Direct democracy is the only real democracy. Democracy means “government by the people”, you know that in your representative democracy the people do not govern.
They do not have “government by the people” in the Unitede States, in Canada, in Scandinavia, in Germany, in the Netherlands, in France, in the UK, in Australia, in Japan, in India, in Brazil and in the rest.
The hard truth is that the leaders of the French Revolution stole direct democracy from the people, and the rest did the same.
The leaders of the American Revolution they never believed in “government by people” either. That is why they set up an elaborate system to make sure the people do not decide anything; in the US and most other countries all the hard power to make decisions is in the hands of the politicians and in the hands of the judges the politicians appoint.
During the French Revolution, in. 1793, Deputy Pierre-François-Joseph, put it well:
“There is no democracy with national representation,” he opined, “and those who wish to adapt all the principles of democratic government to a representative government are either imbeciles who disrupt without knowing it, or rogues who knowingly disrupt in the hope of not losing the fruits of anarchy.”
Unfortunately, the French Revolution ditched direct democracy and embraced representative “democracy”.
The expression “representative democracy” is really an oxymoron. I suppose the French and the rest of the “democratic” world accepted it because it still was a huge improvement over rule by the Kings, the Aristocrats and the Church, bud it is not democracy.
Nevertheless, the fact is that with the French and the American revolutions, the people won the right to elect the rulers but not the right to rule. In representative democracies, in all of them, the people have freedom of expression and the power to elect, but do not have the power to decide.
For the people to be really politically empowered, only direct democracy delivers. In a way the campaigns to empower women, minorities, etc., in representative democracies, are just morsels to distract men, women and everybody else of the root problem; that power is not in the hands of men, women and ordinary people in general.
In a direct democracy it is very different, the people have the freedom, the people elect AND the people decide the issues.
Because the people decide what issues they want to decide, and decide what to do about them too, the people know they are responsible for the direction the country, the state, the province, the city, the town, the village, etc., takes on economic, social, educational, health and any other issue.
Because of this responsibility, the people inform themselves and also listen to the points of view of politicians and experts on the issues. Unlike what it happens in representative “democracies” where the voters rely on the election campaign and what the media says about “the character”, “the experience”, “the leadership”, “the vision” and other vague “messianic” ideas, to decide in which candidate to put their trust, in a direct democracy the people become the executive, and demand facts because they have to decide the issue, they do not put their trust in elected politicians, they are responsible.
This is what the Swiss have been doing for nearly two centuries. It is not coincidental that Switzerland is, by far, the best country in the World for the rich and the rest. Ironically, the rich in Switzerland have less power but are better off than the rich in other countries because the rich, the wise rich, know that political stability is the best guarantee their money is safe, and no system produces more stability than Swiss-style direct democracy. The non-rich also know that political stability is crucial for them. If to that you add the best universal health system in the World and many others “bests”, the non-rich also do very well in Switzerland.
By the way, in a direct democracy it does not matter much if the head of the executive is senile or falls under the control of its advisors, it does not matter because the people can control,even reverse any important decision.
It does not matter much either if the elected politicians fall under the control of lobbies for the same reason; they do not have much power because the people can throw out any law they pass.
But because the politicians do not have much power, the lobbies know it is not a good “investment” to lobby them hard.
For all that, in a direct democracy there is hardly any corruption of politicians; they do not have enugh power; you know the saying that power corrupts.
As a matter of fact, politicians are so relatively unimportant in a direct democracy. that in Switzerland (the only real, almost full direct democracy we have on Earth, many members of the national parliament are part-timers and the national parliament only needs to meet for 12 weeks in the whole year. It does so in 4 sessions of three weeks.
That is also why most Swiss national politicians, as well as politicians at lower levels, continue holding their regular jobs.
The Swiss system is as far ahead of the rest that most people in other countries can not imagine it exists. That is why spreading the word and the work about direct democracy is essential.
Direct democracy gets rid of nice-sounding but empty words like “liberty, fraternity, equality” or “government of the people, by the people, for the people” we oten hear in representative democracies. All we need is “decisions by the peoplee”, the rest are just verbal shenanigans.
It is time to bring direct democracy, by depowering those now running the country, and empowering voters at the expense of politicians, the rich, the big corporations and the media is the best way forward, to bring people together, to prevent polarisation and, most important, to make sound decisions.
Victor Lopez
