Step 1: Better exchange of information between representatives and their constituents.
Most people consider democracy the political system where the citizens get to vote for their representatives in government, as opposed to a dictatorship or other circumstances where rule is determined by some means other than a vote. In America today, though the choices are usually pretty pitiful, most would say by the above definition that we live in a democracy. But it’s a passive democracy. In between votes, we citizens for the most part sit by and watch as our representatives do their thing. Occasionally, we e-mail or call our representatives and let them know our positions on issues, especially if some on-line campaign asks us to do so. Our duly-elected reps sometimes respond, but rarely do they actually solicit and act on their constituents’ wishes. Once installed in office, from city council to Congress, they enter a club that is more about their wishes than their constituents’.
In talking about this state of affairs with my friend Volker from Germany, he told me that the Pirate Party there has suggested that technology could be used to remedy the situation. There is no reason that constituents couldn’t use social media and other technologies to carry on a constant conversation with their representatives, and participate more fully between votes in their government.
Furthermore, since a representative’s business is public information, there’s no reason the Internet couldn’t be used to broadcast the rep’s schedule, and even transcripts of all his or her meetings and conversations, to the constituents who he or she supposedly represents.
It would quickly become evident that most communication that your representative has, especially at the federal level, is with people who represent interests outside your district. This is because our system has evolved to the point where the vast majority of citizens (the 99%?) are not involved in the daily doings of government.
Therefore, the first step to an infoactive democracy would be the free exchange of information between representatives at all levels of government and their constituents. Yes, this would involve more work on our part. But nothing like the daunting task that is was when our Constitution was born, over 200 years ago, and eons ago in terms of technological differences. If only a small fraction of our Facebook time was given to our civic duties as citizens, we would be well on our way to political bliss.
Step 2: Use a lottery to select our representatives, as we do with jury duty.
While voting for our leaders and representatives is a step forward from a monarchy or dictatorship, it really is a costly, wasteful, inefficient and not terribly effective means of running our society. The recent decision by the Supreme Court to allow unlimited funding of campaigns hasn’t made it any cheaper (or better). Or more fair. Let’s face it – the system that we employ to run our country doesn’t really work. It doesn’t represent even the wishes of the majority of us, but even if it did, the cost in time, money and angst would not be worth it. And you would still have the problem of a potentially huge minority whose wishes would be shunned.
What if we just selected our representatives by a lottery system similar to how we select jurists for trials? Imagine that one day, you get the call to serve. Like jury duty, you really can’t get out of it, but in this case you’d probably be paid a reasonable amount, and get a nice office somewhere in your district, where you’ll carry on the business of government with a minimal staff. No trudging to D.C. to hang out with the lobbyists and the other lucky sods who got elected. No reason to do so now that your constituents are actively participating in running the jurisdiction. Your role is more of a clerk, making sure your constituents’ wishes are effectively relayed to the rest of your peers in whatever level of government you’re in, and letting your constituents in on the feelings of other citizens, outside of your jurisdiction.
Cheap and fair, the lottery would revolutionize politics. By far the biggest downside to the lottery is the ensuing dullness that would come over politics. But maybe that’s not so bad. Maybe if we spent less time and money on elections, we’d have more of both to actually work on the issues facing us as a society on every level, and be able to get to the final step of our new infoactive democracy – consensus.
Step 3: Consensus instead of majority voting on issues.
OK, so we have active participation of the citizens of our great land, and random selection of our representatives. How do we then get things done? If we have the same old majority or even super-majority vote that we use today, even if it was by direct vote, it would still leave out a substantial percentage of the population from making decisions that effect everyone.
The answer is using consensus and quotas to allow for the overwhelming majority of citizens to agree on the answer to a particular issue. Often this would mean that legislation would be more focused, so that everyone can agree. To give just one example, in the recent health care debate, most people agree that giving more access to health care to more people is right, but they definitely don’t agree that an insurance mandate is the way to pay for it. People also differ widely in their support for some other measures of the plan. So, in order to get consensus, the legislation would be crafted in a more focused way, where access to health care is the main thrust of the bill. As people hash it out in coffeehouses, Internet cafes, on their iPhones, with e-mail and elsewhere, they would come to consensus on other provisions of the legislation.
Small steps that each have consensus. Pretty much the way nature works. See, it’s natural!
“If only a small fraction of our Facebook time was given to our civic duties as citizens, we would be well on our way to political bliss.”
I agree with this first point. We should actively share information and ideas to improve our understanding of (and engagement with) public policy. Of course Facebook can be a useful tool in this process. And our dream, as you know, is to boost infoactivism with this website.
The words “political bliss” clued me in to the tonque-in-cheek nature of the post. To me, the suggestion of casting lots rather than votes is at best a tongue-in-cheek alternative to the corporate-mediated mess we have now. The same special interests would be there to influence the lucky winners once they were in office. Not a serious solution, in my opinion.
I suppose the closest thing we’ve had to consensus in this country is the town hall tradition. Leaders took a step in that direction with public meetings on health care, but the effort was torpedoed by naysayers seeking to disable the conversation.
Sorry, Watt, the article is not tongue-in-cheek at all. I’m dead serious. I believe that a lottery would be a far better method of choosing the kind of representative we need if citizens are more active. Cheaper, faster and better.
But I did hope to inspire lots of discussion on the topic. I don’t expect that people will all love the ideas I put forth. I did find that the idea of a lottery to choose representatives has been used and discussed before, so it’s at least not an original idea.
Nancy thought that the idea was ridiculous. “What if the person chosen by lottery is the drunk that hangs out on the bridge?” she asked. I guess there would have to be some sort of screening, like jury duty. But I’d like to see as little as possible, to retain the randomness of the selection. If there is anything but randomness, then there’s a way to steer the system in a certain way. That’s what we have now, and that’s what the lottery is set up to undo.
I hope others will “come to the table” and put in their ideas on how to solve our political mess. Maybe political bliss is too strong a phrase, but we definitely need some fixin’ of our political system, and I hope these ideas generate some discussion and further action.
Maybe we need a 12 step program…
Sorry for a second reply, but evidently your comment wasn’t finished when I wrote my first reply. I wanted to respond to the suggestion that the special interests would be there to influence the poor sod who got the call from the lottery. Step #1 takes care of that, as well as the idea that the rep would be housed in the district, and not in a faraway land where their only contacts are special interests. Step #1, the public display of all the rep’s interactions, is what would prevent the special interests from influencing the rep unduly. They could try, but unlike today, their attempts at access would be fully known by the world, and especially, by the rep’s constituents. And since the rep would be out and about interacting with his or her constituents most of the time, there would be little chance for a meeting with folks from out of town. If the “special interests” were constituents, then again, their dealings would be known to all. And each rep’s term would be short, with almost no chance of that same person being there a few months from whenever now is. Remember, under this system, the power is back with the people. The rep really is a clerk that carries the constituents’ wishes to other districts. The system depends on the active exchange of information that characterizes social media today, hence the name. It is really a stepping stone on the way to direct democracy, without any middle man (or woman).
And finally, Step #3 ensures that any legislation that moves forward would have to have the support of an overwhelming majority in order to reach consensus. Special interests by definition are a small minority, and their wishes just wouldn’t make it past go in a consensus legislative process.
This might be a good idea for a work of speculative fiction. Sci fi writers often probe social questions. Surely some gifted storyteller could build a world where politicians are randomly selected clerks rather than egocentric brokers of legislative power. Maybe somebody has already done this.
The more I think about it, the more I want to see this as a Star Trek episode where the crew gets to visit a planet that is populated entirely by nerds.