Two measures are all that is necessary

It's perhaps useful for one to elucidate or at least conjecture what a society wants before one embarks to design a system to meet it. How do we find that out? Do current systems of governance allow the government to know what its society wants? I believe they do not.


First there are problems related to the Legislative Power of most modern societies. Today’s governance systems rely on frameworks and standards which are applicable to all individuals in the society. In political science terms, this would be called a constitution: the fundamental, bottom-level rules, which allow the body of society to organize and construct itself. But, as History tells us, constitutions are written by very few individuals within societies who are never really representative of the society´s desire; most often than not they represent the interests of pretty small, albeit very influential, groups of individuals. Therefore, the frameworks and standards applicable to all within a society end up being standards of these influential groups of people. However, the problem does not end there. Even if those representing society wanted to know the desires of those being represented, they would have a hard time finding it because there is a lack of tools to acquire this knowledge. Moreover, there is a lack of tools to survey society’s needs continually, in real-time, since desires change in time.

There is also the difficulty of how to implement the desires of society in the real world, which is a predicament related to the Executive Power of most modern societies. This problem arises because today’s systems allocate decision-making authority to very few people, which can be persuaded to represent small group interests. Therefore, in this case-scenario, a system could eventually emerge where society’s needs are well known, but government actions do not correlate well with those desires.

As complex as the problems of acquisition and implementation of societies needs may seem, I am convinced that only a couple of actions are necessary to correct them.

First, let society communicate their desires through a unique, universal, unrestricted, though ordered, media. This media could be a public web portal valid for all spheres (Federal, State and Munipal) of government, where legislative acts are debated and voted by the general public. As such, there is no intermediary between society and laws, which allows the translation of society’s desires directly to the constitution. In this system legislative institutions such as Congresses and Senates would be superfluous, and political parties would go back to being organized civil rights societies.

Second, it would be desirable if a government system could emerge where decision-making authority was allocated to those who are most qualified and motivated, while at the same time rewarding those who contribute and serve the larger desires of society. However, it would suffice if the society, through a singular media (such as the web portal suggested above), had the power to block unpopular Executive measures, as well as dismiss unwanted Executive personnel. Thus, the Executive Power could be directly overseen and made accountable to the desires of society.

That is not to say there are no traps in this kind of democracy. It can lead to a phenomenon called “tyranny of the majority”, where minorities may be negatively affected by the political system. It is also argued that direct democracy may lead to the fragmentation of society, due to an impossibility of reaching consensus decisions on ethnical, religious or other cultural matters. It is even argued that it may also lead to anomie, or some kind of lack of social ethic, throughout society. However, there is no perfect political system; there will always be compromises. There are advantages and disadvantages in every choice one makes, but I am convinced that the proposed measures would be the first step of our society towards democratic governance.

One should bear in mind that the near-anarchical legislative system proposed by no means translates into a lack of government or chaos. The system relies on consensus-based agreements where the political power of each and every member of the society is nearest to equal. Thus, it supports the most fundamental democratic principles: all citizens being equal before the law, and having equal access to power (the term democracy is derived from the Greek: δημοκρατία - (dēmokratía), meaning "the power to the people"). My belief, thus, is that the system emerging from those two measures would be the most democratic possible, since whatever path a society decides to trail it will be their own and not the course of an influential portion of that society. Moreover, the possible problems of a direct democracy may be manageable through normative actions.

The “tyranny of the majority”, or “mob rule”, can never be completely negated. However, the higher the social diversity allowed by the rules and the smaller the group influenced by them, the smaller the problem will be. In other words, diversity of cultural principles should translate into diversity of rules, separated by geographical areas, within the geographical range of the society´s country. Thus, rules should apply differently in separate geographical areas of a country, respecting cultural principles of each community. This is partially true when one observes the collection of countries in the planet, but there is a fundamental difference: in the planet one does not have the freedom to move between societies as he sees fit, choosing one he has the most cultural affinity. If smaller communities had a high degree of freedom to choose its own rules (while maintaining some level of cooperation with the whole society) and there was freedom of movement between these communities, then the “tyranny of the majority” would be much less of a problem. Furthermore, the freedom of rule-setting at the level of smaller communities does also cope with another problem of direct democracy, which is “balkanization”, or fragmentation of society due to an impossibility of reaching consensus decisions on ethnical, religious or other cultural matters.

Finally, anomie may be prevented if the whole society can reach a consensus on some basic principles of social living, i.e. a collection of fundamental ethical rules to be respected at least between communities, if not inside all communities.

Concluding, the way I see it current political systems employ social marketing of democratic principles, reaching a few compromises but not really employing them in real-life politics. This is a deliberate modus operandi with the intention of creating a social diversion to hide a simple truth from society: Representative Democracy is no different from Plutocracy. In order to give real political power to the people I believe two simple measures are all that is necessary. Create a media, or medias, through which each and every person within a society may be able to [1] vote for any given legislative proposal (thus eliminating governmental legislative institutions) and [2] block unpopular Executive measures, as well as dismiss unwanted public personnel.