There should be some way for ordinary citizens to be brought directly into contact with issues rather than having to express themselves only indirectly by voting for candidates they agree with.
Citizens should be able to participate in some way that lets them deal directly with issues, one issue at a time, so they don't have to surrender their thinking ability over to someone who has a collection of views, some of which the citizen may agree with while disagreeing with others. Why should a citizen be forced to embrace an entire collection of political positions rather than picking and choosing certain ones? Why can't the citizen be trusted to form his/her own opinions on each issue and be allowed to express each individual opinion separate from the others?
But how could this be done?
Right now it cannot be done. Outside of some cases where ballot measures are placed before voters, there is virtually no way citizens can express their preferences on individual issues. Nor is there any way to change the system to make it possible any time soon.
What is needed right now is some kind of experimental project which tries to put the idea of direct democracy into practice, in mock form.
For now, this experimental project must take a form that is wide open to everyone interested in the possibility of direct democracy, or even to those who oppose such a scheme and want to express their disagreement with it.
At first there should be no doctrinaire commitment to imposing direct democracy, or especially any one version of it, but rather there needs to be an open dialogue process which would include a wide cross-section of the population and would promote the kind of communicating and analyzing of issues that an ideal form of direct democracy would require.
The need is to experiment with different forms of such communicating and determine what procedures work best and what process might prove feasible for arriving at good decisions or resolutions of some of the major issues of conflict in society.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Sunday, March 15, 2009
What is Direct Democracy?
Or rather, what would be direct democracy if such a thing might be possible?
Let's try to define it in such a way that would be agreeable to everyone (or almost everyone):
It is a system of decision-making in which the people at large are able to address individual issues directly rather than only being able to vote for representatives who then address the issues for them, which is "indirect" democracy or "representative" democracy, such as exists currently in those countries which are democratic.
A simple example of direct democracy would be a society in which the general population participates in referendum votes on all the issues to be decided, or on many or most of the issues, or on all the major issues.
But there could be other forms of having the people at large decide directly on issues. The referendum system isn't necessarily the only form that direct democracy could take.
Is it "mob rule"? Not necessarily. A system might be possible for allowing direct decision-making by the general population but doing it through an orderly process that is rational and in accordance with civility and mutual respect and which might lead to good decisions and better outcomes than the current representative forms of democracy have done.
Obviously before committing to any form of direct democracy, there needs to be assurance that the system put in place would be orderly and would lead to desirable results rather than chaos.
It is easier to envision direct democracy operating smoothly in a small group as opposed to a nation of millions. But our task here is to consider:
Is Direct Democracy (direct decision-making by the general population) possible or feasible in a large nation, even a nation of hundreds of millions of people?
Is it possible, is it desirable, and what form would it take? This is our subject matter in this blog.
Let's try to define it in such a way that would be agreeable to everyone (or almost everyone):
It is a system of decision-making in which the people at large are able to address individual issues directly rather than only being able to vote for representatives who then address the issues for them, which is "indirect" democracy or "representative" democracy, such as exists currently in those countries which are democratic.
A simple example of direct democracy would be a society in which the general population participates in referendum votes on all the issues to be decided, or on many or most of the issues, or on all the major issues.
But there could be other forms of having the people at large decide directly on issues. The referendum system isn't necessarily the only form that direct democracy could take.
Is it "mob rule"? Not necessarily. A system might be possible for allowing direct decision-making by the general population but doing it through an orderly process that is rational and in accordance with civility and mutual respect and which might lead to good decisions and better outcomes than the current representative forms of democracy have done.
Obviously before committing to any form of direct democracy, there needs to be assurance that the system put in place would be orderly and would lead to desirable results rather than chaos.
It is easier to envision direct democracy operating smoothly in a small group as opposed to a nation of millions. But our task here is to consider:
Is Direct Democracy (direct decision-making by the general population) possible or feasible in a large nation, even a nation of hundreds of millions of people?
Is it possible, is it desirable, and what form would it take? This is our subject matter in this blog.
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