Electorate Votes Itself Endless Privileges

"Perhaps we have reached the limit of what is economically possible within a democracy. Now that the electorate has twigged that it can vote itself endless privileges, our leaders seem determined to feed the beast, even when the larder is bare. The younger generation is going to hate us."
This quote from Tim Price in MoneyWeek (15/03/13) neatly sums up a concern voiced by others. And, so the thought goes, giving more power to the economically illiterate electorate via direct democracy will result in financial armegedon.
Swiss direct democracy succinctly proves that is not necessarily so. In fact their economy is in far better shape than those of most western representative democracies. While the reasons for this may be multifactorial, perhaps one cause of Switzerland's success is that direct democracy educates the masses through debate, resulting in more mature politics and better decisions.
But another perspective is that politicians in a representative democracy actively persuade us that the "bribes" they offer in return for our support are affordable, against the better judgement of the majority of voters who successfully manage the complexities of their household budget and carefully consider the inheritence they would like to bequeath to their offspring. From this perspective politicans are dangerous stewards of the economy, driven to error by the competitive nature of representative democracy.
Or perhaps political ideologies are to blame: those notions counted self evident and held firmly by the party faithful. On the contrary, voters less immersed in political doctrine and informed by wide debate, may take a more realistic and less idealistic view.

Domination of Minorities

Dan Snow's "A History of Syria" (available here on iPlayer) provides some perspective on the domination of minorities and their reactions. According to this programme the Alawites were persecuted for many years by the majority Sunni Muslims until Hafez al-Assad seized government in 1970. His son is fighting to stay in power today. The fears of the Alawite minority in allowing democracy to empower a democratic Sunni majority, who may want to take revenge, may be a significant factor in the ongoing conflict.
So, can democracy protect the freedoms and rights of minorities?
I suspect that a countries culture is the most important factor in protecting minority rights, which may also be enshrined in law through acts or constitution.
But empathy surely has a role to play: if we can relate to the emotions of the abused there is a greater chance that we will want to protect them. Thus, hearing their stories is important. And Interactive Democracy can facilitate this through its web site.
Leadership is also important, as it is today in representative democracy. The type of leadership shown by Nelson Mandela, who fought for fairness across races, not domination by a democratic majority.
On the other hand, intolerant religions or ideologies may use democracy to crush small dissenting groups, as was seen in Hitler's rise to power.

Quantitavely Easing Elections

John Stepek in MoneyWeek wrote this about QE3:
"this move by the Fed raises some interesting questions about democracy and central banking in general. Bernanke insists the move isn’t political. That’s probably true.

"At the same time, it was quite stupid of the Republicans to tell the one man who has more short-term power over US consumer confidence than anyone else in the country, that they were going to fire him if they won the election. If Barack Obama was ever looking for a poll boost from the Fed, this is the best he could have hoped for."

And so we see another example of the rise in power of the unelected technocrats of the central banks. What of democracy?

Prolokratie

"In his book Prolokratie [Democratically into Bankruptcy], Christian Ortner proposes a politically incorrect thesis: a large proportion of the [typical western] population are borderline cretins. They have particular trouble understanding... that one cannot just go on spending more money than one takes in. So they are incapable of making sensible decisions at elections. I fear that the result of the latest Italian election provides support for this idea."

Peter Michael Lingens in Austrian news magazine Profil

This principle flies in the face of democracy. According to this summary the electorate aren't qualified to elect representatives, much less do direct democracy. Yet the Swiss have run direct democracy quite successfully for 150plus years. Maybe there is something about the intelligence of the Swiss or the quality of their culture that allows this? But I doubt it. I suspect that involving people in democracy is a process of educating each other through debate, utilising the leadership and expertise of those with more knowledge. However, representative democracy doesn't do this to the same extent as the debate is delegated to the professional politicians, leaving the majority of the electorate none the wiser. Furthermore, the politicians must pander to the whims of the uneducated to retain their position, compounding errors.

(Taking the economic arguments in the above quote: it is clear that personal debt should be repaid but is the same true for countries? There is an argument that national debt can be continuously rolled over into new debt for the simple reason that countries don't die but people do: it's hard to be repaid what you lend if your debtor is dead. Not so if they keep on living.)

Swiss Referendum on Executive Pay

"Switzerland is to hold a referendum on executive pay in early March, with measures to be voted on including a ban on golden hellos and a binding shareholder vote on pay", reports MoneyWeek. Emma Thompson on Reuters.com regards it a "stunning turn of events for the land of secret bank accounts."
The uproar that precipitated the vote has also created sufficient social and political pressure to persuade Novartis to ditch a proposed $78m payoff to departing chairman Daniel Vasella.

Lesson's from China?

In "Intelligent Governance for the 21st Century" Nicholas Berggruen and Nathan Gardels suggest that both the American system of democracy and the Chinese system of governance are unstable and could learn from each other. In particular the authors recommend more direct democracy with a technocratic elite taking a long term view, beyond the electoral cycle. You can read an article about their book here, at The FT.
I find it difficult to imagine how elites sit comfortably with direct democracy. Perhaps we could learn more from Switzerland which sports a high standard of living but has seldom sought strategic advantage over "rival" nations. However, I think there is a strong need for institutions that seek and protect the evidential truth which is a necessary foundation for constructive debate and Interactive Democracy.

Reflective not Reflexive

Students who were shown fleeting glimpses of candidates and were asked to judge which looked the most competent were shown to correlate with election results 2/3rds of the time, according to studies by Toderov et al (2005) and Benjamin & Shapiro (2007). This was presented in "Nudge" as evidence that voters make automatic and instinctive decisions about politicians and, generally speaking, don't reflect or deliberate much. I suggest that those instinctive reactions have evolved to be particularly important in judging people, their moods, likely behaviours or social connection. It's an animal response.
Interactive Democracy asks people to judge policies separately from candidates. I hope it would have some success at encouraging people to be reflective rather than reflexive.

The End of Politics and the Birth of iDemocracy

MP Douglas Carswell's book "The End of Politics and the Birth of iDemocracy" highlights the problem of how to pay for the welfare state "on the back of a diminishing wealth-creating base" as one of the forces that will promote iDemocracy.

Disagreement's Good

This short TED talk by Margaret Hefferanan points to the virtue of constructive disagreement and engaging thinking partners who aren't echo chambers, something that Interactive Democracy is designed to foster. Her book Willful Blindness was shortlisted for the Financial Times/GoldmanSachs Best Business Book award in 2011

Parliament's Powers to Prosecute Liars

This article in The Independent looks at Parliaments ancient powers to prosecute liars and those in contempt, last used in the 1880s. There have been new calls to employ such powers after witnesses provided contrary evidence to Parliamentary Inquiries.
"In the US anyone found in contempt of a Senate or House Committee can be reported to the US Attorney..."
For Interactive Democracy I propose much wider sanctions against lying in public life to keep public debate clean. This could be operated in a similar way to the Advertising Standards Authority, which responds to public complaints. It could have legal powers to investigate deceit and use a variety of powers, everything from a public warning to jail.

Blood Serotonin and Power Seeking

Douglas Madsen from The University of Iowa reports that whole blood serotonin seems to be linked with power seeking personalities of the type common among politicians. You can read the whole report here.
It seems to me that, though biochemistry may drive people to seek power, it does not necessarily correlate with intelligence, morality, empathy, creativity or communication skills; all things we may prefer in a politician. It reminds me of the old jokes:

"... it is a well-known fact that those people who most want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it."

Douglas Adams.

 “In politics, stupidity is not a handicap.”

Napoleon Bonaparte.

"Devil's Bargain? Energy Risks and the Public"

The House of Commons Science and Technology Committee published a report on risk communication, "Devil's Bargain? Energy Risks and the Public".
"Independent regulators should take a more prominent role in communicating the risks associated with energy generation and distribution because the government is not seen as an impartial source of information, MPs... have concluded." Reported in Nuclear Engineering International.
It seems to me that our distrust of politicians comes from many sources. We may suspect the political class of spin, manipulation, partial truths, hidden agendas, dogmatism, hubris and power seeking. I suggest that, although politics may attract a certain type of person, the adversarial nature of the political arena creates a political culture that is detrimental to public trust.
Interactive Democracy would change the political culture, with every chance of creating the respect enjoyed by Swiss politicians (described by Fossedal in Direct Democracy in Switzerland) and, at the same time, facilitates the limitless contribution of experts relevant to the field of discussion - experts identified by their qualifications in the subject.

Lobbying by the Finance Industry

"An investigation by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism has revealed the firepower of the City's lobbying machine, prompting concern that its scale and influence puts the interests of the wider economy in the shade", according to The Guardian.
"The British financial services industry spent £92m last year lobbying politicians and regulators...
"...129 organisations engaging in some form of lobbying for the finance sector...
"... the recently departed leader of the City corporation, Stuart Fraser, had contact with the chancellor, George Osborne, and other senior Treasury ministers and officials 22 times in the 14 months up to March this year.
"Beyond the corporation, there are 26 industry bodies lobbying government... with a war chest of at least £34m.
"A total of 124 peers, equivalent to 16% of the House of Lords, have direct financial links with financial services firms.
"Political donations by firms aand individuals connected to the City contributed £6.11m in 2011 to the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat parties."

I expect that, in my proposed system of Interactive Democracy, lobbyists would spend some of the money spent today on influencing politicians, instead on the public. That's probably a good thing for promoting debate and understanding, transparency and the common good.

"A Tsunami of money hits US politics"

According to Richard McGregor in the Financial Times there are three ways of funding US Presidential candidates. Both donations, capped to $40000, and uncapped super-political action committees, must be disclosed. But "non-profit social welfare bodies... can take as much money as they want, anonymously. These are supposed to operate exclusively for social welfare reasons, but everyone knows their sole purpose is to win elections" (quoted from MoneyWeek 6/7/12).
The problem of hidden vested interests buying political support has the potential of corrupting democracy. If individuals vote on each issue, as I propose in Interactive Democracy, the problem becomes far less.

"British democracy in terminal decline"

British democracy in terminal decline, warns a report by the Democratic Audit. Juliette Jowit writes about it in The Guardian and there's a data report here, where you can access the image above.
"A study into the state of democracy in Britain warns that it is in 'long-term terminal decline' as the power of corporations keeps growing, politicians become less representative of their constituencies and disillusioned citizens stop voting or even discussing current affairs."
Interactive Democracy allows citizens to vote on policies and politicians in a simple, easy access and cost effective manner. As many TV reality shows have shown, easy access to voting fosters involvement. ID also forces politicians and corporations to engage with the electorate, who hold the real power in the land. Apart from the ID web site that fosters questions, ideas, debate and voting, there are ancillary policies that enhance democracy: laws against lying in public life, rules against media monopolies, mandatory reporting by the state media on the issues raised by the public, sanctions against uncivil contributions to debates and votes automatically devolved to your representative if you don't want to participate. Together such policies enhance the democratic ideal, quash mob mentality and demagoguery, facilitate better decisions by tapping into the immense experience and knowledge of the electorate, and educate us all through debate. Politicians, the media and the electorate can all benefit from the interaction.

Democratic Reform: Silly Games

"Tory opponents of House of Lords reforms are playing 'silly games' that could threaten the coalition [minister warns]" writes Nicholas Watt in The Guardian.
Some Conservative Party MPs are opposed to Coalition plans to reform the House of Lords, making it 80% elected. They are worried that elected Lords will challenge the primacy of The Commons, potentially lose the vast experience of today's appointed Lords and reinforce Lib-Dem power, but their views may be quashed by a three-line-whip and their coalition agreement.
"Nick Clegg's outgoing strategy director warned that the Liberal Democrats would block Tory plans to reduce the size of the House of Commons if David Cameron fails to persuade his MPs to support the measure." (Redefining the electoral boundaries was mooted as equalising the number of voters in each constituency as well as reducing the number of MPs, making each vote more equal to each other.)
So here we have the workings of democracy: coalition horse trading, whipping party members into line against their judgement and reinforcing party power by manipulating the way that elections work. Where are the electorate in this process? Were these things wanted by the majority? Do politicians represent their constituents or their party? Do they vote in line with their convictions or their career prospects? All problems famously defined by Edmund Burke in 1774.
Interactive Democracy is very different. It would allow us all to propose, debate and vote on each issue as we see fit. And, by dint of web based voting, it would facilitate other voting options such as automatically morphing electoral boundaries to make each vote equal or approval voting for "Lords" from different electoral regions, each presenting their CV on the voting site.

Sock Puppets: Government Charities

MoneyWeek comments on Christopher Snowden's "Sock Puppets" report for the Institute of Economic Affairs:
"For example, anti-smoking group ASH is entirely funded by various government bodies. In turn it uses this money to influence public policy. Regardless of your views on smoking, it does seem odd that the government spends our money to lobby itself. More sinisterly, it also means that such charities can potentially be used as a smokescreen for unpopular government policy objectives, concludes Snowdon, by making it seem as though the government is simply yielding to pressure from well-meaning charities, which are in fact acting as "sock puppets" campaigning for greater state power."
Is this yet another corruption of democracy? Death by a thousand cuts!

(Extract from Money Week article "The trouble with charities".)

Turning Debate into Data

One of the difficulties of any debate is how to extract the pertinent points. Interactive Democracy provides a system that can turn debate into data for analysis in many different ways. It does this by allowing people to vote point by point, question by question and on what type of evidence is being presented, from Heresay to Good Quality Empirical. Furthermore, the identity of voters, though hidden from public view, can include their age, location and qualifications.
These classifications allow users, including journalists and politicians, to analyse the debate in all sorts of different ways. It will enable better questions and summaries from journalists, new points from commentators, more focused campaigns from politicians and better law formulation from the legislature.

Complexity Theory and Diversity

In Adapt, Tim Harford writes
"...an alternative perspective comes from complexity theorists Lu Hong and Scott Page. Their decision-makers are simple automatons inside a computer, undaunted by social pressure. Yet when Hong and Page run simulations in which their silicon agents are programmed to search for solutions, they find that a group of the very smartest agents isn't as successful as a more diverse group of dumber agents. Even though 'different' often means 'wrong'... Both  because of the conformity effect Asch discovered, and because of the basic usefulness of hearing more ideas, better decisions emerge from a diverse group."
Diversity is a central part of Interactive Democracy.

The Swedish Theory of Love

This episode of the BBC Radio4's Analysis, Cameron's Swede Dreams, describes comparisons between various economic systems and political cultures and provides an analysis of the successful Swedish Model. Apart from covering individualism, society, capitalism, unionism, homogeneity, immigration and eugenics, it also mentions the Swedish theory of Love: that you can only be sure that personal relationships are loving when the individuals are economically independent and free. The programme also briefly delves into history to explain the idea that the Swedish state is seen as a protector of individuals, not a tyrant: in ancient times the King supported the land owning peasants against the demands of the Lords. It provides an interesting view of political culture and change.

Majority of Politicians in Westminster Unellected

According to this article by Nick Clegg there are approaching 1000 Lords meaning "the majority of politicians in our own parliament are not elected"! Perhaps we should call ourselves a partial democracy.
It isn't necessary to change or abolish the House of Lords or Interactive Democracy to be implemented, but it would save many millions per year, reduce political patronage and bias. The Lords could effect policy through ID along with everyone else but would probably garner more followers due to their experience and position.

Adapt: The Palchinsky Principles

In his book Adapt:Why Success Always Starts With Failure, Tim Harford writes
"What Palchinsky realised was that most real-world problems are more complex than we think. They have a human dimension, a local dimension, and are likely to change as circumstances change. His method for dealing with this could be summarised as three 'Palchinsky' principles: first, seek out new ideas and try new things; second, when trying something new, do it on a scale where failure is survivable; third, seek out feedback and learn from your mistakes as you go along."
The first Palchinsky principle chimes well with the potential creativity of Interactive Democracy. The second suggests that local government and local trials may allow lower risk, perhaps faster feedback and smaller impacts if things don't go to plan. It may also allow data from more "experiments" to be fed back into the system. Thirdly, measuring the performance of policies against their objectives provides one type of feedback but individuals can also present their experiences on the ID site, pointing out problems and proposing changes.

Science and Politics

On the BBC Radio4's Start the Week Andrew Marr asks how far scientific evidence can influence the political agenda. Professor David Nutt is a respected researcher working in the field of drugs, but is best known as the government advisor who was sacked by the Home Secretary for comparing the risks of horse-riding with taking ecstasy. He argues for a rational debate on drugs policy based on objective evidence. Mark Henderson despairs that this will never happen while only one of our 650 MPs is a scientist. But the former Labour minister, David Blunkett, defends his profession, arguing that even evidence-based policy must take into account public opinion and perception.
One of the dangers of all forms of democracy is that it ignores evidence. Or that only the evidence that supports a preconceived policy is used. Interactive Democracy has a number of ways of dealing with this problem:-

1. It provides an open, free and fair forum for everyone, including all the scientists in the country.
2. It allows leaders to emerge from all fields, not just from the political class.
3. The debate provides the opportunity to change people's minds, raise questions, challenge and clarify.
4. The system gives the opportunity for all to rank the type of evidence presented, from heresay to empirical and everything in between.
5. Contributions to the debate can be filtered by the type of evidence and by demographics, including the qualifications of the contributor. This provides both citizens and politicians the ability to filter the debate as they see fit, for example by those holding PhDs.
6. Politicians can both contribute to the debate in its early stages, in order to shape opinion, and analyse the debate in order to help formulate referendum options, request further study or instigate limited trials and experiments.
7. New laws and policies should have clearly defined measurable objectives, reviewed by the Office for National Statistics. Progress against the objective would be published on-line as part of the ID site, which would highlight failures of policy for reassessment.
8. This should all be done under the umbrella law against lies in public life.

Such a system may not be perfect, it may be quite a 'bun fight', but it goes some way towards counteracting today's problem of politicians wielding the power to silence evidential truth.

(Further news of Prof. Nutt.)

The Bicomponent Free Market

Ha-Joon Chang has pointed out many fallacies of free market capitalism in his book "23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism". You can watch his summary lecture here.
He paraphrases Winston Churchill's comment about democracy, "capitalism is the worst economic system except for all the others" and he points out that no markets are entirely free: they are all limited by politics, laws and social norms.
Yet we feel free to choose how to spend or invest our money. The market alocates resources and makes choices by a process of individual choice and approval, punishing bad choices with loss and supporting good choices with gain. It's survival of the fittest. The best products and best investments win.
I suggest that the second layer of free market capitalism is how we 'spend' our votes. And I suggest that if we can choose policies freely, from a wide range of 'suppliers', then the best ideas will emerge. These ideas may define the boundaries of capitalism, moulding it in ways that best suit the common good. Furthermore, if the ideas are only produced by a small political oligopoly, the major parties, it is unlikely that society will evolve and adapt as quickly and as effectively as the entrepreneaurial politics that Interactive Democracy fosters. Oligopolies may be as retarding to politics as they are to markets!

The Men Who Made Us Fat

In the BBC programme The Men Who Made Us Fat, Jacques Perreti describes how some key policies in the USA led to a rise in the consumption of corn syrup.
What relevance does that have to democracy?
He describes how the economic power of the corn syrup suppliers dominated the science, leading politicians by the nose. It's a small insight into how money can corrupt politics.