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The issue really became one of scaling democracy. 200 years ago our congress was much closer to the citizens because there were so few citizens per elected offi
by dkokelley 15y ago
The issue really became one of scaling democracy. 200 years ago our congress was much closer to the citizens because there were so few citizens per elected official. An increasing population could not easily be represented by an increasing number of delegates, so each one had to represent more people. Representing the desires of a few thousand people is fairly simple, and there is less voter 'inertia' to carry delegates if they fail to adequately represent the people.
Let's just say for the sake of argument that a typical congressman can fairly represent 20,000 people. This gives them the ability to hear the issues of those people, and a group that size can pick a representative who is close to those issues. Given congresses current size the limit of effective government is about 10,000,000 people (or perhaps just voters). To represent the United States, congress would need to have 15,000 members. As it currently stands, each member of congress represents on average 560,000 people. I'm not proposing any solutions here. I just want to illustrate what I believe to be a key issue with our democratic republic.
- stretchwithme 15y agoLet's say for the sake of argument that a typical congressman CANNOT represent 20,000 people.
- dkokelley 15y agoWhat number would you say is feasible, or are you fundamentally against a democratic republic system of government, and if so, why?
- stretchwithme 15y agoThose aren't the only choices. We have representative republic, not a democracy. I would prefer no coercion at all. Let people join a political entity if they wish and let them leave if they don't like how its going. And these political entities can cooperate amongst themselves. Or not. For example, the nations of Europe might choose to cooperate on border control. Some might share have a common currency. They don't have to be forced. The merits of an initiative are enough to entice them to participate. And if a particular thing fails, they should be able to walk away from it. Obviously, there's no guarantee government won't still screw up. But at least you're not trapped.
- dkokelley 15y ago> I would prefer no coercion at all. Let people join a political entity if they wish and let them leave if they don't like how its going. I can already do that. > And these political entities can cooperate amongst themselves. Or not. They can already do that. I don't understand how the current system inherently prevents any of what you're suggesting. What you are describing is a problem with the people, not the system. What sort of system would account for problems with the people?
- rayiner 15y ago> The issue really became one of scaling democracy Scaling democracy is absolutely the issue. It's pretty much a fundamental fact of systems that organizational overhead grows super-linearly. Why are Windows, OS X, and Linux so big? Why do Microsoft and IBM and even Google have so much bureaucracy? The US population in 1790 was 3.9 million. Today it's over 300 million. Of course government is going to be much larger than it was then!
- cpeterso 15y agoBut the US federal government now has a centralized single point of failure. The US has chosen the Oracle/Solaris route for scaling. :)