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Direct democracy does not solve the problem, see California. The Swiss cantons work well because they are small. Direct democracy does not scale. One of the b
by bokonist 17y ago
Direct democracy does not solve the problem, see California. The Swiss cantons work well because they are small. Direct democracy does not scale.
One of the best ideas for reform I've heard is the idea of unpredictable elections, a la Venice. See: http://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2008/03/unpredictable-elections.html http://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2008/03/unpredictable-elect...
- tome 17y agoUnpredictable elections look interesting but why do you support them? Is there any evidence that they perform well in any particular fashion?
- bokonist 17y agoThey worked quite well in Venice. The Republic lasted 1,000 years, which is pretty impressive. The half-life of the typical represenative democracy seems to be about twenty years, so that's a big difference. Since Venice, unpredictable elections have never been tried. Most governments have been clones of either the British or American systems.
- yummyfajitas 17y agoCalifornia is not quite a direct democracy. They have ballot propositions, yes, but they also have a legislature almost as bad as the NY legislature, and their state workers are completely unaccountable. Arnold: Until the budget is sorted out, all state workers get minimum wage. State workers: You can't do that. Besides, our computer are too old to handle paying minimum wage. http://www.sacbee.com/capitolandcalifornia/story/1132588.html http://www.sacbee.com/capitolandcalifornia/story/1132588.htm...
- bokonist 17y agoRight, but the limited direct democracy they have does not seem to make better decisions than the legislature: http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2009/06/myth_of_the_rat_2.html http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2009/06/myth_of_the_rat_...