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Introduction
Plutocracy is governance by the wealthy.
Most of America’s many political, economic, and social ills are caused
or aggravated by its most fundamental problem: America is not really a
democracy but a plutocracy overwhelmingly dominated and operated by a
wealthy few. Our government was created by, is populated by, and first and
best serves a wealthy elite that holds a perpetual hegemony of power and
wealth through the generations, much to the detriment of the rest of the
populace.
Elections are left to a marketplace, mass
media, and political parties that are mostly owned and operated by the
wealthy. Elections, offices, and the favors of government are bought just
like any other commodity. Most of the populace is effectively
disfranchised and rendered powerless while individual freedom and economic
security are increasingly crushed by the twin assaults of ever growing
governmental and corporate power.
Applying superficial band aids to our
government such as reforming campaign financing, creating term limits,
cleaning up scandals, kicking the current “bums” out of office, or
struggling with third parties or independent candidates will never fix the
problem. The problem is not about people; it is not about who currently
occupies political office, “our” party or candidates verses others.
The real problem is the political system
itself, the fundamental design and structure of our government. While
creating a constitution and government in the name of all of the people
and claiming to favor no particular faction, the founders—fifty-five
powerful wealthy men—in fact wrote a
constitution and created a government that overwhelmingly favored
themselves and similar others. It continues to favor similar others—powerful
wealthy elites, the plutocrats—through the generations to this day.
Until the fundamental imbalance of
political power that overwhelmingly favors the wealthy is corrected, all
attempts at repairing our nation’s many ills are doomed to very limited
success or outright failure. Correcting this imbalance of power requires a
partial redesign of our government.
Most political correctives offered
today fail both at overcoming plutocracy and at adequately achieving and
securing the freedom of the individual. This book offers for your
consideration a partial redesign of the American government that really
fixes in just the right way what is really wrong with it.
The government design presented here
strikes a judicious balance of political power that, unlike the design of
the founders, really does not unduly favor any particular group. It
achieves a truly democratic process and the consensus of the entire
electorate on our nation’s most important issues. It results in the
honest representation of all members of the electorate in the
representative branches of government. It mitigates the worst and brings
out the best that our market economy has to offer. It achieves and secures
the fullest freedom of the individual and liberty in the nation. And it
nurtures responsibility and excellence in each of us.
Also, of crucial importance for the
existence and success of any
truly democratic process involving a busy electorate whose members have varying
capability, the democratic process presented here is very convenient. It
requires surprisingly little time and effort. And
it is simple enough for those who are not politically sophisticated and
sophisticated enough for those who are politically astute.
The distribution of power is the most
fundamental of all political issues. Good government and a good society
require the correct distribution of power as their foundation. Excessive
power cannot be held by an elite few, the simple majority, or any other
faction of the populace.
Joining direct democracy and representative
democracy together in just the right way achieves a correct distribution
of power resulting in a government that overcomes the shortcomings of
both. Direct democracy is people directly voting on
issues. Representative democracy—truly representative democracy!—is people voting in truly free
elections for representatives that honestly represent the entire
electorate and populace in government.
Most people mistakenly believe that America
already practices representative democracy. But it does not. This can be
readily seen when our current so-called representative democracy with its
extreme concentrations of power and wealth and widespread social injustice
is
compared by you, dear reader, with the truly representative
democracy proposed in this book. Understand that it is by the inclusion of
just the right kind and amount of direct democracy that the representative
branches of our government (or any government) are rendered truly
representative.
By itself, so-called “representative” democracy only results in the tyranny of plutocracy,
exploitive governance by the wealthy. But the usually proposed alternative,
unlimited majority-rule
direct democracy, were it ever tried, would only result in “the tyranny of democracy,” the
political, economic, religious, and behavioral tyranny of the simple
majority over the rest of the populace. And, examined more closely, this “majority” would really only be a highly organized, doggedly active,
radical political minority.
However, limited direct democracy and
limited representative democracy joined
together and judiciously balanced as described in this book results in a wise amount and
just distribution of governmental powers that does not unduly favor any particular
group.
 The
limited direct democracy proposed here would be added to our government as a new
fourth branch called the demos, pronounced as in democratic.
Adding a new definition to those that already exist for the word, a demos
is a direct democracy branch of government, a nationwide electronic network in
which an electorate consisting of all of-age, able citizens practices consensus
democracy by deliberating, voting, and achieving consensus on a fixed set of a
nation’s key economic and electoral issues, setting limits within which the
government and the nation must function and electing to the representative
branches of the government bodies of officeholders that demographically resemble
the entire electorate and truly represent the entire body of citizens.
Less precisely but more simply stated, a demos
is a branch of government in which all of-age citizens directly vote and achieve
consensus on a fixed set of a nation’s key economic issues and elect
officeholders to the representative branches of government.
The focus here is principally on a particular demos to be added to the American
federal government. But the problem of plutocracy plagues all governments. Adapted to the specific needs of other locales, a demos could
and should be added to every government in the world and to every level of government.
In the demos, practicing a new kind of democracy
called consensus democracy that will be described briefly in this
introduction and discussed at length within the chapters of this book, the
electorate directly deliberates, votes, and achieves consensus on a fixed set of
twelve issues—three electoral issues and nine economic issues.
In the three electoral issues, in an entirely new
electoral system from that which we have today, the electorate directly elects
the president, all senators, and all representatives:
And the electorate directly deliberates, votes,
and achieves consensus that becomes law on the following nine economic issues:
-
Overall federal tax rate (which,
over time, determines the size of the federal government)
-
Division of the tax burden among three tax
revenue sources: corporations and businesses, personal incomes, and
inheritances
-
Corporate and business tax scale
-
Personal income tax scale
-
Inheritance tax scale
-
Hours in the workweek
-
Minimum wage
-
Amount of federal debt or savings
-
Portion of federal tax revenue for the
military, healthcare, other entitlements, and all other government
functions
This may be a moment of doubt for you.
While repairing our electoral system may seem reasonable, given our
current mess, it may seem impractical and even shocking to you that the
entire electorate would be directly involved in making such important
economic decisions. How could millions of people participate in
deliberations? How could the entire electorate possibly
discuss and set something so complex as a tax scale? Even if effective
deliberation and consensus could somehow happen, shouldn’t experts, not
average people, handle such important economic issues? And what kind of
democracy is this, when the electorate only votes on a fixed set of twelve
issues, as opposed to an open stream of referendums over time about many
different social issues?
All I can ask of you at this point, dear
reader, is to set aside your doubts for now, keep an open mind, and keep
reading. There are compelling
reasons for the kind and amount of direct democracy included in the
partial redesign of the American government presented here. Please remain
receptive to an understanding and appreciation of both the necessity and
the desirability of placing the above electoral and economic powers
directly into the hands of the electorate. And tools and methods will be
presented to you that not only make it possible but surprisingly simple
and convenient for members of the electorate to effectively deliberate,
vote, and achieve consensus.
Unlike the winner-take-all, majority-rule democracy of old in which
the simple majority vote wins and all others lose, the consensus democracy
described here and practiced by the electorate in the demos has no winners and
losers but results in the
consensus of the entire electorate, a moderate “golden mean”
that avoids all extremes.
As discussed in Appendix 1, this consensus
of the entire electorate is possible because the vote tallies for the nine
economic issues included in the demos
are processed by computers resulting in mathematical values that are equally
influenced by every person’s vote. Thus, each member of the electorate equally
affects economic values that serve as parameters or limits within which our
government and nation must function. And the electoral system included in the
demos automatically results in a demographic resemblance to and the honest representation of the
entire electorate in the representative branches, which may also be considered
to be the consensus of the electorate.
The electorate’s consensus in the demos on the
economic and electoral issues creates in a third way what may be considered to
be a consensus of the entire electorate. Functioning within economic limits set
by the entire electorate; demographically resembling the entire electorate in
body, mind, interests, and pocketbook; and truly representing the entire
electorate, the now truly representative branches of government will write laws
and rules for government, corporations, business, labor, mass media,
environmental protection, etc. that wisely serve the entire electorate and the
nation as a whole.
Unlike today’s periodic elections, voting in the demos is ongoing. Each
member of the electorate has a vote permanently “riding” on each issue included in the
demos that, with one exception discussed later, he or she may change at any time. Demos computers continuously
recalculate vote tallies to maintain the current consensus of the electorate
which serves as our “social contract.”
The demos has been designed to function as an integrated homeostatic system.
Heartbeat, respiration, and temperature regulation within our bodies are
homeostatic systems. The tendency of a homeostatic system is to avoid the
extremes and to hover around a moderate norm. Each of the economic issues
included in the demos functions like a homeostatic system, ever hovering about a
moderate economic norm. And the carefully
chosen issues form an interrelated whole. Taken collectively, they function like
the interactive, self-orchestrating systems in a living organism. The
electorate uses the demos as a tool to achieve a moderate consensus on a few values that
our government and nation must use as they function, keeping our society
functioning smoothly and evolving peacefully as demographics, conditions, and
our decisions change.
The three demos electoral issues involve the direct
election of the president, senators, and representatives in an entirely
new electoral system.
Our current electoral system is a set of loaded dice
that overwhelmingly favors the powerful, wealthy few in two principal ways.
First, elections are
left to a marketplace, mass media, and two political parties that are
mostly owned and operated by the wealthy rather than being within and
supported by government where they belong, equally accessible to all of
us. Most of us are resigned to rapidly selecting what we guess might be “the
lesser of evils” from among a few poorly known, fork-tongued candidates
financed and, therefore, pre-selected by the wealthy. Few run for and
win office that do not have the blessings and support of and now owe Big
Money big-time.
Second, if throwing huge amounts of money
at the electoral process were not enough of
an advantage for the wealthy, dividing states into electoral districts and
electing only one senator or representative within each of them virtually
guarantees that wealthy or wealth-serving candidates will win the lion’s
share of electoral offices and that the wealthy will hold a permanent
hegemony of power within government while the poor and minorities go
vastly under-represented. When only one candidate can be elected in a
district, a candidate with lots of money to throw around will usually
successfully buy the electoral office or seat being contested. While the
wealthy inevitably manage to buy the first seat in a district, others—the
lower middle class, the working poor, and minorities—could elect their
champions to second, third, etc. seats in the district. Oops! There’s
only one seat in the district.
The
demos electoral system completely eliminates these and other problems
making the electoral process honest and fair.
In the demos electoral system the Electoral
College (which currently elects the president) and all state electoral
district systems are entirely scrapped. The president and all senators are
elected by direct popular vote from the nation at-large, and each state’s
quota of representatives is elected from the state at-large.
All periodic elections, including all
primary elections, are scrapped and replaced by a simple “ongoing”
electoral system. In a manner similar to the nine demos economic issues in
which each member of the electorate keeps a vote riding on each issue,
each member keeps a vote riding on one candidate for president, one for
senator, and one for representative.
The demos electoral system has a single
national presidential candidates list and a single national senatorial
candidates list. Each state has its own single representatives candidates
list. Any
number of people may run for office. The person currently receiving the
most votes in the presidential candidates list, the top 100 people in the senators candidates list, and each state’s quota of representatives from
its representatives candidates list are currently seated in office.
Discussed in detail later, a person gains or loses office when he or she
gains or loses a sufficient number of votes relative to other candidates
in the office’s candidates list.
Candidates (who need not be
wealthy or wealth supported) may take any amount of time to run for office
for free within the demos and build a following. Members of the electorate
may take any amount of time to study and deliberate about candidates and
to reach out to each other across states or the entire nation to directly
elect their champions, truly representative officeholders that resemble
them in body, mind, interests, and pocketbook.
It is the electing of senators from within
the nation at-large and a state’s quota of representatives from
within the state at-large that overcomes the wealth-dominated, one-elective-office-per-district problem and empowers each
member of the electorate to join with others to select their champions.
While others vote for their good candidates (who I may consider to be bad)
from within these large pools—from the entire nation or an entire state—I and others like me vote for our good
candidates from within the same large pools (who others may consider to be bad).
Thus, no member of the electorate is stuck selecting a “lesser
evil” from a small group preselected by the wealthy as is done today.
All voters support their goods, their champions, those who resemble and
truly represent them. The resulting senate and house automatically
demographically resemble and serve the true and balanced interests of the entire
electorate. No quota systems, political parties, or complex electoral
schemes are required. People just get to directly vote for whom they
really want.
The ongoing nature of the demos electoral
process and its at-large method of voting have immense virtues. Any number
of candidates may run for office, and all candidates, rich and poor alike,
have a free place—an Internet-like “web” site containing one or more
pages within a nationwide electronic demos network—and all the time they
need to run for office and present themselves and their positions and
proposals. By
the time candidates earn enough votes to gain office in this ongoing
electoral process, they, their proposals, and their entire political and
voting history in previous offices will have been long studied and
deliberated. The candidates will be well known and trusted by those who
support them. A
candidate and his or her supporters will be able to
extend their political views and efforts outside the demos in ways that
best serve their needs. Just as today, the wealthy may buy any media and
other electoral advantages they may find. But unlike today, the free,
ongoing, at-large demos electoral process also gives non-wealthy people
the means and unlimited time to reach out to each other across their
states or the entire nation in support of candidates that serve their
needs and interests, even as they also go out into their neighborhoods and
communities, organize, and educate friends, neighbors, co-workers, and
others as to their true interests.
Two proposals in this book are designed to make
the senate and the house more democratic by breaking up their current “old-boy’s
clubs” with their excessive concentrations of power and self-serving
legislative rules and processes: 1) All current systems of seniority and
appointment in the senate and the house are scrapped, all committee and other chairs and
positions being filled by the secret voting of their entire memberships.
2) All rules regarding parliamentary and legislative processes
within the senate and the house are determined by the secret voting of their entire memberships. The debate of
and voting on legislation being proposed and considered remain public.
The demos practices consensus democracy
to achieve economic consensus and electoral consensus
on some of our nation’s most important issues. Now demographically
resembling and serving the entire electorate, congress creates laws and
policies that may be taken to be the legislative consensus of the
entire electorate. Founded upon the principle of including and achieving
the consensus of the entire electorate, I have named this form of
government consensus government. It gives real meaning at long last
to the phrase government by the
consent of the governed.
Summarizing this government design and
function in a paragraph: All of our nation’s political, economic, and
social activity takes place within or under consensus government’s
largest framework of just the right kind and amount of direct democracy
judiciously balanced with what has now become truly representative
democracy. The consensus democracy practiced by the electorate within the
demos achieves economic and electoral consensus on twelve included issues
and a deliberative process that informs the representative branches and,
indeed, the entire nation as to the true mind and will of the electorate
on the many other issues it discusses. The demos directly sets nine
fundamental economic parameters within which the government and nation
must function. This always-moderate, ever current consensus of the
electorate changes slowly over time as demographics, conditions, and our
decisions change. The demos electoral process empowers the members of the
electorate to come together within states and across the entire nation to
elect to the representative branches their true champions, those who
resemble them in body, mind, interests, and pocketbook. The resulting
representative bodies, (which, recall, have been made to function more
democratically), automatically demographically resemble and truly
represent the entire electorate and all of its interests. Obeying (by
constitutional law) the economic parameters set by the electorate in the
demos and informed by its deliberations, members of the representative
bodies deliberate, compromise, enact, and enforce legislation and rules
that truly serve the entire electorate. This just, inclusive,
consensus-building design that does not unduly favor any part of the
populace achieves a stable, long-lasting government and society that
functions sensibly, always tends toward moderation, and evolves peacefully
over time. The results are a strong moral compass, a steady sense of
direction, and the good government and society that we all seek.
Oh, but as a potential member of a future demos all of this possibly makes
you nervous or even fearful, if not for yourself then about certain others who
couldn’t chew gum and turn a door knob at the same time? “The
responsibility! The difficulty! The time! I’m so busy! I’m not sure I’m
capable! Economic issues? What do I know about economics? I’m not really a
political person! And those idiots down the street, they
couldn’t make a wise or even a sane choice to save their lives!”
Let’s take a look at what would be involved, at what your involvement might
be. (You get a wide choice as to how involved you want to be in the demos.)
What about your capability on some of the economic questions that are
included in the demos? As you answer these questions, just use your own good
sense. What do you think would be in your self-interest? What do you think would
be good for our nation? Ok, here we go: 1) Do you think our national
government should be larger, smaller, or stay at its current size?
2) Do you think the amount of our national debt should be increased,
decreased, or left at the current amount? 3) Let’s say that the current
minimum wage is $5.75
per hour. Do you think the minimum wage should be increased, decreased, or left
at the current amount?
You see? This is not rocket science. You won’t be running the economy or
the country. But those who are running the country will be people selected by
you and
the rest of the electorate—people you really want in office!—and, by
constitutional law, they will have to run the country within limits that are set by you. You and the rest of the electorate will also decide
how the tax burden that we have set upon ourselves is distributed among us. There is no reason to fear
this because a way has been figured out that makes it really easy for you
to make the right choices for yourself. Even the idiots down the street will be
able to do it. And yet, as easy as these questions are to answer, you will be
answering some of our nation’s most important questions.
What makes it possible for an electorate of busy people possessing widely
varying capability to vote on such important issues? When just the right issues
are selected, only a few issues need to be included, and with these issues it is
easy to understand one’s true self-interest. A surprisingly simple method of
voting on economic issues is used based on the traffic signal colors green,
yellow, and red. (It is described in Appendix 1. Other colors and voting methods would be available for those
who need them.) The voter never comes in contact with any mathematical
calculations but only makes a few simple choices.
Your votes continuously “ride” on the issues.
Your economic situation and interests have significantly changed? You changed
your mind about who you want to serve as a senator? Or you have come
to believe that our nation should move in a different direction? When your
situation in life changes or you change your mind about this or that issue, you
can conveniently change one or more of your votes at any time from almost
anywhere
including from your own home. Whether kept as is or changed, each vote must be
“refreshed” at least once a year.
While voting on the nine economic and three
electoral issues included in the demos is a civic obligation, participation in demos
deliberations is optional. If you know your mind, as most of us will, voting can take
as little as five or ten minutes per year.
“But,” you might ask, “shouldn’t economic matters be left to the experts? And, other
than picking a famous name on a ballot, I wouldn’t know who to vote for.”
Do not confuse the expertise that politicians and corporations have mastered
at swindling you with scientific and economic expertise. Millions have been
swindled out of their private pensions, investments, and life savings; many
millions have never had healthcare while millions more have joined them in
recent years; and taxes are routinely dumped by the wealthy unto the middle
class. Both parents working today struggle harder to finance a family than one breadwinner did decades ago. Hundreds of thousands of low-paid foreign technical
workers have been imported into America on special visas and millions of others
have been allowed to sneak across our borders to replace our more expensive
workers, suppressing the wages of most Americans, (except, of course, those of
the wealthy elite). Millions of
good jobs have been exported to cheap abused labor in countries that do not
protect the environment. One trade agreement
after another help multinational corporations while destroying increasing
numbers of American workers. Our nation is now several trillion dollars in debt
and the middle class is awash in a sea of debt while the super wealthy hold many
trillions of dollars of accumulation. In the last three decades trillions of
dollars have been taken from the middle class by the wealthiest Americans.
America has become divided into a relatively small super wealthy class while the
vast majority has found itself in economic decline. And everywhere
government-favored, super-sized multinational corporations reign supreme. The corporate elite and the members of
both political parties work together against your interests.
Exactly which experts do you think are on your side and are going to make
better decisions for you than you? On certain important matters elected
officials never honestly represent you. You must represent yourself.
And you may feel a bit lost at first having the freedom to choose anyone you
want to represent you in Washington. But all kinds of smart and good people in
the middle and bottom of the American economic heap, people who will work
hard for you, are going to step up to the plate and be recognized by
other smart and good people. The demos, your circle of family, friends, and
co-workers, your neighborhood, and your community will be abuzz with wise
opinions. By the time you are empowered to make such choices, you will feel
adequate to make them.
At this point the more politically astute and capable reader may feel that to
accommodate the less capable voters the demos has been made so simple that it cannot
handle the more sophisticated or subtle aspects of political thought. Not
so!
Each of the twelve demos issues’ voting pages will link to pages hosting deliberations of the issue.
Those who opt to participate in deliberations may make their own arguments on
issues, bringing any ideas into the debates. And they may vote on favored
arguments of others causing the best and most relevant expressions of arguments
to rise to greater visibility within the demos. (Only voting by the entire
electorate on the twelve demos issues results in economic law and the election of
officeholders. Voting on arguments by those engaged in deliberations only raises
the arguments to greater visibility within the demos, nothing more.) While the
deliberations on the nine economic issues will focus on the issues themselves,
in the three electoral issues, when discussing the pros and cons of particular candidates for office who
express various political, economic, and social positions and proposals, the
electorate will discuss a host of significant issues and views.
There should also be a special area of the demos
where the constitution is discussed and debated. The members of the electorate
could debate, for example: Would a single legislature be wiser than our
current bicameral legislature, i.e., our current house and senate? Should
there be a new way to amend the constitution? What new
issues should and what current issues should not be included in the demos?
All demos deliberations would be accessible to everyone including those
working in the mass
media and people serving in official capacities in the other branches of
government. Even those who are too young to be demos members and the citizens of
other nations could explore the demos as non-voting, “read-only”
visitors. This would teach and create demand for true democracy in other nations
as well. In this way the members of the demos could express opinions and exert
influence well beyond the strict limits of their voting.
With everyone 1) studying both high and low politics and the theory and
practice of true democracy (including actual “guest” participation in
the demos) for four years at the high school level, as is proposed here,
2) possessing equal voice and vote in the demos on truly important issues,
3) having a meaningful role to play in government, and 4) enjoying the
ability to have a real effect on the nation in which they live; political
interest, thought, and expression would flower throughout the land. An electorate
that for generations has been deliberately misled and rendered politically
confused, apathetic, and impotent would, in time, become astute, politically
streetwise, and perfectly capable of looking after its true self-interests.
The question was asked earlier, how could
millions of people participate in demos deliberations? This will be
discussed briefly here and at length later in the book.
The demos is a nationwide electronic
network with one central site that all members of the electorate visit to
deliberate and vote. We are already familiar with large numbers of
dispersed people coming together on Internet web sites to converse and
debate. But many millions deliberating and voting at one demos site? Yes, given the overall design
of the demos system and a rightly designed site, it is possible.
Recall that while voting on the twelve
demos issues is a civic obligation that all members of the electorate must
fulfill participating in demos deliberations is not. The vast majority of
voters will already know their minds and only visit the demos a few
minutes per year to refresh their votes, the minimal civic requirement.
Their views and choices will be formed within the milieu of their daily
lives by family, friends, co-workers, neighborhood and community groups,
mass media, etc.
Of those that venture beyond basic voting
and into demos deliberations, most people will merely read and be guided
by what others write. Still, we can safely assume a very large number of
people will actively participate in demos deliberations, and many more
views and arguments will be expressed than any one member could ever
handle in a lifetime.
Thus, we encounter the concept of what I
call “visibility” within the demos. Demos members may vote on favored
views and arguments of others causing the best and most relevant arguments
to rise to greater visibility.
As described in the chapter entitled The
Demos Would Serve as the Predominant Place to Study and Debate the
Included Issues, to prevent the most favored views and arguments from
remaining always visible while all others remain forever unseen, member
voting on views and arguments works together with a computerized mathematical “round robin”
method of presenting views in a timeshare process. More votes translates
into greater visibility for a longer time. But views and arguments earning
fewer votes also get their durations of greater visibility and the chance
to earn more votes and even greater visibility. Thus, demos members
encounter new views, arguments, and ideas and have the opportunity to give
them increased presence and effect in deliberations.
The demos would serve as the principal
place in the nation for most members of the electorate to participate
directly in the political process. Because it is their views and arguments
that would usually be voted into greatest visibility, the demos
deliberations would
attract our finest thinkers from all economic levels and walks of life.
But this would be just the focal point of a much larger deliberative
process. Demos deliberations would spill over into, affect, and add focus
to our national debate in the mass media, schools, workplaces, homes,
public places and events, and in the representative areas of our
government. Thus, even that vast portion of the electorate that would
likely not
participate directly in demos deliberations would be influenced and guided
by them. In this way our national political debate both inside and outside
of the demos, a debate not owned or dominated by the wealthy or any other
political faction, would become focused on our most important issues and
our best thinking about them, including the best of our new ideas.
The debate would not be dominated by the
wealthy? Keep in mind that under consensus government with the electorate
in the demos directly setting some fundamental economic parameters and
electing members to representative bodies that truly serve the entire
electorate, the wealthy would likely not be so excessively wealthy nor the
poor as poor as today and the use of mass media for political purposes
would likely be regulated much more fairly than today.
What is the point of government if it is not to
secure the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness of the individual? And
yet, the most endangered constituent of the large, modern state is the individual.
The freedom of the individual is constrained and crushed by all things big: big
government, big business, big labor, and even big religion. The two greatest
enemies of freedom are those who insist “You must serve me!” and those who
insist “You must be like me!” Serve and conform. The first condition predominates under
unopposed or insufficiently opposed plutocracy, e.g., the political-economic
oppression and exploitation created by so-called “representative” democracy left to the
marketplace. The second condition would exist under unopposed or insufficiently
opposed and incorrectly designed direct democracy, were it ever tried, the
oppression of minority views and ways by the simple-majority.
But government is
necessary, in one form or another. Plutocracy or democracy or… By balancing
these two great enemies of freedom—the powerful few and the powerful many—against each other and by including
only a limited measure of each within a limited government, the freedom of the
individual is increased and preserved. This is not irresponsible
freedom. The consensus government presented here nurtures the personal
responsibility and good citizenship of each individual.
Some argue that we increase personal freedom simply by limiting the size of
the federal government. Such thinking really misses the point. What liberty is
gained by weakening government and strengthening private power if
that private power resides principally in the hands of an unchecked, ruthless,
carnivorous corporate elite? Whether ruled by the political mighty or the
corporate mighty, the populace still remains with a bent back and on bent knees. The problem is not
merely one of the public sector verses the private sector. It is not about the
size of government as such. And it is not about government verses liberty.
Government is essential to liberty! The question is, or should be, what changes
to our government will correct its current shortcomings, effectively mitigate
the dysfunctions and bring out the best of our market economy, and maximize the personal liberty of everyone and
the nation as a whole? It is correct governance that maximizes freedom both in
relation to government and outside of government.
The greatest measures of liberty and responsible personal freedom for
everyone are not created by maximizing direct democracy and minimizing
representative democracy to the fullest extent possible but by adding to our
government just the right kind and amount of direct democracy. They are created
by achieving the correct distribution and balance of powers within government
(ultimately at all levels) and by focusing the electorate and government most
centrally on just the right body of economic and electoral issues of greatest
importance to our society.
Even the more truly representative
officeholders that would be elected within the demos electoral system
could not be entirely trusted, particularly with certain critical economic
issues that profoundly affect everyone’s life and welfare. The nine
economic issues included in the demos give the electorate direct control
over economic powers that the wealthy few currently use to wage economic
warfare against the rest of the populace.
This partial redesign of the American government does not make
the mistake of overreacting to current imbalance and injustice by assigning too
much power to the demos. Limiting the demos to deliberating, voting, and
achieving consensus resulting in law on only nine economic issues and
deliberating and voting on only three electoral issues permanently specifies and
limits its powers. The powers assigned to the demos,
including the sole power to tax, are permanently denied the representative
branches of government, thus limiting their powers as well and the power of
government as a whole.
Also, as discussed in the chapter entitled Reorganizing
the Powers of the American Government, limiting demos lawmaking to a fixed set of
easily understood issues avoids the serious mistake of including a large number
or an open-ended stream of complex, subjective issues that are best handled by
other areas of government and in other parts of society. Creating law on difficult, subtle social issues by
popular referendum is a huge mistake. Simplistic, ill-designed, self-serving
referendums are usually proposed and supported by moneyed, organized, radical corporations and
interest groups that deviously manipulate unsuspecting others to win their way.
Even proposals made by well intentioned but perhaps naive ordinary people may be
unscrupulously supported or fought by radical interests for selfish purposes.
Laws regarding complex social issues are best created by legislative bodies
whose members are selected in demos-style elections. The bodies demographically
resemble and serve the entire electorate, and their members can gain or lose the
support of the electorate. As a result of demos deliberations legislators are informed as to the true thoughts of the members of
the electorate on issues. Thus, all competing interests and ideas are wisely
considered, balanced, and coherently fitted to other new and existing
legislation and law.
This design places our greatest trust where it
really belongs, on a true consensus achieved among all of us. Along with our better qualities, everyone from the political and
economic mighty to average citizens and groups of them harbor bias, prejudice,
hard-headed injustice, unreasonableness, selfishness, and shortsightedness. Our trust is best
placed not in the elite few, the simple majority, or in any other faction of the
populace but in the deliberations of and a consensus achieved directly by the electorate as a whole in
the demos and in the deliberations and compromises among representatives who are fairly
elected by and who fairly represent the entire electorate.
In addition to setting right our
government’s current mal-distribution of power, the government design
presented here also repairs our divisive political process. Rather than pulling us apart
into angry, polarized, gridlocked fragments as our political process does today,
it
brings us together in a single political body designed to achieve our consensus on
our most important issues and honest representation in the other branches
of government. In doing this, it makes possible the correction or
mitigation of most of our nation’s other political, economic, and social
ills.
Any government worth its salt must be
robust enough to function in the real world with people as they currently
behave. It cannot idealistically depend upon people being high-minded or
behaving rationally. It must function well within our current world, but
it should also help us move toward a better world. The consensus
government presented here is very robust. It is designed to begin with
people as they are today and then to facilitate our evolution toward ever
better citizens in an ever better society.
The government designed by the founders is very
extreme and undemocratic. It places an overwhelming amount of power and wealth into the hands of an elite few while excluding most of the populace
from meaningful participation and representation within government. While
correctly avoiding the extremes of Left and Right, most political moderates
today offer incorrect solutions that do not address the real problem. There is a school of
thought in the middle of the political spectrum called radical centrism.
In an attempt to transcended that which simply doesn’t work, radical centrists propose various “truly new”
ideas at the political center. But even their ideas do not adequately address the
fundamental problem of the incorrect distribution of power within our government.
The partial redesign of the American government
presented here is centrist in that it avoids the extremes and screams of both the Left and the Right.
It lies squarely in the moderate center of the political spectrum. It is only radical
in that, unlike all that has come before, it modifies the fundamental structure of government sufficiently
and in just the right way to get
the job done. It corrects the problem of plutocracy by adding to our government
just the right kind and amount of direct democracy. It reduces excessive
corporate and governmental power. It achieves the consensus and honest
representation of the entire electorate within government. It produces the
moderate golden mean of centered, balanced, peacefully evolving government and
society. And it achieves and secures the freedom of the individual.
Note carefully as you read Beyond
Plutocracy that while it contains criticism of the current
distribution of wealth in America or, more precisely, the huge inequity
in the current distribution—10% of the populace holds 90% of our nation’s
wealth—not one penny of wealth is redistributed by the government design
proposed here. Also, this book includes no guaranteed minimum annual
income or hint of a “welfare state.” (The electorate may, if it wishes,
set a minimum wage of zero and allow no government entitlements at all.)
This book is not about what choices
should be made about certain issues of central importance to our nation
but about who should make them. The entire electorate is empowered to
directly make a few choices of central importance that are currently made
by a powerful few.
Using the demos as its tool, by the taxes
that it levies, by the other economic parameters that it sets, and by the
people it elects to office, the electorate is empowered to directly create
some and indirectly affect other laws and policies that ultimately
control, among other things, that most important of all things: the
overall distribution of wealth in America. By the political, economic, and other
decisions that it currently makes, a powerful few already controls America’s
distribution of wealth and many other things. The only new thing here is
that some of these important decisions would instead be made by the
electorate.
At this point, let’s examine a question—a
fear!—some readers might have. By the choices it makes on the demos
economic and electoral issues, could the electorate impose upon
us a complete economic leveling and some form of communism or socialism?
No! Perish the thought! This could happen only if 1) over half of the
electorate were communists or socialists, a laughable notion, and
2) the demos practiced majority-rule democracy, democracy as commonly
understood today where as little as 50% of the vote plus one wins. The
simple majority could outvote all others to gain its unopposed or
insufficiently opposed will, while all others lost.
But the demos does not practice
majority-rule democracy. It practices consensus democracy, something new
under the sun that produces a very different result than the majority-rule
democracy of old.
Consensus democracy always results in the
moderate consensus of the entire electorate. There are no winners
and losers. Every vote always counts, continuously and equally affecting
the current consensus of the electorate. The votes of many members of the
electorate on the demos issues—on tax levies, etc.—would tend to
increase the inequality in our nation’s distribution of wealth while the
votes of others would tend to decrease the inequality. Over time, the many
opposing votes result in values that are held in a just, moderate, dynamic balance taken to be
the consensus of the electorate.
So what would be the most likely result of
the electorate’s consensus? I believe the result would be less
inequality in the distribution of wealth than is chosen by the elite few
today, but there would still be a sizable inequality in the distribution.
Inequality in the distribution of wealth is
desirable and necessary to maintain a robust level of
entrepreneurial incentive and activity and a healthy work ethic. And we all know this! We are a
nation of true believers in capitalism, the market economy. We well
understand that it is the engine of our nation’s prosperity. And we would vote
accordingly.
But we also believe in fair play. Most of
us do not believe that unlimited accumulations of wealth should exist
alongside wracking poverty. We understand the elite now take too much,
more than they are worth and more than is morally justifiable. We see that
many who are working sufficiently hard to earn a decent living in a just
society are denied it in our current one.
And, just as we do not want
elites taking too much or a free ride on our backs, we also do not want to
be forced by government to give a free ride to malingerers who are capable
of working but are unwilling. That is why in the demos the electorate is
given direct control over the overall amount the government spends on
entitlements. We are a
generous people, but we want tax revenue used wisely.
The consensus government proposed here
empowers the electorate and our nation to achieve an unequal but equitable
and functional distribution of wealth and honest reward for honest work.
It should be clearly understood that in
removing control of our nation’s overall distribution of wealth from the hands of the few
and placing it into the hands of the entire electorate, we do not gain
control over the amount of any particular person’s wealth. How much
wealth any particular person possessed within the overall distribution
would depend, just as today, on accident of birth and the person’s
talents, ambitions, study, hard work, and luck.
I do not possess and did not in this book
strive for some particular distribution of wealth that I consider to be
the most moral or functional. This lies beyond my wisdom and, I believe,
beyond the wisdom and capability of a powerful few, the simple majority,
or any other faction or person. The necessary wisdom can come only from
all of us making this and certain other decisions together, as in the
demos.
While the actual distribution of wealth
that resulted from the choices made by the electorate in the demos would
be an important moral issue, the fact that it is the entire electorate
making the choices and not just a powerful few is of vastly greater
moral importance. It is the only truly moral way, in my view, to make such
choices. By whatever name and in whatever exact form, achieving a demos
and consensus democracy is a profoundly important step in and signifier of
our progress from beasts to high-minded beings. It is a necessary step for
our moving beyond our current state of purgatory and even for our very
survival.
Repairing the federal government is task
enough for this book, and we will not stray far from that task. But the
problem of plutocracy exists at all levels of government, and, as the
right cure, each level—federal, state, county, and local—could and
should have a demos. The electorate dwelling within each governing
jurisdiction would participate in its demos, deliberating, voting, and
achieving consensus on the most important dozen or so economic and
electoral issues appropriate to the jurisdiction.
A given level of government—national,
state, county, or city—should never be subdivided into electoral
districts in which one person is elected from each district for the
purpose of electing members for their governing bodies. All officeholders—governors,
state legislators, judges, school board members, city council members,
etc.—must be elected at-large within the area encompassed by
each level of government. Each voter would cast a single vote for a candidate
for a given governing body, choosing his or her champion from the same
large pool or area, the pool depending on the level of government of which
the demos is a part. Thus, all governing bodies at every level of
government would automatically demographically resemble their electorates
in body, mind, interests, and pocketbook and serve their entire
electorates.
The included issues and voter participation
in every demos would be very similar to and have the same look and feel as
those at the federal level. The voter would need to learn only one simple
method of demos participation and would electronically participate in the
demos of each level of government from any convenient location in the
nation including from his or her own home. If you moved from a city in one
part of the country to a city on the other side of the country, the names
of local candidates would be new to you and possibly an economic issue or
two, but you’d already know how to participate and vote in the demoses
of the levels of government under which you now live.
Thus, the various electorates—not just
the most powerful few, as is done today—would set the fundamental
economic limits within which all levels of government and the nation as a
whole must function and elect to the other branches of government at each
level bodies of officeholders that resemble and truly represent and serve
the entire electorates.
The proceedings of all governing bodies
such as legislatures and councils should be democratized in a manner
similar to that discussed above for the senate and the house of the federal
government. All committees, etc. of a governing body should be filled not
by seniority or appointment but by the secret vote of all members of the
body. And all rules and procedures applying to the legislative process
of a governing body should be determined by the secret vote of all members
of the body. The debate of and voting on legislation being proposed
and considered should remain public.
Capitalism, the market economy, is our best
form of economic relationship. It motivates personal and local decision
making, creativity, improvement, entrepreneurship, and productivity; and
it creates much wealth. But an unbridled capitalism that reigns supreme
concentrates excessive power and wealth into the hands of ruthless, greedy
elites within and among nations who then create, populate, and use self-serving governments
to exploit the rest of the populace and override the common good. Unbridled capitalism plays
nations and people against each other in a most underhanded way in search of its Holy
Grail: maximum growth and profit and
minimum responsibility no matter what the environmental and human costs.
Creating constitutions, governments, laws, rules, and economic entities
that cause the fruit of the labor of millions to be taken from them and
handed to the sly, cunning, manipulative few is economic rape, and it becomes, at its worst, economic terrorism.
Everywhere today, American elites who
exploit our own populace conduct business with elites of other nations who
exploit their populaces. One method used among others, political and economic elites agitate and
manipulate religious and moral conservatives and others to achieve their
self-serving ends. And the politically and economically excluded and
exploited use whatever means that are available to
them, including religion, to fight back or fight for inclusion. Thus, once or at least
potentially peaceful religions become radical, polarized instruments of
political-economic and ultimately physical warfare.
Fanatic religious and other extremist and
terrorist groups spring up like mushrooms and are empowered worldwide
because we drive people to them. Insurrection and revolution within nations and now international terrorism
are the result of fundamental injustice. Hatred and rage come from long
experience of violence done against one in one form or another including
economic violence.
Attempting to harden and protect an unjust state
and its populace against insurrection and terrorism that can come from any
direction at any time is enormously costly, inefficient, and destructive
to personal freedom and the social fabric. When it ultimately fails and a nuclear bomb, poison
gas, or infectious organism is successfully let loose on a city, and its nation
retaliates by vaporizing… well, you choose the city and your worst
escalating nightmare. To think one can take everything from everyone else
and take one’s way in everything and then live in peace with them or
militarily hold them at bay forever is pure folly.
The notion that the West in general and
America in particular are fostering democracy and individual freedom
within themselves and around the world is also pure folly. Not being true
democracies themselves but only plutocracies, the most powerful, wealthy
nations are really only attempting to push a worldwide plutocratic empire
unto a reluctant world. They are trying to create a worldwide plutocracy
in which they reign supreme by sufficiently and permanently politically,
economically, and militarily rendering everyone else everywhere else
subservient to them.
Even as they engage in this immorality it
must be said, wealthy nations are not inherently more evil than are
others. All current nations, great and small, are authoritarian
plutocracies that practice some good and much evil, each in its own way
and as it sees its own interests. While great powers are capable of and
all too often engage in great evil, some of the world’s worst atrocities
are conducted by some of its poorest nations. And everywhere religious and
other groups immorally attempt to shove their values and systems down the
throats of others by brute force.
The best way to fight terrorism is to not
create the terrorist, the insurrectionist, or the revolutionary in the
first place. The best way to do that is to create just, inclusive
governments, societies, and relationships within and among nations that do
not drive individuals and nations to anger, rage, desperation, and
violence. Political-economic inclusion and justness attracts people toward
the current state, taking the wind out of the sails of radicals.
There will always be some level of competition and disagreement
among us. That is only natural and even healthy. But we now exist at an
extreme and in an extreme state of illness. We currently function at the
level of three year olds fighting over the toys while our world spins
increasingly out of control. It is time for us to grow
up.
Historically, government design has long
been improving. Continuing to improve it should not be considered radical
or unwise. We Americans have now had over two
hundred years to see and we must finally admit that while the founders got
much right what they got wrong is terribly wrong. It is time and over time
to improve yet again and improve very fundamentally the design of our
government. This is so for all of the world’s governments.
The government design offered here creates
a new kind of relationship within and among nations that takes us well
beyond our current dominance, authoritarianism, and plutocracy. It
facilitates peaceful, equitable, humane relationships among just nations,
each possessing a demos practicing consensus democracy as part of its governing structure. Simply because
people participating within a demos in each nation will not permit such
conditions to exist, it makes possible a worldwide free trade that does
not exploit local conditions of tyranny and misery to unduly fatten the
lives of distant others. Everyone will fairly benefit from the
trade.
Notice that no mention is made here of a
sovereign world government, a decidedly dangerous entity. We have
merely the association of and agreements among free, sovereign nations,
each possessing a demos and a just political-economic system.
This government design takes us into a new national
and world order that is worthy of the word new. Almost
miraculously, all of this is gained simply by including within our current
governments a modest measure of just the right kind of true
democracy.
Thank you for reading the
introduction to Beyond Plutocracy - Direct Democracy for America. To
encourage your reading further, here are some comments from
readers of the whole book:
-
...you seem to have hammered the bright point of a world-spanning, evolved
consciousness down into the gross material world, where it is needed to
shine. A truly impressive achievement.
-
I am consistently amazed at the cerebral altitude you have obtained, which
envelopes so many important details and manages them so well!
-
Brilliant! A breakthrough!
-
I’ve started reading your book for a second time, and I’ve come to
believe that it is one of the most profound works I’ve read in my life.
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