[EM] Conceiving a Democratic Electoral Process

[Juho Laatu]

On 23.6.2012, at 19.07, Fred Gohlke wrote:

> Good Morning, Juho
> 
> re: "I think the method in princple encourages people to
>    participate, e.g. via membership in a party."
> 
> On the contrary, Juho.  Joining a party is profoundly passive.  Instead of expressing their own view, party members cede their right to guide their community to an organization that is unable to serve the public interest because it is committed to pursue narrow special interests. Witness the national debt crisis in Greece - and in the United States.

Ok, maybe this is a bad implementation of a party system. I think both systems with ground level member participation or not may yield bad results, although disconnected leadership may do so with higher probability.

> 
> 
> re: "Also voting can be seen as a very powerful yet easy way to
>    influence on the direction that the society will take."
> 
> Voting for choices defined by political parties creates an illusion of power but is a sign of great weakness.  It is like your mother giving you a choice of Wheaties and Corn Flakes.
> 
> The easiness you cite should give you a clue.  Achieving democracy is not easy.  It must be accomplished in the face of enormous power, whether the upper classes that dominated your country for so long or the economic interests that dominate mine, now.

I agree that often democracies do not work as well as we would like them to work. But democracy is so far the best method we have, and it includes the idea that societies are at least supposed to do what the voters want. (I didn't recognize the upper classes problem as characteristically my problem.)

> 
> 
> re: "Or there is an assumption that voters will elect only or
>    mainly people with "the knowledge, ability and desire to
>    serve the common interest", which may also be frequently
>    wrong."
> 
> This is unclear; it seems to contain a double negative.

My intention was to say that even if the politicians generally tend to be "bad", the voters could be "good" (or at least "better") and tehrefore have a tendency to elect better than "bad" politicians more often than really "bad" ones. (And that also this ideal might often not work very well.)

> It does, however, lead me to ask the precise means by which voters can determine whether or not those they vote for have "the knowledge, ability and desire to serve the common interest". Partisan electoral systems provide no mechanism for a careful examination of the candidates by their peers.  Are the voters to rely on the self-serving assertions of the candidates and their party?

People can often tell quite well which ones of their friends have good moral code and which ones do not. Their understanding of the moral code of the politicians and candidates is however typically based on what they see in the TV and what they read from the newspapers. This means that people are far more likely to make mistakes in their estimates. But they might be able to make some guesses that are better than random guesses. Those closer connection based approaches that you have discussed could do better from this point of view.

> 
> I am aware of your commitment to partisan politics, but I wonder if you can help us move beyond that.

I'm not committed to partisan politics. I tend to accept some formal structure or classifications as a tool that may help people understand the different alternative lines of evolution that the sociesty has. I mean that if you want communism you can vote communists, and you need not check separately the ideology of each candidate, if you know that all candidates of the communist party do meet some basic criteria. Apart from this interest to offer people this kind of general classifications in one way or another, I don't have much interest in maintaining strict party control. I don't believe in the destruction of the party stucture either in the sense that I'd believe that people would make better decisions if parties would vanish tomorrow (people might get as bad results as they get today, but in some brand new way).

> Can you help us address the critical question:  "How can we create an electoral process that allows and encourages the entire electorate to exercise their ability to guide the community's affairs to the full extent of each individual's desire and ability?"

The discussion/persuation/proxy/multilevel methods might be one approach worth a try. Openness of the backround processes and preparetory work, combined with media that would have greater interest to analyze and comment the alternatives neutrally would help. Independent financing of the political activities would help a lot. One small idea would be to have an "office" (independent of parties, possibly with independent workers) whose role would be to clarify the structure an behaviour of the society to the voters and thereby make them more capable of making good decisions. There are many tools to make progress. Unfortunately in every organzation the incumbents prefer the old rules, strong role of the current leading groups, and they oppose any changes that might take some power away from them. It is thus always an uphill battle. Driving downhill is easier. Fixing a corrupt system is always a major challenge.

Juho



> 
> Fred
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