I would like to discuss a radical change to the organisation of (any) government, as a replacement for the party system, which seems to have some flaws.
Take Australia as a case, just for definiteness, and assume we have a population of around 20 million ( in the voting age group ).
Then divide everybody up into 'cells' of about 70 people each. 70 is not a magic number, it is the size of a manageable group of people. It happens to be about the size of the ancient 'tribe' or 'village' of people capable of acting together as a unit. Call this level the E ( for Everybody ) level. It would be sensible if at this level all the people in a cell were relatively close together, say within walking distance, in densely populated areas, can be more spread out in country areas, but the aim is to have everyone in a cell more-or-less in contact with each other. Each cell then elects a leader, who represents that group, and is accountable to them. Easy at this point, everybody probably knows him ( her ) personally. Of course we need some mechanisms so people can only belong to and vote within one cell, but that is easily handled on the local level.
With our current level of technology, it is now possible to have cells of people who can interact with each other on a daily basis, even if they are physically scattered all over the world. We could incorporate cells like that into the model I am proposing with no difficulty.
Call the group of all the leaders of the E group the F group. Since they only each represent 70 people, they dont need to do much, so they can hold ordinary jobs as well, and still maintain good representation for their cell.
Now group all those leaders ( there will be about 20,000,000/70 = 285,714 of them ) also into cells of 70. These will be spread out all over the country, but hey, we have phones and email... So each cell of the F group elects a leader.
You can see where this is heading. We need 4081 of these leaders in the G group, and do it again, and we have 58 leaders in the H group. Still a manageable number, who are the top level people who get to make all the absolute high level decisions. Of course they can appoint the usual collection of lawmakers, bureaucrats, advisors, etc, we cant get away from them.
Surprise, we only need 3 levels of government to do this, and we ought to pay the upper 2, since they will probably have a fair workload just keeping track of what is going on. A tax of 0.02% on the E level would pay all these upper levels.
But at each level, everyone gets a vote towards a leader they know personally, and a chance to tip them out if things go wrong in that cell, without affecting everybody else in the country. Voting in each cell need not even be simultaneous, since it makes only minor difference to the next level up if one member is replaced. In fact it may cause less disruption if voting within each cell is at random times, determined only by the cell members.
Note that this is a bottom-up structure, so there is a great resistance to the usual top-down approach, like a dictatorship. If a leader at any level attempts a dictatorship, he can be replaced by his own group, or he can be overridden by the peers in the group he belongs to. This is very different from the cadre system as used in Communist China.
Is this better than what we have now ? If not, why not ?
Denise Hart Does this then replace local councils and state governments as well as Federal?
ReplyDeleteAdrian Jansen
Yep, the idea is to replace the entire govermental system with a totally new and different one.
Valdarie Machin
Things surely aren't working in the world the way it is at the moment.
Adrian Jansen
Yes. I have been batting around the general ideas here for a long time, and finally have enough time to post and think about them. As well, maybe I have learned enough to see some of the implications of where we are heading, and I dont like it much.
Valdarie Machin
Its the greed.
I'm sure if you get rid of money a lot of problems would be solved, but that is a pipe dream.
Adrian Jansen
I think we still need some form of exchange medium, which is all that money is supposed to be. The problems start when money itself is seen as a desirable commodity. Of course then we have economists, who seem to think on a totally different planet from us normal people.
Lesley Keys
Hi Adrian. What are your thoughts on a barter system. It would ensure everyone's talents are employed...even the 'antisocial' would be forced to contribute constructively.
Peter Jansen
ReplyDeleteWhy not just go to a direct democracy, like Switzerland. No party's, no factions, people are responsible for voting on the issues that interests them.
Adrian Jansen
My issue with most democratic systems is that there are only a few representatives appointed by some arcane process not involving most people, and that individual voters get a very small part of the representation.
Adrian Jansen
ReplyDeleteI just had a quick look at the Swiss system. For much more detail, see the Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Switzerland Switzerland features a system of government not seen in any other nation: direct representation, sometimes called half-direct democracy (this may be arguable, because theoretically, the Sovereign of Switzerland is actually its entire electorate). Referenda on the most important laws have been used since the 1848 constitution.
Amendments to the Federal Constitution of Switzerland, the joining of international organizations, or changes to federal laws that have no foundation in the constitution but will remain in force for more than one year must be approved by the majority of both the people and the cantons, a (double majority).
Any citizen may challenge a law that has been passed by parliament. If that person is able to gather 50,000 signatures against the law within 100 days, a national vote has to be scheduled where voters decide by a simple majority of the voters whether to accept or reject the law.[1]
Also, any citizen may seek a decision on an amendment they want to make to the constitution. For such a federal popular initiative to be organised, the signatures of 100,000 voters must be collected within 18 months.[1] Such a federal popular initiative is formulated as a precise new text (general proposal initiatives have been canceled in 2009[2]) whose wording can no longer be changed by parliament and the government. After a successful signature gathering, the federal council may create a counterproposal to the proposed amendment and put it to vote on the same day as the original proposal. Such counter-proposals are usually a compromise between the status quo and the wording of the initiative. Voters will decide in a national vote whether to accept the initiative amendment, the counter proposal put forward by the government if any, or both. If both are accepted, one has to additionally signal a preference. Initiatives (that are of constitutional level) have to be accepted by a double majority of both the popular votes and a majority of the cantons, while counter-proposals may be of legislative level and hence require only simple majority.
Politics of Switzerland - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org
Adrian Jansen
The problem with this from my perspective is that there are still a very large number of other voters to convince that some bright idea you have is worth putting to a vote. I dont see that this is very much different from the current system we have now, in this aspect, although certainly the structure is better than ours, IMHO. My idea is more that a truly worthwhile idea needs to only convince just over half of the members of a group at any level, and then the leader of that group has the 'mandate' to push the idea up to his next level. Of course it may well be defeated there for other reasons, but that is normal. But a truly good idea only has to be winnowed through around 35 people at any level, and in 4 levels, reaches the top level of the system. So in fact you only have to convince 4 * 35 = 140 people to get a good idea passed and adopted. Maybe this makes the system inherently unstable, but it still sounds to me a better approach than our current system. One must bear in mind that the upper leaders, by the very fact of their being there, are supposed to be wise enough to evaluate all proposals put forward, and only accept ones which are truly beneficial, and concordant with what is already being done. I am sure some smart mathematician / social dynamicist can work out whether this structure leads to stability or instabllity.
Lesley Keys
ReplyDeleteThe system would be as effective as it's members are interested in questioning and investigating all sides of the relevant issues, in order to make informed decisions, a la the Socratic method.
Adrian Jansen
Yes. We live in a far more complex world than the ancient Greeks. But their original formulation of democracy, where a village could argue personally over an issue, and come to some sort of settlement agreeable to all is what I am trying to aim at. Certainly what we have now, where you really never know your leader, whether at local, state or federal level, has many problems. In fact we have these three levels, but all set up in such a way that almost nobody really has any contact with a leader at any of the levels. That is the crux of what I am trying to overcome, and replace with a better system. But obviously we first have to convince a lot of people that better systems exist, and are possible to implement.
Lesley Keys
I do understand and support what you're endeavouring to achieve. In the world of politics, what a difference a day makes. :-) As I interpret it, the Socratic method is about fostering critical thinking at a grass roots level by asking probing questions of people in authority and looking at issues from different perspectives in order to make informed decisions.