Month: October 2020

Let me get one thing out of the way; while representative democracy falls short in terms of real democracy, non-democracies, or corrupt democracies, are systems that should not even exist because they daily violate human dignity.

The best representative democracies, while they are not real democracies, are light-years ahead of authoritarian and totalitarian regimes in terms of the dignity of the lives of their citizens.

In a direct democracy, the people can stop any law the politicians want to pass. This is impossible in a representative democracy, unless the people turn to massive street protests or even riots. But even in that case, there is no guarantee the politicians will listen to the people.

In a direct democracy, the politicians know the citizens have more power than they have; there is no question of them not listening to the people.

Politicians in a direct democracy have learned the people are the ultimate authority on everything. Therefore, politicians in a direct democracy will not pass laws or put in practice policies not approved by the majority of the people.

The people decide through popular referendums. The power of such referendums is amazing.

Besides controlling the politicians, the popular referendums give their outcomes democratic legitimacy, much more so than decisions made by elected representatives.

Democracy is rule by the people, not by the representatives of the people. If the people do not rule, it is not democracy.

Democracy means, for example, that if the majority of citizens decide in a referendum that every adult citizen will receive the universal basic income, then such a decision will become the law of the land. There is nothing the politicians can do to stop it; they do not have the authority.

Swiss citizens recently voted on such a referendum. They turned the idea down, for now, but perhaps in a few years, the decision will go the other way. That is democracy at work.

It makes much more sense that the people make such decisions,  not their “representatives”. Direct democracy does away with the excessive importance politicians have in a representative democracy.

In a direct democracy, the people also decide taxation levels, immigration, international treaties, joining international organizations, the building of a new highway, a school, a hospital, etc.

It is not democracy if citizens can not do such things.

It is important to realize that not even the best representative democracies of Northern Europe come close in democratic depth to Switzerland’s direct democracy. The reason is obvious, in none of them do the people come close to having the power the Swiss people have.

It is interesting some organizations that rank democracies have the cheek to put Denmark, Norway ahead of Switzerland. they say they are “better” democracies; it is absurd.

One of those organizations is the English magazine The Economist. The magazine publishes a “Democracy Index”. The index ranks democracies based on opinion surveys.

The Economist asks questions about the electoral process, pluralism, civil liberties, the functioning of government, political participation, and political culture.

But the key factors that make a democracy a better democracy are not those.  Democracy is about people’s power. People’s power is when the citizens directly decide all important issues.

The essence of democracy is not the political process, plurality, or political participation. The essence of democracy is people’s power. For example, the citizens of representative democracy can all vote in elections, and yet the country will be far less democratic than a country where only 40% vote but do so to approve a new law, change or eliminate a law, revise the constitution, etc., not just elect someone.

Those are the hard facts; Switzerland’s democracy is head and shoulders above any representative democracy.

In the best representative democracies, such as Denmark and Norway, the politicians normally pass laws after ample and genuine consultation with the people. One effect is that such laws are supported by the majority of the people. Obviously, that is very good. Such is the situation in Denmark and Norway, however, both countries are less democratic than Switzerland. The reason is plain; the Swiss people have much more power.

The Swiss people have the power to directly decide on laws, the constitution,  international treaties and international bodies. The Danish and the Norwegian people do not have that power.

If you want real democracy, you want direct democracy.

But even Swiss democracy is not fully direct, even the Swiss can improve. This means others can set up even more democratic democracies.

 

Many countries have constitutional courts; the politicians appoint the judges to decide on constitutional matters.

Such courts have enormous power. Therefore, in the US the appointment of Supreme Court Judges is always an incredible political fight between Democrats and Republicans.

The US the Supreme Court has the power of “judicial review”. This means it decides whether a law or executive action is constitutional. Many other representative democracies have similar courts.

In a direct democracy, no court decides if a law is constitutional. For example, in Switzerland, Article 190 of the Swiss Constitution states: “The Swiss Supreme Court may not invalidate federal legislation for inconsistency with other parts of the Constitution”.

In Switzerland, it is the people themselves who decide which law will stand. They also decide when and how to change the Constitution.

This means the Swiss Supreme Court does not have the power to affect the lives of citizens like the US Supreme Court does.

This is not surprising; Swiss politicians also have a lot less power than US politicians, and than politicians in other representative democracies. The Swiss Supreme court has no power to make the decisions the US Supreme Court makes, or the power of other Constitutional Courts.

It is unimaginable in Switzerland that the Swiss Supreme Court could make decisions such as the following:

In 1803 the US Supreme Court decided that itself is the ultimate authority on what a law means in relation to the Constitution; Marbury v. Madison (1803).

The people of the US tacitly accepted the decision; they did not vote to validate it. We will never know if they really agreed.

Many more US Supreme Court decisions have changed America without the people having a say. It is not very democratic to do that, to change a society without the explicit consent of the people. No wonder what we see now in US society…

Another example is Brown v. Board of Education (1954)

The Court decided racial segregation of schools violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution.

I am not saying the decision is wrong; I agree with it. But it is not the issue in our discussion if it is right or wrong, the issue is that the people did not decide. In a democracy, they should.

It is not democratic to have the judges decide on matters of such great importance to society; only the citizens should decide.

If most citizens in a society lack the sense of fairness or maturity to decide by themselves, by referendum, it will not save such society a group of judges appointed by the politicians. The politicians themselves will not do it either; only the people can keep democracy and society going.

In fact, a Supreme Court, any Supreme or Constitutional court appointed by politicians, makes intrinsically undemocratic and politicized decisions. It is much better to have the people decide.

For example, we see how the US Supreme Court looks like an extension of the Republican and the Democrat party. That is why the parties fight tooth and nail to decide if the new judge should be “progressive” or “conservative”.

One adverse effect of the situation is that any decision the US Supreme Court makes is evaluated along political lines.

Constitutional courts in other countries are not too different from the US Supreme Court.

In Switzerland, a direct democracy, Swiss Supreme Court judges are also appointed by the politicians. The key difference is that Swiss politicians and Swiss Supreme Court Judges have far less power than the people, the people are in control.

In a direct democracy, there is no Supreme Court to decide constitutional issues; the people decide them by referendum. The referendum is far less politicized than the Supreme Court. This is so because when people vote on issues, ideological lines are far less rigid.

Another important factor that makes direct democracy more democratic than representative democracy is how the Constitution can be modified.

In a direct democracy, the people directly change the constitution, not the elected representatives.

In a direct democracy, a group of people collect the required number of signatures, this enables them to propose the change to all citizens. The citizens then decide through a national referendum. In representative democracies, this is not possible; they have very limited use of referendums and none has provision to change the constitution at the initiative of the people, by the people.

For example, in the US, it is the politicians, the elected representatives, who can decide changes to the constitution, the people have no say at all. Most other democracies are like that.

I believe the way the US Supreme Court works, and how the US modifies its constitution, are two important factors contributing to the alienation and polarization we see now in the US.

The current polarization between Mr. Trump and his opponents, and between his supporters and those who support Mr. Biden and Mr. Sanders, is not the problem but the symptom of the root problem; not enough democracy.

 

 

 

Politicians in representative democracies are also very aggressive in parliament because they compete daily to create a positive public image. They do it because they hope it will help them win when the next election arrives.

In a representative democracy, politicians have heated arguments, but not because they want the support of the people for a new law or a new policy, they do it because they are thinking of the next election. As the next election is one or more years into the future, the politicians know things might have changed by them. This means that today’s fights are more for the show because they know the people can not change the decisions politicians make.

This excessive power representative democracy gives politicians, also gives them the power to continuously increase their power. Inevitably, such dynamic drives elected politicians progressively away from voters. The result is that in a representative democracy, as time passes, citizens have less and less influence and faith in those who govern. The result is a gradual loss of faith in democracy.

Another terrible effect of the polarization that representative democracy creates among politicians is the polarization of voters.

Because of this polarization, political parties and their followers often resemble fanatical “religions”. Politicians viciously disqualify each other. One consequence of this “religious” thinking is that, at election time particularly, many of the “followers” of each party feel obliged to be “faithful” and thus vote for “their” party no matter what. Even if the party has betrayed them in important promises they made at election time. Politicians know that; this makes it easy for them to forget voters, even their own, once the election is over.

Polarization also leads to uncivil behaviours; from political signs vandalized to street fights, and worse.

Such polarization of politicians and voters makes it very difficult to work cooperatively for the common good. It is almost as if the common good no longer existed; everything seems driven by the constant fighting. This is not very rational and is very inefficient.

One obvious example of the deterioration of representative democracy in the United States. In the US, Mr. Trump and Mr. Sanders are the product of the alienation of millions of voters by representative democracy politicians. In other representative democracies, to varying degrees, polarization and alienation are also rising.

In the US, it is the more angry followers of Mr. Sanders, and even more radical politicians, who riot in many cities, want to destroy US history, etc. But if Mr. Trump loses the election, it is conceivable his more angry followers will then also riot, or worse.

The deterioration of democracy in the US is happening despite the many intelligent people in government and also outside. It is as if political polarization has infected many of the “brightest” minds in the nation, it has politicized even business executives.

Another very important effect of direct democracy is that it creates more mature voters. This occurs because voters know they are responsible for what happens in their village and also in the entire nation. Self-responsible people do not need “great leaders” to lead them “out of this valley of tears” to any “promised land”; such concepts make no sense to them. As you might expect, those voters do not fall for demagogues either.

Representative democracy has run its course. We need to turn to direct democracy to ensure political stability, prevent riots and polarization of the people.

 

 

 

I apologize for not writing since Sept. 16th. (I had to get the basement of my house ready for my daughter, her husband, dog, and cat to quarantine for 14 days).

Direct democracy means voters make the key decisions, not the politicians. Two of the benefits of direct democracy are no riots and no bitter debates. There are several reasons that explain why this is so.

In direct democracy voters, at any time, can decide the key issues.  Because of that, in direct democracy politicians have to listen to the voters all the time, not just at election time, like they do in representative democracy. If the politicians do not listen, the people can stop whatever the politicians want to do.

When governments and legislators listen to the people, the people are not alienated and have no need to riot or revolt.

Not only that; when voters directly decide the issues, democratically, the people who oppose the decision will accept it much more readily than if the decision is made by politicians.

Because they need the support of the people to govern, in direct democracy political parties have also learned to negotiate, to compromise, in order to please the majority of voters. They know that if they don’t do that, the citizens might kill the law or any decision politicians make.

In direct democracy, even if the politicians from all parties unanimously agreed on something, voters can still reject the politician’s decisions. Naturally, voters are unlikely to do that if the majority of them find acceptable what the politicians propose.

Because of direct democracy, the major parties have learned the best way to govern is in a coalition, cooperatively.

But there is more; in direct democracy one citizen, a small group, any political party, can make proposals to be voted on by all voters. If the people approve the proposal, the politicians, the government, have to abide by it. This mechanism also allows for the views of minorities to be evaluated by all voters. In this way, it helps prevent the alienation of minorities.

In a representative democracy, things are very different. In representative democracy, governments and parliaments only have to “listen” to voters at election time or, perhaps, if voters take to the streets or riot.

Representative democracy also makes it easy for politicians to “forget” the promises they make at election time. This is so because, between elections, voters have no decision-making power at all on the issues. Only at election time politicians have to “listen”. Often they seem to pretend to listen by telling voters whatever the polls say voters want to hear; it has little to do with a real interest in what concerns the voter.

This is why, in representative democracy, politicians do things they never said at election time they would do. Other times it is even worse; they do the opposite of what they promised, and there is nothing the voters can do to stop them.

Even at election time, voters can not change decisions already made by politicians. All voters can do is elect someone who promises to change the law, or the decision made by the previous government.

It is obvious the system of representative democracy gives politicians much more power than direct democracy. In representative democracy, politicians clearly have all the executive power, the people have none. Such democracy no longer makes sense.

The drive for such power also makes politicians in representative democracy work much more aggressively. They fight and fight to get elected and re-elected. Winning an election in representative democracy means much more to the politician than in direct democracy.

The more you learn about direct democracy, and the more you compare it to representative democracy, the more sense direct democracy makes.

Tomorrow, Part II of “Direct Democracy; no riots, no vicious debates”.