Demiocracy, Chapters 9 & 10: Student Councils 

Posted on February 10, 2024 by Roger Knights

Chapter 9: IVE-Proxies should be Overseers of nongovernmental elected bodies too: e.g., of Student Councils

IVEs might also be employed by social groups that (unlike the ones under Chapters 7 and 8) do elect representatives. They would be supplementary overseers of the electees—guardians of the guardians, in other words.

Let’s start with student councils. In most high schools and colleges the student body is so large that few students know any candidate personally. All they know is how the candidates present themselves in their speeches, campaign posters, and position papers—if they even pay attention to those. (“Student apathy” is common: in one student council election at the U. of Washington only 15% participated.)

Continue reading →

Filed under: Academia, education, Elections, schools | Leave a comment »

A citizen lottery for leadership, a real democracy

Posted on February 6, 2024 by Yoram Gat

Carlos Acuña an attorney from El Centro, California, writes in the Calexico Chronicle:

The upcoming national elections later this fall, not to mention the upcoming recall in … gulp, Calexico, bring to mind the legend of Faust. For those unfamiliar with the name a Medieval legend revolves around a man, Faust, who made a deal with the devil. Faust, in exchange for knowledge and the hedonistic life, offered his soul to the devil. The devil gladly agreed. The devil had vacancies to fill, that sort of thing; hell has no homeless; all are welcome.

Faust was not alone. Your garden-variety political candidate pretty much brings Faust to mind. Political office seekers tend to be a self-selecting lot; unlike the ancient Greek system of sortition — reflected in our modern jury system — where citizens got selected at random to represent the population at large in the halls of leadership and political decision-making. Those hungry for power jockey for position; sadly, those who want it most, deserve it least. The Greeks knew it, 2,300 years ago … Hence, their citizen lottery for leadership, real democracy. A side effect from that: the Greeks not knowing who among them would be picked, made sure everyone got a first-rate education, including ethics …
Continue reading →

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

Rolling the Dice on Democracy

Posted on February 3, 2024 by Yoram Gat

A new short video discussing sortition lays out the standard discourse around sortition. In doing so, despite the video’s tone that seems rather sympathetic to sortition, it echos the arguments against sortition made by supporters of elections rather naively. Similar arguments were made by elitists throughout the ages, going back at least 2,500 years to Socrates, when they argued against any democratic mechanism. When people argue for the maintenance of their privilege, they always claim that they do so for the general benefit. We are quick to dismiss such claims when they come from our ideological enemies, e.g., advocates of monarchy, theocracy, and most notably from those who argue for the system used in the People’s Republic of China. Shouldn’t this skepticism be applied to those defending elections as well?

Filed under: Elections, Sortition, video | Leave a comment »

Demiocracy, Chapter 8: Employees need Inner Voice Entities

Posted on February 3, 2024 by Roger Knights

American employees usually lack a voice. Three-quarters of them aren’t represented by a union. As for the rest, unions here typically disclaim a willingness to help management improve its likability and operations.

It is essential in the trade union view that they should not be compromised by having a share in management. —H.R.G. Greaves, Democratic Participation and Public Enterprise, 1964.

Employees often suffer from the slings and arrows of outrageous managers—Dilbert’s pointy-haired boss is a notorious example.

So employees would benefit from having a proxy entity that is able complain to a higher-level manager; and, that failing, as it often might, to the board of directors and/or shareholders; and that failing, to the media and/or the internet.

Management would benefit too, by being able to float trial balloons within IVEs, thereby fine-tuning new policies and averting blunders.

The interests of the owners (stockholders) are not necessarily aligned with those of management. A “managerial revolution” long ago wrested effective control from the owners …

… things in a private economic enterprise are quite similar: the real “sovereign,” the assembled shareholders, is just as little influential in the business management as is a “people” ruled by expert officials. —Max Weber, Politics as a Vocation, 1919.

… and management has often put its own petty interests first. The long-term viability of firms has suffered as a result.

Continue reading →

Filed under: Elections, Sortition | Leave a comment »

Demiocracy, Chapters 6 & 7: Demiocratic Representation of the Voiceless, by Means of a Novel “Bal-lottery” Technique

Posted on January 31, 2024 by Roger Knights

There are certain segments of the population (specified in the next chapter) who are often poorly treated, but who can’t complain about it to their higher-ups—or, really, to anyone—because they can’t speak out as a group, lacking representatives.

These groups, by their nature, are not in a position to allow election campaigns. They would either not be feasible, or would be too disruptive.

Nor would it be feasible for representatives to be selected completely by chance, because: 1) They would be treated dismissively, as mere nobodies, by the officials above them; and 2) They would not be as enthusiastic about, or effective at, their duties as certain others in their group—persons who would tend to be selected by a bal-lottery.

These groups should therefore employ the novel (AFAIK), election-free bal-lottery technique described in Item 2 above to select representatives.

I urge sympathizers of such underdogs to promote this means of representation. Equally, I urge “uber-dogs” to heed it, as it is in their interest to be wise in time.

Here’s a simplified example. Let’s say that some group has 1000 members, and that the agreed-upon ballot-to-lot ratio is 50:50. (For voiceless groups the ratio would be 100:0.) INTO the bal-lottery box might therefore go 10 ballots BY each member, nominating other members, and 10 lots FOR each member, automatically.

Continue reading →

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

Professor Neil explains the principle of distinction

Posted on January 28, 2024 by Yoram Gat

TikToker Professor Neil is, it turns out, a sortition advocate. In a recent clip Prof. Neil lays out the reason that elected government does not represent the interests of the population.

Filed under: Sortition | Leave a comment »

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 »

Israeli minister: “Ministers can’t make ends meet”

Posted on January 24, 2024 by Yoram Gat

While criticizing tax increases planned by the Israeli government, it was suggested to the Minister for National Goals, Orit Strock, that ministers should “cut back on all the bounty [they] receive”. Strock replied: “What bounty? No minister receives a fat salary. I know ministers who are unable to make ends meet, despite working hard day and night, and even some ministers who are supported financially by their parents”.

The salary of Israeli ministers is about 4 times that of the average worker, and well into the top decile of incomes.

Filed under: Elections, Press | 2 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.

Continue reading →

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

Debunking the Citizens’ Assembly

Posted on January 21, 2024 by paulnollen

https://www.academia.edu/113766495/Debunking_the_Citizens_Assembly

Abstract: Most designs of “Citizen Assemblies” appear to establish a representational system without being able to live up to an acceptable explicitly or implicitly claimed representativeness and inclusiveness, or to make a (scientifically) acceptable attempt to demonstrate them. It is a representational system with representativeness based solely on “everyone having an equal chance of being selected”, and even that is not always realized. Then again, in some cases the representativeness or inclusiveness is very targeted and limited. Also, the design seldom has a reasoned relationship to the area of application. Most designs are vulnerable, to very vulnerable, to manipulation. The selection method and choice of operation practices is in the hands of specialists or specialized companies where sortition is just the generic name and is far from the sortition system with the values we spontaneously assign to it such as reliability and fairness. Independent evaluation system/application area/result is virtually non-existent.

Filed under: Sortition | Leave a comment »

« Previous Page — Next Page »