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.

See https://fastcompany.com/90606492/what-if-we-replaced-elected-politicians-with-randomly-selected-citizens

  • @Niquarl
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    23 years ago

    The president doesn’t appoint large chunks of the assembly. Before changing the rules, there used to be a couple of cohabitations. The assembly does keep legislative power. Proof is they don’t always go 100% with the government even when they are from the same party.

    Though I agree a change would be very welcoming.

    • @roastpotatothief
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      12 years ago

      You’re right. I don’t know why I thought otherwise.

      The National Assembly (Assemblée Nationale) has 577 members, elected for a five-year term in single seat-constituencies directly by the citizens.

      The Senate (Sénat) has 348 members, elected for six-year terms. 328 members are elected by an electoral college consisting of elected representatives from each of 96 departments in metropolitan France, 8 of which are elected from other dependencies, and 12 of which are elected by the French Assembly of French Citizens Abroad