A possible solution to leadership failure is clear: Scrap elections and replace them with democratic lotteries. In place of elected officials would be, as the ancient Greeks envisioned, Ho Boulomenous, or “anyone who wishes.”
Instead of electing rich, polished politicians who are tied to special interests, we should be getting the masses to govern. They want to replace the entire legislature with ordinary people, selected at random in the same way we choose jackpot winners.
Wonder if this would work? I mean jurors are chosen randomly (in the USA anyway). I’m not involved in US politics, but it did get me thinking that there are a lot of problems with politics in general, and politicians. With a random process we’d also end up rotating these people like banks do for bank managers to ensure there is no entrenchment and working around the system. Can it be worse than is already happening in some countries? Clearly “elected officials” have not been shining brightly around the world.
It’s one of the two serious concepts (that i know of) for how a democracy - a system where the people are in full control of the government - would work.
There are two houses of parliament. The lower one is elected representatives. They can propose and write laws. The upper house is a random sample of society. They vote on laws. They are not expected to represent anyone - they just vote according to their personal interests.
At any time, a petition can be brought to the electoral commission on any issue. If there are enough signatures, the issue will be put to referendum. If passed, it will be added to the constitution, the highest form if law. This can be used to require the government to do something, to prohibit them doing something, or to change to way governance works. The referendum can also be to sack the government and call new elections.
Either is sufficient to make a true democracy, but they could also be combined. Each requires only small changes to a typical modern state. But the changes are just enough to give the people real power over their government.
Look at Southern Ireland, Switzerland, or California for examples of states that are closest to democracy.
Yes government itself usually operates that way - experienced and qualified officials doing the work and also drafting proposals etc, whilst politicians were the elected (not necessarily clued up) body who were supposed to approve etc. The problem came in with power and lobbying etc. Not sure how we’ll get rid of that but rotation of people is one way so relationships are not exploited, and shines some light in dark corners. Yes it is worth looking at where things do work better.
The problem is the politicians cannot be relied on to represent their electorates. Even if they are honest, they couldn’t possibly know accurately the consensus of their whole electorate on every issue.
For important issues, people have to represent themselves.