If I was to go out in the street and ask people are they satisfied with all the decisions of their government, I bet I would have a hard time finding a single person who is willing to say yes without having second thoughts a second later.
To be even more precise, I bet I wouldn't be able to find a single person that is not completely oblivious to the decisions their governments make.
On the other hand, if you ask them are they satisfied with democracy itself, they'll likely say yes, it's the most just system there is, yada, yada.
According to the hypnotized masses, the problem isn't the system itself, it's the people that run it.
In my mind, any system that allows for corruption cannot ever work. In other words, if you leave too much trust and give too much power to people (a small group of them), they will probably use it to the disadvantage of the whole.
In my heart, I feel that if you enforce any rule onto people, while they aren't doing any harm to anyone else, you are the oppressor, not the 'criminal'.
Rule of the people - more like, rule of the few people
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I think that the word itself - democracy - the rule of the people, isn't accurate. The truth is, I never had the right to choose the rules for myself, neither did you, nor your friend, father, mother, and most certainly, anyone you ever knew.
If any of the people you ever met in your life don't rule your country, who does?
One might argue that some of the people you met went out to the election and chose a candidate for themselves... Something people miss here is that they still didn't choose the rules, they chose a candidate or a party that approximately promised to satisfy their governing wishes... See how much is left for chance and human failure there, and see how much people get to really rule?
Aristocracy and democracy - the same product in a new package
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The truth is, even if they all went out on the election, all of the people in a democratic system do not rule, but a small group of people that are mostly members of the higher classes.
We're living in an aristocratic system that's made to feel like democracy.
It seems as if it's our choice to choose the rulers we have. I feel it's impossible to find an accurate representation of my ever-evolving worldview in a human being or a group of people. Only I am responsible enough for myself to do that task, yet, I do not want to and I am not capable of representing anyone else.
Representative democracy - a complete fail of a system we're not even rebelling about
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In the course of human history, there has been a few different systems we have been in.
In the beginning, we had tribes, organized in several different ways, where decisions were made by a leading person, a leading couple or group, and we even had tribe systems similar to a consensus protocol, but most often, the tribe was ruled by a single shaman, who had the power to communicate with the spirits (and bring decisions for the tribe from the spirit world). People were satisfied with such a system, after all, they didn't know any better and the spirits were a smooth explanation for anything they couldn't explain themselves and all knowing decision makers for the decisions they couldn't make. Ignorance is bliss, one might say. I say, to leave life decisions to a tranced-out person, is dangerous, to say the least.
Over time, some of the people in these tribes gathered wealth, and with the wealth, power, which they used to rule over other people in order to hoard more wealth and power. This was the moment the first aristocracy begun to form... They kept the spiritual leaders to make it easier to rule the people... For whatever they wanted to carry through, they didn't need to explain themselves, they just said the gods demanded it, and if their wishes aren't granted, terrible things will happen.
"What do I know?", a common folksman said, and continued to do their daily tasks.
In ancient Greece, the first democratic system was invented and applied in Athene. Even though there was no research on the subject at the time, wisdom of the crowd was taken into account... By the record that remains today (not neccessarily accurate), people were encouraged to be a part of the city's politics... Further, they considered citizens that were not into politics completely useless.
We must take into account that even if the system in Athene had elements of direct democracy, their city was a village compared to cities of today, plus, only free citizens had the right to vote, and most of the people in the city were slaves. That means, whatever system they had, it's hard to say it's possible to be applied today, since the scale has gone up hundreds of times (and lifestyle is significantly different).
Today, in most parts of the world (where there is not an obvious dictatorship), we have a representative democracy in which a vast majority of people don't vote at all, while the minority that does, chooses a party/candidate to rule over them (and the majority of the voting minority gets to choose their, and our, dictator)...
Direct democracy - better, but still fallacious
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If we manage to make a system in which there is no representative power, but we directly vote through an incorruptable system, let's say, a digital public ledger that all people have access to. The time comes to choose a general decision... You get a yes-no question on your smartphone, to choose to apply the law or not. In this case, it doesn't matter at all how much knowledge you have on the subject, it doesn't matter how much you're affected by the decision, and it doesn't matter if you have a legit, rational reason to say yes or no. Nothing is taken into account, except the very act of pressing yes or no. Hell, you might randomly press whatever you feel like (and anyone else can act in the same way, and noone is responsible).
Terror of the majority - how the majority of the voters make life decisions for us
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In a direct democratic system, reason doesn't matter. It doesn't even matter if you have proof that a law will have negative consequences to the society... It will be passed if the majority chooses so. I feel it would be a cliche if I pulled out a few examples here how the majority can be easily manipulated and mislead, so if you're not familiar with it, in this case, any part of human history, just learn about how Germans in the Third Reich supported what Hitler has done. Although it is the perfect example of mass manipulation, Hitler wasn't the only one... This theme has been present throughout the whole of human history.
What people don't understand, they will rather leave to someone else than to try to understand it...
With this in mind, direct democracy is closer to the representative one than we would ever think it is. That is one of the greatest vulnerabilities of a human being which the current system uses to it's benefit. People don't want to be held account for. They don't want to be responsible for anything (other than their daily job or whatever - even that, rarely). However, that is something we can and should work on, but first, the system needs to encourage responsibility, not benefit from our need to blame someone else.
Sociocracy - the true "rule of the people", consensus based governance
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If any of the governance systems we as humanity have been through don't work, what system could we use in the future?
I believe that the only way to make the society rule itself, is by making them responsible for their decisions in a way that will rule out any form uninformed or irrational decision making. In the same time, people won't be succeptible to manipulation anymore, since they can't blame someone else for their choices anymore. They will be forced to think and filter their thoughts, making the public clean of unneccessary opinions on any subject.
The highest goal of sociocracy is the agreement of everyone - consensus. The consensus protocol is most easily described with the Talking Circle of the Native American tribes. A group of people sits in a circle and the decision making process starts by a single person, holding a stick, making his point about the decision... The stick, which signifies the right to talk at the time of holding it, is rotated once the person feels he has said everything he feels like he needs to. The stick is rotated until everyone has made their points on the subject and until everyone agrees on a single decision.
Conclusion
All of the governance systems we have created and tested until now have major fallacies - in neither of the systems each individual is satisfied, I would even go so far to say that in neither of the systems (including democracy) even the true majority (more than 50% of all people) isn't satisfied. All of the systems we had give us an opportunity to blame others, since they don't really give us a chance to govern ourselves. Self governance requires a huge amount of responsibility for each vote, every word ever said. One of the tested ways for self-governing groups of people is the consensus protocol.
The problem with this concept is that decision making is incredibly slow, since everyone has got an opinion on everything - that is called the terror of the minority - a minority of people constantly stunning growth... This is a problem with a solution tho' - about which I want to talk next!
Also, my greatest wish is to create a small, self sufficient permacultural community with applied sociocratic/meritocratic governance concepts, that serves as a positive example of self governance to the rest of the world... To do that, I need land and money for materials to build the physical infrastructure. So, if you want me to publish the rest of this article, make a small donation to my blog with the memo "democracy"!
If the donations or upvotes for this post reach 10 STEEM or SBD, the rest of the article will be published!
Summary
Topics covered so far (in bold), and what's waiting for you if you donate!
Rule of the people - more like, rule of the few people
Aristocracy and democracy - the same product in a new package
Representative democracy - a complete fail of a system we're not even rebelling about
Direct democracy - better, but still fallacious
Terror of the majority - how the majority of the voters make life decisions for us
Sociocracy - the true "rule of the people", consensus based governance
Terror of the minority - how the minority could slow down growth
Meritocracy - how it can help us achieve effective sociocracy through the use of the blockchain and artificial intelligence
Open technocracy - an integral part of sociocracy, without which it can never be done
- an opportunity or a limitation for multipotentialites?
The plasticity of a sociocratic system - why we will probably experiment with governance forever
Direct democracy as the solution only when nothing else works
Why true consensus will never work with larger groups of people
What is needed for a system described here?
Technology - the blockchain and the AI
Education - general logic reasoning classes
Research - behaviour of people in sociocratic systems
Consent of the whole as the base to ethical social governance
For you
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Do you support democracy?
Did this article change your mind a slightest bit?
Are you interested in sociocracy?
Thank you so much for reading, I hope you enjoyed it, stay tuned by following me!
With the deepest love, @freegardens!
Great article @freegardens, deserves more votes/comments. I would like to understand the following better
....making them responsible for their decisions in a way that will rule out any form uninformed or irrational decision making....
How to culture that? Any thoughts? I am very interested in governance through blockchain, i hope you don't stop. Much love.
Hey Bubke, thanks for stopping by!
I believe we would need a meritocratic element for that, people should be incentivized to check up on other people's work similar to STEEM. Also, technocracy would fit in the same purpose nicely, AI should be developed that promotes works of the most educated people.
I'll never stop (atleast forever, I can't say I won't take a rest to do something else)!
Thank you so much <3
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