One of the problems with representative democracy is that a lot of people didn’t choose the person whose representing them. Virtually every elected official ran against other candidates who received a number of votes. In addition, many people were unable to be represented by someone that they would have voted for because of where they live.
So how about this as an idea to kick around. The government would be run by a single legislative body with wide-ranging powers. Anybody can announce they are a candidate for that legislature. Any citizen can cast their vote in support of any candidate. The only restriction is that you can’t support more than one candidate at a time. Each candidate sits in the legislature and represents the people who voted for him or her.
The advantages of this system would be that every voter would feel they were able to vote for their best representative. Voters would be able to vote for whoever they wanted without be barred because of their residence. Candidates who represent minority views would be able to gather support throughout the country rather than having to try to get a majority in one location.
The disadvantages would be in the practical details. How many votes should a candidate need before becoming a representative? How often should voters be able to switch their votes? Should each representative be given equal weight or should their strength be based on how many votes they’ve received? How would other areas of government like the executive and judicial wings work in such a government? Should there be a procedure for impeaching legislators or should they be immune to anything as long as they retain their voting support? Would the coaltion building necessary for effective law making be possible in this type of political system?
If you want to have simple representative democracy, you extend the principle of one man, one vote only to include the right to designate a proxy.
You send the registrar your proxy declaration. It says I am your proxy. I now cast two votes. So, when each suggested law comes up, I vote against it with two votes. No limits on how many votes I can hold proxies for. If I hold a certain threshold number of votes, I can propose legislation for consideration by election. If I don’t, I have to party up with a few other proxy holders, and petition for ballot initiatives.
If I piss you off, you notify the registrar that you are canceling your previous declaration, and will either vote your own vote, or designate another party as your proxy. Once every four years or so, all proxies expire, and must be redeclared.
Of course this way all the neo-Nazis and all the commies actually get to vote on laws themselves. The Great Silent Majority stays silent at their great peril, because the folks with whaco ideas really care about their ideas. If you let them, they will have us all kow-towing to the Imperial Wizard on Tuesdays.
No elected legislative bodies. Proxy holders are responsible to get their asses into the voting booth, and petition for ballot initiatives. You have to create enough bureaucracy to fix up ballots, count them, and receive and act on petitions for ballot initiatives. You need a President to veto shit, for sure, cause these folks are gonna pass a lot of crap on a slim majority. They will pass damn little on a two-thirds margin, though.
My first request for a ballot initiative is a thirty-year term for all laws, including all existing laws at the time the initiative passes. My second is a requirement that all laws have a price tag, and the price must be paid before the law is enacted. Cash up front, please, no credit.
A damn fine wheel, I think.
Tris
“The people have always some champion whom they set over them and nurse into greatness…This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector.” ~ Plato ~
DDG, forgive me if I’ve been whooshed but what exactly is the point of your post? As far as I know, no government has tried the system I described.
Tris, our two systems seem to be pretty close and might even become identical in practice. Personally, I prefer a more full-time legislature than you seem to be seeking, but that’s a difference in decree only.
The price tag idea would be different. Who would set the prices? If there’s one thing we’ve seen time and again, it’s that you can’t expect honest economics in any partisan political system.
Little Nemo, the system you suggest is, I’d say, a little messy. I think it would be almost impossible to keep track of every candidate in such a system, unless you made it your full-time job to research candidates. Canada has over three hundred seats in the House of Commons. At five political parties, that’s 1500 candidates, not counting independents. Could you imagine, finding out what they all stand for? Their precise platforms? Their views on things?
More irritating to me is the fact that if there are several parties on one side of the political spectrum, and only one on the other, it’ll be the one that’s likely to win. There’s still a debate in the US about who won the presidential election, but it was very close. If you add Gore’s votes to Ralph Nader’s, it becomes clearer what side of political spectrum most voting Americans are on, and becomes a little ridiculous that Bush is in office.
Quite a few alternatives to the standard voting system have been suggested, and a few have been tried. France elects its president by run-off vote. The final election is made up of the first-and-second-place winners of the previous vote, just to make sure that everyone can at least live with whoever becomes president. Germany’s Bundesrat (equivalent of Senate) is not made up directly-elected officials, but of parties, based on percentage of the popular vote. The lower house — the Bundestag – is elected normally, and both houses must approve a bill.
Our current system encourages pairs of two nearly-identitcal parties. It’s almost as bad as single-party systems, because it minimizes choice to window-dressing.
No, no, SPOOFE, I should be the emperor. I know what’s right (except, of course, when I don’t) and would always do what’s best for you and everybody else. Geezerhood=good. SPOOFEYNESS…who knows?
Regarding the OP, as flawed as it is, I think the system we have works pretty well. Actually, with communications what they are today, a direct democracy is possible, but I don’t think it’s a good idea. Every decision would have the character of mob rule. As it is, not even a majority of the people bother to vote. How much less likely is it that they would inform themselves well enough to make intelligent choices on every issue?
The system suggested in the OP would create true chaos in voting tabulation, as if we haven’t had enough problems in that area with the system we have. Representatives might have consituencies as small as a neighborhood. How would you limit the size of the legislature? And can you even imagine what campaigns would be like?
Okay maybe I wasn’t clear. I didn’t want to suggest that everyone could get into the legislature. There would have to be some kind of cut-off for practical purposes. Say, for example, a candidate needed to have the support of 10,000 voters to get “elected”. Or maybe 1,000 or 100,000. The bar could be adjusted to wherever it works best.
The advantage of this system is that the people who liked George Bush could vote him into office. And the people who liked Al Gore could vote him in as well. Even Ralph Nader would have probably been able to get enough votes to be elected. The good part would be that everyone would have a representative they personally chose rather than one that was chosen for them by 51% of the people in their hometown.
Personally, I think such a plan would be the end of party politics. With every voter eligible to vote for any candidate, how many candidates are going to encourage support for someone else? You’d essentially have a political system where every candidate was running as an independant. Whether or not this would be a good thing is debatable.
I see a few problems here. First of all, you say that every representative would represent the people who voted for him or her. How’s the candidate going to know who voted for him or her? Is balloting still going to be secret? Right now every representative represents the people in his or her district, which at least has the advantage of being defined.
Like Hamish said, you’re dealing with a really large ballot if anyone can vote for anyone anywhere in the country. And, to expand on that, with your system,
"Candidates who represent minority views would be able to gather support throughout the country rather than having to try to get a majority in one location. "
That’s going to be expensive. Right now, if I want to run for congress, I only have to worry about support from one district in Virginia. Under your plan, I’d have to worry about support from the whole US. How am I going to get my campaign to drum up support not just in Virginia, but in New York, and California, and everywhere?
Your plan also means there’s a good chance state or regional issues will get ignored. Right now, Vermont, for example, is guaranteed at least one congressman who cares about Vermont issues. Under your plan, though, if I were a candidate in Eastern New York or parts of Mass., I might be tempted to campaign in Vermont too (it’s in the same media markets, and I can use the votes), and Vermont’s power as a state to get its issues through is diminished.
On a related issue, this will really strengthen the power of special interest groups and single issue candidates, which isn’t neccesarily a bad thing, but isn’t neccesarily a good thing either. If I position myself the “pro-choice” candidate, or the “pro-drug legalization” candidate, or even, scarily, the “pro-white race” candidate, under your system, all I have to do is get a bunch of votes from all over the country to get elected.
The advantages of democracy are exagerated. It does not matter if a leader is elected into office, hired by a board of directors or inherits it. There is no way that a single governing individual or group can adequately make decisions that represent the interests of the entire populous. The government of the United States works, not because we elect our president and congressmen every couple of years, but because there are checks and balances that prevent any one particular office from having too much power. In spite of what people think, George Bush must answer to congress as well as the Supreme Court.
Even the founding fathers understood that pure democracy is no better than mob rule. Most people do not have the knowledge or wisdom to decide what is in the best interests of the entire country. 250 Million people voting in their own best interests are not the same as 250 million people voting for the best interests of the nation. If left up to “The People” there would be no taxes, perfect roads, a $100 an hour minimum wage and a free car for everyone. Obviously that would never work.
All democracy does is give the elected representitive a vested interest in not pissing off the people he/she represents. It does not garantee that he will work in their best interests or even do anything at all except placate them in order to be reelected. If anything direct democracy works counter the idea that occasionally, people must endure a little inconvenience (like taxes) for the common good.
What Little Nemo suggest would create rampant factionalism. Dozens of little groups squabbling over their own self interests and nothing getting done. If that elected group applies their laws and decisions uniformly over the entire country, where is the advantage in that? IMHO, the system we works well because we have diferent layers of government. A national legislature that addresses the needs of the entire nation and gradually more and more local represntation down to the town level.
Democracy-bashing is becoming, increasingly, a popular sport. Be happy you live in a society where you can criticize the mode of government.
I’ve often said that democracy is dialogue or discourse – the vote is simply a mechanism, a guarantee. Well, increasingly, our discourse is becoming anti-democratic, the “dangers” of mass society, the need for “strong leaders,” politicians “just saying what people want to hear.”
I think this is largely the result of ignorance of democracy, its history, how it works and what it needs. I also think that we couldn’t seriously bbelieve these arguments if we had real, firsthand knowledge of life under a dictatorship.
It matters a lot. It matters who has the power to choose their leader – a small group on the board of directors who want power simply to further their short-term interests. Or every adult citizen making decisions on the good of their country as a whole.
Our obsession with business rhetoric – the rhetoric of the playground updated for adults – talks about “leaders.” Well, the people we elect may be in charge of our laws, but it’s a mistake to think of them as leaders. Ultimately, they are more like our employees.
This is why the entire populous chooses their government. Any other system would lack that control, that guarantee. I find it strange that people in Western democracies, particularly in the United States, have begun to discuss their governments as if they were foreign powers, things over which they have no control.
If you don’t like the government, get involved.
I may not be familiar with all the details of the American parliamentary system, but don’t you also elect Congress? And don’t elected officials choose the Supreme Court?
The “speed bumps” set up by America’s founders – such as the electoral college system – may have something to do with why your democracy appears, from the outside, to be crumbling.
As for “most people not having the knowledge or wisdom,” I don’t buy it. I’ve heard this cynical trope recited a million times, and I don’t buy it. It’s simply as accepted to be true, the way the notion that God created the earth in 4004 BC was accepted to be true.
There are grossly stupid people out there. And anyone can pull an extreme example out of their hat. But I don’t buy these anecdotal “proofs” of “the stupidity of the common man.” Fact is, you can carry on an intelligent debate with (figuratively speaking) 95% of the human race, as long as you also speak their language. The “common man” is always somewhere else, someone else, an early-twenty-first century Loch Ness Monster.
Here you are correct. Human beings are all capable of both self-interested and disinterested action. The people – many of them farmers and labourers – who gave up their lives so that your democracy exists, were acting disinterstedly. Western culture now encourages extreme selfishness, and democracy tends to wither under those circumstances. But altruism and morality are still very much factors for, I would argue, the majority of human beings.
Really? You really think people are that stupid? I’m working class, and make only a $1 more than minimum wage, and I strongly support taxes. Though I have no children, I strongly support the public education system. Most of the people I know are the same.
You could say, “Yes, but they are exceptions.” But I find the claim that the majority are stupid and selfish to be an extreme one. It requires the burden of proof.
But what are the best interests? According to whom? To the business world, wanting a strong economy? To the scientists, who consider global warmiong a serious problem? Here you already have a divide on what is in the best interests of society. There are hundreds of others. Democracy is the only fair system for resolving them.
And who gets to decide what is the common good? A dictator? Experts (what kind of experts)? Corporate CEOs?
It is no coincidence that the greatest level of equality and education and quality of life all exist under modern democracies, and have begun to deteriorate as those democracies deteriorate. The two are inextricably linked.
What has harmed the public good and democracy has not been the participation of the public, but the lack of participation of the same. People need to understand that not only do they have to vote, they have talk politics. Discuss, argue, think about it, argue some more. They have to be willing to pick up a picket sign for a cause they believe in. They have to keep themselves informed, and on a level deeper than the soundbites regularly carried by CNN.
Everyone of every class and every profession has something to contribute. Together, we make up for the defeciencies in one another’s knowledge.
Which is exactly what the Western democracies all have. National legislatures, provincial or state legislatures, and municipal governments.
Democracy-bashing is becoming, increasingly, a popular sport. Be happy you live in a society where you can criticize the mode of government.
I’ve often said that democracy is dialogue or discourse – the vote is simply a mechanism, a guarantee. Well, increasingly, our discourse is becoming anti-democratic, the “dangers” of mass society, the need for “strong leaders,” politicians “just saying what people want to hear.”
I think this is largely the result of ignorance of democracy, its history, how it works and what it needs. I also think that we couldn’t seriously bbelieve these arguments if we had real, firsthand knowledge of life under a dictatorship.
It matters a lot. It matters who has the power to choose their leader – a small group on the board of directors who want power simply to further their short-term interests. Or every adult citizen making decisions on the good of their country as a whole.
Our obsession with business rhetoric – the rhetoric of the playground updated for adults – talks about “leaders.” Well, the people we elect may be in charge of our laws, but it’s a mistake to think of them as leaders. Ultimately, they are more like our employees.
This is why the entire populous chooses their government. Any other system would lack that control, that guarantee. I find it strange that people in Western democracies, particularly in the United States, have begun to discuss their governments as if they were foreign powers, things over which they have no control.
If you don’t like the government, get involved.
I may not be familiar with all the details of the American parliamentary system, but don’t you also elect Congress? And don’t elected officials choose the Supreme Court?
The “speed bumps” set up by America’s founders – such as the electoral college system – may have something to do with why your democracy appears, from the outside, to be crumbling.
As for “most people not having the knowledge or wisdom,” I don’t buy it. I’ve heard this cynical trope recited a million times, and I don’t buy it. It’s simply as accepted to be true, the way the notion that God created the earth in 4004 BC was accepted to be true.
There are grossly stupid people out there. And anyone can pull an extreme example out of their hat. But I don’t buy these anecdotal “proofs” of “the stupidity of the common man.” Fact is, you can carry on an intelligent debate with (figuratively speaking) 95% of the human race, as long as you also speak their language. The “common man” is always somewhere else, someone else, an early-twenty-first century Loch Ness Monster.
Here you are correct. Human beings are all capable of both self-interested and disinterested action. The people – many of them farmers and labourers – who gave up their lives so that your democracy exists, were acting disinterstedly. Western culture now encourages extreme selfishness, and democracy tends to wither under those circumstances. But altruism and morality are still very much factors for, I would argue, the majority of human beings.
Really? You really think people are that stupid? I’m working class, and make only a $1 more than minimum wage, and I strongly support taxes. Though I have no children, I strongly support the public education system. Most of the people I know are the same.
You could say, “Yes, but they are exceptions.” But I find the claim that the majority are stupid and selfish to be an extreme one. It requires the burden of proof.
But what are the best interests? According to whom? To the business world, wanting a strong economy? To the scientists, who consider global warmiong a serious problem? Here you already have a divide on what is in the best interests of society. There are hundreds of others. Democracy is the only fair system for resolving them.
And who gets to decide what is the common good? A dictator? Experts (what kind of experts)? Corporate CEOs?
It is no coincidence that the greatest level of equality and education and quality of life all exist under modern democracies, and have begun to deteriorate as those democracies deteriorate. The two are inextricably linked.
What has harmed the public good and democracy has not been the participation of the public, but the lack of participation of the same. People need to understand that not only do they have to vote, they have talk politics. Discuss, argue, think about it, argue some more. They have to be willing to pick up a picket sign for a cause they believe in. They have to keep themselves informed, and on a level deeper than the soundbites regularly carried by CNN.
Everyone of every class and every profession has something to contribute. Together, we make up for the defeciencies in one another’s knowledge.
Which is exactly what the Western democracies all have. National legislatures, provincial or state legislatures, and municipal governments.
Re Democracy in the US, personally, I want to tinker with it! I think it needs some tinkering. Here are the main things I want to do:
First, I want to modify or eliminate the electoral college. If we keep it, I want to end its winner-take-all aspect, and award the electoral votes of each state according to the breakdown of votes in that state. Or scrap the electoral college: just count the votes in each state, then add up the totals nationwide.
Second, I want either IRV (instant run-off voting) or actual run-off elections. If we use actual run-offs, I’d say that any time the candidate wth the most votes has less the 51% of the votes, a run-off should be held. Alternatively, there’s IRV: the voter ranks the candidates in order of preference. No need for a 2nd election.
Also, a grab bag of small stuff: eliminate the use of punch card ballots, for one. For another, have some standards for ballot design. See to it that no ballot is adopted without testing it to see if works well. And suppose I arrive at my polling place and am told I’m not registered. I know I am; they say I’m not. I want methods in place that will allow me to quickly establish my registered-ness, so I can vote. Or if I’m told that I’ve been tossed off the rolls because of my membership in the Reform Church of Cluthulu (Cluthulu worshipers having been disenfranchized in the state of New Jersey) – of which I am not actually a member – I want to be able to clear this up quickly.
It’s no fair. I wrote a long post and it disappeared but Hamish gets to post twice.
Nonetheless, I agree with what Hamish wrote. Governments tend to benefit whoever has power. The reason democracy works is because everyone has a share of the power. If our representatives don’t do a good job for us, they know they’ll lose their office. So it’s in their best interest to act in our best interest.
I also believe that the majority of the people are smart enough the majority of the time to recognize the disadvantages of pursuing a short term benefit if it will damage the long term stability of the society they live in.
IIRC doesn’t Israel already have ** Nemo’s ** system? The country is considered to be one constituency. Any party with more than 5% of the vote has seats in parliament. Seats are awarded on the basis of share of the vote. Dunno about candidate selection. I assume that voters have little or no choice.
The result? Rule by appeasement to minority parties because the major parties can never get an overall majority. Hence constant kow-towing to the religious fundamentalists by parties that wouldn’t otherwide touch them with a barge pole.
Is this really any worse than kow-towing to the dollar?
As for the point made by some that “the common man is too stupid to know what is best for the many”, how many clever people (common or otherwise) can honestly claim to know what is best for the many?
Here in the UK I can say only that MP’s know what is best for themselves. They earn a whole lot of £s - around 40000 I think, and AFAIK this is not even conditional on them voting a minimum number of times. They are permitted any number of other jobs, making their personal wealth very large. Ok nothing wrong with that, except: a nurse whose work is IMHO MUCH more valuable than an MP’s, earns only a third of that, and the business concerns of those MPs in prominent directorships have a worrying tendency to steer political decisions.
Market regulations are exploited, and increasingly an infrastructure which is supported by the private sector is creeping into place. Meaning that we are governed, almost totally now, by the invisible hand. I can’t see the public good being favoured in this kind of system which is democratic in name only.
Voting systems have been discussed in depth in past threads. Suffice it to say that there is no such thing as a perfect voting system and there is no such thing as a best voting system.
I think what actually happens is that our representatives do what the larger doners want them to do. And how are we ever going to vote them out of office? All of the candidates that appear on the ballot are people who will do what the large doners want. About half of us vote for the candidate who seems marginally less bad. The other half refuse to vote for any of 'em.
I don’t agree with the intent of Hamish, but there isn’t anything to argue with otherwise.
It is a mechanism, it is a guarantee. So is the little message from Frito-Lay on the back of a bag of chips. It is a mechanism for getting new chips should these existing chips fail to serve in some respect.
The question about votes are: what are you voting for? What are the limits of this mechanism? I feel that voting is almost worthless. Picketing would be about the only thing close to what real voting should be like: letting politicians hear your stand on issues that are important.
It shouldn’t matter if Bill Clinton or George Bush is in the White House, and it shouldn’t matter who gets elected to congress. That is does matter shows me that whatever form of government we have, it isn’t what I would like to call “democracy”. That you call it such explains “democracy-bashing” rhetoric.
My interests are not represented by a vote unless Bill Clinton and I happen to agree on many important things.
A vote is a mechanism for keeping the powerful in power by having popularity contests based in a large part on shallow information. If you want me to run the country, let me vote on issues, not politicians. If you want to run the country, don’t call it democracy.
