Just like I hire a person to fix my car, or hire a person to fly the planes I sometimes travel on, we hire people to handle running the country for us. It's an abstraction of labor. I really don't want to be bothered with every little tiny decision about budget or foreign policy.
That said, people in the US are so busy that they don't have any time at all to even make informed decisions on who to elect to run the city/state/country for them. This is a problem...people need to work less, but good luck solving that one with a crippled economy and enormous wealth disparities.
In principle, I agree with you...we have the technology to allow referendum voting, and it would certainly make for a more representative government. However, I think time, understanding, and human nature are large barriers. Also, don't think that just because people can vote directly means they won't be easily swayed by ruling-class propaganda. A good example is when cities try to install their own fiber infrastructure and Comcast rolls in and convinces everyone it's somehow communism. That doesn't go away just because people have a more direct rule.
I think a representative republic still makes sense for our day and age. Gerrymandering is a huge issue and should be dealt with...along with lobbying and other forms of (very obvious) corporate intervention in our republic.
I think allowing to specify what percent of your tax goes into what 'pre-canned' list of causes, would allow a way for folks to influence the politicians outside of the 'election process', and, without, full blown on-line-referendum surveys for all the issues.
Clearly, the above would bias some of the decision making power away from low-income populous, however this can be addressed by some form of weighting and thresholds.
The problem is, I, and the typical taxpayer, is not qualified to make an informed decision about budget allocations. When I want to know where to spend my tax dollar, It is not sufficient to know how I value the causes, but rather how I value them relative to their existing budget allocations, and how useful additional money would be to them.
For instance, I may value national defense and our military in the abstract. However, if I look at the actual budget, think we overspend and that the marginal value of an additional dollar is small because of diminishing returns.
In contrast, I am sure that there are government programs that provide me great benefit but that I do not know or think about. This proposal would require every government cause to engage in large scale marketing, which is wastefully expensive, and would likely result in inefficient allocations.
>Clearly, the above would bias some of the decision making power away from low-income populous, however this can be addressed by some form of weighting and thresholds.
We could avoid this problem entirely by giving every voter an equal slice of the government budget to allocate.
Actually, I think that some people would specialize in providing good allocations for people to use. After all some people specialize in providing good stocks to pick, or good collections of parts to build a computer out of, or good combinations of ingredients to make a recipe.
So I think that people would have no problem finding someone who they trust who has taken the time to identify the best places to spend government money without a huge large scale marketing scheme being necessary.
I think, my recommendation, would create more informed voter base. Mostly because lobbyist would have to reach out to the voters, rather than to the politicians.
Additionally, perhaps, letting a voter to 'forego' his/her right for the allocation could be allowed. This way you can choose to forego the right, while others would keep it.
Lobbyists currently do not even need to use propaganda. They just need to provide a sufficient monetary reward to the smaller number of people's "representatives". It is much easier to bribe/suborn a few people than the entire electorate.
> Just like I hire a person to fix my car, or hire a
> person to fly the planes I sometimes travel on, we
> hire people to handle running the country for us. It's
> an abstraction of labor. I really don't want to be
> bothered with every little tiny decision about budget
> or foreign policy.
Except you're not getting a choice about any details, large or small. In actuality it is entirely unclear what you are getting to choose at all apart from which person you imagine, might, against hope, history and evidence maybe do something you agree with.
I am proposing that fundamental policy matters: taxation, foreign wars, climate change accords, trade deals be dealt with directly.
The smaller details can be handled by experts in order to free up our time to watch football games, catch up on soap operas and paint our nails.
>Just like I hire a person to fix my car, or hire a person to fly the planes I sometimes travel on, we hire people to handle running the country for us.
This could easily still be done with referendum voting, by allowing people to appoint SMEs as proxies for relevant issues.
>That said, people in the US are so busy that they don't have any time at all to even make informed decisions
Neither does congress, because most of their time is spent begging for money and selling legislation. So much so that they regularly pass bills that was neither authored by a congressman nor read by many of those who voted for it.
That said, people in the US are so busy that they don't have any time at all to even make informed decisions on who to elect to run the city/state/country for them. This is a problem...people need to work less, but good luck solving that one with a crippled economy and enormous wealth disparities.
In principle, I agree with you...we have the technology to allow referendum voting, and it would certainly make for a more representative government. However, I think time, understanding, and human nature are large barriers. Also, don't think that just because people can vote directly means they won't be easily swayed by ruling-class propaganda. A good example is when cities try to install their own fiber infrastructure and Comcast rolls in and convinces everyone it's somehow communism. That doesn't go away just because people have a more direct rule.
I think a representative republic still makes sense for our day and age. Gerrymandering is a huge issue and should be dealt with...along with lobbying and other forms of (very obvious) corporate intervention in our republic.