Designing a better Democracy

[Winner]

I have a good solution...
Several people can contest for different position.
Then we put them in front of a simulator, and the one with the best score get the job.
The defense minister must win a conquest Civ game.
The culture minister must win a cultural civ game.
The foreign minsiter must win through UN, etc.

What about the minister of enviroment? Win without cutting down a single forest tile?

 

[Neonanocyborgasm]

I think we should copy them in the choosing by lot aspect. The randomly chosen representatives should have longish terms so they can learn the business of govt. This severely restricts the possibility of buying government policy, because these reps would have no need to fund election campaigns.

Biggest downside: average Americans (insert your nationality here) are probably significantly less intelligent than our typical current representatives. I'll take stupid over evil, though. And they can hire intelligent staffers (and we can block the revolving doors that go between government service and employment with government contractors).

In this case, I'll take evil, because evil at least has a plan, and with rival evil nations, you need an evil plan. As I said, a direct democracy, like the Athenian, has arms and legs but no brain. Every lot cycle, you have a brand new cadre of council members, so it's like your government has just been founded anew, and has to rebuild from scratch. Athens partially solved this problem by having elected executives, but their short terms meant that they had to be re-elected frequently in order to have a consistent policy. This means that the same candidate better be damned popular, because once he's out, the state reverts to a chicken without its head. If you hire intelligent staffers as mediators, guess who'll really be running the country? That's right, the staffers.

I actually favor a meritocratic system, whereby some objective means can be used to select those who are fit for government service. Elections can be held from among them. A separate committee can modify the system from time to time, to ensure fairness and to keep up with the times. Some means would exist for that committee to be called upon to change the selection terms; maybe a plebiscite, or a call by the chief executive, or legislature. Maybe all three.

 

[IglooDame]

@Rik: on a VERY thought-provoking thread.

Democracy is failing from one reason - people are too stupid to mantain it. Large majority of people simply isn't qualified to vote, because they don't know what are they voting for. They're making decision without the necessary information - they don't get it because they are too lazy or stupid to get it.

My solution - citizenship tests. Let vote just those who are intelligent/educated enough to pass it. The rest would still have all the rights citizens have, except the right to vote. This would not be open to change to ensure no dictatorship of the educated minority could happen.

This system would lead to elimination of the populist parties and bring reasonable politicians in charge. It would greatly improve the capabilities of our governments.

While I'm probably closer to agreeing with you than most here, I do have to ask - is there any evidence that smarter/more-educated people vote with longer-term results in mind? For example, one would probably concur that higher-income voters have in general more education than lower-income voters. However, politicians can wave around tax cuts for the upper/middle class and expect more votes. Are the voters convinced that those tax cuts are truly better for the economy as a whole, or are they voting according to their own checkbook balances?

 

[Winner]

While I'm probably closer to agreeing with you than most here, I do have to ask - is there any evidence that smarter/more-educated people vote with longer-term results in mind? For example, one would probably concur that higher-income voters have in general more education than lower-income voters. However, politicians can wave around tax cuts for the upper/middle class and expect more votes. Are the voters convinced that those tax cuts are truly better for the economy as a whole, or are they voting according to their own checkbook balances?

None I know of. But in theory, they are more likely to do so than the less-educated voters.

(if you show some strange graphs to an average voter and start babbling something about macro-economic forecast and some other weird things, he will not understand you, especially when these babbles should justify salary cuts. He will simply think that you're nuts and vote for those who promise no salary cuts and more welfare benefits.)

 

[IglooDame]

None I know of. But in theory, they are more likely to do so than the less-educated voters.

(if you show some strange graphs to an average voter and start babbling something about macro-economic forecast and some other weird things, he will not understand you, especially when these babbles should justify salary cuts. He will simply think that you're nuts and vote those who promise not salary cuts and more welfare benefits)

Ummm, see the first line of my sig.

 

[Winner]

Ummm, see the first line of my sig.

Well, that's nice, so let's try it in practice and when it fails, I'll admit it, I promise

 

[Shaihulud]

I think the first step is to reduce the overall power of the president/prime minister. Distribute this pwer to the parliament/senate. Treason and abuse of power is punishable by death, preferable to be crushed by an elephant. Office is 4 years, no re-electtion, we don't want any possibilty of abuse of the system, even if the guy is a saint.

 

[Steph]

Treason and abuse of power is punishable by death, preferable to be crushed by an elephant.

I don't support this measure. We have no Elephant native to Europe, and importing one will increase the cost of the execution.

 

[ComradeDavo]

From a UK perspective....

I want to see a switch to proportional representation to elect our politicians. A Party would need at least 5% of the votes before they became eligable for seats (this is taken from the German system of course, to stop extremist parties getting any seats).

That would be alot better then at current, where parliment is not reflective of the % of votes cast per party.

This wouild go along way towards making the country more democratic.

To add that, we should also have an elected House Of Lords...no politician should ever be appointed if we are to be a real Democracy. That also means abolishing the Monarchy and having a written constitution which basically outlines the conditions for an election, which means having one at a set time every 4 years, and deals with any other duties the Monarch has.

To go even further, I think descions of high importance (such as whether to go to war or to adopt another currency) should be put to a national vote (a referendum).

 

[IglooDame]

Well, that's nice, so let's try it in practice and when it fails, I'll admit it, I promise

Fair enough.

Now, who figures out who gets a vote and who doesn't?

 

[Steph]

Now, who figures out who gets a vote and who doesn't?

Why don't we elect someone to take this decision?

 

[Shaihulud]

We have no Elephant native to Europe,

Thats why Europe will have to bring the mammoth back to life, through cloning! When the gulf stream stops bringing warm waters and a mini ice age form there, you will be glad that you have mammoths.

 

[Ayatollah So]

Every lot cycle, you have a brand new cadre of council members, so it's like your government has just been founded anew, and has to rebuild from scratch.

We already have the solution to this problem in the US Senate, namely staggered elections.

I actually favor a meritocratic system, whereby some objective means can be used to select those who are fit for government service. Elections can be held from among them. A separate committee can modify the system from time to time, to ensure fairness and to keep up with the times. Some means would exist for that committee to be called upon to change the selection terms; maybe a plebiscite, or a call by the chief executive, or legislature. Maybe all three.

As long as there's a democratic check on the definition of "merit", it's worth a try. Especially for those representatives selected by lottery, if any.

 

[Neonanocyborgasm]

As long as there's a democratic check on the definition of "merit", it's worth a try. Especially for those representatives selected by lottery, if any.

That's exactly right.

In my system, candidates for Congress and the Presidency would have to meet a certain set of criteria before they could be elected to office. These might include completion of certain requisite education and lack of a criminal record (excluding minor offenses). There would be a department that would investigate every candidate every election cycle. If a candidate failed the investigation, he couldn't run for office. Congress, President, or a plebiscite, could call upon an ad hoc committee to redesign the standards, up to once per election cycle, if they are unsatisfied. The members of the committee would be chosen at random from some pool I haven't thought of yet. This probably won't happen too often, though, and even if it did, it will likely keep the same standards.

This is actually similar to what the Roman Republic had, except that their standards were fixed and based on wealth.

 

[betazed]

I had proposed a change in our democracy to make it better in this thread that I created a long time ago.



I am yet to hear an argument as to why it is not better than the system that we have now.

edit: link fixed.

 

[MamboJoel]

I think the desire of reelection is the biggest distortion in any democracy. It perverts the action of the elected one making him investing more efforts in his own duration than in his country's concerns. I think we should only allow one mandate for every citizen (and making it longer, 7 years perhaps), so that he's not biased by his own reelection and thus is free to run needed reforms and policies he's been elected for. There is a difference between what we want and what we need.

 

[willemvanoranje]

A full democracy does not work.. does anyone know Michel's iron law of oligarchia? A full democracy would lead to no decissions ever being made..

 

[willemvanoranje]

is there any evidence that smarter/more-educated people vote with longer-term results in mind?

Not sure about that.. but in general the higher educated are the ones that make the participation in a democracy. It's the higher educated and their participant culture that make a democracy. The lower the education, the less participation. A big amount of the population does nothing more than vote: subject culture. And of course there's even the ones not voting at all, and even somewhat indiferent of the existence of a central government...parochial culture.

 

[betazed]

While I'm probably closer to agreeing with you than most here, I do have to ask - is there any evidence that smarter/more-educated people vote with longer-term results in mind?

I can ask you another related question which is simpler to answer.

Is it more reasonable to assume smarter/more-educated people vote with longer-term results in mind than to assume that they do not?

The answer to that is an unqualified yes, because only smart/educated people can see the long term consequences in teh first place. So why not assume that it is so. If the assumption is incorrect then basically what you have is status quo. If the assumption is correct then you have potential for great benefit.

However, I do agree that this assumption (an assumption that I made in my earlier thread) should be put to rigorous statistical testing.

 

[EdwardTking]

If you show some strange graphs to an average voter and start babbling something about macro-economic forecast and some other weird things, he will not understand you, especially when these babbles should justify salary cuts. He will simply think that you're nuts and vote for those who promise no salary cuts and more welfare benefits.

Maybe, but they will more likely think that you are a crook, and
that their salary cut goes to benefit the people at the top.

And there are, certainly in the UK and USA, plenty of
statistics to indicate how chief executives have increased
their salaries much faster than that of ordinary people.