By way of illustration, think of an issue that you care deeply about and are well-informed on. Now ask yourself if you would trust the public at large to make policy on it. For every pg, grellas, or Schneier, you'll have far more popular Becks, Palins, and Bachmanns. Direct democracy would be inherently susceptible to such demagogues, and as such cannot be seen to be any more reliable, or likely to produce wise policy, than the current system.

This statement could actually be used just as easily against voting for representatives as we do today. The real question is do you trust public at large to make a better or worse opinion than <name your representative> on some issue you are deeply informed on? In other words the comparison should be versus the existing system as a whole, not versus an expert on a single topic.

My perception of the demagogue is that their power comes from railing against the current authority. So while I can agree that it seems likely that a 'true democracy' would instantly prop up the Becks and Palins of the country, who do they blame when a majority of people vote that they are wrong? Or maybe even more extreme who do they blame when their views and proposals are voted for but still fail?

There is no longer a 'bad guy' to blame and arguments put forth by a demagogue will have to deal with two new realities-

1- They can no longer claim they are part of the majority opinion in an effort to gain further support. It'd be hard for Sarah Palin to keep up her 'regular joe' persona and reconcile it with being in major disagreement with a majority of the country

2- They can no longer claim obstruction by some authority steam rolling them in legislature. It would become pointless to argue about which pundit supported which policy or law in the past, because every individual would have their personal voting record.

True. I'm no big fan of representative democracy, it just happens to be the least bad system we've tried.

>> The real question is do you trust public at large to make a better or worse opinion than <name your representative> on some issue you are deeply informed on?

Well, yes, because they are at least (usually) experts in business or law, which are the domains that are most important to government. Some will be military or foreign policy experts, and they will (hopefully) be appointed to the relevant subcommittees. It's a fairly broken system, open to all kinds of abuses and with little assurance of wise leadership, but I still think the competence of the average politician in crafting policy is higher than that of the average citizen.

>> My perception of the demagogue is that their power comes from railing against the current authority.

I think there's quite a bit of truth in that. I don't, however, think it's a necessary truth. Hitler was a classic demagogue, even and especially after he gained power. He appealed to antisemitism and a fierce nationalism, rather than to the incompetence of politicians. While the current crop in the US gain power by railing against the established political class in DC, that's not the only possible source of power for them.

>> It'd be hard for Sarah Palin to keep up her 'regular joe' persona and reconcile it with being in major disagreement with a majority of the country.

Reconciling her views with reality has never been particularly important to her, and I don't see how that would change in a direct democracy. She could just as easily rail against the liberals in the MSM who poison the electorate with their propaganda.

Ultimately, I picture direct democracy working quite similarly to the reddit hivemind, and I'm not convinced that's a good thing. It would likely be passionate and dynamic, but liable to go off the rails from time to time.

The US founders specifically rejected that system because it leads to majoritarianism. And it would do so again, if you let it.

It would be wonderful if you could cite a few primary sources discussing a direct vs indirect legislative branch as leading to majoritarianism, whether a longitudinal study or quotation of the appropriate historical person.

You can still have separation of powers, judicial oversight, bills of rights, local governments, federalism, and all the checks we have today against majoritarianism within a direct legislative system. Direct legislature doesn't mean only one branch of government.

To put it another way, I don't believe the solution to the "tyranny of the majority" is to set up little tyrants to rule over the majority instead. Even if those were the only two options (and they're not), I would prefer majority rule to what we have.

It is now practical to have a direct democracy: If we can bank online, we can vote online. In contrast, there are 26 lobbyists for every member of congress in the US. They are not there to support the public's will but to contravene it by paying for the opposite. Over 80% of Americans (statistically almost everyone) are dissatisfied with Congress, as they should be. The representational form of democracy is both no longer needed and horribly broken.

I think that the claim that it is now practical to have a direct democracy needs some support. Can you point to a smaller group which is governed in this manner? To a working prototype of transitive voting code? I am prepared to be persuaded, but the practicality seems far from obvious.

Is it possible now to instantly poll all citizens, at any moment, on a question of law? Absolutely. Indeed we've had that technology for decades -- since the 50s at least with tabulators and telephones.

The point I am making, and which I was originally being downvoted for making, is that technology is not the point. Social dynamics are the point.

Ancient Athenians lived in a geographically small area, such that the several thousand citizens could all participate in any matter of public policy, lawmaking and justice if they so chose to. Many did so.

Periodically, a particularly charismatic leader would arise and obtain of great power. The Athenians, acting entirely within the limits of their constitution, eventually came undone. In the process they killed Socrates for asking annoying questions and wracked the Peloponnesian peninsula in war for many years, which is how they came undone.

The Romans established a Republic as a reaction to the demise of a monarchy. It was riddled with inconsistencies, but contained many of the features we now recognise as common. For example, there was one lawmaking body elected from a limited franchise (the Senate) and another from a broader franchise (the Tribunes). They tussled frequently, but each jealously guarded its privilege. Rome, an obscure city whose only natural advantage was in being found athwart a salt trade route, came to dominate much of the world while still exercising representative democracy.

In practical terms, what does a direct democracy with proxies buy us? The main advantage is, in theory, to assign power, through proxies, on topics to experts. That is, it's meant to be a meritocratic-democratic fusion.

Fine, except:

* How do you define a proxy's limits? I say "Bruce Schneier has my proxy on matters of cryptography". What does that cover? Simply voting on NIST competitions? Mandating the use of SSL in banking? Some say in the operation of the NSA? Here come thousands of nasty court cases to settle the boundaries.

* What about conflicts of proxy? If I give Bob my proxy on "the internet" and Jill my proxy on "fibre optics", whose proxy prevails when the question is about regulating Google's purchase of dark fibre?

* What about generality? We can assumably assign proxies to any level of generality or specification. Say that Ashton Kutcher, who holds 3 million proxies good for any subject, weighs in against Bruce Schneier over crypto, only holding 500,000 proxies on crypto alone. Is that the outcome you want?

* Demagogues! Bob, who has 500,000 proxies on education policy after a lifetime of careful study, experience and rumination, is suddenly exposed as being gay. Fox News hints he's in league with the devil. Overnight Glenn Beck cries a bit and acquires 2 million education proxies.

* Transferable proxies / sub-proxies. Beck's proxies cause Bob to be outvoted. Beck's viewers, who have now tuned into World's Greatest Unicycle Crashes III, forget that they ever assigned that proxy. 6 months later Beck sub-proxies the 2 million he still holds to the CEO of EvilCo. Hilarity ensues.

I just don't see it scaling.

I'm saying: eliminate Congress. Allow people to vote directly on all bills. They can read various opinions online (no advertising allowed).

> It's my understanding that the reason it was created is because technically it was too difficult to allow everyone to vote on every law.

It was created that way to prevent the tyranny of the majority.

"A pure democracy can admit no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will be felt by a majority, and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party. Hence it is, that democracies have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have, in general, been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths."

- Federalist No. 10.

Think of it as defence in depth. Do you pin all your security hopes in file permissions? Of course not: you demand randomised address layout, auditing tools and so on and so forth.

In short, you want defence in depth. Representative democracy is a defence against majoritarianism.

> I'm saying: eliminate Congress. Allow people to vote directly on all bills.

Who will write these bills? How will they be proposed? Is there a minimum number of sponsors required, if so, how many? How do bills lapse? How are they amended during discussion?

Who will write the bills? Tim Eyman, Industry Groups, Costco, and other Lobbying Groups.

Who will get sponsors? Probably the same. They'll probably pay for it. The same forces that pay for lobbyists will pour into the direct democracy process, like they've taken the initiatives.

What will we get from it? A bunch of bills, all looking for no taxes, no gay marriage, and a pony. Meanwhile, the important stuff will quietly get looted by People With Lawyers who now have no more oversight.

That said, I down-voted you. Don't reduce this argument to name calling. People are voting up my arguments; you seem to be in the minority in not finding the alternative I'm suggesting to be better. That's fine. I wouldn't belittle you for it.

Of course you don't need my permission, why would I care, I don't even know you. I just thought that you were debating on content, and was annoyed that the one person who was providing sound reasoning was being downvoted for it.

Anyway, good luck with your revolution, be sure to post back when you're done.

What I'm saying is there are 13,000 full-time employees of rich clients, each representing a bus-load of money, whose job it is to stop what people want if it conflicts with what their wealthy sponsors want. That system cannot stand. It is rotten to the core.

I'm telling you that it's not about us or the people on HN. Politics have been gamed and the people know it, and they will change it. The internet has revamped industry after industry; politics is next. You can call it revolution. You may think I'm crazy and extreme. But I (and others) see something disastrously broken and are willing to use modern technology to fix it.

Instead, attach the voter's name to the bill, as either yay, nay, or abstain. When their position is proven wrong, fine them to cover the damages their mistaken choice cost.

As is, voting is unjust. It leads to abominations like the draft.

Technologically it's already possible.

Do you think this sort of thing makes you clever? In every idea there are implementation details. What's your point?

Unless you're saying that these things will somehow be radically harder under the proposed system, and if so say how, it doesn't need saying.

> Representative democracy is a defence against majoritarianism.

No, representative democracy is often proposed as a defense for such.

We can routinely see our politicians playing to the masses so obviously if it works it's only in a round-about fashion.

It seems like you're attributing the ideas in The Republic to Socrates. Of the Socratic dialogues written by Plato, some of them were fairly faithful representations of conversations Socrates actually had and others used Socrates as a fictional character to argue for Plato's ideas. The Republic falls firmly in the latter category.

The higher legislative branch gives more weight to states as individual entities for very precisely balanced reasons. In a very real sense it is not representatives that act, but states themselves.

This has been incredibly important, because it further decouples the population from the decision. Sparsely populated states have traditionally had different concerns than urban states: the Popularist Party of the late 19th century was sharply divided along these lines.

In other words, the popular vote is disregarded because different 'types' of people shouldn't have too much power: the density of cities should not grant that population dominion over the agrarian folk.

People complained about the popular vote being for Gore without realizing that the system was still functioning as intended: the states vote for the president, their votes being determined by the population within. Those foolish states that split their electoral votes make themselves irrelevant!

In practice, the system grants sparse populations dominion over the majority. There's no well-thought-out philosophical reason for this, by the way, this was just a compromise states like Virginia had to make to get states like Rhode Island to agree to the Constitution.

Philosophically, people are people. Why should they be effectively disenfranchised for choosing to live in cities rather than in the mountains?

Not so! Populism _failed_, but it wouldn't have even had a chance to represent the interests of the agrarian states if statehood were not more important than sheer weight of numbers.

>There's no well-thought-out philosophical reason for this, by the way, this was just a compromise states like Virginia had to make to get states like Rhode Island to agree to the Constitution.

How is that not a well-thought-out philosophical reason? Balancing the needs of states is what enabled the Union. You act as if the compromise was not based in real, valid needs on behalf of the states. Rhode Island needed incentive to join. Virginia needed incentive to join. A two-senator Senate and a two-representative plus population-based-count representative HoR is the result: an _elaborate_ philosophical compromise, balancing power on several axes.

You're looking at it the wrong way: cities have much, much more by way of population. The most populous states would _steamroll_ everyone else if weighted solely by headcount, assuming they acted in unison--which has historically been the rule and not the exception.

In the United States, states are largely a historical accident stemming from the way North America was colonized. No one actually decided to establish a federal democracy in North America and divide it into states, different people from entirely different countries just happened to colonize different parts of the continent without ever intending that New Amsterdam and Jamestown would ever fall under the same American government. The Constitution was a political compromise based on the fact that thirteen of those colonies broke away from the mother country and needed a federal government. The Founding Fathers weren't gods, they were the same breed of hypocritical, self-serving politicians you see in any era, a scarce few wiser than the others for sure, but the same ugly sausage-making all the same.

Believe me, I ain't putting no fathers on a pedestal. But you seem to like putting them in a cesspit.

Is simply not true. Why did we (and by we I mean land owning white men) vote for congressmen directly but not senators or the president? Obviously the mechanism for voting was in place, but they did not use it for 2 of the 3 federal offices. They were specifically trying to distance the choice of president and senators from the poeple. It was only later that the voting base was expanded, people started voting directly for senators and the president (and technically, it's still a little indirect to the president).

Only if you ignore that pesky anonymous voting problem. I want my bank to know exactly what transactions I made when, and keep detailed logs of those transactions. I don't want some government body have detailed logs of exactly how I voted.

But I can imagine it being put into place and then being abused.

This doesn't change the fact that legislation would still take on a majoritarian tone. You'd need even more circumscription of the powers of the legislature for it to work at all; history suggests that it's at best a partial solution.

> I would prefer majority rule to what we have.

I saw majority rule in high school. No thanks.

It's not clear that this is substantially worse that legislation written for/by lobbyists.

The current process is thoroughly corrupt.

The people deciding political issues wouldn't be the reasonable and smart people who hang around here. It will be the people who stand around picking funerals, people who never graduated high school, functional illiterates and the drug dealers in the inner cities.

Is it really that kind of people, the ones who can be convinced with a few late night tv commercials, you want to run your country?

No, no it did not. Direct democracy means the legislative branch doesn't use a proxy. There are still two other branches. How is this so hard to understand?

Elected representatives are supposed to fully represent their constituents. There is not supposed to be a difference between the rep. and who they represent. What direct democracy says is that the proxy of a representative has been corrupted and is no longer necessary. That is all.

P.S. The whole notion that representatives are "smarter" than their constituents is both false (Michelle Bachman?) and elitist. Who the fuck are you to decide that people are too dumb to have a democracy? It's the same line throughout history and people have consistently proved it wrong.

I am pretty sure 99% of the lawyers in US would do a better job than me defending anyone in a trial. Every car mechanic in the world would do a better job than me fixing some mechanical problem in my car. Does this mean that I am dumb? No, it just means I devote my time to other areas of expertise.

I really cannot see why this shouldn't apply for politicians as well.

That's what representatives do, actually -- they have people who read the bills and give advice on what they think. I'm saying, like with so many areas, by using the internet we can skip the middle-man.

Socrates might not be executed (depending on the constitution in question), but he might still find himself prisoner for life because the law had mandatory sentencing provisions.

You may not like it, but it's not really up to you (or me) to decide. The people can choose to eliminate that ineffective, rotten layer.

Right.

If you look elsewhere, you'll see my notes on the particulars of the US system. We have rent-seeking here in Australia, but nothing like the scale of the US.

The difference is that US Members of Congress are basically independent agents. No party discipline, and no executive constraints, prevent them from that kind of deal-making. It's down to the peculiarities of the US system, not representative democracy in general.

Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

(Plus there's the standard libertarian argument that reducing the power of Congress reduces incentives to fiddle; but that doesn't do away with merely petty corruption).

Open government, e-democracy. The time has come.

But even those fall into strife. Politics is part of human nature; the encrustations of western civilisation and elsewhere are not arbitrary.

Maybe. But I think if you look at history, distributing power has always been the most successful strategies. Unfortunately, it's also the least popular with those who currently hold power, so it's often a knife fight.

I'm not quite sure it's as radical as you seem to think it is. Is voting for a Michelle Bachmann to vote on laws, or just voting directly on those laws, so different? Really? I'm not so sure. The internet has transformed every other industry. Can we not apply it to politics and leverage its power there?

homogenous politics

I've been arguing the U.S. perspective, and it is so divisive there that I don't think it could be worse.

Jacques, this will be my last post so: thanks for the great dialog. All the best.

Switzerland is a federation of cantons with a patchwork of different electoral systems with some mechanisms for citizen-initiated referenda.

Citation needed? Some pretty stupid ideas get through and lots of corruption (e.g. "bridge to nowhere").

>The people deciding political issues wouldn't be the reasonable and smart people who hang around here.

What kind of people do think are in the Senate/Congress? They're not the reasonable and smart people who hang around here either. And in any case, those people you so happily deride are choosing said representatives anyway.

Any problems you see with giving everyone a say exist with giving a subset of those people a say. In fact I would say the problem is exaggerated with the smaller group because the kind of people who would be good for government are the kind who would never be willing to do that job. I bet they would be willing to voice their opinions though.

Edmund Burke made the point eloquently in his speech to the voters of Bristol:

"Certainly, gentlemen, it ought to be the happiness and glory of a representative to live in the strictest union, the closest correspondence, and the most unreserved communication with his constituents. Their wishes ought to have great weight with him; their opinion, high respect; their business, unremitted attention. It is his duty to sacrifice his repose, his pleasures, his satisfactions, to theirs; and above all, ever, and in all cases, to prefer their interest to his own.

But his unbiassed opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to you, to any man, or to any set of men living. These he does not derive from your pleasure; no, nor from the law and the constitution. They are a trust from Providence, for the abuse of which he is deeply answerable. Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion."

[emph added]

http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch13s7.h...

Burke is already presaging the exact topic we're discussing: whether democracy is about the direct will of the people, or whether an elected representative has duties other than merely voting as his electors wish him to.

Remember, though, at that time the world was ruled by monarchies and it was thought that people were too stupid and illiterate to be part of their own governing.

It's 2011, and no one can debate this: It's up to the people to decide themselves whether they want to someone to override their will or to respect it. No one has the power to say, "Should we trust the will of the people?" The Enlightenment happened. You and I can debate, but we, the people, will decide.

Note the date. The Glorious Revolution -- establishing the ascendancy of Parliament over the Crown -- is more than a hundred years in the past when he made this speech. The American Revolution is but 2 years away. Before long Burke will be reflecting on the horrors of the French Revolution.

However, based on human nature, I think that given long enough time of your proposed system in place, some people will overlearn it and find a way to exploit it, e.g. to gather tons of votes for their favorite cause. We may even see 'vote consultants/strategists' that guarantee a huge increase in the votes for the cause you want to pursue.

I'd argue that referenda are more even susceptible to the problems described in the article than transparent representative democratic systems are; laymen are easy to influence, and groups of laymen even easier. In the end it depends on the population that is being ruled though - people get the rulers they deserve, and blaming the elected people while still participating in bribery, nepotism etc (while rational! classic prisoners dilemma!) is useless. But of course somebody needs to step up, like the Indian guy is doing now.

I for one would not want to spend much time on reading new law proposals and thinking about their exact meaning and implications, that's the job of a politician who is actually paid to do that.

I think its crazy that we can hire a lawyer or auto mechanic that must do what we ask, but we cannot be represented by someone that shares our perspective.

I don't think direct voting on every issue is the answer. Having the ability to pick our own delegate and change our selection any time is better. I really don't have the time to read every bill. But we can read people and share information with others that share our perspective.

Right now we must accept representation by whoever gets the most votes. And it doesn't even have to be a majority of the votes.

We also have a big cost shifting problem. People and states seek to shift costs to the larger country. That destroys any ability to weigh costs and benefits. Pushing such assessments down to as local a level as possible improves decision making.

So in the end you will always get overoptimization over those dimensions you are measuring, to the detriment of the other dimensions. I don't think there is a better solution than continuously changing the dimensions of measurement.

You'd love Hyperarchy (http://blog.hyperarchy.com/2011/07/19/hyperarchy-democracy-f...)