This is my repost of my previous post here. My question WASN’T actually clear enough, so I had to add “United States presidential” to the title. That said, I’ll start by saying I’d vote for Governor of Kentucky Andy Beshear.
This is my repost of my previous post here. My question WASN’T actually clear enough, so I had to add “United States presidential” to the title. That said, I’ll start by saying I’d vote for Governor of Kentucky Andy Beshear.
They are flawed as well. You will never agree with any party on all issues, so you have to already compromise during voting. Even more so if there is an electoral threshold.
If that legislative would then try to find different majorities for every different issue, the population would still be represented relatively well. But that’s not what actually happens.
Instead, two or three parties that represent just barely more than half the population get together and form a government. An executive government. That alone goes against the separation of powers.
And after that, most legislative decisions are made unilaterally by that government coalition.
That whole coalition circus doesn’t work without an electoral threshold, which again forces voters to compromise more.
Instead, I’d like to vote for the government directly, through ranked voting. With a separate ranking for each minister. That way I could eg. give my highest vote to the green candidate for the ministry of transportation, and Dr. med XYZ of the conservative party for the ministry of health.
Then, separate from the executive branch, I could imagine a parliament without an electoral threshold for the legislative. That would keep compromise during voting to a minimum. 0.5% of votes would already grant a seat. That way, voters can choose representatives they agree with on multiple issues.
Although my preferred solution would be a more direct system of petitions and citizen’s assembly. If an open petition gets enough votes, or the government petitions something, then a randomly selected citizen’s assembly would be called to meet, research, debate and decide on that issue. Similar to jury duty in the US.
Random selection sounds counter to what we generally consider democratic today. But it would be much less susceptible to corruption. And random selection means we get a representative sample of opinions.
Direct voting on issues is also relatively safe from corruption. However, especially with less mainstream topics, it has a tendency to let extremists win. Because they are better at mobilizing their voters.
For really important issues direct voting is still a pretty decent idea. For example for changes to the constitution. Especially if it takes 50% of eligible voters to change the constitution. Not just 50% of cast votes.
What do you call that electoral model?
The government would be voted through instant runoff voting.
The legislative would combine several forms of direct democracy. Namely:
Is it technocratic, and are you talking about extremely direct democracy?
The executive system would be slightly more technocratic than our current system. Expertise would definitely give candidates an edge.
For many posts the votes would mostly be cast according to morals. Like how I chose the green candidate, regardless of qualifications, for the ministry of transportation. I want trams and bike lanes. Not a transportation engineer that knows how to build even bigger parking lots.
But during a pandemic, I don’t want Spahn or Kennedy as health minister. I want someone like Lauterbach or Fauci. So maybe some technocracy is a good thing.
Yes. I’m talking about an extremely directly democratic legislative system.
Democracy is supposed to put decisions in the hands of the people. But in our current system, that doesn’t seem to be the case. Germany is the 13th most democratic country. And still lobbyists have such a heavy influence that they might as well be considered our legislative.
Some people might be annoyed to be called for citizens’s assembly duty. But democratic participation is vital if we want a fair system.
Do you think the US should’ve been a socialist country years ago?
No. To my knowledge, putting the means of production into the hands of the people was never a majority opinion. And democracy is important.
However, there are many social democratic policies that I believe have very broad support, and that still aren’t being implemented:
Then there are other policies that I think would be really good for the US, but I am not sure the support is bipartisan:
The latter category is also where I would place steps towards market socialism. For example federal laws that allow worker cooperatives (currently only some states allow them). And potentially even lowering the tax on worker co-ops compared to conventional companies.
What’s your opinion on those questions?