who make our laws be chosen by chance and against their will, instead of by fraud and against the will of all the rest of us, as now. But isn’t the jury system itself imperfect? Isn’t it occasionally disgraced by gross abuse and scandal? Then so is the system of justice devised and ordained by the Lord God Himself. Didn’t He assume that the Noachian Deluge would be a lasting lesson to sinful humanity — that it would put an end to all manner of crime and wickedness, and convert mankind into a race of Presbyterians? And wasn’t Noah himself, its chief beneficiary, lying drunk, naked and uproarious within a year after the ark landed on Ararat? All I argue for the jury system, invented by man, is that it is measurably better than the scheme invented by God. It has its failures and its absurdities, its abuses and its corruptions, but taking one day with another it manifestly works. It is not the fault of juries that so many murderers go unwhipped of justice, and it is not the fault of juries that so many honest men are harassed by preposterous laws. The juries find the gunmen guilty: it is functionaries higher up, all politicians, who deliver them from the noose, and turn them out to resume their butcheries.
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Filed under: Books, Proposals, Sortition | 13 Comments »

Hugo Bonin: Democracy by lottery

Posted on September 28, 2018 by Yoram Gat

The newspaper Le Journal de Montréal has an article by Jacques Lanctôt about Hugo Bonin’s book, La Democratie Hasardeuse [Original in French, my translation].

Games of chance in politics

“With luck, things will turn out well.” Who has not heard this saying at some point? A chance encounter, a decision taken offhandedly, a delay that turned out for the best, any of those may change our life.

Hugo Bonin believes that luck may be beneficial in politics as well even if it is not a magical solution to all our problems of representation. In a well structured essay, well supported by numerous concrete examples stretching as far back as antiquity (Athens and Rome) and where a future that is almost within our reach is imagined, Bonin aims to show that sortition is a hundred-fold better than the so-called representative elections.

Sortition has its limits but its great merit is that it takes no account of distinctions between races, genders, ages or social classes. John and Jane Doe are worth just as much as the elitist clique of doctors, lawyers and businessmen who have been governing us for too long a time.

More “egalitarian”
In an electoral regime such as the one know here and elsewhere in the West, the voters vote to elect the supposedly better candidate. While in an allotment system, the notion of “better” does not exist because everybody are equally politically qualified. Thus, this is “an egalitarian and a democratic procedure” where all external considerations are excluded.

Random selection is already practiced here in Québec and elsewhere. We need only consider jury selection in a criminal trial. Made of lay people rather than experts, following the British law, this jury is called upon to analyze the evidence and render a decision after deliberation.
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Filed under: Books, Elections, Fiction, History, Press, Proposals, Sortition | 1 Comment »

Wafawarova on sortition

Posted on September 25, 2018 by Yoram Gat

Reason Wafawarova, columnist in The Herald of Zimbabwe, concludes a column in which he decries the disfunction of the the electoral system in Zimbabwe with the following:

Imagine having to develop a system today that would express the will of the people. Would it really be a good idea to have them all queue up at polling stations every five years with a bit of card in their hands and go into a dark booth to put a mark next to names on a list, names of people about whom restless reporting had been going on for months in a commercial environment that profits from restlessness?

We care deeply about our community, and we as people want to be heard. Maybe we can return to the central principle of Athenian democracy; drafting by lot, or sortition. In that era the majority of public functions were assigned by lot.

Renaissance states such as Venice and Florence worked on the same basis and experienced centuries of political stability. With sortition, you do not ask everyone to vote on an issue few people really understand, but you draft a random sample of the population and make sure they come to grips with the subject matter in order to take a sensible decision.

A cross-section of society that is informed can act more coherently than an entire society that is uninformed.

This perhaps brought about the idea of representative democracy or parliamentary democracy, but do our parliamentarians always act in our best interest?

Filed under: Elections, Press, Proposals, Sortition | Leave a comment »

“When I was allotted, I was honored to participate in the process. But I was very quickly disillusioned.”

Posted on September 20, 2018 by Yoram Gat

These are excerpts from an interview with an allotted member of the electoral committee of La France insoumise which appeared in Liberation in July [original in French, my translation].

The list of La France Insoumise for the European elections: “Everything was fixed by the directorate to favor little deals between friends”

By Maïté Darnault, reporter in Lyon

An activist in Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s movement, who participated in the debates of the electoral committee for appointing the candidates for the upcoming European elections, says she witnessed “scandalous” appointment methods and calls on activists to reject the list presented this Wednesday.

Lilian Guefli, an activist in La France insoumise (LFI), a member of the electoral committee which has just presented the movement’s list for the European elections, denounces “unhealthy procedures”, an atmosphere “of suspicion” within the committee, and says that Manuel Bompard (national secretary of the Left Party and campaign director for Jean-Luc Mélenchon) and his associates dominate the eligible positions.

You were on the electoral committee of LFI. What was your role?

I was allotted in April to participate in the electoral committee. For the European elections list we examined more than 600 candidates. 70 names were eventually selected. After a phase of comment by activists – we received more than 800 comments – we proceeded to the decide on the ordering. This ranking is the most important part because the European elections use proportional representation, and the ranking therefore determines who may realistically be elected.

What is it that you protest?

A deliberate, orchestrated manipulation. When I was allotted, I was honored to participate in the process. But I was very quickly disillusioned when I saw that in fact everything was already fixed by the directorate to favor little deals between friends and cliques which have already divided up the top positions on the list in advance. A list of names of members of the Left Party that are to be promoted was given to us by a member of the directorate. One candidate was installed in a top position without debate, so that she did not appear on the list of 70. I protest that Manuel Bompard, the “head” of the movement who has no real legitimacy with the base, is a member of the electoral committee and controls it. Being himself a candidate, he is at the same time judge and judged. That poses a real problem of independence for the committee.
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Filed under: Applications, Press, Sortition | 22 Comments »

Are “citizen” parties for real?

Posted on September 13, 2018 by Yoram Gat

The following op-ed by Yves Patte, sociologist and community organizer, was published in August on the Belgian website La Libre (original in French, my translation).

Are “citizen” parties for real?

A few months before the elections, have you noticed how at some point all the parties seem to be “citizen” parties? In their name (“citizen list”, “citizen party”), as well as in their platforms (“re-empower the citizens”).

Naturally, we are not going to complain. It would be grouchy to be too particular now that the political world is attending to the wish for citizen participation. However, we must remain careful and ask ourselves whether this sudden mass conversion to the faith of citizen participation is sincere. After “greenwashing”, are we witnessing a case of “citizenwashing”? So, how, as citizens, can we assess the sincerity of a list or a party that calls itself a “citizen” list or party? Of course, merely printing “citizen” on its campaign posters is not enough, nor is inserting this word into its platform.

Drawing ideas from citizen movements does not legitimate declaring a party to be a citizen party either. It is not because a party promotes local agriculture, short supply chains, social connections or “zero waste” that it would be “a citizen party”.

What is the citizen?

We know that democracy, since its origins, gave a central place to the “citizen” in managing the city-state. It is he (and today fortunately, her) who had political rights and duties, who participates “in the power to judge and to order” (Aristotle). There is a link between democratic organization (that is to say when power resides with the “demos”) and the citizens being able to take on the functions of the democratic organization.
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Filed under: Elections, Participation, Press, Sortition | 53 Comments »

Myth No. 2: Democracy is about electing representatives

Posted on September 9, 2018 by Yoram Gat

In an article in The Washington Post, James Miller, professor of politics at the New School for Social Research, enumerates 5 myths about democracy. Here is myth #2:

Myth No. 2: Democracy is about electing representatives

In 2004, Stanford political scientist Larry Diamond defined democracy in terms familiar to most Americans. Among other things, it is “a political system for choosing and replacing the government through free and fair elections.” This view is echoed whenever an election rolls around. As one local paper’s editorial board wrote last year, “Democracy depends on citizens voting.” In Australia, voting is compulsory.

But this isn’t the only way to ensure the people’s input. Ancient Athens selected almost all significant officials not by voting but randomly, by drawing lots. This is how we select juries today, for the same reason: It nullifies the advantages of the wealthy and well-known, and it means a political order in which citizens engage in public life on equal terms, ratifying Aristotle’s conclusion that “from one point of view governors and governed are identical.” As Montesquieu wrote, “The suffrage by lot is natural to democracy, as that by choice is to aristocracy.”

Filed under: Academia, Elections, Press, Sortition | 4 Comments »

Chris Hedges interviews David Van Reybrouck on sortition

Posted on September 5, 2018 by Simon Threlkeld

Good interview of David Van Reybrouck by Chris Hedges, the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist who writes for Truth Dig and has a show on RT.

Chris Hedges: “Aristotle would I think have defined our democracy as an oligarchy.”

David Van Reybrouck: “For a lobbyist it is much harder to influence public decision-making when the decision-makers are drafted by lot, and do not have an interest in getting re-elected, and do not have an interest in raising campaign money.”

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

“So far the allotted have had no real power”

Posted on August 30, 2018 by Yoram Gat

A recent article in L’Obs deals with the internal government of the French Left party La France insoumise (France Uprising). La France insoumise has employed sortition to select some of the delegates to its convention. The original in French is here. My translation – corrections welcome.

At La France insoumise, first fractures regarding internal operations

Marseille (AFP) – La France insoumise (LFI), created two years ago around the presidential platform of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, is showing the first fractures regarding its internal operations while its leader has launched a European campaign.

At the beginning of the year, the deputy Clémentine Autain, a member of Ensemble, one of the components of the Left Front, had called for the movement to “consider how to invigorate internal pluralism”. At the time, she was noted for judging as severe the disagreements between the Communist Party and LFI, and wishing for discussions “without mockery or contempt”.

Today she presents things more calmly: “The movement is in flux, it is unfinished, there are necessarily tensions about who makes decisions […]. But we do not want ignore them.” And indeed discontent exists. The group Collectif des Insoumis démocrates (CID) was formed a few months ago and its petition “For democracy within LFI” has collected 600 signatures. Among the questions that it raises is this one: Who decided that the ecology, the pensions and the link between Emmanuel Macron and Europe would be the principal point for the European campaign presented by Mélenchon on Saturday?
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Filed under: Applications, Elections, Press, Sortition | 17 Comments »

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