[EM] language/framing quibble

[Michael Allan]

I cannot take any of you seriously.  Are you all suspending disbelief
for the sake of the argument?  I agree with your ideals, but there's
an element of unreality in proposing to restructure a legislature by
design.  Like in Brian's suggestion that "once we've figured out what
the best possible election method is, we'll be ready to switch into
advocacy mode".  Design ideas have no power to transform institutions
of state.  On the rare occaisions when an institution is amenable to
change, the only "advocacy mode" that matters is power, and the only
criterion for selecting the "best" design is the degree to which it
serves the interests of that power.

The fact that we live in democracies today (sort of) owes little of
its history to deliberate design, and much to external transformations
in the economy and the public sphere.  It follows from historical
changes like the creation of a middle class, and the availability of
books, newspapers and other media.  There is no reason to suppose that
the situation today is any different.  Any restructuring of state
institutions is going to follow from a restructuring of other spheres.
You need to shift your design sights from the former to the latter,
otherwise you are thinking in a box.

Why not design the new legislature as an institution of the public
sphere, rather than of government?  (Then it will at least be
feasible.)  Why not actually build it?  (Then you can prove the
design.)

Raph Frank wrote:
> On 9/6/08, Fred Gohlke <fredgohlke at verizon.net> wrote:
> >  I absolutely agree with all three points, but I also believe we must
> > recognize that humans naturally pursue their own interest, so we must design
> > our electoral process so that one's probity significantly affects their
> > ability to achieve public office; we must change election from a carnival
> > bathed in hyperbole and deceit to a sober, contemplative process; we must
> > create a political infrastructure where David Geffen's assertion that,
> > "Everybody in politics lies ...", is no longer a valid description of the
> > politics in our country.
> 
> One option is to select the legislature at random.  Stratified random
> sampling would yield a highly representative legislature.  The
> population would be split into N groups, such that each group is
> reasonably homogeneous and then 1 person picked from each group.  This
> also reduces the benefit from corrupting the random process.  Also,
> corrupting the stratification just increases the random variance, it
> doesn't actually change the expect result.  Corrupting both means that
> you get to pick the legislature.

-- 
Michael Allan

Toronto, 647-436-4521
http://zelea.com/