Author: victor

Town of Bernex, Switzerland.

Bernex is a town of about 10 000 people near the City of Geneva, in the French-speaking area of Switzerland.

In 2019, the municipal government of the town decided that it would be good for the community to get a loan for about 2 million US dollars to add 5 stops to the streetcar line of the TCOB. The TCOB is a transportation system that serves the City of Geneva and its surroundings.

After reviewing the reports by the municipal Committee of Economy and Safety, and also the Committee of Finances and Administration, the Municipal Council felt that the development of the 5 streetcar stops was a project that would benefit the town.

In view of that, the municipal council of Bernex approved the decision to apply for a loan of 1 960 000.00 Swiss Francs (2 178 000.00 US Dollars) to finance building the stops.

The project approved by the Council detailed the size of the stops, the solar electric panels that would cover the stops. The project stated the solar power generated would save the town 556 000.00 US Dollars in its power bill over 30 years. The stops would also have selective recycling bins and  local information panels, as well as places to park bicycles, etc.

The Council approved the decision, with 12 votes in favor and 10 against.

In other places, probably in your town, that would be the end, and the project would go ahead. But in Switzerland is not like in most places. In Switzerland, ordinary citizens can call a referendum. I mean, the citizens call the referendum, not the Municipal Council. It is not a consultative referendum either; one of those the authorities can ignore. In Switzerland, the results of a referendum are binding. The people are the ultimate authority.

This means that if a majority of the residents of Bernex vote “non” (Bernex is in French-speaking Switzerland), then there will be no loan and no streetcar stops. If the majority votes “oui”, then the decision of the municipal government will go ahead.

In Bernex, if a person or a group of friends gets 8% of the residents to sign the demand for a referendum, then the town must hold a binding referendum.

In the case of Bernex, which has a population of 10 000, 800 signatures were necessary. The proponents of the referendum also had to collect the signatures within 4 months of the publication of the decision by the Municipal Council.

The group of citizens collected the required 800 signatures, and they did it within the 4-month deadline.

The citizens arguing against the plan argued that the size of the stops was unnecessarily large and that this went against the Town’s environmental goals.

They also stated the municipal council underestimated the cost of the solar panels and that the overall cost of the project was excessive.

The citizens proposed an alternative plan to save the town 1 667 000.00 US Dollars.

The town called the referendum and published the document explaining the contents of the municipal council proposal. The document also included the proposal presented by the concerned citizens who oppose the project.

The documentation also included the recommendations of the local political parties. Some parties were in favour of the project, some weren’t.

In the document, the municipal council asked the citizens to vote “oui” to the plan approved by the council.

Also, in the document, the citizens asked voters to reject the project and vote “non”.

The people voted on Sept 28, 2020.  The turnout was 58.78%. 39.58% of voters said “oui” to the municipal council proposal, 60.42% voted “non”.

This means that the project, as presented by the authorities, is dead.

Why can’t you decide in your town like the people of Bernex decided in Bernex, and like they also do all over Switzerland, in towns, cities, even at the national level?

You pay the taxes, shouldn’t you decide?. Why are you unable to stop the building of a new street, a new roundabout, a new school, etc.? Why can’t you propose projects and bylaws in your town?

You can’t because the politicians in your town and country do not want you to curtail their power to decide.

The Swiss people had to press, press, and press their politicians until they relented. Do that too in your country, to give yourselves genuine power.

 

 

 

 

This post is not about the current dispute in the US about possible cheating in the presidential election. It is about showing how direct democracy would have prevented it.

The post is about illustrating how in a direct democracy election cheating is far less likely to happen. Even if it happened, it would not be as important as in a representative democracy.

In a direct democracy, parties and candidates do not fight like they do in a representative democracy. The reason is simple; winning or losing does not mean as much, because winning does not mean “power” like it does in a representative democracy.

Direct democracy is about the people making the important decisions about budgets, social programs, the economy, major public expenses, taxes, health system, education, treaties with other countries, etc. In a direct democracy, the people also have power over the laws and the constitution.

When the people have the final say, the elected representatives do not. This means they do not have the incentives to do what we see; to aggressively fight, or to cheat.

In a direct democracy, the elected representatives in the executive and the legislative have no power to raise or lower taxes, to make major public expenditures, to sign treaties, to make or change laws, change the constitution, etc., without the approval of the people.

That is why a direct democracy works better and is more stable than a representative democracy, provided that the people have common sense and respect for each other.

In a direct democracy, the people have double power; power to stop the elected representatives in the executive and the legislature, but they also have power to introduce new laws and to change the constitution. As you know, in the US, and in any other representative democracy, the people do not have that power.

The power of voters in a direct democracy, to stop the money from going where the lobbies want, prevents decisions favouring particular interests at the expense of the common good.

With less power in the hands of politicians, the current bitter fights between Trump and Biden, between Republican and Democrat senators and congressional representatives, to get elected would not happen.

In a direct democracy, winning is not so important because, whoever wins, can not do much without the consent of the voters.

In a representative democracy, “voters vote and the politicians forget about them until the next election.” In a direct democracy, “voters vote and have the power to make sure the politicians do not forget them”.

Perhaps in your country the fights for power are not as aggressive as in the United States, but if you have a representative democracy, your politicians have too much power. Control by relying on elections is weak control, as you probably know.

Representative democracy is more like an elected oligarchy; while in power, the elected representatives do anything they want.

Representative democracy is heads and shoulders about any other regime; autocratic, authoritarian, one-party rule or one-religion rule, and that is good. But representative democracy is not really a democracy when you compare it with direct democracy.

If you would like to make things better, you can bring real democracy to your country.

 

other regime; autocratic, authoritarian, one-party rule or one-religion rule, and that is good. But representative democracy is not really a democracy when you compare it with direct democracy. 

If you would like to make things better, you can bring real democracy to your country.

 

If you are tired of the fights, tired of the polarization, tired of politics infiltrating every institution, you can do two things; you can continue to be tired, or you can do something.

You should do something because if you don’t things will not get better. They will get worse because of the excessive power we give politicians allows them to accumulate more power, decade after decade.

Such power does not mean directly oppressive power, it often means control by executive decisions, laws, regulations, allocation of budgets, etc.

In a representative democracy, politicians have all the decision-making power. When we elect them we give them the authority to decide for us. Between elections, representative democracy has no formal, effective mechanism to have the will of the people prevail on any issue. Protests are not enough; they are the symptom of the problem.

If the politicians pass a new law, raise taxes, lower them, establish a minimum wage, remove it, nationalize health care or privatize it, the will of the majority has no way of being expressed and prevail on those issues.

All the majority can do in a representative democracy to reverse the changes, is wait for the next election and put another party in power. Hopefully, the new government will undo what the previous government did. Unfortunately, the new party in power rarely changes things; perhaps they prefer to avoid the controversy, or they find other issues more important. What they never do is reduce the power of government.

That is the weakest point of a representative democracy; the people do not control the decisions of politicians at the time they make them.

Democracy is “government by the people”,  it should not be “government by the representatives of the people”.

The way it works turns representative democracy into an elected oligarchy. It is a tremendous improvement over totalitarian or authoritarian regimes, but is not real democracy.

Another problem of having politicians deciding is that politicians look at issues through ideology, and also to win the next election, or the interests of the lobbies who influence them, or both.

Because of that, in a representative democracy, it is very difficult for politicians to keep the common good at the forefront; the system forces politicians to behave the way they do. To change that, you need to change the system.

In a direct democracy, things are very different because the people directly decide the issues; they decide based on the interests of the majority, as it should be in a democracy.

Some people say that direct decision-making by the majority can turn into “the tyranny of the majority”. Switzerland, the only direct democracy humanity has now, shows decade after decade, how the majority does not fall into that mistake.

Most voters are intelligent and they know that if they use direct democracy to oppress minorities, it will be impossible to live in harmony and peace

If most of the people do not have the common sense to understand that fairness is crucial, representative democracy will not survive either. We have seen how representative democracies have turned into totalitarian regimes. We have not seen that in a direct democracy.

I repeat what I said at the beginning; if you tired of the fights, tired of the polarization, tired of politics infiltrating every institution, you can work to bring direct democracy to your country.

You can do what the Swiss did. The Swiss had representative democracy, but they switched more than a century ago; they have not looked back. You probably also know Switzerland is the most stable and prosperous democracy in the World.

Direct democracy means the people don’t just vote to elect representatives. In a direct democracy, the people also vote to decide issues. This means they have more executive and legislative power than the elected representatives.

But to assume such responsibility, the voters need more self-confidence, and also more information, than the voters in a representative democracy. The reasons are obvious; they need more self-confidence because they are directly responsible for how the country functions. They also need more information to exercise added responsibility.

Self-confidence and information are related; people feel more confident when they have better information on the issues.

In a direct democracy, the voters can no longer blame the politicians because the voters have the power.

Some people fear direct democracy and refer to it as “mob rule”. Mob rule has nothing to do with direct democracy. Direct democracy is about deliberate, orderly discussions and debates, followed by orderly, free, and fair voting by informed voters.

To get a real, fact-based view of what real direct democracy is about, enter in your computer or phone: “Swiss direct democracy”. On the Web, you will find lots of information about efficient and effective direct democracy. Switzerland can still improve its direct democracy, but that is another topic.

You may also be aware direct democracy does not work so well in other places. But that is not because of direct democracy. The problem is they do not really practice direct democracy, California is one example.

California’s direct democracy is not really so because, for example, the judges can throw out a decision made by the people in a free and fair referendum. In a direct democracy, the judges can not overturn the results of a referendum. How can that be direct democracy? it makes no sense.

Direct democracy also develops the maturity, sense of responsibility, sense of ownership of voters.

Maturity and responsibility also means that in a direct democracy, voters can no longer say, and do not say, what voters in representative democracies often say; “it is the politicians!”, “the bureaucrats!”, “the lobbies!”, “the political parties!”, “the rich!”, “the judges!” and on and on.

In a direct democracy, the voters have the power to pass new laws, reject laws, change the constitution, reduce taxes or raise taxes, purchase new fighter jets for the air force, legalize same-sex marriage, sign a treaty with another country, stop using nuclear energy or fossil fuels, build a new road or public swimming pool, etc.

How do you prepare ordinary voters to evolve into direct democracy voters? It is simple; ordinary, reasonable people can understand complex political issues in the same way ordinary people already understand other complex issues.

For example, juries of ordinary people have to decide if someone is guilty or not guilty. To reach their decision they have to understand the lawyers, the expert witness, the judges, and the law. Families also have to understand the legal implications of mortgages, etc.

Ordinary voters are really not different from elected politicians. Most politicians are not experts on most of the issues on which they vote either.

You know most politicians are not experts in technology, health, education, etc., but they pass laws on all those issues. They learn by listening to experts, getting to know different points of view, through discussions, watching debates, etc.

That is how they understand if the new law is necessary, what the law should say, if the army needs new equipment or any other issue. Most voters can also learn the same way.

You may like direct democracy, but to make it happen you have to work. Direct democracy is the natural evolution for representative democracy, but the evolution needs “help” because most politicians prefer representative democracy. They prefer it because it gives them more power.

There may be many reasons but I believe the key reason is the lack of voter training in decision-making. Deciding who to vote for is far simpler than making executive decisions.

Most people are educated to obey, not to decide and live with the consequences.

When kids go to school, we teach them subjects. They are also taught to behave, to share, to respect others, to express themselves, etc., but we do not teach them to decide on issues that affect their daily lives as students.

Kids have no say on when to take a break, where to seat, what are the most comfortable chairs to buy, how long a class should last, what would be a fair punishment for misbehaving or the right reward for good behaviour or for good marks, or if there should be marks at all, what sports to play, etc.

As kids grow up, in high school and university, the same pattern continues. Students have no real say on how the school or university functions, other than through demands and protests. They do not decide on how the school or university runs; mostly their role is passive.

At work, in most business and public services, employees have to do as they are told. They do not decide on how to manage the organization.

As voters, we elect someone, but that’s it. We do not have the power to make executive decisions, to decide on laws, treaties, taxes, etc.

Direct democracy can only function if most voters feel comfortable deciding, but decision-making requires “training”.

There is more; being trained, mostly to obey, has other negative consequences. One of those is that it predisposes us to look for someone to tell us what to do; we look for “leadership”.

But that happens because we have not experienced that a decision, rationally, calmly discussed by the citizens, by the people, is superior to the decision made by one person or a small group provided, of course, that the most capable also participate in the discussion. Such collective decisions are also more readily accepted by those affected by it.

Let me say also that the Greeks invented direct democracy, not representative democracy. The difference is that in a representative democracy, the people elect those who decide, in direct democracy, the people decide.

The push for democracy started again in the XVII century. Unfortunately, almost 1700 years had passed since Greek direct democracy; society was not ready for direct democracy and settled for representative democracy. But the time has come to go all the way.

Representative democracy is not “rule by the people”; it is “rule by those elected” by the people. The executive power lies with the elected representatives, not with the people.

The ancient Greek democrats would consider current representative democracy as government by the oligarchic class. The class made up of politicians, political parties, lobbies, and opinion leaders. That our “oligarchs” are elected would not change the assessment ancient Greek democrats would make.

The growing dissatisfaction with representative democracy, in many established representative democracies, is the logical result of not being democracies.

There is only one modern country that has adopted direct democracy, although not completely; Switzerland.

Why Switzerland became a direct democracy at the national level has its origins in the ancestral “village and town square assemblies” of the 12^th century, and also from Greek influence through the French and American Revolution.  As we see now both, the French and the Americans have not gone beyond representative democracy, not yet.

In modern Switzerland, the popular referendum came about after the elected government in Zurich mismanaged an epidemic, the people of Zurich decided “we can manage this ourselves”. From Zurich, it spread to the rest of Switzerland

At first, the Swiss elected representatives did not like direct democracy and opposed it, but now they accept it. Even better, often it is the Swiss politicians who push for important decisions to be taken to the people.

As you might have guessed, the Swiss people do not look for “leaders with a vision” to guide them; they have learned to lead themselves.

If you like direct democracy for your country, start by pushing for it in schools, and at the local level. They will be good “training” to bring direct democracy at the regional and national levels; it will be the first step to fill the gap in our thinking about the ability of voters to make executive decisions.

On paper, California’s direct democracy is fairly similar to Switzerland’s, but the way they work is miles apart, because words are not facts.

Let us look at how Switzerland deals with the issue we addressed in the previous post; legalization of same-sex marriages.

The Swiss, in a 2005 referendum, legalized same-sex partnership or unions, not same-sex marriage, just unions.

There is no appeal in Switzerland against what the people decide in a referendum; no government or judge can overturn it.

One option, for those not satisfied with the results, was to keep working until they can have the 50 000 signatures required to hold another referendum. In the new referendum, most voters may agree with them in whatever new proposal they make to legalize same-sex marriage.

Another option was that a political party in parliament introduce a motion to make a new law recognizing same-sex marriage.

In 2013, The Green Party of Switzerland introduced in the Swiss Parliament a motion to develop a new law to legalize same-sex marriage.

After much debating and negotiating, in 2020 the new draft law has cleared, by a large majority, the lower house of the Swiss Parliament. In November 2020, the upper chamber will vote too. It is expected the upper chamber will also pass the law.

Surveys show that today, the overwhelming majority of Swiss voters, even a majority of voters of the more conservative parties, support making same-sex marriage legal. This means it is unlikely anyone will challenge the new law in a referendum. If so, the new law will become the Swiss law on same-sex marriages.

However, if within 100 days, an individual, a group of individuals, or a political party, gathers the 50 000 signatures necessary to take the new law to a referendum, and if in the referendum, the voters reject the new law; it is back to the drawing board.

This is how direct democracy works; it is in the hands of the people. It adjusts to the changes in attitudes and values of the people.

Some people say that in California direct democracy is not working very well, they are right. It is not working because California does not have a real direct democracy. This will be so as long as the judges can prevail over the will of the people, as we showed in the previous post.

Representative democracy lacks the mechanisms, that direct democracy has to be continuously in tune with the will of the people.

In a direct democracy, the people who want change accept that their fellow citizens democratically may turn down the change they want. They accept the decision because the system gives them plenty of opportunities to convince their fellow citizens they should change a law, that we need a new law, or that the constitution itself needs revision.  This fosters civilized debate and makes most demonstrations unnecessary and prevents riots.

If you want a society where change is smooth and gradual, a society where votes really count, because voters make the most important decisions, direct democracy delivers what you want.

A substantial number of people say direct democracy does not work. They point to California as one example. It is the other way around; California direct democracy is not working very well because it is almost “fake direct democracy”.

In California and a few other American states, the people have the power to pass certain new laws, but the courts still have more power than the people. Direct democracy is impossible that way.

For example, the people of California passed Proposition 8.

This is what happened; many people in California opposed same sex marriage in the early 2000s. California law allows for citizen’s initiatives and referendums. They collected the required number of signatures, near one million, to have all the people of California vote on their proposition. The proposition wanted to have same sex marriage declared illegal.

The people voted and the proposition won; the people decided, by approximately 52% against 48%, that same-sex marriage would be illegal in California.

The people who lost took the proposition to the courts. This is possible because in California the people do not have the last word. This is so because California is a representative democracy, not a real direct democracy, never mind the talk about “California’s direct democracy”. California has some elements of direct democracy, but not enough of them, not the crucial one.

After several legal battles in California’s courts, the issue landed in the Supreme Court of the United States.

The Supreme Court decided that Proposition 8 was not constitutional, never mind what California votes decided, some sovereignty!

There you have it; 9 justices elected by the politicians, not even elected by the people, decided what the people of California formally decided does not really matter.

The 9 Supreme Court judges declared proposition 8 “unconstitutional” and that was it, Proposition 8 is dead.

Even if 99% of the people of California had voted in favour of Proposition 8, the judges would have it thrown out.  Where is “government of the people, for the people by the people” in that?, nowhere.

At the US national level, the situation is even worse; there is no opportunity at all for the people to do anything even close to what the people of California tried to do, which is not much.

Let us note that same sex partnerships, but not marriage, were legal in California since 1999; the people of California did not want same sex unions to be marriage, they did not oppose the law recognizing homosexual unions. They wanted the word marriage reserved for heterosexual unions.

Tomorrow I will look at how Switzerland is dealing with the same issue, using the tools of direct democracy, in a much sounder way.

One huge advantage the Swiss have is that they have direct democracy at all levels of government; at the federal level, at the state (canton) level, and at the municipal level. Because of that, they have developed a culture of direct democracy. It was not always like that; in another post I will write about how Switzerland was able to evolve and show the way to others.

Contrary to the Swiss, the people of California have very limited direct democracy, and none at the national level. This means California voters have no say in the most important laws and decisions that affect them. This makes it more difficult for voters to develop their sense of being the executive decision makers.

The Swiss, again, show that direct democracy provides for better governance.

 

 

 

Direct democracy means the people have freedom of expression, freedom to decide who governs, and the freedom and power to make executive decisions that prevail over the decisions of politicians and judges.

If the people have the first two but do not have the power to decide on issues and laws, then democracy falls short; it contradicts what democracy is about when the people are not the final decision-makers on issues.

The reason is simple; when the elected representatives, or the highest court in the land, have more power of decision than the people, then it is not a democracy.

When the people fought for and gained the power to decide who governs, they made a tremendous improvement over totalitarian and authoritarian regimes, one-party system regimes, religious regimes, absolute kings, and so on.

But that advance is no longer enough.

When you elect your representatives, you have representative “democracy”. Unfortunately, in representative “democracy”, the elected representatives, the politicians have all the executive power, as the old regimes did; together, the executive, the legislative, and the judiciary have all the power of decision.

The politicians also control de judiciary because they elect the judges of the highest court. They do not control the decisions of the judges, but they control who becomes a Supreme Court Judge and that gives them even more power.

In a democracy it can not be like that; the vote of the people must be the decisive power on all laws and on the constitution itself.

Representative democracy does not require approval by the people of the decisions of the executive, the legislative, or the judiciary. The opposite happens; the majority of the people may oppose a decision, but it has no effect.

So, here you have it; in representative democracies, the people are sovereign, but not really. The people have no executive power on anything, they just elect the politicians.

For example, the preamble to the Constitution of the United States says: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more Perfect Union, establish Justice, insure Domestic Tranquility, provide for the Common Defense, promote the General Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to Ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

I mention the United States because it is the better known representative democracy, but the Constitution of your country probably says something similar; that the people are “sovereign”, that the people are the source of all authority, etc.

So, if the American people “… do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America”, you would think the American People have the authority to revise, modify and replace the constitution, and do the same with all laws made under the Constitution.

Unfortunately, it is not like that. The people can not modify directly the Constitution of the United States, no matter how many want it. The American people do not have the power to do that, only the elected politicians can do it, and only the Supreme Court can decide if this or that law is constitutional.

The American people can write, speak, agitate, march, protest, riot, and they do, to change laws. Sometimes, protests prod the politicians into action to pass a new law, or to modify an existing one. Other times, they ignore the protests. The American people were sovereign only once; when they created the Constitution.

We also know protests do not always represent the will of the majority. This means that in a representative democracy you have situations where government passes a law that may be opposed by the majority. In democracy, that is not rational.

The American people do not have any established mechanism to make decisions collectively. This has to change.

It is interesting that some representative democracies practice timid forms of direct democracy. I say timid because they appear to let the will of the people prevail on issues, but when it comes to the hard facts, they don’t.

Tomorrow I will look at timid California’s direct democracy to illustrate this.

 

I believe it is.

Democracy means rule by the people, not rule by the representatives of the people, even if they are freely elected by the people. If the elected representatives rule, then it is not “rule by the people”, and it is not a democracy.

Even in a representative democracy in which the executive and the legislature extensively consult with the people before passing a new law, or before modifying the constitution, it is not really democracy because the people do not make the decision to be involved, those who rule decide.

Representative democracies, where government consults extensively with the people, are perhaps the best representative democracies, but they are not democracies because the people do not rule.

In the Scandinavian democracies and a few more, they practice ample consultation, and that is good, but is not real democracy. It does not matter, for example, that the Economist Intelligence Unit ranks Norway as the best democracy in the World. Norway’s representative democracy is head and shoulders below Switzerland’s democracy. The reason is simple; the Swiss voters have more power than the government, in Norway is the opposite.

In constitutional matters, in Switzerland, the people have even more power than the high court; Norway does not come even close in that area.

In a real democracy, the people also have the final word on any issue in which they wish to decide; they do not need the invitation of the government.

Let us be clear; if the elected representatives consult the people, and even if they follow what the people say, it still is not a democracy. It can not be because the people still do not have the power to impose their will on the elected representatives.

Electing representatives is an important advance since Greek direct democracy died out, but it still is far behind Greek direct democracy as long as the people have less power than the representatives. In the whole World, only Switzerland comes close to ancient Greek democracy.

Representative democracy has been an enormous advance over authoritarian and totalitarian regimes, but it is not real democracy.

In a representative democracy, we also hear about “separation of powers”, and how important they are for democracy.

Separation of power ensures that the executive, the legislative and the judiciary can not prevail over the other two.

Unfortunately, such separation rarely works very well.

It does not work when the executive and the legislative are in the hands of the same party. In theory, the legislative power could check the power of the executive, in reality, it often happens both powers work as one in many countries.

If the party can also appoint the high court judges, then its power is almost absolute. In that case, “separation of powers” is close to nothing.

But even if the government does not control the legislature, or has not appointed the high court judges, the power remains in the “troika”; the executive-legislative-judiciary, they have all the power. Even if they check each other’s power because different political parties are in power, overall power rests with them; the people have zero, or very close to zero, power.

True separation of powers needs to add: “on their own so deciding, the people will have the power to prevail over the other three branches”.

But there is another problem; at election time, in a representative democracy, some people go and some come, but the power continues in the hands of the parties. The people in the oligarchies also come and go, but the oligarchic system endures; the power continues in the hands of the same groups.

Even if a completely new party wins the election, the change still keeps the voters away from the power to make executive decisions, decisions on laws, and decisions on the constitution.

It is time to transition from representative democracy to real democracy, to direct democracy, to an orderly, peaceful, rational, informed system of direct decision-making by the people.

 

 

 

 

In a direct democracy, the politicians trust the people and the people trust the politicians.

A minimum of trust has to exist or be developed to have a representative democracy, but direct democracy deepens the trust and, because of that, it strengthens democracy.

It is difficult to say if representative democracy reflects or causes that the politicians do not trust the people, the people do not trust the politicians, the people do not trust each other, or any combination of the three.

Representative democracy is a great advance compared to the sad, absolute, authoritarian, and totalitarian regimes it replaces.

Unfortunately, almost from the beginning, a process of gradual deterioration of representative democracy starts. This happens because it carries within a “malignancy”.

The malignancy is that the elected representatives have much more power than the voters who elect them. Once elected, the politicians decide everything else.

It should not be like that, in a democracy, the people must have the final say, otherwise, it may look like a democracy, it may sound like a democracy, but it is not a democracy, because the people have less power than the politicians.

In a representative democracy, if there is no corruption and elections are fair, the people can change the governing party and the leaders of the country. But the newly elected have the same power those voted out had.

The only change is that the newly elected will use their power in a different direction. Sometimes it can be in a completely different direction, but they still hold all the power.

For example, the new people in power can privatize many public services or nationalize private businesses. The effects are very different, but the level of power of those who decide has not changed.

In either case, those who govern have the power to decide everything; they can pass new laws, sign new treaties, administer the public money any way they want, raise taxes, lower taxes, change the educational system, build or tear down a building or structure, etc.

The power relationships between the executive, the legislative and the judiciary branches may vary after each election, but in a representative democracy, the power always lies with the three branches of government, not with the people.

As time passes, the elected representatives can not resist using their “surplus power” to increase their power. In a representative democracy, the people do not have the power to control, supervise, or stop the decisions the politicians, or the decisions those appointed by the politicians, make.

In a representative democracy, the high courts also have too much power.

As the power of the elected representatives increases, regardless of the party in government, the power of the people decreases.

The result is progressive disenchantment with the way representative democracy works.

Most politicians in representative democracies are not interested in direct democracy.

It is difficult to say if it is because they do not trust the people to have the final say in all important matters, or if it is because the power they enjoy gives them the feeling they are “the chosen” to lead, or if power gives them material benefits, or prestige, or some other reason, but most politicians in a representative democracy are not interested in direct democracy.

Direct democracy has many positive effects in society; politicians learn that the people can be trusted to make all the important decisions. Politicians also learn to make laws the people will approve. As a result, the trust of the people in the politicians, and of the politicians in the people rises; that is a very powerful result.

Even more important; in a direct democracy, the people learn to trust themselves and each other.

Direct democracy is why in Switzerland, most laws produced by the government have the support of the people; the people trust the politicians.

Direct democracy needs trust and brings trust to another level.

But direct democracy will not happen spontaneously anywhere. Wherever you are, you will have to work at it.