3 ms·
> If the US is a bad political experiment, which one is good? I'll throw my hat in the ring and suggest sortition (think jury duty, but for 2 years at a time,
by lukifer 7y ago
> If the US is a bad political experiment, which one is good?
I'll throw my hat in the ring and suggest sortition (think jury duty, but for 2 years at a time, as the representative of your district/state): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition
There's still an argument for some level of direct democracy (ballot initiatives, but especially to throw out inevitable corruption/idiocy of representatives); though perhaps the threshold should be higher (such as 66% rather than 50%+1).
Bryan Caplan [0] and Jason Brennan [1] have made very sound arguments about voting bringing out our worst tribalist instincts, rather than the informed, enlightened voter that was fantasized by the Constitutional framers. The strongest case for democracy-as-we-know-it is simply the peaceful transfer of power, which it seems to accomplish surprisingly well; but in terms of sound policy, or reflecting the will of We The People, its track record isn't exactly stellar.
(That said, as long as our system is still driven by the vote, we would stand to benefit from bottom-up electoral reform, such as switching from First-Past-The-Post to Ranked-Choice or Approval voting [2].)
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_the_Rational_Voter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_the_Rational_Voter
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_Democracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_Democracy
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Approval_voting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Approval_voting
- chrisco255 7y agoGetting 2/3 of a large group to agree on anything is damn near impossible. I think the American system does a pretty good job of balancing popular and regional concerns and has some democratic elements that require 50% + 1 and many things that require larger majorities.
- lukifer 7y agoMy thinking is that there should be a high bar to spend public funds or leverage the state's monopoly on violence (and believe me, I'm not reflexively anti-statist: I'm all for infrastructure and social safety nets, etc). Practically, I understand the concern. I think our hyper-partisan politics has us accustomed to a 51/49 dynamic that occasionally flips sides; my hypothesis is that reducing democratic influence on representation (in favor of RNG), coupled with electoral reform for the democratic processes that remain, would make it far more feasible to build consensus in the range of 60-80%. To unpack the latter: my preferred system is Approval Voting, as it definitionally measures the greatest quantity of "consent of the governed", and game-theoretically rewards compromise and consensus. A person or policy that is extremely popular among 55% can potentially be outcompeted by one that is moderately popular among 75%.
- smabie 7y agoThat’s not an experiment, that’s an idea.
- lukifer 7y agoFair. But every experiment must begin with a hypothesis. ;)
- DubiousPusher 7y agoThis is a thing! Holy crap! For years now I've been telling anyone who would listen that we're underutilizing randomness as a guard against corruption.
- lukifer 7y agoIf we were inventing a new system out of whole cloth, I think there's a strong case for refactored bicameralism: one House of Congress for elected representatives, and another House for citizens chosen at random ("The People's Congress"). I can dream. :)
- crawfordcomeaux 7y agoHey u'all! My friends and I are currently attempting to design this dream. How can we best connect to work more on it together?