Author: victor

It is urgent because the deterioration of representative democracy may turn the people to non-democratic regimes of the right of the left. This has happened many times before.

In a representative democracy, it can happen that most voters may be against the government; if an election were to take place, the party in power would lose. But it does not matter, even if 90% of the voters are against what the government wants to do, they have no formal mechanisms and procedures to stop it.

This means that in a representative democracy a government can carry on without the support of most voters, even against their will; how can that be a democracy?

Democracy is “government by the people,” or, as President Lincoln and others put it: “Government of the people, by the people, for the people.”

In a democracy, the government must not be able to make even one decision against the will of the majority.

Representative democracies must put in place mechanisms to put the will of the people above the will of the politicians.

The Swiss used to have representative democracy too, they changed that forever, the trigger was also a pandemic…

They have now four mechanisms to empower voters to prevail over the politicians.

First, they have the popular initiative. It allows the people to change the constitution. The people can do it without the support of politicians, even against their will.

To launch a national referendum on an initiative, its proponents have to collect 100 000 signatures in less than 18 months. 100 000 signatures are about 1% of the population of Switzerland. This is very important; you may know that in some countries with forms of direct democracy, they require a much higher percentage of signatures; this makes signature collection very difficult and has the effect of killing the process before it starts.

Once the proponents of the referendum collected the signatures, the national referendum takes place; the people decide. The executive, the legislative, have to accept the decision and make it stick. The only challenge allowed is another referendum on the same issue.

Before the referendum takes place, politicians can make a counter proposal to the people launching the initiative. These people may reject or accept the counter proposal. If they accept it, they withdraw the initiative, and no vote takes place.

Another tool Swiss voters have is the optional referendum. With this tool, the Swiss people can stop any law passed by the legislature.

In most cases, the people do not object to the laws passed. But this happens because of the power voters have to stop any law. This power keeps Swiss politicians very aware they have to pass only laws acceptable to the voters.

To launch the optional referendum, its proponents must collect 50 000 signatures within 100 days of the publication of the law.

The Swiss have a third tool to control politicians; it is the mandatory referendum.

Here, the people do not have to collect signatures; the mandatory referendum kicks in when the politicians want to change the constitution. There must a popular referendum on any proposal the politicians make to change the constitution.

But they even have fourth tool; the Swiss people have to approve any international treaty, the executive can not do it on its own.

As you see, the Swiss have turned the tables on politicians; what the Swiss did is radically reform representative democracy by introducing powerful instruments of direct democracy. They kept the elected representatives but they inverted the pyramid of power; at the top, instead of the politicians, the people sit.

If you want you and your fellow voters to have a functioning democracy from election to election, you will have to push until your politicians agree to put in place measures similar to Switzerland’s, or better.

If you do not do that you are contributing to the deterioration of democracy in your country. Populism is just the first symptom democracy is not really working.

Victor Lopez

 

 

This post is three times longer than usual; I hope each sentence is interesting enough so you will read the next one.

I just watched a video that I find indignant, and indign, of the BBC, of the BBC’s program Newsnight; “Switzerland: The cradle of populism?” is the title of the video. The BBC broadcasted it on September 28, 2018. You can watch it by entering the title in your computer or phone.

The title makes it clear; perhaps there is a link between populism and Switzerland.

By trying to link Switzerland to populism the authors show they do not know much about the Swiss political system, or perhaps they are just dishonest, with a hidden agenda to discredit democracy. Perhaps they are elitists also, people who do not believe in democracy, in government by the people, and only pay lip service to democracy to pose as democrats..

The reality is not like they present it, the reality is that the Swiss direct democracy system makes it impossible for populism to govern.

Populist leaders emerge in representative democracies, or much worse regimes, because in representative democracies the people do not have the power to decide anything and, in time, they get frustrated.

In a direct democracy, is is not like that; the people still elect the politicians, but the people can decide anything they want to decide, over and above the decisions of the politicians.

In representative democracies, it does not matter if the Left, the Right, the Center, or a coalition, governs, it is always the same; the people vote, the people elect their representatives, and the representatives have all the power.

In a representative democracy, the famous “check and balances” occur only among the executive, the legislative and the judiciary; the citizens have no power to check and balance the power of any of the three. If anything, it is the opposite, as it happens in those countries when the supreme court, appointed by politicians, cancels the results of a popular referendum because “it is contrary to the constitution”.

Direct democracy is provides the most important check and balance; the only one we need, the others are phony checks and balances.

All the people in those representative democracies can do between elections, if they disagree with the executive, the legislative or the judiciary, is to demonstrate, protest, riot or turn to other forms of violence.

In a representative democracy, voters have no mechanisms to vote on an issue and prevail over those in power.

When in a representative democracy, the same party controls the executive and the legislative, things are even worse; even the phoney checks and balances go out the window; the executive can do anything it wants.

Even if at the next election, voters decide to punish those who govern, all they can do is give control to a rival party. As you can guess, the rival party, once it governs, will also use its excessive power, but in a different political direction; the people still have zero power to stop or push the new executive and legislative.

In representative democracies, the economic and social lobbies soon realise that what they have to do is gain direct influence with the elected politicians. If they do that they control the agenda.

The lobbies gain influence by “delivering votes” at election time. They do that with money to finance election campaigns. They do it also by persuading the members of their unions, business groups and professional associations to vote for this or that politician or party.

Lobbies know that in representative democracy, those who govern have the real power, not the voters. This is why many such organisations donate to any party or candidate who may win; they want to be on the winning side, no matter who wins; it is a sort of “diversification of investments”.

In Switzerland they do things differently, they still elect their politicians. Switzerland used to be a representative democracy, until they realised voters should be able to control the politicians, not just elect them.

The Swiss created the process to make sure the politicians can not do anything the majority of the people oppose. The process also allows the people to force the politicians to do something the majority of the Swiss people strongly want done.

This radical change eliminates the problems of representative democracies; in Swiss direct democracy it is impossible for the politicians to go astray from the will of the people; the politicians do not have the power to do that.

If the politicians can not go astray, populism can not rise, a simple concept of difficult execution.

Because the politicians in Switzerland lack the power of politicians in representative democracies, the lobbies and the pressure groups also know there is no point in pressuring politicians to do things the people will oppose and reject. They also know there is no point in trying to stop the changes the people want.

Populism (of the Right and the Left), demagoguery, “messianism”, “great leaders”, and other assorted political derangements appear in representative democracies. They appear precisely because the voters can not control the politicians.

Conclusion: Switzerland is no “cradle of populism”, it is the opposite, it is the cradle of real modern democracy (amazingly, and shamefully for humanity, it took 2800 years after the Greeks did it).

The “cradle of populism” are the countries with representative democracies. One of those countries is the BBC’s own country. Has the BBC not learned anything from Brexit?

But I suppose it is more comfortable to do a fake program on Switzerland than to do an in-depth analysis of how the governments, of the Right and the Left, who control the BBC budget work and, as a result, populism emerges.

In representative democracies, as the politicians make more decisions that most voter dislike, or do not make the ones the people want, the frustration of the people keeps rising.

Eventually, the people become so upset that many of them, perhaps most of them, fall for the politicians with grandiose ideas who promise to “lead them out of this valley of tears”; “to make the country great”, “to real justice”, “to real equality”, “to rights for this and that group”, “to free them from the clutches and lobbies and pressure groups, from the capitalists, from the leftists, from the unions…”

In Switzerland the rise of people like Mr. Trump, Mr. Sanders or “Mr. Brexit”, or any other populists, is not possible, because there is no need for them. The Swiss system has flexibility to govern for the majority by the majority, built-in. In Switzerland, ideology takes a back seat because the system forces the politicians to focus on the practical solutions most voters want, not ideological “magico-messianic”, politically mad “solutions”.

For example; Switzerland is very welcoming to business, they have low taxes; Mr Trump would like that. They also have better control of immigration, but they have a higher percentage of immigrants than almost any other country.

On the other side, Mr. Sanders would like the Swiss universal health care system. Switzerland has the best universal health care system in the World. In Switzerland, poor, working class, middle class and wealthy, all are covered by the same universal health system.

The poor receive the money they need to pay the premiums from the government. The only advantage the people with more money have is access to nice, but not essential, luxuries, such as a private room in the hospital, but at prices that are reasonable and affordable to many.

Swiss voters stay focused on issues because they decide issues, the system does not work them into the polarising frenzy that politicians in representative democracies work their followers into, in their mad race to gain power, almost absolute power.

So, dear fellows at the BBC, you do not understand; Switzerland is not “the cradle of populism”, it is the “vaccine” against populism.

In Switzerland, politics is more rational than in the UK, and all other countries, because of direct democracy; the people have the final say on any issue, not the fast-talking demagogues.

Switzerland is probably the only country where populism will not rise, even if a “populist” party governed, because the voters cut short any demagoguery, any grandiose or extreme policies.

It is the US, France, Germany, the UK, etc., it is the representative democracies, that are “the cradles of populism”. If populists gain power in those countries they will do exactly as those in power do now, but in the opposite direction, and perhaps aggressively, which will generate a fresh wave of opposing populists.

The BBC would do a much better public service if, instead of airing groundless programs about the Swiss, did a real in-depth analysis of why millions of ordinary reasonable people, in the UK and other representative democracies, are turning to populism.

Populists of the right and the left are also clueless about the Swiss system, even if they admire it; in the same BBC video, Steve Bannon, the well-known US “populist”, congratulates the Swiss by saying in a speech in Switzerland: “you are the most free and most prosperous place in Europe”.

It is obvious Mr Bannon does not know Swiss democracy, or Switzerland; the people of Switzerland are the most free and most prosperous people in the World, not just in Europe. They are considerably freer and more prosperous than the people in the United States.

The Swiss are freer because direct democracy gives then the power and freedom to run their country, their cantons, their cities, towns and villages the way the people want, not the way the elected politicians and the lobbies want. No other country comes close, certainly not the United States.

In terms of prosperity, the income per capita of Switzerland is higher than the US and, if you take into account that the rich in the US are extremely rich and that the poor are much poorer than in Switzerland, it is obvious the Swiss are considerably more prosperous too. What prosperity do the people without health insurance have in the US?, or the middle class people who go broke paying for health services if they do not have health insurance? Or those in debt to their eyebrows who lose everything when the recession comes?

Steve Bannon and, I suspect Trump, Sanders, the rest of populists, as well as the producers of the BBC, are pretty clueless about how much better  their countries would function if they adopted the Swiss model of direct democracy, freedom and social protection, etc., assuming the country has the collective skills to do it.

Mr Bannon is another example of an American intoxicated with the fake idea the US is the freest, best democracy in the World, it is not, it never was because representative democracy makes it impossible, Switzerland is and has been the best democracy in the World because it is the only direct democracy. Representative democracy is not democracy, it is not because, while the people elect their representatives the will of the majority often does not prevail on very important issues. In Switzerland it does, that is why it is a real (not perfect) democracy.

Nevertheless, the US still is one of the best countries in the World, that is why millions risk their lives to enter illegally, but it needs direct democracy, urgently. The defeat (fake or real) of Mr. Trump does nothing to address the root problems who gave rise to Mr. Trump and the movement he leads. If the system does not evolve towards direct democracy, in the US and other countries, the worst is yet to come. But the elites, so far, seem oblivious.

Coincidentally, or perhaps not, the Swiss consolidated their direct democracy after a pandemic. Perhaps the current one is the opportunity we need…

Victor Lopez

 

Representative democracy is another “star system” which leads politicians to think they are “leaders”, special people.

When the few decide for millions the system does not work because the few do not have the collective awareness and the collective knowledge of the many.

The star system is bad, it is bad because it leads voters to believe politicians are people with special qualities, superior to the voters. It is also bad because it leads politicians to believe they have special qualities; and that is the whole fake foundation of representative democracy, a poor foundation that is slowly crumbling now.

Dictatorships of any sort are far worse, but that is another issue.

Representative democracy is a bad idea. The fellow who came up with it is Robespierre, yes, that “nice” fellow who played a big role in the French Revolution, killing dozens every day for almost one year, some democrat!

The French Revolution was about eliminating the absolute power the French king, the French “nobility” and the bishops of the Catholic Church had over the people. This was a great idea but, like with many “great” ideas”, “the devil is in the detail”.

At first, the leaders of the French Revolution liked and supported democracy; that the people directly would make the political decisions, just like the Ancient Greeks did.

Unfortunately, it proved too hard for some leaders of the French Revolution to accept that the people would decide.

Soon, some of those leaders decided the people needed what turned out to be like new “kings”, new “nobility” and new “bishops”. The titles and the institutions changed; instead of a monarch we have a president or prime minister, instead of the nobility and the bishops we have party leaders, high-level bureaucrats, executives of large corporations, union leaders and so on. In this system, ordinary people vote but, like in the old regime, decide nothing.

The French Revolution brought rights and freedoms to ordinary citizens they did not have before; it was a huge achievement, but… having more rights and freedoms does not mean the key decision-making powers do not still lie in the hands of elites.

Because the politicians decide everything, and because political marketing campaigns present politicians as superior beings; “leaders”, people with vision, courage, character, honesty, etc., many voters believe they need such people to decide for them. They have been “educated” to believe they do not have what it takes to decide issues themselves, to lead themselves.

This is also why you see the cult of personality in representative democracies; the caravans of limousines with flashing lights, the special planes, the palaces or palace-like residences, the titles; “honourable”, “premier”, etc.; “special people” need “special choreography”; the whole thing is absurd.

Representative democracy rests on the premise that citizens need people with superior qualities to “represent” them. In reality, the elected representatives do not represent the voters. If elected representatives really wanted to represent the voters, they would consult with the voters before they decide or before casting any vote in parliament, but they do not do that.

There are many ways the politicians could vote and decide how the voters want, but they “know what is good for the people” better than the people themselves, why should they consult the people?

It is an idiotic concept; voters are intelligent, responsible adults, they do not need any politician to decide on their behalf.

We can keep the politicians, we can let them decide but with one critical change; the voters are always the final authority and can stop or change any decision taken or law proposed by the politicians

The system we need, where the citizens vote to elect and also vote to decide when they decide is necessary, is direct democracy. Direct democracy works, it is perhaps the key reason that makes Switzerland the best governed country in the entire World.

The Swiss have quashed the idea of “leaders”; this is why the highest government position in the country rotates among seven equal people; they do not need or like the idea of “one leader”. The seven also decide by consensus, and their decisions can be stopped by the people.

The Swiss did what the French could have done; the Swiss said: “OK, we will keep representative democracy, but with a twist to ensure the politicians will really represent us; we will let the politicians propose laws, treaties, etc., but we give to ourselves, the people, the power to stop anything the politicians want to do, we also give ourselves the right to introduce new laws and to change the constitution, and no politician, parliament or supreme court will have the power to stop us”.

Let the rest us grow as voters too, we do not need “leaders with vision”, we need politicians who do what we want done because they have no choice.

 

I am sure you hear more and more people in the media, academia, even the political elites, say that the people are becoming disillusioned with representative democracy.

The disillusion arises because most voters feel  politicians govern for the “donors” to their campaigns; some “donors” “donate” money, others “donate” voters.

To improve representative democracy, you might have heard of “deliberative democracy”, “participatory democracy”, “democracy of proximity”, “people budgets”, etc., perhaps there are others.

All those ideas can not work because they do not take the bull by the horns, they want to improve representative democracy but they do not want the people to have decision-making power over the politicians, which is what we need, and  what direct democracy does. If that happens, the politicians will govern for the people; it is in our hands to change the system.

Because millions of people are getting very frustrated, we have populist leaders in the Left and the Right. In a direct democracy, the people decide, they do not need leaders or parties with “messianic” solutions to “deliver us from this valley of tears”.

But, as long as most of us, ordinary citizens, continue to blame the politicians for the problem of weak, even fake, representation and representative democracy will continue to deteriorate, the final consequence is anybody’s guess.

What is obvious is that problems will not be solved if we expect the current system to solve them. It will not happen because the solution requires a rebalance of power.

We, the people, need to stop blaming; “less talk and more action”. The actions we need do not require riots or other violence; in representative democracies there is freedom of expression, at least there still is. What citizens need to do is to visibly act, speak, write, demonstrate. We must do it over and over, until the politicians are, individually and collectively, overwhelmed and surrender their key decision-making powers to us, to the voters.

It is essential to push the politicians to accept that the final decision on any law, policy, budget, treaty, etc., will no longer be in their hands but in the hands of voters. The voters will decide the issues they want to decide.

This is not a “Left” or “Right” issue; it is a universal issue. It is as relevant to all citizens as when we demanded and won the right to vote and elect the rulers.

Now we want the next step, we need the right to have decision-making power over those we elect, to ensure that they really serve the people.

Some people say: “It is not practical if the people have to decide everything”. In a direct democracy, the people do not have to do that, all that direct democracy requires is that the people have the power to prevail over the decisions taken by the elected representatives. This means that the people will use their power only when they decide they need to use it.

The elective representatives will still elaborate most laws, treaties, etc; what they do will stand if the citizens do not object.

The Swiss, the only people to have a solid, established, direct democracy, seldom challenge the decisions of their elected representatives, they do not need to; Swiss politicians know they have to govern for the people.

This means that in most issues, a direct democracy works in ways fairly similar to a representative democracy; the politicians still govern but with a big difference in trust levels; in a direct democracy the citizens trust the politicians will govern for the people, not for “donors”, the lobbies, etc., it is a huge change.

There is another important factor the people must demand;  the mechanisms to enable people to exercise their power must be simple and straightforward.

The Swiss, again, show us the way on that.  If between 0,5% and 1% of voters (depending on the issue and place) sign up, any issue will go to popular vote for the people to decide; any law, treaty, policy, budget, etc., will be decided by the voters.

The people must also be given ample time to gather the signatures; between 100 days and 18 months, depending in the issue, from the time they initiate the process of collecting signatures.

It goes without saying; the results of popular votes in Switzerland are mandatory for the government, they are not plebiscites or consultative referendums initiated by governments; the people initiate and the government obeys. That is what democracy is, that is what the Ancient Gree.ks invented. To the Greeks, representative democracy would make no sense

It is important also that in Switzerland any individual, formal or informal group, can start the process of gathering signatures; no need to be a political party, no need to have representation in parliament, no need to be a union, etc., although those can also use the provisions of direct democracy.

The nature of the Swiss process is deliberate, relatively slow, calm, controlled; there is no room for the “hot air”, polarizing, often irrational-emotional, political style prevalent in representative democracies.

If you want to fix the democracy in your country, no other system compares to direct democracy, but you have do act and stop complaining.

Victor Lopez

Representative democracy gives voters only one established tool to change the behaviour of those in power; they can vote for someone else at the next election. It is no longer sufficient. Perhaps it never was.

Finally, we are waking up; politicians and those with direct access to them, have too much political power and they push government further and further away from the interests of ordinary people. It has to be stopped because it is a threat to political stability.

The tool voters have in a representative democracy, voting for another politician or another party is not effective because all it does is shift the power to another party, other lobbyists, etc., it does not bring government closer to the interests of the people. Of course, all parties put out many clever messages and political marketing tricks to distract voters one more time, but the game has become too obvious.

Other than show their anger or riot, in representative democracies voters have no power to control the actions of the executive or the legislative, no matter who governs.

The famous “checks and balances” between the executive, the legislative and the judiciary are only checks and balances among the three powers; there is no “check and balance” the people can execute on any specific issue; they do not have the power.

No wonder citizens lose confidence in their elected representatives; the people know what the politicians do or don’t do, but the people do not have the power to change specific decisions made by the politicians, they can not stop the laws the politicians pass, they can not control over spending, they can not stop grandiose and ruinous projects, they can not stop laws passed to help this or that business or social lobby, etc.

Direct democracy fixes the problem; direct democracy gives voters power to stop what the politicians want to do, or to force them to do what they do not want to do.

That is what they have been doing in Switzerland for over one hundred years! Hard to believe, right? It is time for the rest of representative democracies to catch up, to switch to direct democracy.

Representative democracy was an enormous improvement over rule by the Church and the Kings. In representative democracy, the people choose those who would occupy the place of the King, the Bishop” and the “Nobility”. In absolute monarchies, in dictatorships or in theocracies, the people can not do that, and it is terrible.

The sad part is that in a representative democracy, those elected to parliament and to the executive have almost as much power as old the royalty and aristocracy. The result is that in representative democracies the people are still “ruled from above”; we do not rule ourselves, we just vote, it is not the same thing.

This is why the next step for representative democracy is to remove the final decision-making power from the elected representatives, and give that power to the voters; as it always was meant to happen in a democracy.

The Swiss have done it; the people there are the final authority. Swiss elected representatives still develop laws, treaties, budgets, etc.; the key difference is that the voters can intervene to stop the politicians. Voters can also propose and approve laws and changes to the Constitution.

The people of the well-established representative democracies have the information, they know what is wrong. Just as important, we have the individual and collective social skills to make direct democracy work. But we have to act forcefully, peacefully, relentlessly, like the Swiss did, until politicians agree and accept direct democracy.

Victor Lopez

Formally, those large business and a representative democracies are very different, but if you look at how they work, there are many similarities. The central one is “the people at the top make all the decisions and have big incomes and privileges”.

Look at this:

The average yearly increase in the net worth of ordinary Americans was 3.7% from 2004 to 2012.

US politicians had an average increase in their net worth of 15.4% every year; over the same period; this is over 4 times the increase for average Americans.

But it gets even more interesting if you look at the dollars. The average net worth of members of the US Congress was $1,008,767.00 in 2012. In the same year, the net worth of the average American was about 12 times less.

As time passes it looks more like “government of the rich, by the rich for the rich”.

You may find different figures but the trend and facts make it clear; US politicians, at least at the federal level, belong to clearly higher social and economic class than ordinary Americans, even relatively prosperous Americans.

Such politicians, even if they have the best intentions will find it very difficult to identify and represent ordinary Americans; they do not have much in common with them.

It you also take into account that those politicians, to get elected or re-elected, need a lot of money to run their campaigns, and that the people who supply most of the money are corporations, professional associations and assorted lobbies, it becomes practically impossible for such politicians to defend the interests of ordinary citizens.

No wonder political campaigns look like an exercise in how to use the money of the big donors to persuade voters that those they elect will represent their interests and not the interests of the donors.

The political orientation matters only in that some donors give more to progressive candidates, others give more to conservatives ones, but in both cases the big donors have great influence over the elected politician, and also over the ones that lose the election. Big donors often give to all candidates so that they do not lose, no matter who wins.

How can such government with such people (legislative and executive) be “government of the people, by the people, for the people” ?

If you look at large business the situation is similar; how can executives be interested in, or understand, ordinary employees in the companies they run, even in the shareholders when executives make, 10, 20, 100, 200 times more money than the average?; they can’t.

Their compensation packages make it worse; the income of most executives is tied to current profits; they often change companies too, why should they care much about long-term investments that will pay off long after the executive is gone? No wonder most American companies are losing know-how and competitiveness.

Something similar happens in a number of other nations.

The same phenomena happens in politics; politicians in representative democracies are concerned about “now and the next election”, not about the long-term future of thr country.

This is why we need direct democracy; ordinary people are not under the direct influence of donors, therefore they can focus on the interest of the whole country and also on the future of the children of ordinary people; it is a very different perspective. That is why Switzerland is the best governed country in the World. It is because of direct democracy.

Current politicians and executives of public companies seem to have moremuch in common with the bishops and the nobility of pre-revolutionary France. It is those privileges and money who drove the impoverished French people to make the bloody French Revolution…

The political parties fight very hard to win elections, but no party can really represents the interests of ordinary people because of what I just said. The situation has deteriorated so much that a billionaire, Donald Trump, emerged as the “defender of ordinary Americans”; it is grotesque.

Many large companies also have flashy policies about corporate responsibility; it does not seem to include their own employees and most shareholders.

In other representative democracies, the contrasts may not be as glaring as in the US, but the differences are also creating growing disillusionment, and even anger, towards politicians and executives

In what is essentially a direct democracy, Switzerland, the gross income of federal politicians is approximately 35% higher than the average income of Swiss citizens. The difference is that the Swiss people have the mechanisms to directly tackle those issues, including executive pay, the rest of us do not, but we should.

In Switzerland, the mechanisms of direct democracy empower Swiss citizens to stop any law or government policy.

The Swiss do that with the initiatives and the referendums. The Swiss people have the power to set the process of change in motion; they do not need to convince politicians that change is necessary, they do the changing themselves, even if the executive and the legislative bodies oppose the change,

No wonder 80% of the Swiss trust their government; the Swiss system does not allow politicians to forget the people because the people can take matters into their own hands.

Giving the dynamics of political campaigns, and the power of politicians in representative democracies, the most practical reform such democracies need is to adopt direct democracy, at least to the level of the Swiss, to ensure “government of the people, by the people, for the people”, otherwise such government is impossible.

The politicians, and the executives, in representative democracies should remember that the French Revolution, but also the Communist Revolution in Russia, the American Revolution, the Cuban Revolution, were triggered by money. Some revolutions end up being far worse than the “ancient regime”, but angry people want to get rid of the current oppressors, they have no way of knowing the new oppressors might be worse.

It is obvious the average voter in a representative democracy has no more leverage over the politician he or she votes for, than the average shareholder or employee has over the executives who run any public company; no wonder elected politicians and executives have emerged as a privileged class.

How can such system be called democracy? Democracy means “rule by the people”, not “rule by the representatives of the people”.

To learn more about these issues you can go to Opensecrets.org and Ballotpedia.org. They have plenty of information on the subject of incomes of politicians in the US, etc.

To learn more about income disparities in business, just enter “differences between worker pay and executive pay”.

To learn more about direct democracy, enter “direct democracy around the World”, or similar terms.

Victor Lopez

In a direct democracy voter have more freedom because they have more choice; they vote to elect a politician, like voters do in representative “democracies”  but they also vote to decide issues and, just as important, they have the freedom to define the issues they want to vote on.

In representative democracies you do not have that; once you vote, that’s it, the politicians (and the media and lobbies define the issues), and the politicians decide what to do. The voter can do nothing until the next election. His or her whole life is in the hands of the politicians. That is no good at all.

In representative democracy voters are free to not vote too. This means they have the freedom to decide they do not exist, some freedom!

But they do not even have that if they live in places like Australia, Belgium and over 20 other democracies.

The politicians in the countries making voting mandatory should ask themselves: what are we doing wrong?, why so many people may not want to vote?

They should set up a project to figure the problem out, and make changes to increase voter involvement, instead of treating voters who do not want to vote as a bunch of irresponsible idiots to be herded into the voting booth.

In Switzerland, there is one canton, Schaffhausen, where voting is mandatory; in all other cantons and at the federal level, voting is voluntary. Schaffhausen does not enforce that ridiculous law. I believe the fine is something like 3 US dollars, a joke! Perhaps the people of Schaffhausen are just joking; their way of laughing at such laws.

Schaffhausen means, literally, “sheep houses”, perhaps they are not joking…

By the way, contrary to what some who dislike direct democracy say, in Switzerland voter participation is higher than in any representative democracy, except perhaps those who punish people if they do not vote.

Some critics of the Swiss system say; “but voter turnout in Switzerland is not very high”.

Voter turn out for parliamentary elections and for referendums in Switzerland is around 48 to 50% of eligible voters.,but can go as high as 75% and as low as 30% depending on the issues.

The critics of Swiss direct democracy do not consider Swiss voters vote on many issues at the local, cantonal and federal levels many times each year. Over one year, 80% of Swiss voters vote in elections, referendums and initiatives.

It is obvious the Swiss vote a lot more than those of any other nation; they vote several times per year each year, year after year. In other countries, voters only vote once every several years.

Swiss voters also decide many issues every year; you can not compare voter involvement in Switzerland with voter involvement in any other country.

This is why I laugh when I see The Economist’s rankings of quality of democracy; it places Switzerland behind 11 representative “democracies” in democratic quality. It is another “sheep house” joke!

A Swiss voter many not vote on issues of no concern to him or her, or perhaps feels it is better if voters familiar with issue, or more concerned, vote.

Voter participation in federal elections in Switzerland is a few points below 50%. But we must also keep in mind the election of representatives in Switzerland is far less important than in representative democracies because direct democracy make such elections less important; it is not critical what the politicians want to do because the people have the last word on everything.

Politicians in Switzerland are far less powerful than politicians in a representative democracy. Naturally, this makes their election less important.

In a representative democracy, voters have the freedom vote for party and candidate, but it is not enough; democracy is rule by the people;.

In a representative democracy the people do not rule, the people elect those who rule. In a direct democracy, voters are free to elect politicians, but they also have the even more important freedom to decide issues.

In representative democracies, the voters can not go against whatever the politicians they elected decide to do. All they can do is get mad, demonstrate, riot, etc., but they have no mechanism to prevail over the politicians. In a direct democracy, they can and do so.

Don’t you think it is time that what happens in Switzerland should come to your country too? I do.

Victor Lopez

In the Congress of Vienna (1815), the Jura region of Switzerland became part of the Canton of Bern.

Many residents of the region did not like it because most people in the Jura region of the Canton of Bern speak French and are Catholics; in the Canton of Bern most people speak German and are Protestants.

Many French-speakers who did not want to be part of the Canton of Bern started, in the late 40s and 50s, a campaign to become a new canton. They even committed some arson, one person died, to bring attention to their cause.

In Switzerland, each canton has its own constitution. In the Canton of Bern, its constitution had no provisions for part of the canton to split and become a new canton.

The government of the Canton of Bern felt the people should decide. No doubt they came to this conclusion because in Switzerland’s direct democracy, politicians know the will of the people is the foundational stone of their society.

In Switzerland, the Constitution continuously reflects the will of the people. There is no “sacred” constitution that the people can not change, or that only can be interpreted by the “high priests” of the supreme court of constitutional court of the country, as it happens in representative democracies. In Switzerland, the “fathers of the constitution” are the people themselves; they directly exert their right and power whenever they decide to.

But there was a problem; in the 60s the Swiss constitution had no provision to create new cantons, unless the constitution of a canton had some legal provision to make that possible.

Bern did what to the Swiss is obvious; let the people decide, hold a binding referendum to change the constitution of the canton and allow for secession of the Jura region if the people of the Jura so decided. Nothing can be more democratic.

As you know, in representative democracies, what they did in Bern is a no-no; no way Canada, Spain, France, the US, is a no-no. In Canada, no way an English-speaking area would be allowed to separate from Quebec, and no way a French-speaking population would be allowed to create another province out of New Brunswick.

The same goes for the other representative democracies. For example, in Spain, the Catalan separatists love the idea of divorcing from Spain, but do not dare suggesting Spanish-speaking areas of Barcelona should form another region, or join neighbouring Aragon or Valencia.

In the Basque area, for far less, the separatists will shoot you, or look the other way if you are shot at.

France, Brittany, Corsica are much the same as Spain.

But in Switzerland the people of the canton of Bern voted and decided, by a vast majority (87%), that the people of Jura would have the right to secede.

It makes perfect sense; if husband and wife can divorce without violence, so should people and territories

This was the process:

The first step was to have the voters in the Jura region of the Canton of Bern, vote to find out if the majority wanted to become a new canton.

If the result showed the majority wanted to secede, another vote would take place at the district levels (districts are larger than municipalities).

If most districts voted to form the new Canton of Jura, the districts who voted against that would vote gain to decide if they wanted to go or to remain.

Likewise, if most districts rejected becoming a new canton, the cantons voting to secede would vote again to decide if they wanted to leave or remain.

But the Swiss went further; they consider how voters in municipalities, and even villages, felt about secession; the municipalities bordering on districts that separated of seceded would vote again to decide if they wanted to leave or remain.

In 1979; after several popular referendums, including a Swiss national referendum, part of the French-speaking Catholics of the Canton of Bern created the new Canton of Jura.

But this did not settle the issue; some French-speaking catholic areas who remained within the Canton of Bern, later on decided they wanted to secede too.

One such town is Moutier; 7000 residents. They held a referendum to leave Bern and join the Canton of Jura. The side who wanted to leave won. Unfortunately, some irregularities invalidated vote.

But the Swiss do not rush important issues; it is now, in March 2021, that the people of Moutier will vote again to decide if they will leave the Canton of Bern and join the Canton of Jura.

Can the people your country at the local, district, canton and national levels decide their fate like the people of Switzerland can? I am sure they can not, but they should be able to. It is time for direct democracy.

Direct democracy is about the people themselves deciding the issues on their present and future. Because in representative democracies the people only vote, they can not decide issues, representative democracies are not real democracies.

That does not mean many are not happy with them, but more will be happier, more satisfied, and the country will be a better country if they turn to direct democracy.

Victor Lopez

Direct democracy has many advantages over representative democracy, one of them is that it foster rational debate centered on the issues; it dampens the political “fireworks”.

In representative democracies it is different; we have passionate, often not rationality, demagoguery, in debates about any serious issue (sometimes even about frivolous issues) in our parliaments and also in the media.

But we have those red-hot debates for one reason; parliament and the media are the forums where elected politicians want to establish their credentials for the next election in the eyes of the voters. They are more interested in looking good, and making rivals look bad, than in resolving the issues that affect the lives of citizens.

Politicians in representative democracies are obsessed with beating rivals; they do all they can to make themselves look good and make the other parties look as terrible as possible. In a direct democracy, politicians also want to beat rivals, but the fight is not bitter for two reasons; in a direct democracy politicians have far less power, theres is less to fight over, they also know they have to cooperate with rivals to obtain the support of the majority of the people, because the people can stop them from doing anything, of force them to do things the politicians do not want to do; it is harder to co-operate with a bitter enemy.

In a representative democracy, the party in power wants to convince voters the parties in the opposition are a band of incompetents, dreamers, selfish, unprincipled people, interested only in themselves and in those lobbies and pressure groups who help them get elected. The parties in the opposition do the same to the party in power.

In representative democracies, politicians of rival parties collaborate only if refusing to would make the parties look bad. Often, they get so polarized that they can not bring themselves to collaborate even if both look bad. This is one of the reasons why the reputation of politicians in representative democracies steadily drops.

Representative democracy pushes politicians of all parties to fight bitterly because in such system, the politicians in government and in the opposition, together, hold all the political power; outside elections, in representative democracies the people have zero power to decide issues.

The heated atmosphere created by the politicians and the media also contaminates voters; voters become polarized.  At the same time, in representative democracies, the people become more disillusioned with politicians.

This is where direct democracy comes in to fix things; direct democracy acts as oil poured over the waves; it calms politics.

But, how does it happen?

It is quite simple; in a direct democracy the key power, all the decisive power, does not lie with the elected representatives, the political parties, the media or the lobbies and pressure groups, it lies with the voters because the voters decide the issues.

The politicians know this, the media know it and the lobbies and pressure groups know it too.

This shift in power lowers the political temperature of debates in parliament and in the media.

In a direct democracy, the voter decides issues, ordinary citizens care about the issues, not the fireworks. Politicians in a direct democracy know that at the end of the day the people have the decisive power. This stimulates politicians to cooperate, to develop policies, regulations and laws that will be supported by the majority of citizens, otherwise what the politicians want to do will be rejected. In a direct democracy, politicians have to cooperate, negotiate, give and take to satisfy the majority of voters, not just their own voters.

Direct democracy pushes politicians to the center, representative democracy polarizes politicians, and voters.

In a direct democracy, the voters can stop the politicians from passing a law, a policy or a treaty. This is because the people, with a relatively small number of signatures, in the range of 1% of eligible voters, can force a referendum.

Not only that, the results of the referendum are binding for the politicians. In a direct democracy, not even an unanimous decision by all political parties can stop the people from holding a referendum, neither can they ignore the results.

In a direct democracy the people can take the initiative even to change the constitution.

Even the highest court in the land can not stop or overturn, in a direct democracy, the results of a popular referendum.

Also, because the voters, the ordinary citizens, are interested in the issues that concern them, not in the “fireworks”, the atmosphere around popular referendums is far more calm an rational than the atmosphere in the parliaments nd the media of representative democracies. You only have to follow what happens in Switzerland to se that.

If you want to bring to your country the advantages of direct democracy, and perhaps even pull ahead of Switzerland, you will have to fight for a reset of representative “democracy” (which is not really democracy) to become a direct democracy and reap its political, economic and social benefits. Now is the time; the crisis is a great opportunity!

Victor Lopez

 

Today, the Swiss, again, demonstrated to the entire world how direct democracy works.

They also showed that direct democracy is real democracy. Compared to direct democracy, the representative democracy we have in other countries is not real democracy.

Representative democracy is a far more humane and overall a far better system to develop society than all other creepy regimes like totalitarian or authoritarian elites, one party, one person or one religion systems, but it is not real democracy.

Such regimes should not exist because their mere existence daily violates the human rights of all citizens, even of those who support such regimes, because they can not change their minds.

But let us go back to the Swiss because we can learn democracy from them.

Today the Swiss decided on many issues in their towns, cities, cantons (like states or provinces) and at the national level, but I will focus on what they decided on three national votes.

They voted on covering the face in public places (motivated by the burka and by security), on a commercial treaty with Indonesia, and also on digital ID.

On covering the face in public places, it looks like the initiative to ban covering the face has won. As of the early afternoon of March 7th, the initiative has the support of 53.49% of the voters. 50.92% of eligible voters are taking part.

You can follow it live with the phone app Voteinfo.

Many critics of direct democracy say that direct democracy does not work very well because in Switzerland, voter participation is not very high. Here 50.92%, so far, of eligible voters are voting, the rest decided they have better things to do.

In national elections, voter turnout can be even lower; for example, in 2019, 45% of eligible voters voted, the majority decided not to vote.

But to say direct democracy does not work because of low voter turn out is like saying that people not use the car to go to work because “cars do not work as transportation”. It is irrational to conclude that; people may not be using their cars to go to work for many reasons, even if they value their cars and will never consider not having a car.

The may not be using the car because they ride with friends or co-workers to save money or pollute less, or because parking at work is too expensive, or because by not driving to work they save on insurance, or many other reasons.

This means that to conclude voter turnout in Switzerland is low because they are disillusioned with direct democracy makes no sense either.

Swiss are happy with their system. Surveys show 85% of the people are happy with the system; go and check how many in your country are happy with the way your representative democracy is working…

Others suggest the “complicated” Swiss system causes low voter turnout. We know it is not so because when the issue interests them, up to 70% go and vote.

Low turn out can be explained by other causes.

For example, many Swiss voters may not care if people cover their faces in public or not, the issue does not interest them too much. It is logical many Swiss may not be interested in voting about face covering. In Switzerland, a country of 8.5 million people, only one hundred thousand signatures are necessary to put the issue of face covering to a national referendum. The issue may interest an important minority a lot, but it does not mean most people are interested.

It is also quite possible that voter turnout in referendums if relatively low because in the Swiss direct democracy, the people vote on many individual issues; it is unlikely one single issue will interest an overwhelming majority of citizens.

Another reason for low voter turnout in Swiss elections, not in referendums, is that Swiss politicians have much less political power than politicians in representative democracies. In Switzerland the decisive political power lies outside the executive and outside parliament, it lies with the people. This means it is not so important who gets elected.

In representative democracies it very different; the people do not decide issues and they have only one chance to decide, and only every several years; who will be the party and the politicians exercising all political power; they should turn out in huge numbers, but in many countries they do not because they no longer believe representative democracy is working.

In representative democracies all political power lies with the executive, and the legislative, which also includes the power of the opposition. In representative democracies, outside elections, the people have zero formal political power; they can not decide anything, certainly they can not decide the political agenda, the Swiss can and do.

On the other two issues Swiss voters decide today; digital ID and the treaty with Indonesia, it looks like the people will reject to be identified digitally but will support the treaty with Indonesia. I wonder if those who oppose the treaty with Indonesia because of non-sustainable oil plantations will also get the signatures to oppose trading with China and other places for far more serious reasons…

Anyway, it is time for direct democracy wherever you are.

In a direct democracy voters will decide and the politicians will obey the decisions of the people. In a representative democracy it is the other way around; the politicians decide and voters obey their decisions. Voters pay the salaries and sustain the whole country, voters should decide issues, not those voter pay to serve them.

The evolution towards direct democracy is the logical next step, but the politicians will resist it because they know they will lose much of their power. Swiss politicians resisted too, when Switzerland was still a representative democracy, they did not want direct democracy either; they only relented when the people pushed, and pushed, and pushed them into it.

Victor Lopez