| Chapter 25 | |
| Introduction to Reasonocracy | |
| Government structures are notoriously difficult to architect. They are fraught with unintended consequences, unpredictable futures, and irrational implementations. Powerful individuals may seek to subvert the best of intentions at every step. But weÕve got to at least try; present US Democracy is so ßawed that weÕre drifting at sea. We canÕt demand our rescue ship be water-tight before we launch. | |
| DonÕt we already use reason in government? | |
| LetÕs shift the emphasis away from tallying up votes made by individuals. In fact, letÕs shift the focus off of people altogether, and focus on the process by which decisions are made. | |
| You might counter that we already use reason. You might say that voters reason who they should vote for. We therefore elect the most reasonable candidates, and those elected candidates reason with each other to come up with the best laws. This is the rationale for democracy. In theory, it sounds reasonable. Remember Yogi BerraÕs quote about the difference between theory and practice? | |
| Mitch McConnell, head of the US Senate, said in 2010, Òmy number one priority is making sure President ObamaÕs a one-term presidentÓ [Kessler 2017]. McConnell is not concerned with issues; heÕs concerned with a particular elected official. Its personal. | |
| WeÕve already pointed to the social processes of Science, which is based on logical reasoning, as an inspiration for how to organize large-scale cooperation. So weÕll call our alternative, Reasonocracy. | |
| We tend to think of government as a machine for manufacturing and enforcing laws. The design of our government is all about procedures for how deciders get chosen and how laws get voted on. It says little about why or how laws are introduced, how to evaluate whether a law is a good one or not, whether one proposal for a law is better than another, how to tell whether existing laws are working or not, whether there are solutions other than laws, etc. | |
| Science has a lot of laws too, like the Law of Gravity. But scientists donÕt think their job is just to make laws. Their job is to solve problems. The Law of Gravity was introduced as a solution to the problem of explaining why things fall down. | |
| Now, weÕve got the situation that the institutions of our society are falling down. So we need to rethink government as a vehicle for solving problems that require the cooperation of people on a national level. | |
| Reason is inherently complicated. A few people sitting around a table for 15 or 20 minutes can generate hundreds of ideas. Relating those ideas coherently to each other is a task too complex for most people, unaided. Simply put, people need help in managing complexity. | |
| US Democracy selects for decision makers that crave power. Those that donÕt are at a disadvantage as they waste resources on things that donÕt help get them elected. We are poor at picking leaders. Did you ever even hear of a class on this topic? | |
| Direct Democracy | |
| Consider the opposite extreme: suppose we do away with leaders and legislators and have Òdirect democracyÓ? In the Internet era, it would be technically trivial to set up a system whereby everybody got to vote on every issue. Would that result in better decisions getting made? | |
| Actually, given the corruption of todayÕs system, it might not be worse. But there would still be problems. Without a sufficiently educated electorate who were willing to spend the time to thoroughly investigate issues, one-shot votes wouldnÕt be good at maintaining a long-term perspective. CaliforniaÕs propositions have shown that voters for propositions are just as easily swayed by big money to vote against their own self-interests as when they are voting for candidates. | |
| One of the principal ways the scientific community solves problems is through dialog with each other. You canÕt have a meaningful conversation with 300 million people. So perhaps we shouldnÕt give up on the idea of having some sort of representative body. | |
| Or maybe we could figure out how to make a 300-million person dialog practical, using technology. WeÕd certainly like to make it possible for anyone to submit an idea that could improve government. As in science, good ideas can come from anyone, regardless of rank. The problem with the write-your-congressperson way of doing it, is that the corrupt congressperson serves as a gatekeeper, ensuring that most of the good ideas will wind up in the circular file. | |
| Instead, suppose we had some kind of national online forum for discussing issues. The sheer volume of ideas generated by this process could be its biggest problem. A group of professional ÒfilterersÓ could help eliminate nonsense, redundancy and holes. We might allocate (perhaps several levels of) professional ÒeditorsÓ to help citizens formulate their ideas clearly. The expense of editors and filterers is justified by the value of lost great ideas in our current system. | |
| The key is that the editors and filterers donÕt have a dog in the fightÑtheir job is to facilitate discussion and consensus solutions, not to advocate for a particular position. This comprises a new channel for a nation to get the best minds of its citizens to contribute in an organized, productive way. | |
| Editors could produce shorter, more focused discussions for the next level up. To ensure that itÕs not just the loudmouths who get a voice, some moderators could be assigned to interview people at random to get a sense of the Òsilent majorityÓ. The moderators would be professionals in facilitation, conßict resolution and consensus. Interested citizens could join at whatever level fits their interests and the effort they were willing to put in. And it would be a much better way for representatives to understand Òwhat the people wantÓ (and, crucially, why) than simply an electoral mandate. | |
| But, ultimately, we still might want to have representatives, for the top level discussions, to determine when consensus has been achieved, and to take the occasional vote when it is needed. So, how do we choose them? | |
| Random selection of representatives | |
| Members of Congress need cash for their re-election campaign. They get it from special interests (typically wealthy businesses). Term limits is one solution, but that hasnÕt worked out well for presidents (see below), nor for California legislators [PPIC 2017]. Even if a legislator has reached his term limit, there are other offices to run for and thus other campaigns that need funding. Also, first time legislators will still feel beholden to their backers. | |
| Suppose instead, legislators were chosen at random, like (voluntary) jury duty? Random selection pretty much guarantees having representative representatives. It still gets all voices heard with roughly a balance of power proportional to their weight in the population governed. But wouldnÕt we wind up with complete idiots as representatives? Well, we ask you, do you think voting screens out Òcomplete idiotsÓ [Rennix 2017]? | |
| We might have some requirements: US citizen 21 or over, high school diploma, can pass a few tests of reading, writing and math. Actually, weÕre less concerned with idiots than the Òselfish geniusÓ types, which use their intelligence for self-interested motives. Since these types are a small percentage of the population, only a small percent would be chosen with a random selection method. | |
| Second, we wouldnÕt put people into these situations cold turkey. Our next chapter, Some days in the life of a Reasonocrat dramatizes what this would be like. Admittedly, many people donÕt have skills in economics, reasoning, and cooperating in meetings at the outset. So weÕd want people to undergo a serious program of training before actively participating. Ideally, weÕd like to see all representatives live on a ÒcampusÓ and spend a lot of time with each other. No ßying back to the home district Thursday night and returning Tuesday morning. The US House of representatives was in session only 111 days in 2016. I guess its members have better things to do than run the government [Bresnahan 2015]. | |
| WeÕd recommend that representations be given just a single term, say 4 years, to head off the Òrevolving doorÓ of current politics.. We might even consider giving each representative a pension they could live on afterwards, just to decrease the temptation for corruption while in office. If, after leaving office, they are found to be corrupt, such retirement would be withdrawn and theyÕd go to jail. Terms are staggered so that only 25% of the legislature changes in a given year. WeÕd also want to build in some way to encourage expertise and organizational memory, perhaps by having variable-length terms or keeping past participants involved in an advisory role. | |
| Can it work? | |
| In the longer term, the technical and economic revolution of Makerism weÕre advocating will render much of what todayÕs government does, obsolete. By ending physical scarcity and designing person-scale systems, we can eliminate much of the infrastructure that government now needs to coordinate. Hyperlocal control decreases the need for most big-scale cooperation. A household can handle most of the coordination within itself. Neighborhood-level can do much of the rest. (see the chapter A Day in the Post-Scarcity Life.) | |
| The new kind of government that this chapter proposes is untested. We canÕt claim that it has been shown to work. TodayÕs legal, economic and education systems lock in the status quo and will Òself-correctÓ to prevent change. | |
| An ambitious plan? Sure. Tough to implement? Of course. Necessary for the survival of civilization? You be the judge. | |
| Recap | |
| In this chapter we provide a new architecture for government. Key points are: | |
| ¥ Rethink the idea of representation in government. Now, representatives are supposed to be elected because of their positions on issues, thereby tying peopleÕs fates strongly to particular ideas. This makes it difficult for them to look at issues objectively, and difficult to cooperate with those of differing viewpoints. | |
| ¥ Remove external incentives for unjustified advocacy: election/re-election; bribery (= ÒlobbyingÓ). | |
| ¥ Choose representatives at random, like jury duty. No gerrymandered districts, entrenched incumbents, etc. | |
| ¥ Explicitly educate representatives, government officials, and the public about cooperative processes and the scientific method. Make debate and decision-making transparent. | |
| ¥ Allow every citizen to participate in government by a public online forum that lets citizen propose ideas or offer opinions. Successive layers, moderated by professional, disinterested facilitators, summarize lower levels of discussion and elevate innovative ideas. | |
| ¥ Build in explicit mechanisms for cooperation and conßict resolution. Most of the time in government should be devoted to joint fact-finding and construction of win-win proposals. For some of the techniques, see the discussion of consensus process in the Some of Us chapter and its references. | |
| ¥ Develop technology that supports cooperative problem-solving processes. We will explore some in the chapter, Tools for Reasonocracy. |