[EM] JS Mill's _Representative Government_, chapter 7

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 06:04 PM 7/18/2007, Steve Barney wrote:
>I am reading John Stuart Mill's great classic book, _Representative
>Government_. Chapter 7 is all about the representation of minority
>views, and much of that is about Hare's proportional STV method. To
>see where he is coming from, it would be a good idea to read the
>previous chapter, too. In case anyone would like to discuss it, you
>can read it online here:
>
>Chapter 7, _Representative Government_, by JS Mill
>http://books.google.com/books?id=S2Mz1s40Hg0C&pg=PA144&dq=intitle:Representative+intitle:Government+inauthor:Mill+inauthor:John+inauthor:Stuart&as_brr=1&output=html

I want to thank Mr. Barney for the reference. I had not read Mill, 
though I've thought to do so more than once. I followed the link, 
went to the table of contents, and was immediately drawn by this:

p. 196. SHOULD THERE BE TWO STAGES OF ELECTIONS?

Mill got very close to Delegable Proxy here, but missed it because he 
was wrapped up in arguments over the nature of democracy. He missed 
completely the function of choosing electors, being distracted by the 
argument that electors should be chosen because they are supposedly 
more intelligent and capable than the general voter. That may or may 
not be true (it probably will be true, if electors are actually 
chosen as Mill suggests they would rationally be, that is, based on 
personal knowledge of the voter as to the character of the elector), 
but the function of choosing electors, as we can now see it (and we 
now might call these electors "proxies") is to reduce the size of the 
body that actually elects the officers, so that it can use more 
deliberative, and thus more democratic, process.

His argument against electors would serve quite well, would he apply 
it, to choosing representatives at all, for his argument against it 
is based on, really, an assumption of the superiority of direct democracy.

That is, after pointing out that rationally voters would consider the 
character or qualifications of the elector rather than of candidates 
for the ultimate office, he then claims:

"Now, if the primary electors [the voters] adopt this view of their 
position, one of the principle uses of giving them a vote at all is 
defeated; the political function to which they are called fails of 
developing public spirit and political intelligence, of making public 
affairs an object of interest to their feelings and of exercise to 
their faculties."

In the background is an elitist position: the common man is "given" 
the vote for some purpose of utilizing the intelligence of that man. 
That's fine and is one of the ways in which democracy works, but the 
ultimate purpose of universal participation in democracy is the 
discovery of consensus, to the degree possible, and the giving of 
consent. Not everyone can actively participate in the full debate 
involved in any issue, but everyone *can* consent to their personal 
representation in that process.

Mill is assuming an all or nothing process. For example, he does not 
seem to realize that candidates and electors could be one and the 
same; his vision of electors is of a limited group, with elections 
still being on a mass scale. The concept that one might, if one 
wished to participate further, vote for oneself as an elector, thus 
being able to openly exercise one's own vote in further process -- 
depending on the rules -- does not seem to have occurred to him.

It's refreshing to read Mill, he is considering the kind of issues 
that we really should be paying much more attention to. But his view 
of some aspects of the process is limited, he is constricted by his 
times, as I am sure we all are, to various degrees.

The immediate proposal for "two-stage" voting which is before us now 
is Asset Voting; by converting the secret ballot votes of general 
voters into representatives who can exercise these votes in further 
process, it becomes possible to maintain voter privacy *and* to allow 
far greater and far more "intimate" representation. In particular, 
because the votes of the "electors" are public, it then becomes 
possible to have a representative assembly where everyone is 
represented by a representative of their *choice,* and, further, 
while this concentration of representation is necessary where the 
scale is large, due to the demands of meeting efficiency, it is *not* 
necessary to confine voting on issues before the assembly to seated 
members of the assembly, any elector could vote directly.

Mill thinks of the electors as ho-hum, who cares who they are. But, 
in fact, they would be, in such a system, the open representatives, 
freely chosen, of all citizens. And they would be, those of them who 
obtain enough votes directly or indirectly, the actual seated 
representatives, quite as visible and interesting as present office-holders.

What Mill missed, and I'm not aware of any prior writers who have 
focused on it, is on representational systems as methods of 
collective decision-making, as solutions to what might be considered 
an engineering problem, how can large numbers of "cells" coordinate 
their activities in order to enhance the overall functioning of the 
entire body? Biology developed, through evolution, solutions to this 
problem, and what we are now suggesting are analogous solutions for 
the body politic. The result would be, we might imagine, a new, 
higher intelligence operating on a scale that might be not much more 
visible to us than is the operation of our body to the individual 
cells that compose it. Or it might be visible, for unlike our 
individual cells, we are capable of observing effects on a much 
larger scale than ourselves and our immediate surroundings.

Indeed, the collective activity of our species (and in another way of 
life itself) already displays such a higher intelligence; but in what 
may be a relatively primitive form that could be enhanced by more 
efficient communication. Delegable Proxy, I expect, will form a more 
formal -- while still chaotic -- nervous system for this higher intelligence.

How we will experience it would simply be a greatly increased ease of 
communication between the individual and society as a whole. 
Delegable Proxy is a solution to the noise problem; the issue of 
noise may not have occurred to Mill; I'm not sure how much experience 
he had with direct democracy, but the issue becomes apparent to 
anyone who has seen direct democracies which have reached the size 
where the problems of scale become overwhelming; without a means of 
dealing with the noise, they collapse into representative 
democracies, losing precisely what Mill considers so valuable, full 
participation.

That loss is partly inevitable; but it would be more accurate that 
participation must be directed through new channels, and our task is 
to make those channels efficient; open to appropriate communication, 
filtering out what is redundant and useless. In Delegable Proxy and 
Asset Voting, the filters are chosen by those whose communication 
will be filtered; pressure from the other direction ensures that the 
filters will not simply be stuck open by demand from the clients.

(If you, as a proxy, simply pass on what your clients give to you, 
uncritically, your assembly will learn to ignore you. As I've written 
many times, Freedom of Association includes the freedom *not* to associate.)

Mills goes on to criticize the U.S. Electoral College system on the 
basis that it involves pledged electors; and, of course, this was not 
part of the original design of that system, but was a corruption of 
it, made possible by loopholes left in the design due, apparently, to 
the inability of the Constitutional Convention to come to agreement 
on how electors were to be chosen; so they simply left it to the 
states; and then the process, of course, was rapidly co-opted by the 
majority party in each state (as the party system developed), giving 
us the Electoral College we so love to dislike.

But if, in fact, we were choosing electors, using something like 
Asset Voting, it would be quite different. The names of the electors 
would be on the ballot, not those of pledged candidates. Candidates, 
though, could be electors. (Some of us have suggested that electors 
should be barred from electing themselves; my conclusion is that, 
somewhat for reasons along the lines of Mills' thinking, this is less 
than ideal. It is simpler if candidates and electors are one and the 
same; except it should be extremely simple to become a "candidate," 
and most candidates, by far, would end up simply being electors.)

Asset Voting is terminally simple. It can create proportional 
representation that is more fine-grained and flexible than much more 
complex systems; it does so through utilizing the intelligent 
deliberation and negotiation powers of the electors, it is not merely 
an aggregative method.

And Delegable Proxy goes beyond that, allowing *total* representation 
without the limitations of quotas. But the peer assembly that Asset 
can create may have value of its own.

Mill then says something quite remarkable, presaging quite a bit of 
what I've written about Asset Voting.

"It must be remembered that the electors are not chosen in order that 
they may search the country and find the fittest person in it to be 
President or to be a member of Parliament."

Why not? If the rules allow the winners to be outside the set of 
original candidates receiving votes, why not? Mills continues,

"There would be something to be said for the practice if this were 
so; but it is not so, nor ever will be, until mankind in general are 
of opinion, with Plato, that the proper person to be entrusted with 
power is the person most unwilling to accept it."

Indeed.

Asset Voting makes it possible to elect such a person, if the person 
will consent. Whether or not it will happen is another matter, but 
what Mills quotes as Plato's opinion was also, as an example, 
commonly expressed in Islamic history, where being extremely 
reluctant to accept an appointment as a judge, to the point that a 
command from the sovereign was required for the best to accept the 
appointment, was widely considered laudable. Seeking the office would 
have been an immediate disqualification.

Corporations use search committees to find corporate officers. They 
don't sit back and see who campaigns for the office; for major 
officers they don't advertise to the public; rather, they identify 
possible candidates and approach them to see if they are available 
and can be induced to accept. I'm not proposing business practice as 
free of problems, but simply as an example where necessity has 
created what are, in some ways, better procedures than we use in 
public elections.

Someone who came in for an interview and who used the opportunity to 
trash another candidate would almost certainly be dropped like a hot 
potato. It would be an insult to the intelligence of the search committee!

(But if the candidate had personal knowledge of another candidate, 
and was *asked* about it, that might be different. It would be, 
however, a test of character to ask that question.)