Naked Science Forum
General Discussion & Feedback => Just Chat! => Topic started by: Voxx on 04/04/2013 04:17:58
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If the community participated in their decisions in joint union, while taking active roles in progressing a society as a whole. What are you thoughts on this?
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If you are suggesting that democracy should be a considerable number of tiers starting with a base unit of the neighbourhood then a number of neighbourhoods forming a town and a number of towns forming a district and a number of districts forming a county and a numebr of counties foming a region and a number of regions forming a country... With each tier electing representatives to the tier above, you may be interested in the writings of Marx.
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Not necessarily. Imagine this society only encompassing say...the city of NY. Every person in NY has a cellphone that has an app that updates political proposals that are decided by anyone and everyone. The posts are then given the option of reform/deny/accept. Reformations meaning that the mass of people who are interested in the topic will give opinions and pass it on till the next voting time. For something to pass there needs to be at least a 75.00001% of the population needs to vote in favor as a mass consensus acceptance. Anyone can input anyone can propose a new law.
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There is no reason, technically, why you could not have democracy by cellfone/internet for the entire world, so long as you can prevent Mr Big from casting 500,000 votes for his proposal to pay Mr Big a salary of $5.5b PA
One other problem would be one group wants option A, another wants B, another C, another D, another E, another 'none of the above' and half a dozen other groups have their own ideas which might be a conglomerate of all the proposals. Sometimes, someone, somewhere has got to make a decision when something must be done. But if a whole bunch of different minded groups can't come to a satisfactory conclusion, who do you upset, and who decides who gets upset?
Alas, we are back to the elected few to decide and just as now, when they make up their minds, they WILL upset probably at least half the electorate.
Its a great idea, but even in a single street where something must be done about vehicle parking, you will likely get those who want parking on one side only, those who want parking on the other side only, those who want permit parking only, those who want a communial car park....... blah blah blah. Next thing you know the whole street is at one-anothers' throat.
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I have thought about this and have somewhat of a solution. This is a "fiction" based society, but I don't want to average answer of "Oh, it's fiction, you can do whatever you want..." No, I want this to be believable.
The solution I've come up with is not a bureaucracy or republic, but a set of individuals that are highly intelligent and can combine or enlighten around these proposals into a beneficial manner that all these parties will be happy with. They do not control if this gets past or this doesn't, but just puts things in more of a clearer light to be viewed. Councilors if you will.
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There would need remain rewards, directly from work for wittiness and hard work.
The government could start new enterprises and would have to, things appreciated from the past, like telecommunications, car companies, military, roads/rail/sea...
It could be run like 3M, propose an idea, and we will employ you to take it to the market in partnership.
Government mining and oil rigging, instead of leaving it up to private enterprise and the banks..., and not selling shares.
Imitating competition, more than one team competing to build the rocket for example.
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I've always liked the Marxian idea of tiered representatives. If you divide the electorate into neighbourhood ("street") groups of 20, each of which delegates one member to represent their interests to the next level, then construct successive committees of about 10, you would have a workable parliament for the UK after about 6 layers, each of which has a geographical base and a direct mandate from its electorate.
Now here's the good bit: you don't have political parties or general elections. Every delegate can be instantly recalled and replaced by the 9 (or 19, at the "street" level) people he represents. So instead of politicians inventing and "selling" policies that might get them re-elected, representatives debate and enact policies that they have been mandated to consider. Policy evolves steadily at every level, rather than being a football kicked from right to left at election time.
The problem with Marxism is that this highly democratic structure was overlaid with a communist dogma and used to impose a command economy from the outset, instead of being free to develop whatever policies worked best in the circumstances. It is perfectly possible - indeed probably preferable - to regulate a free market economy and provide socialised public services by this system.
As I see it, the irreducible function of government is to raise enough taxes to pay the army: if you can't defend a territory, you don't have a country to govern. The desirable function of a democracy is to determine what behaviours the population considers to be wrong, and to legislate against them. You can then add whatever public works and services the public wants and is prepared to fund through taxation, and the state evolves.
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There are many proposals that I think could be brought before the people.
However, it may also become a bit of a hassle. There are many insignificant details of day to day government work that one might not want to get involved with. Furthermore, some issues are quite complex. Do you want to vote on a 1000 page intricate proposal using your cell phone?
A complicated issue with government is determining what is "right" and "wrong" which may not truly follow the majority rule. I'm not sure what a good example is, but consider legislation that would benefit a minority. For various reasons it may be the right thing to do, but may not be beneficial to the larger majority.
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A necessary requirement for a proper democracy to work is that you need a well informed population. I feel that, even more than today, there would be too much power in those with the ability to influence and have control of the media. On neutral decisions it can be a very good method; I think this is shown by how the odds vary on spot betting - it is surprising how the net results of lots of bets come close to predicting a result. But where there is some vested interest by those who can weight the arguments in their favour then it will not be fair or balanced.