Are you concerned about the future of democracy? Do you feel democracy is under attack by extreme greed in countries around the world? Are you sick and tired of: living in fear, corporate greed, growing police state, government for the rich, working more but having less?

Can we use both elections and random selection (in the way we select government officials) to rid democracy of undue influence by extreme wealth and wealth-dominated mass media campaigns?

The world’s first democracy (Athenian democracy, 600 B.C.) used both elections and random selection. Even Aristotle (the cofounder of Western thought) promoted the use random selection as the best way to protect democracy. The idea of randomly selecting (after screening) juries remains from Athenian democracy, but not randomly selecting (after screening) government officials. Why is it used only for individual justice and not also for social justice? Who wins from that? …the extremely wealthy?

What is the best way to combine elections and random selection to protect democracy in today’s world? Can we use elections as the way to screen candidates, and random selection as the way to do the final selection? Who wins from that? …the people?

Coincidentally, the BC referendum on STV came up just two weeks ago, and failed (with substantially less support than it had when this interview was made.)

Perhaps you can do a follow-up to this episode sometime soon?

And a few more from Jim Hightower’s The Hightower Lowdown.

Hightower Lowdown excerpt:

…And here’s a creative idea from Garret Keizer. I have no idea who he is, but he wrote a punchy piece in the October issue of Harper’s Magazine that I like and that Lowdowners might want to embrace. He’s calling for a general strike. Not by unions, but by us-you and me. As a symbolically appropriate day, he suggests the first Tuesday of November, the traditional date for our elections – this year, Nov. 6. He dubs it “The Feast of the Hanging Chads.”

A general strike means that We The People, as many of us as possible, would disobey the inept, corrupt, undemocratic (add your own adjective here) system by withholding our presence at for least one day. Don’t go to work. Stay home. Better yet, take some political action. Also, don’t go to the mall, the supermarket, or the bank; don’t use your credit card or make any commercial transaction. This would be the ultimate affront to the corporate president who so pathetically told us after 9/11 that our highest patriotic response to the attack was to “go shopping.” So don’t fly, use your cell phone (hard, I know), watch TV, or otherwise participate. Sometimes, silence is the loudest sound of all. As Keizer says, “As long as we’re willing to go on with our business, Bush and Cheney will feel free to go on with their coup.”

On one level, the strike is against the war, against Bush thumbing his nose at the American majority that has already emphatically said – OUT! – and against the Democratic leadership that can’t seem to muster the will to rein in the Bush administration. On another level, however, this is a strike for the Constitution, a strike against the betrayal of the rule of law and our democratic ideals. It’s a strike for the America we thought this was. It’s an affirmation that the people are the only “larger force” that can stop the BushCheney coup and make America whole again.

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Civil_Disobedience_%28Thoreau%29
href=“http://www.hightowerlowdown.org/node/1404

I just saw HBO’s documentary “Hacking Democracy” last night and it echoed the last paragraph of my fitfully posted comments this morning.(My apologies for apoligies) It will be re-aired Sunday and Tuesday morning at 9:00 AM For those of you who don’t get HBO there is a good review and comment at Computerworld.com – it’s worth your while.

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9004584

Thanks for your patience – again apoligies to PaulK

I now live in Massachusetts and have always lived in a chartered city here. I have been to City Council meetings when they were called by special warrant and citizens were allowed to voice an opinion but all voting was left to the city councilors. I have never attended a MA town meeting and wondered if they are like Vermont’s annual ones – held on town meeting day where my experience was limited to sparsely populated towns (less than 1000 residents.) I found this link which describes Massachusetts town meetings.
FWIW http://www.sec.state.ma.us/cis/cistwn/twnidx.htm

I still think with the pace and structure of modern US society, this form of government is unwieldy depending of the town’s population (Arlington has over 40K people.).Home rule ballot initiatives (such as a proposition 2 property tax override) are a workable compromise with pro/con opinions (no arguing at city council) just statements and rebuttal if the chairperson allows.

The whole democratic system needs an overhaul as was demonstrated on a national level in 2000 and 2004 – citizens suspect skullduggery and worse. If faith in the system is compromised then people doubt if their vote counts and tend to say “the fix is in” so why bother voting. (see PaulK above) I always vote and believe we get what we deserve whether my choice wins or loses, my power is arguing with whomever I can for my philosophy and the candidate whom I believe best embodies it. See my exchanges with rc21 in the ROS predatory politics thread.

Peace

Jazzman

I now live in Massachusetts and have always lived in a chartered city here. I have been to City Council meetings when they were called by special warrant and citizens were allowed to voice an opinion but all voting was left to the city councilors. I have never attended a MA town meeting and wondered if they are like Vermont’s annual ones – held on town meeting day where my experience was limited to sparsely populated towns (PaulK above) I always vote and believe we get what we deserve whether my choice wins or loses, my power is arguing with whomever I can for my philosophy and the candidate whom I believe best embodies it. See my exchanges with rc21 in the ROS predatory politics thread.
Peace
Jazzman

When we’ve 3 or more candidates for 1 seat (which happens occassionally) we use weighted ballots. You rank your candidates (and you needn’t name all of them if you don’t wish to). With, say, 4 candidates your 1st choice gets 4 pts, your 2nd choice gets 3 pts and so on. The top vote getter wins.

As for your dream – sounds what they call a “multi-stakeholder cooperative”, some of which exists in Quebec. And in the States there is at least one hybrid worker-consumer co-op (Weaver Street co-op in Carrboro, NC). The workers & the consumers each elect 1/2 the Board.

And there’s no need to pay random juries of customers to cast votes, as there is already a 150 year+ long tradition of consumer cooperatives where they’re the owners and vote on a one person/one vote basis. see http://www.ncba.coop

The tools for electing such a board of directors are:

A single election for all of the directors, using the single transferable vote. This allows for interesting investor/worker coalitions.

Paying random juries of customers to cast votes

Instant runoff voting is for single offices only. Single transferable votes also work on legislatures, boards of directors, any plurality of elected officials.

Instant runoff voting means that one person gets to be the boss. That’s great if you’ve got a kingdom, but one person rule can be a bit unstable if you sometimes elect a bozo.

Single transferable voting (voting by number, 1,2,3.., choice voting) means that if your first choice wins, that winner’s overflow votes are then transfered to people’s second choices. Likewise if your candidate is clearly at the back of the pack, she/he is out and your vote transfers to perhaps your third choice. In the end you usually elect someone that you like, and almost never the lesser of two evils.

I only vote because my God requires me to be faithful, even against overwhelming odds.

I agree that I need to vote. If we all have that philosophy we’ll get good leadership, although looking at the last election an awful lot of people had a good philosophy and got mostly crooks again at the federal level.

Yes. We do sometimes, but we call it “Instant Run-off voting” (tell me if there not in fact the same thing). We also use “weighted” voting. It depends upon the number of candidates and the number of open seats in a given election.

Another aspect of this is that is exciting, and quite unlike typical civic democracy, is the fact that though we meet as “worker-citizens” only every 2 months, we work with each other all day, every day, AND some of us who “lead” in our governing bodies, usually do not lead during the work day. But whereas some would expect this to lead to paralysis it has instead lead – gradually – to a kind of atmosphere of mutual respect, because while you may be the “boss” in one moment or situation, the table will be turned sooner or later, and the other person may be your boss.
Consequently, I believe people are much more likely to be on their best behavior all the time. Conversely, in the typical workplace, where power pretty much just flows downward, and never upward, those with the power all too often abuse it, as they know there’s no opportunity for response or push-back.

Peace

Jazzman

Just to broaden the range of “experiments” we look at, why not add the long overdue idea of democracy of the workplace? For example, I just came from a “worker-owner” meeting at my company – a 20 year old worker cooperative with 73 worker citizens.

Now that I’ve worked and lived in this, I believe, successful experiment for 11 years, I have to say I find it frustrating to see everyone wail and moan about the admittedly real problem of business’ encroachment upon democracy, but never think about returning the “favor” and bringing some democracy to business. Even when some of us try to introduce the idea that you needn’t leave democracy at home when you go off to work in the morning, we’re just met with blank stares.

The assumption that “democracy” is something that participate in and enjoy (or are denied) is something that happens only at home, etc, is so deeply engrained that people that are otherwise passionate about this topic just can’t get their head around what it might be like if your workplace was organized politically like your home town. But that in fact is what I & my coworkers experience (at Equal Exchange, http://www.equalexchange.coop).

We elect a board of directors from amongst our own ranks (I’m one). The Board hires and supervises the top manager(s), like a city manager. The manager in turn runs the business, but always accountable to the board, who in turn is accountable to the “citizenship”, ie the worker owners.

It can be done, really, and it gives you a whole new experience of, and appreciation for, what democracy can be.

Rodney North
worker-owner, Board Director
http://www.equalexchange.coop

I am not from Vermont; I am from Massachusetts, where citizens from 300 out of its 351 towns are still “going to town meeting” as has been done for hundreds of years.

I am originally from Vermont and the Brazilian participatory budgeting article reminded me of the town meetings that still are extant in the state’s towns. I used to attend them when ever possible and the proceedings ran the gamut from benign to ugly, from petty, personal agenda to civically minded suggestions for the common weal.

Coincidentally, I wanted to raise the issue of “town meeting” also. First off, most people in the U.S. have never been to a *real* “town meeting”, so how could they know that it is possible for hundreds of people to get together in one room and under the direction of an elected Moderator and “Robert’s Rules of Order” actually conduct democratic business on several propositions in one single evening!

In the 1990′s, when I was in Washington, I noticed that the Clinton administration was fond of conducting what it called “town hall meetings” to make it seem like something democratic was happening when in fact it was, at best, only Q&A of an official by pre-selected “real people”people (instead of reporters).
That term is now so loose that I read in U.S. News recently that a politician had a “town hall meeting” during a radio call-in show. Sheesh.

As it relates to this topic, here are a couple of relevant links:

“Devolving Authority and Democratizing Decisionmaking:
New England Town Meeting”
http://www.newrules.org/gov/townmtg.html

A humorous blogger talks about need for a Town Meeting “primer class” for all the people who don’t have a clue about “Rules of Order” (but think they do):
http://capecodporcupine.blogspot.com/2005/05/town-meeting-time.html

Here’s a typical example of a Town Meeting –> There once was a moderator from Nantucket … who presided over debates about rezoning and wastewater treatment plant expansion (see link in upper-right of page for Meeting Rules):
http://www.nantucket-ma.gov/Townmtg/ATMindex.html

Do I think we can have a Town Meeting on a national scale? No. But if more people had practical, personal knowledge on how to meet with other people and vote on issues in an organized way, like we do at Town Meeting, then I believe that they would be better able to practice or recognize it in other settings.

Otherwise, our national discourse will continue to resemble a Jerry Springer show, because that is the only frame of reference that many people have been given.

momos I agree, the ballot initiatives by referenda can be problematic. The few states (like Massachusetts) that allow this form of direct democracy need to make it difficult to place referenda on the ballot. The petition process should not be as onerous as to discourage trying but the initiative should be compelling enough to motivate citizens to work at the grassroots and get a significant quorum of voters to approve balloting. The reason Hamilton argued (and prevailed) for a representative system was to damp the passions of an overly emotional ill-advised populace thereby reducing the chance of unwise laws being codified. It didn’t work in the case of the Patriot Act as heated passions instead of cool heads prevailed in our representative body. As scribe5 wrote in the Gandhi thread generalia specialibus non derogant Bad laws result from attempting to extrapolate solutions from specific (heinous) actions.

I am originally from Vermont and the Brazilian participatory budgeting article reminded me of the town meetings that still are extant in the state’s towns. I used to attend them when ever possible and the proceedings ran the gamut from benign to ugly, from petty, personal agenda to civically minded suggestions for the common weal. If this type of democracy were to scale to a larger U.S. population, the logistics and time involved would be problematic for people who have to hold down jobs. We need a participatory system that is governed by a constitution made up universal principles and a populace that accepts those principles.

Peace and Freedom for ALL,

Jazzman

In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_9_of_the_Constitution_of_Japan

This article is now under threat as some leaders in the ruling party would like to revise the constitution to enable Japan to take a more pro-active role in national and international security issues.
(http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2005/08/1718417.php)

Less than 5% of Japanese people support a change, yet the Cabinet of Prime Minister Abe is studying a revision.

Richard Armitage has suggested that Article 9 has hindered Japan’s chances at a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.
http://www.globalpolicy.org/empire/analysis/2005/0224japan.htm

Against this threat of growing militarism, a grass-roots democratic movement was started by the “Article 9 Association (A9A” to “shine the light of Article 9 upon this turbulent world,
in order to join hands with the peace-seeking citizens of the world.”
http://www.9-jo.jp/en/index_en.html
http://www.9-jo.jp/en/20061024news.htm

Rather than a revision of Japan’s constitution, it seems appropriate for the UN to pass a new global treaty based on Article 9, and democratic nations of the world could take the lead by ratifying the treaty and putting peaceful pressure on all nations to sign and ratify. Sure this is idealistic thinking, but we should remember that democratic experiments are born of such idealism in the face of growing endangerment to human survival.

More interesting for this show would be the experience of residents in public housing under the Toronto Housing Authority with participatory budgeting. Josh Lerner, a young housing activist known in progressive urban planning circles in New York City, wrote a widely-cited thesis on the Toronto case while at the University of Toronto (which has a reputation for being one of the most forward-thinking academic centers for scholarship and experiments in local democracy and planning in both the US and Canada). See “Building a Democratic City: How Participatory Budgeting Can Work in Toronto”, Josh Lerner (2004), prepared for the Community Engagement Unit, City of Toronto. An overview in shorter article form is available here.

That said, the local nature of Swiss government (the power of the cantons vs. the relative weakness of the national government) may end up increasing the influence of the single citizen in that government is “close to the people,” as Jefferson would say. Swiss Cantons could well be a model for modern Jeffersonian “Ward Republics.”

Bobo – I think you nailed it in your assessment of what we’re trying to do in this show. But I’m not familiar with the three examples you listed. Do you have any more info about the anarchist communities, warehouse movement, or the ECs? I’d love to see some links on here to anything I could read about them, or anyone who can talk about these various movements.

Emmettoconnell – awesome, thanks so much for those suggestions. I’m going to read the pieces you linked to right now.

Sidewalker – wow, so far you get helpful suggestions MVP. Those BC links are incredibly helpful. I have not yet contacted J.H. Snider as a possible guest, but now I most likely will. My hope is that most of the other guests besides Prof. Guinier will be such participants, as you’ve recommended.

JKF – very cool. I will check out those links. It’s been a while since I’ve read anything in Z Magazine. This is a good excuse.

Conohawk – I think you make an important point about an educated citizenry being crucial to democracy. Any specific suggestions of places to look for good European comparisons? Which other nations? What are they doing? Would love some more specific ideas on that front.