Politicians are liars or corrupt by nature. True or False? Part II: Let's talk about True Democracy.
Well, thanks to @everittdmickey, @vieira, @soo.chong163, @darth-azrael and @arepadigital that expressed their useful thoughts about part I of this series. I'm going to quote some of their comments as an additional resource for this post.
In part I of this series, i kinda answered these three questions:
Q1. Do politicians really need to lie?
Q2. Does only South America have educational deficiencies?
Q3. Is this government system (predominant in the western countries) really a democracy?
And this question was left to answer:
Q4. Do we really know what democracy is about?
I promised you guys to share this video about it. You can watch it in its entirety if you want, and choose subs in english:
I'll try to resume what the video is about, with some of the realities we actually have and my personal thoughts about it. Here's some facts:
Politicians really need to lie. It's the common way for them to get into power: Politicians gain power through elections, and to win an election you must be appealing to the electorate, promising some things that they probably aren't going to do. And guess what: They're are not bound to do it. You gave them the power to do what they want.
Elections are based on trust, but politicians lie and they're corrupt. Does it make sense? Just think about this: We always whine about our politicians, but we still have elections and we put our trust in them. Actually, we are aware that politicians are like that, and we choose the lesser-of-evil ones.
Do we exercise power through elections? NO. We give politicians our power
"Political Parties are made to push the agenda of their electorate". NO. They're made to create majorities that impose their ideas to all the people.
We elect the most popular and lovable person to represent us, not the most prepared.
Well, what does this video tells us?
True Democracy is based on distrust. If all politicians are prone to be corrupt, how can you celebrate elections as a contest of popularity? You put all your trust in a politician, your faith in a common person. So, this argument gets us to the next one:
True Democracy is not based on elections. Look, the smart thing to do is having the most prepared people to make decisions, isn't it? If we don't use electoral contests, then politicians wouldn't have to lie to get elected. What can you gain when you promise something appealing if people does not choose you? That leaves us to the next one:
In a True Democracy, the most prepared are chosen to represent us by lottery. We would solve two hard issues that we have right now: Bad knowledge and corruption of current politicians. True democracy is achieved when well prepared individuals have equal opportunities to serve as representatives. That can be done only through elections by lottery.
@soo.chong163 commented:
Plato, living in Athenian democracy at its height, criticised democracy as the worst form of government. In democracy, the political incentive structure rewards not those who are best able to govern, but those who are best at rabble-rousing to get elected. The entire purpose of political establishment is perverted into a popularity contest, undermining the very intent of the political exercise (or perhaps popularity circus is the intent of democracy).
Well, actually Aristotle did it. And he criticized True Democracy as the "government of the rich by the poor". And here's why:
In a True Democracy, representatives only fill a position, they don't exercise power. They get elected by lottery to fill a position, and they have to be accountable to the population. They propose policies, but the people has to choose if they want to exercise them or not. They cannot impose them, because they have no power as they were not chosen by the people.
True Democracy is achievable when everyone participates.
@soo.chong163 also commented:
The true distinction bewteen political governance is central autocracy vs regional authority. Centralized democracy is not much different from a centralized monarchy, except centralized democracy has sociopolitical horizon reaching only to the next election cycle, whereas monarchy has at least a 10-year planning perspective. Modern Western religion of democracy produces zealots who blindly believe in their meaningless and worthless ballots in choosing between two crimminals, as the solution to sociopolitical problems reaching back to the dawn of time.
I see what @soo.chong163 is saying. In fact, central autocracy is a core problem that must be solved. True Democracy is decentralized. Most of a country's decisions can be made in a local level. People would be eager participate if their voice is actually heard.
Now, the Prussian Education System has really messed up our critical thinking. It made us obedient to people that exercises power unto us than thinking individuals that could exercise it.
That must change.
What do you think? Is True Democracy achievable?
It is our duty to spread the truth. If you agree, i invite you to resteem the post.
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It is a bad idea to delegate authority over oneself and one's property to anyone else, especially via lottery, unless said delegated authority can be unilaterally and unconditionally revoked at any time with no retributive consequences.
You go so far as to advocate decentralization, but continue to advocate a centralized albeit "democratic" state. This is problematic. As you say, such a state is only achievable when everyone participates. More importantly, it is only successful and respectful of human rights and dignities if everyone agrees. If an "elected via lottery" leader proposes a policy and the majority of the population agrees, the minority must either unwillingly submit or be expelled for there to be true consensus. This is tantamount to rule by the mob.
All forms of human governance that exist today as functioning systems are based on the principle of coercive collectivism and are to be rejected as fundamentally opposed to the individual's inalienable (pre-political) right to self-determination and self-ownership. Strict adherence to the non-aggression principle is the only just and ultimately rational approach to determining a system of governance.
My suspicion that what you are looking for is Voluntaryism was only strengthened after reading your contribution above.
Great contribution and very thought-provoking!
When the U.S. was founded, it was fairly decentralized in nature. Arguably, the first attempt with the Articles of Confederation was too decentralized (at least for that time and technology). Hence the Constitution. The anti-federalists argued that it went to far. I think it did a fair job for the time with the problem being that it hasn't prevented greater centralization over time. A piece of paper never can.
I'm not sure "well prepared individuals chosen by lottery" is a workable concept. Who gets to decide who is "well prepared" and how? Do people vote on that? If so, you've just added a level of indirection, not really changed much. Plus, the whole point of having well prepared individuals as representatives is that they vote on the policies for you. I don't know that it is practical that every single policy be voted on by the population as a whole plus if those voting are not "well prepared" then what good is having "well prepared" representatives? If the people don't like a policy they can always vote for a representative who opposes it. Politicians lying isn't really the problem. It's that too often they aren't punished by the voters for lying (by not electing them again for instance). Restricting government from gaining too much power in the first place is the real difficulty and just because a policy is voted on by a majority doesn't mean it should be law. You still need protections for "natural rights" that cannot be overridden. All of these difficulties really come down to the fact that government is too centralized and has too much power.
I agree that the key is to be as decentralized as possible so that an individual's voice has more meaning and also so that there is more competition in terms of governance. This was the whole idea behind the 10th amendment and states rights, etc. It's just that the people have failed to prevent the central government from consolidating power, more through apathy than anything. I don't know what the solution is for that.
At the end of the day, for True Democracy, as you describe it, to be better than what we have now, more people have to be well informed and care about it. If more people cared about it and were well informed, what we have now would probably be better.
Well, I'm not from the US. But I believe that someone that wants to run for any public office must prequalify with some minimum requirements, that could be age, educational background, good reputation history (if it was involved in any law penalties, tax records, etc.), something like that, people can choose what they believe it's necessary for a person to hold any office. They work for us. That I think is easy to do. It's like when someone nominates himself to be a juror: http://www.uscourts.gov/services-forms/jury-service/juror-qualifications
Then, when you choose a determined number of participants, the election by lottery takes place. The person/people who gets the position then exercises the mandate of the population who serves, he doesn't exercise power by itself. Of course, that only works if most people in a community/state/nation participate.
Cannot agree more. I think that constitutions have to prevent that majorities could impose policies on others that could damage the system and some honest individuals. But remember: If there's no electoral contests, there will not be necessary to have political parties, there would not be a large group who could impose their agenda because that doesn't guarantee that official supporting them would be elected.
Now, to get this really working, this is the key:
I agree with you when you say that a truly democratic system could be achieved on a decentralized network. But in my opinion the most overlooked problem today is that the human consciousness, emotions and moral attributes have so degenerated that even in a perfect decentralized world we still struggle with the same old problems. That said means that people should focus more on there personality/spiritual training instead of any other subject. Right now we have the best technology ever build before on this planet but in the hands of people which can't even control there emotions, thoughts and beliefs. I wish for more clarity in every human mind.
There is how a new paradigm in education plays a part. Prussian Education System has really messed up our way to think. Education plays a big part in building a democracy.
Filling the public office by lot was how the Athenian political system operated, except for the offices of the five generals, who were elected annually. The distrust, or rather envy, of the ill-educated, over-emotional rabble towards their betters, resulted in Athenians exiling their heroes from Themostocles to Cimon and electing demogogues and incompetents. At the height of democratic lunacy, the muck of the Athenian electorate voted to execute 12 of their best admirals after their naval victory at Arginusae. The seed of democratic or any representative government lies with the perverted tendency of the men to prefer misery under misrule by "common" men than be well-governed by their betters.
While regional and local automony may be viable political solution for maximizing civic participation and representation, the current economic realities of centralized and interconnected economies would make such reforms unpopular. Either the regional electorate chooses to be a part of a national or international economic union, in which circumstance, the current financial juggernauts will dictate policy (essentially current sociopolitical situation without central political force as a counter-balance); or the electorate chooses to decouple from national or international economic union, in which circumstance, the electorate must accept massive reduction in its living standards.
Good appreciation @soo.chong163 and thanks for your comment.
That is how education plays a part. We are educated to obey, and to choose people by popularity. That perverted tendency is taught, not inherited. That was probably the mistake of the Athenians. People needs to be instructed to be democratic, before they can exercise democracy. Constitutions and law must have a critical role to place each individual and groups some boundaries.
I won't lie, it is kind of utopic what are we talking about here. But think about this: Economic Decentralization is actually possible thanks to Crypto. It will take some time, but that's now achievable. That's why banks and some governments are talking trash about them.
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I saw that video when I was a member of Pirates of Catalonia. I was fully an eyes-opener. I keep seeing periodically from time to time. It reminds me that words spoken by politicians -and some other organizations- or a complete lie.
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