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I keep mentioning this like a broken record. In most western democracies we have a disconnect from the will of the people and what legislation gets implemented,

by lifty 5y ago

I keep mentioning this like a broken record. In most western democracies we have a disconnect from the will of the people and what legislation gets implemented, caused by representative democracy. We need a more direct way for people to influence policy. If the majority of people vote to implement something, the rest of the people will have an easier time accepting it if they know the process is fair and genuine.

throwawayboise 5y ago
Term limits. Politics should not be a viable career option.
- kwhitefoot 5y ago
  You would need to apply the limits to everyone involved in politics not just elected representatives. Otherwise the power will simply shift to the backroom boys, well shift further to them.
- lifty 5y ago
  Term limits are not sufficient and it becomes difficult to get enough politicians with experience. We need a combination of direct democracy and liquid democracy so that people can vote directly on some big issue and quickly shift to a different representative when needed, for legislation that gets implemented through representation.
- edmundsauto 5y ago
  This would likely have an intended consequence: unelected representatives would have their power increase. If elected officials are rotating in and out of Washington faster, they will rely more on the power brokers.
  - inter_netuser 5y ago
    you could also rotate them inside the government, it's what ive heard japan does, but not sure about the details. Essentially let's say you are responsible for helping run ministry of finance, and then you are rotated out to manage some rural agriculture thing, and so on.
- tayo42 5y ago
  sounds nice but almost every inexperienced politician has been a disaster in practice
handrous 5y ago
This strikes at a fundamental problem of what the correct role of a representative is: is it to be an appointed expert and professional, devoted full-time to finding the best solutions; or, is it to be a conduit for the will of the people, even when, with better perspective and perhaps some specialist knowledge that's impossible to convey in anything shorter than several college-level courses or years of direct experience, they're entirely sure that's a bad idea? If you think it tends toward the former—to do a job that we don't have all individually have time for, and so to represent our interests by doing that job, not just by voting how polls say the average constituent with little relevant education or experience on a given topic would vote—then the "representative" part of "representative democracy" is indispensable. If you think it's wholly the latter, then direct democracy is a suitable, and superior, replacement. [EDIT] and obviously there's room for a spectrum of opinions on the topic, not just binary extremes—though I actually don't think the representative-democracy position is the extreme version of that side, like the pure-direct-democracy is for the other—but I use those for illustrative purposes.
- lifty 5y ago
  You make a good distinction there and perhaps politicians act as a bit of both. And I also think it's not scalable to vote on all issues that come up, that's why we have politicians full time. But for specific big issues direct democracy might work (thinking of Switzerland now). So for the general case where we have representatives doing the voting, we should have a mechanism where we can switch representatives in cases where we don't agree on specific issues. And that's where principles from liquid democracy could bring solutions to the current coarse system that we have. But I don't think there is a silver bullet.
  - vinay427 5y ago
    As someone that has lived in Switzerland for a decent bit now (but am not Swiss), I'm not sure this system makes a strong case for direct democracy working. I don't think the standard of comparison should be a functioning government, but rather some estimation of outcomes without direct democracy, if that can even be estimated. It's definitely worked well in some instances, and can be seen as not having worked well in others (in popular hindsight). The country doesn't even score as highly on a Democracy Index as several others [1], not that this is necessarily meaningful or conclusive. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index
heisenzombie 5y ago
Speaking as a New Zealander, I think we have a much much smaller "disconnect" than some other countries. For us, I think the key factors are: - Low levels of corruption [1] - Easy voting with elections run by an independent body [2] - Very strict election financing rules coupled with public funding of elections [3] - A proportional election system [4] - Relatively low inequality (though admittedly this is worsening) [5] The result is high trust in our government and public institutions. One thing noticeably absent is much direct democracy. We do occasionally have referendums -- for example, we recently voted on euthanasia (accepted) and legalization of drugs (rejected) -- but those actually have mixed reception as people can think of them as "cop-outs" by politicians. [1] https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2020/table/nzl https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2020/table/nzl [2] https://elections.nz/about/about-the-electoral-commission/ https://elections.nz/about/about-the-electoral-commission/ [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_funding_in_New_Zealand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_funding_in_New_Zeala... [4] https://elections.nz/democracy-in-nz/what-is-new-zealands-system-of-government/what-is-mmp/ https://elections.nz/democracy-in-nz/what-is-new-zealands-sy... [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_inequality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_in...
- donnythecroc 5y ago
  Good post. Importantly you legally have to vote in Australia, whereas in US voting rights are actively being trampled on.
  - Taniwha 5y ago
    Here in NZ we're required to be registered to vote, but not required to vote
- heisenzombie 5y ago
  Oh I forgot a big one! - Publicly funded journalism [1] and no Murdoch press. [1] https://www.nzonair.govt.nz/funding/journalism-funding/ https://www.nzonair.govt.nz/funding/journalism-funding/
gremloni 5y ago
Direct democracy in a non homogenous place would mean minorities would be slave sand women would be housebound in both homogenous and non homogenous societies.
nl 5y ago
> I keep mentioning this like a broken record. In most western democracies we have a disconnect from the will of the people and what legislation gets implemented, caused by representative democracy. We need a more direct way for people to influence policy I don't think you understand. In Australia, the strong lockdowns are widely supported. There was an election in Queensland during 2020 where the Queensland government bore a lot of criticism from NSW and other governments for their restrictions. They were returned with an increased majority. I'm in South Australia and I support the policy outlined in this piece. It's a freedom tradeoff - we are lockdown free, can go about our business without getting COVID. Until the vaccination rate is high enough, I support measures our goverment is taking to keep it like that. It's true people are getting tired of this. But in general people (correctly) blame the slow vaccine roll out rather than the lockdown policy for their unhappiness.
- Andaith 5y ago
  This. I'm in NSW, and I support the lockdowns. Hell, I'm annoyed that our Govt appears to have given up on Covid-Zero, unlike other states. I do think the NSW govt is hoping that with a high vaccination rate, they can treat delta the same as original covid, and completely eradicate it without doing lockdowns. Will see how that goes.
tonyedgecombe 5y ago
I'm not convinced we need more direct democracy. One obvious failing is if you ask the electorate they will vote for increased spending and lower taxes.

by lifty 5y ago

throwawayboise 5y ago

Term limits. Politics should not be a viable career option.

kwhitefoot 5y ago
You would need to apply the limits to everyone involved in politics not just elected representatives. Otherwise the power will simply shift to the backroom boys, well shift further to them.
lifty 5y ago
Term limits are not sufficient and it becomes difficult to get enough politicians with experience. We need a combination of direct democracy and liquid democracy so that people can vote directly on some big issue and quickly shift to a different representative when needed, for legislation that gets implemented through representation.
edmundsauto 5y ago
This would likely have an intended consequence: unelected representatives would have their power increase. If elected officials are rotating in and out of Washington faster, they will rely more on the power brokers.
- inter_netuser 5y ago
  you could also rotate them inside the government, it's what ive heard japan does, but not sure about the details. Essentially let's say you are responsible for helping run ministry of finance, and then you are rotated out to manage some rural agriculture thing, and so on.
tayo42 5y ago
sounds nice but almost every inexperienced politician has been a disaster in practice

handrous 5y ago

This strikes at a fundamental problem of what the correct role of a representative is: is it to be an appointed expert and professional, devoted full-time to finding the best solutions; or, is it to be a conduit for the will of the people, even when, with better perspective and perhaps some specialist knowledge that's impossible to convey in anything shorter than several college-level courses or years of direct experience, they're entirely sure that's a bad idea? If you think it tends toward the former—to do a job that we don't have all individually have time for, and so to represent our interests by doing that job, not just by voting how polls say the average constituent with little relevant education or experience on a given topic would vote—then the "representative" part of "representative democracy" is indispensable. If you think it's wholly the latter, then direct democracy is a suitable, and superior, replacement. [EDIT] and obviously there's room for a spectrum of opinions on the topic, not just binary extremes—though I actually don't think the representative-democracy position is the extreme version of that side, like the pure-direct-democracy is for the other—but I use those for illustrative purposes.

lifty 5y ago
You make a good distinction there and perhaps politicians act as a bit of both. And I also think it's not scalable to vote on all issues that come up, that's why we have politicians full time. But for specific big issues direct democracy might work (thinking of Switzerland now). So for the general case where we have representatives doing the voting, we should have a mechanism where we can switch representatives in cases where we don't agree on specific issues. And that's where principles from liquid democracy could bring solutions to the current coarse system that we have. But I don't think there is a silver bullet.
- vinay427 5y ago
  As someone that has lived in Switzerland for a decent bit now (but am not Swiss), I'm not sure this system makes a strong case for direct democracy working. I don't think the standard of comparison should be a functioning government, but rather some estimation of outcomes without direct democracy, if that can even be estimated. It's definitely worked well in some instances, and can be seen as not having worked well in others (in popular hindsight). The country doesn't even score as highly on a Democracy Index as several others [1], not that this is necessarily meaningful or conclusive. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index

heisenzombie 5y ago

Speaking as a New Zealander, I think we have a much much smaller "disconnect" than some other countries. For us, I think the key factors are: - Low levels of corruption [1] - Easy voting with elections run by an independent body [2] - Very strict election financing rules coupled with public funding of elections [3] - A proportional election system [4] - Relatively low inequality (though admittedly this is worsening) [5] The result is high trust in our government and public institutions. One thing noticeably absent is much direct democracy. We do occasionally have referendums -- for example, we recently voted on euthanasia (accepted) and legalization of drugs (rejected) -- but those actually have mixed reception as people can think of them as "cop-outs" by politicians. [1] https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2020/table/nzl https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2020/table/nzl [2] https://elections.nz/about/about-the-electoral-commission/ https://elections.nz/about/about-the-electoral-commission/ [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_funding_in_New_Zealand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_funding_in_New_Zeala... [4] https://elections.nz/democracy-in-nz/what-is-new-zealands-system-of-government/what-is-mmp/ https://elections.nz/democracy-in-nz/what-is-new-zealands-sy... [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_inequality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_in...

donnythecroc 5y ago
Good post. Importantly you legally have to vote in Australia, whereas in US voting rights are actively being trampled on.
- Taniwha 5y ago
  Here in NZ we're required to be registered to vote, but not required to vote
heisenzombie 5y ago
Oh I forgot a big one! - Publicly funded journalism [1] and no Murdoch press. [1] https://www.nzonair.govt.nz/funding/journalism-funding/ https://www.nzonair.govt.nz/funding/journalism-funding/

gremloni 5y ago

Direct democracy in a non homogenous place would mean minorities would be slave sand women would be housebound in both homogenous and non homogenous societies.

nl 5y ago

> I keep mentioning this like a broken record. In most western democracies we have a disconnect from the will of the people and what legislation gets implemented, caused by representative democracy. We need a more direct way for people to influence policy I don't think you understand. In Australia, the strong lockdowns are widely supported. There was an election in Queensland during 2020 where the Queensland government bore a lot of criticism from NSW and other governments for their restrictions. They were returned with an increased majority. I'm in South Australia and I support the policy outlined in this piece. It's a freedom tradeoff - we are lockdown free, can go about our business without getting COVID. Until the vaccination rate is high enough, I support measures our goverment is taking to keep it like that. It's true people are getting tired of this. But in general people (correctly) blame the slow vaccine roll out rather than the lockdown policy for their unhappiness.

Andaith 5y ago
This. I'm in NSW, and I support the lockdowns. Hell, I'm annoyed that our Govt appears to have given up on Covid-Zero, unlike other states. I do think the NSW govt is hoping that with a high vaccination rate, they can treat delta the same as original covid, and completely eradicate it without doing lockdowns. Will see how that goes.

tonyedgecombe 5y ago

I'm not convinced we need more direct democracy. One obvious failing is if you ask the electorate they will vote for increased spending and lower taxes.