[extropy-chat] Politics: Transhumanist Social System

[Adrian Tymes]

--- Emlyn <emlynoregan at gmail.com> wrote:
> Democracy's great achievement is the carefully balanced institutions
> which share power, thus preventing autocracy, but its great
> embarrasment is the professional politician. A 21st century democracy
> should really be direct, with each citizen having his/her say on
> issues as they care to.

While there is perhaps technical for people to represent themselves,
it is also the case that many government issues are complex enough that
few members of the public understand them well enough to effectively
act on them - over and above the vast array of opinions.  It is also
the case that, when a deliberating body gets too large, it essentially
becomes unable to function: the sheer mechanics of allowing thousands
(to say nothing of millions) of different opinions to be voiced about
an issue, with each one seriously listened to, would bring most
legislation to a halt.  (It's a separate issue whether that itself
would be a good thing, but for sake of discussing something we might
actually be able to bring about - small steps at a time, instead of
large steps that would be completely rejected - let's put off bringing
government a halt for some later phase, if that is ultimately desired.)

Thus we have specialist politicians, just like we have specialist
farmers, specialist surgeons, specialist police, et cetera.  But unlike
farming, where if someone takes responsibility for feeding visself,
only that person is harmed upon failure, if we were to allow people to
represent themselves in Congress or similar bodies, enough people would
take up that offer as to flood Congress with a flurry of contradicting
opinions.  The end result would cause "harm" to those people who want
legislation on non-critical things passed or amended, even if those
people are the majority on a given issue: the debate itself would
essentially veto their desires.

However...perhaps there should be some mandated level of effect where,
if a certain piece of legislation would be beyond it, it can be debated
and refined by the legilsators but must be submitted to a vote of the
people for approval.  This is kind of what happens in California now,
without the automatic minimum (so as to make sure the people get
consulted for the important issues).  Alternately, perhaps instead of
an automatic minimum, laws would require two thirds of the legislators
or a popular vote.

One possible extension, which cuts to the core of government: budgets.
Perhaps, each year, when it comes to budget time, each line item could
be proposed as a separate item in a special election.  Legally mandated
expenses - which themselves had been previously approved by the voters
(or legislators in legacy times) - would be the only thing not voted
on.  Any item getting over 50% of the vote would be approved.  There
might also be a question whether the balance should go up or down: if
up, then the most popular revenue items (even if they got less than
50%) would be added until the budget was balanced; if down, then the
least popular expenses (even if they got more than 50%) would be
removed until the budget was balanced.  (Then again, on the principle
of retaining everything that the majority approves, with the
understanding that expenses will practically always be more popular
than taxes and other revenue, perhaps the "up" option should simply be
assumed.)

Specific items which could get more than one level of revenue, could
submit multiple possible levels to the election: "must have", "really
want", "would work better with", et cetera - although only the monetary
amounts would really be needed.  If the lowest level got 50%, the
lowest level would be granted.  If the lowest and the next lowest
together got 50%, the next lowest would be granted, et cetera.  If even
the lowest failed to get 50%, that line item would get nothing - so any
agency that claimed it really absolutely needed way more than it really
did, would be risking complete defunding (and beauraucratic suicide),
which should encourage more realistic minimum estimates.

Putting just the budget in the hands of the people would technically be
a small step - but it would also eliminate the biggest item of
potential corruption.  It would also remove negotiation and non-popular
pork (at least, where the pork is perceived as being separate from
popular programs), especially if the "up" option was assumed so that
people understood any expense they approved would likely raise their
own taxes.  It would also go a long ways towards thwarting debacles
like the recent US military funding: the Pentagon says it can only
effectively spend a certain amount, but Congress and the President gave
it more so they could look like they were supporting the troops (with
no concern for things like spending down the debt instead).

> The great majority of corporations out there appear to still be
> designed along strongly hierarchical military lines. Surely there are
> better ways to organise corporations, which would more strongly
> reflect the democratic/free ideals we take for granted in public
> life?

There are, and more and more small businesses use them today.  There is
usually one or two people in charge of the checkbook, and nominally
"leading" for sake of interfacing with the funders, but below them
there has been much talk of "flattening the hierarchy" and encouraging
the people who work on projects to talk directly to each other.  There
may be a project manager, who's charged with keeping everyone on track,
and in large companies these may also act as filters to the higher-ups
because the higher-ups literally don't have enough time to talk to
everyone, but even here there are increasingly company-wide blogs or
wikis for everyone to have their say.  Larger corporations don't use
these as much - yet - because of corporate inertia and because these
approaches are optimized for smaller businesses (but then, that's in
part because smaller businesses have been using them more).