5 ms·

Actually, why not choose all representatives by lottery? I don't think representatives need to have any particular competencies beyond being representative of

Actually, why not choose all representatives by lottery? I don't think representatives need to have any particular competencies beyond being representative of the interests of the population. Hired staff can take care of things that require particular abilities. I reckon that a wholly random set of representatives would act like a direct democracy where every voter is free to fully focus on the issues, is allowed an entire staff to help them, and can consult and coordinate effectively with other voters. I think that could work pretty well.

vanderZwan 7y ago
The Greeks who entered the lottery weren't chosen by a (meta) lottery. Greek democracy wasn't nearly as democratic as you may think.
- breuleux 7y ago
  Oh, I'm aware. I'm arguing for universal lottery, and I think it would work.
  - kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
    Bribery would be more rampant than it is now. With no career aspirations to keep them in line, unethical people would take the lobbyist money and run.
    - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
      Bribery doesn't seem rampant in jury service, where members are chosen by lottery. I'm sure we could find ways to keep bribery away.
      - sokoloff 7y ago
        If you picked and announced the jurors 60-425 days before they had to serve, I bet you'd see bribery in jury duty emerge.
        NeedMoreTea 7y ago
        I'm in UK, I was informed of my upcoming jury duty about 4 months or more before the actual service.
        sokoloff 7y ago
        We have similar for jury pool service (I have one in my mail pile for about 10 weeks of notice), but is your case assigned and known to you and the parties to the case? I only know the date and court (we also call the evening before to see if we even need to show up and even if we do have to show up, there's no guarantee that you'll get a case as they have to have a slight surplus rather than slight deficit of potential jurors). I doubt any of the parties know my name before the jury is invited to the challenge phase. Said differently, if I was a defendant, could I find out the exact jurors 2-4 months ahead of time so that I could arrange to bribe them?
        NeedMoreTea 7y ago
        Ah, that's true. The selection of jurors for a particular trial was only on the day itself. The process sounds similar. We had to turn up at court for two weeks, and would get assigned a trial whenever you were free from the previous one, if it was a short one. The unlucky few who land a major trial have to sit it out to the end of course. Maybe the sanctions that successfully keep jurors from telling the press about trials 99% of the time could work for this too. Maybe it would have to be cleverer somehow.
    - kmonsen 7y ago
      Bribery is even more rampant now with career aspirations since reelection is costly. The job of politicians is to get reelected and they do it by being available to donors.
      - koube 7y ago
        If we are able to reduce the question of no reelections to the question of whether we should have term limits, I believe we will find that no reelections will have the same drawbacks as term limits[0]. Lawmaking is a profession, and needs to be done by professionals. If it is not, studies show that power shifts towards other existing power structures, such as the head of state and to lobbyists[1], which would make a lottery based appointments counterproductive on the issue of corruption. [0]: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2018/01/18/five-reasons-to-oppose-congressional-term-limits/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2018/01/18/five-reason... [1]: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/153244000100100404 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/153244000100100...
        breuleux 7y ago
        You are absolutely right about lawmaking being a profession, but in a lottery system, I reckon these professional lawmakers would simply be hired by the representatives, and they could stay on for as long as they are deemed useful. The representatives would act more like full-time overseers on the executive and legislative branches, if that makes sense.
        koube 7y ago
        Junior lawmakers are also perfectly capable of hiring senior lawmakers yet the balance of power still shifts towards lobbyists, so I would assume that the same issue would exist for lottery-drawn representatives.
        breuleux 7y ago
        Perhaps. I think there are generally three ways lobbyists can exert influence: 1. By nurturing personal relationships with politicians. I may be mistaken, but I feel like this is probably the most effective method. You want to exploit the natural tendency people have to want to help their friends, even decent people. 2. By helping politicians get what they want (e.g. reelection, but also first election, or election to a new position). 3. By providing compelling arguments and objections to various policies, grounded in special knowledge about their industry. These compelling arguments may be good (in which case the lobbyist's influence is actually a good thing), but they may also be bad (misdirection or lies). I think lottery is less vulnerable to 1 and 2 (but not immune). It doesn't help against 3, although having seasoned lawmakers does, since they can see through the bullshit. Either way, it's speculative, and it would need to be properly evaluated somehow.
    - breuleux 7y ago
      What would keep people in line is that this would be illegal. A lottery-based system is also problematic for lobbyists because they have to bribe many more people and they can't help elect the people they have already bribed. If they try to bribe the wrong person, they are in big trouble, because they will get investigated, and even if they succeed, they will have to do it all over again the next year (assuming yearly terms). It's also worth pointing out that a lot of what we call "corruption" is the result of politicians, CEOs and lobbyists going to the same schools, working in the same offices, and just generally being friends. They don't even need to bribe each other. They like each other. Lottery eliminates this aspect almost entirely. I would say the biggest vulnerability of lottery, with respect to bribery, is debt: if a representative owes a lot of money, they are particularly at risk. Which is why I think the state should pay off all debts owed by all representatives (conditional to not peddling their influence, of course). We can disqualify people who owe excessive amounts so that this doesn't cost too much.
    - bduerst 7y ago
      Increase the penalties for bribes and make them severe enough that representatives won't risk it.
  - dhimes 7y ago
    Would you volunteer for it, or would you be conscripted like jury duty?
    - breuleux 7y ago
      As I said elsewhere, I'm leaning towards being required to register for the lottery exactly once every ten years or so. I think that'd be a reasonable compromise to ensure a representative sample of the population without inconveniencing people excessively.
superkarn 7y ago
Would this have a similar outcome as the "lottery" for jury duty? What happens if somebody who really doesn't want to do it is chosen?
- breuleux 7y ago
  That's a very good point. I currently lean towards requiring every citizen to register for the lottery once every ten or so years (for one year of service). If they are picked, they have to go, except for serious unforeseen circumstances, but at least they would be able to plan for it to some extent. This might also require a cultural shift for people to accept it, but maybe not a radical one.
  - rolleiflex 7y ago
    For someone who doesn’t want to do it, a year is a very long time to come up with ‘serious unforeseen circumstances’. There is no point in trying to force people to do things - the best way is to change the job in such a way that people will want to take it. Pay them well, in other words, in money, in prestige, or otherwise.
    - breuleux 7y ago
      By serious unforeseen circumstances I mean things like getting cancer or being crippled in a freak car accident. Nobody's going to do either of these things just to get out of government duty. Also, what's important is for the sample to be representative, so it's fine if a very motivated minority gets out of it, as long as it doesn't create a significative bias in the lottery. But yes, they should be paid handsomely. And as I mentioned in another comment, their debts should be paid in full to make them less vulnerable to bribes.
    - pdonis 7y ago
      > the best way is to change the job in such a way that people will want to take it This isn't a change, it's what we have now. The problem is that the kind of people that want to take it are not the kind of people you actually want doing it.
retzkek 7y ago
The formal name of this system is Sortition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition There's a good TED talk about it: https://www.ted.com/talks/brett_hennig_what_if_we_replaced_politicians_with_randomly_selected_people?language=en https://www.ted.com/talks/brett_hennig_what_if_we_replaced_p...

vanderZwan 7y ago

The Greeks who entered the lottery weren't chosen by a (meta) lottery. Greek democracy wasn't nearly as democratic as you may think.

breuleux 7y ago
Oh, I'm aware. I'm arguing for universal lottery, and I think it would work.
- kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
  Bribery would be more rampant than it is now. With no career aspirations to keep them in line, unethical people would take the lobbyist money and run.
  - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
    Bribery doesn't seem rampant in jury service, where members are chosen by lottery. I'm sure we could find ways to keep bribery away.
    - sokoloff 7y ago
      If you picked and announced the jurors 60-425 days before they had to serve, I bet you'd see bribery in jury duty emerge.
      - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
        I'm in UK, I was informed of my upcoming jury duty about 4 months or more before the actual service.
        sokoloff 7y ago
        We have similar for jury pool service (I have one in my mail pile for about 10 weeks of notice), but is your case assigned and known to you and the parties to the case? I only know the date and court (we also call the evening before to see if we even need to show up and even if we do have to show up, there's no guarantee that you'll get a case as they have to have a slight surplus rather than slight deficit of potential jurors). I doubt any of the parties know my name before the jury is invited to the challenge phase. Said differently, if I was a defendant, could I find out the exact jurors 2-4 months ahead of time so that I could arrange to bribe them?
        NeedMoreTea 7y ago
        Ah, that's true. The selection of jurors for a particular trial was only on the day itself. The process sounds similar. We had to turn up at court for two weeks, and would get assigned a trial whenever you were free from the previous one, if it was a short one. The unlucky few who land a major trial have to sit it out to the end of course. Maybe the sanctions that successfully keep jurors from telling the press about trials 99% of the time could work for this too. Maybe it would have to be cleverer somehow.
  - kmonsen 7y ago
    Bribery is even more rampant now with career aspirations since reelection is costly. The job of politicians is to get reelected and they do it by being available to donors.
    - koube 7y ago
      If we are able to reduce the question of no reelections to the question of whether we should have term limits, I believe we will find that no reelections will have the same drawbacks as term limits[0]. Lawmaking is a profession, and needs to be done by professionals. If it is not, studies show that power shifts towards other existing power structures, such as the head of state and to lobbyists[1], which would make a lottery based appointments counterproductive on the issue of corruption. [0]: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2018/01/18/five-reasons-to-oppose-congressional-term-limits/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2018/01/18/five-reason... [1]: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/153244000100100404 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/153244000100100...
      - breuleux 7y ago
        You are absolutely right about lawmaking being a profession, but in a lottery system, I reckon these professional lawmakers would simply be hired by the representatives, and they could stay on for as long as they are deemed useful. The representatives would act more like full-time overseers on the executive and legislative branches, if that makes sense.
        koube 7y ago
        Junior lawmakers are also perfectly capable of hiring senior lawmakers yet the balance of power still shifts towards lobbyists, so I would assume that the same issue would exist for lottery-drawn representatives.
        breuleux 7y ago
        Perhaps. I think there are generally three ways lobbyists can exert influence: 1. By nurturing personal relationships with politicians. I may be mistaken, but I feel like this is probably the most effective method. You want to exploit the natural tendency people have to want to help their friends, even decent people. 2. By helping politicians get what they want (e.g. reelection, but also first election, or election to a new position). 3. By providing compelling arguments and objections to various policies, grounded in special knowledge about their industry. These compelling arguments may be good (in which case the lobbyist's influence is actually a good thing), but they may also be bad (misdirection or lies). I think lottery is less vulnerable to 1 and 2 (but not immune). It doesn't help against 3, although having seasoned lawmakers does, since they can see through the bullshit. Either way, it's speculative, and it would need to be properly evaluated somehow.
  - breuleux 7y ago
    What would keep people in line is that this would be illegal. A lottery-based system is also problematic for lobbyists because they have to bribe many more people and they can't help elect the people they have already bribed. If they try to bribe the wrong person, they are in big trouble, because they will get investigated, and even if they succeed, they will have to do it all over again the next year (assuming yearly terms). It's also worth pointing out that a lot of what we call "corruption" is the result of politicians, CEOs and lobbyists going to the same schools, working in the same offices, and just generally being friends. They don't even need to bribe each other. They like each other. Lottery eliminates this aspect almost entirely. I would say the biggest vulnerability of lottery, with respect to bribery, is debt: if a representative owes a lot of money, they are particularly at risk. Which is why I think the state should pay off all debts owed by all representatives (conditional to not peddling their influence, of course). We can disqualify people who owe excessive amounts so that this doesn't cost too much.
  - bduerst 7y ago
    Increase the penalties for bribes and make them severe enough that representatives won't risk it.
- dhimes 7y ago
  Would you volunteer for it, or would you be conscripted like jury duty?
  - breuleux 7y ago
    As I said elsewhere, I'm leaning towards being required to register for the lottery exactly once every ten years or so. I think that'd be a reasonable compromise to ensure a representative sample of the population without inconveniencing people excessively.

superkarn 7y ago

Would this have a similar outcome as the "lottery" for jury duty? What happens if somebody who really doesn't want to do it is chosen?

breuleux 7y ago
That's a very good point. I currently lean towards requiring every citizen to register for the lottery once every ten or so years (for one year of service). If they are picked, they have to go, except for serious unforeseen circumstances, but at least they would be able to plan for it to some extent. This might also require a cultural shift for people to accept it, but maybe not a radical one.
- rolleiflex 7y ago
  For someone who doesn’t want to do it, a year is a very long time to come up with ‘serious unforeseen circumstances’. There is no point in trying to force people to do things - the best way is to change the job in such a way that people will want to take it. Pay them well, in other words, in money, in prestige, or otherwise.
  - breuleux 7y ago
    By serious unforeseen circumstances I mean things like getting cancer or being crippled in a freak car accident. Nobody's going to do either of these things just to get out of government duty. Also, what's important is for the sample to be representative, so it's fine if a very motivated minority gets out of it, as long as it doesn't create a significative bias in the lottery. But yes, they should be paid handsomely. And as I mentioned in another comment, their debts should be paid in full to make them less vulnerable to bribes.
  - pdonis 7y ago
    > the best way is to change the job in such a way that people will want to take it This isn't a change, it's what we have now. The problem is that the kind of people that want to take it are not the kind of people you actually want doing it.

retzkek 7y ago

The formal name of this system is Sortition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition There's a good TED talk about it: https://www.ted.com/talks/brett_hennig_what_if_we_replaced_politicians_with_randomly_selected_people?language=en https://www.ted.com/talks/brett_hennig_what_if_we_replaced_p...