I’ve been toying with some reform proposals and I think I’ve come up with an electoral system that will make sense to most people. It’s simple and straightforward. I call it direct election because it is the closest thing to direct democracy, but does away with the information problem by “passing the vote” on to someone that the voter has personally chosen to exercise his vote. The way it works is that every voter writes in their preferred representative out of anyone they know personally, meaning that there is no pre-selection of candidates that keeps ruling oligarchies in power. This creates a “chain of election” where for example if I vote for my neighbor, and my neighbor votes for his boss, and his boss votes for Ron Paul, that means that Ron Paul gets to exercise three votes in parliament.
I’ve tried thinking through the praxelogical consequences and I’d like to get your thoughts on it. Beyond “this is force and force is bad”, what I want to figure out is what kind of force would come out of it, and what incentives the top representatives would face. I think it would immediately lead to the disappearance of political parties, and for this reason the parties would fight it with everything they have. Other consequences I think may be involved would be a semi-permanent establishment of the most famous representatives, but also more representation for fringe groups like homeschooling parents or bicyclists.
I suppose there are a few difficulties in that money could well be used to buy votes, now, whilst this is not such a problem in itself it means that the political class who have already managed to obtain a vast amount of wealth could use this to their advantage. Another slight problem is what if the person with most votes decided that they did not wish to fill the position?
I suppose you could say that since their position is less certain they would have to do their best to maintain their reputation and as such they’d more resemble a monarch and as such they’d be more economic in their policies. Moreover, the characteristics of those chosen would more resemble those the market would choose by itself, without the prior selection of candidates there would be less room for individuals with talents such as lying to rise to the top and personality traits such as trustworthiness would be picked.
The reform I’d thought of was essentially limiting the amount of people that can vote (only allowing considerable land owners) and as such lowering the time preference of those that can vote. Yours has the advantage of being more palatable though.
If Ron Paul doesn’t vote, or votes for himself, then he is the terminus in the chain. But if he does vote for someone else, he is not. His could take 1000s (millions?) of votes for Ron Paul, and his one vote for John McCain could redirect the intent of those votes.
Therefore the last vote in a chain has a lot more weight than the first vote in the chain.
I agree, it is important to look at the incentives of such a system, and what opportunities there would be to “game” it. I imagine that it would be very hard to prevent people from organizing into political blocks and voting collectively towards certain ends.
Yes, and I understand that as a feature. The people at the top need to have the confidence of the people right below, who have the confidence of people right below them. It creates a hierarchy of people with better and better information and morals.
Another feature is permanence, in that you can switch your vote to someone else at any time instead of holding periodic elections. Then each time politicians act in any way they have to weigh how this will affect confidence in their leadership.
One problem that could arise is that every politician would always be trying to self-promote in order to steal away some votes and increase their share. But it would probably be targetted at certain audiences, or not at all targettable. Mass-media style campaigns would be impossible.
So your neighbor’s boss knows Ron Paul personally? Lucky you, for being such a small degree of separation away from the person you want to represent you. But what about me? How could I be sure that my vote will end up at Ron Paul? It seems to me that it could easily end up at Giuliani.
First of all you can’t vote for yourself, that’s not in the spirit of the system. If enough people voted for you, then you get a seat in parliament and you can exercise your vote and those of the people who voted for you directly. That’s what makes it like direct democracy.
A “closed loop” kind of situation is possible, but since you can switch your vote anyone can break the loop, or d, e and f can take turns in parliament representing one another.
That depends on how much confidence they hold. If someone is nominated and then commits child molestation a few days later, then yes they will be defrocked.
But if they are nominated and decide to slash government spending, sending millions of bureaucrats into unemployment, they may still have enough support to stay in power.
OK, so I don’t have to know his personally then, only his name. In that case, I don’t see that there would be any “chains”. In your example, why would you vote for your neighbor (a nobody)? Why wouldn’t you just vote for Ron Paul? I think in practice, who wins would still depend on mass media and name recognition more than anything else.
My neighbor is the most honorable man I know and I trust him to make the right choices, including in who would represent me.
It’s possible that famous people would have an advantage. Brad Pitt might get a lot of votes. And why shouldn’t Brad Pitt sit in parliament? He’s not a dummy.
So how many people would actually be representatives? Would there be a minimum number of votes needed to qualify? Would Ron Paul not vote, so he “kept” the votes that ended up with him and became a representative?
That really depends. Maybe you can have a 10 people executive of those with the most votes, and a 1000 legislative body, or as many as fit in the room.
Who cares about your brand of social engineering ? Anyway, if it threatens the power of the establishment in any way it would never be adopted. So this is just idle talk.
I did provide a praxeological insight. If it is a threat for the powers that be, it won’t be accepted. I know it doesn’t sound encouraging but it is a fact.
What I meant was, could we see politicians (for lack of a better term) shuffled in and out as quickly as people could adjust their votes? I’m wondering if that would create an undesirable amount of chaos. While I would argue against necessary expertise to be a representative, flipping people in and out won’t allow these folks to establish staffs and get familiar with the processes and current paradigm.