yes of course you are correct votes are for sale look at all those lobbyists and those campaign contributions from well wishres. Campign contributions shold be limited to $25 per person for the primary and $25 per person in the general. No PAC or bundlers or dinner fund raisers or corporate or 941's or anything else. And the only people who can contribute are the people in the elctoral district. Of course for senator that's statewide but $25 max shoiuld level the playing field. Let's see what $25 bucks buys - aha!
Ron Getty - SF Libertarian
Hostis res Publica
Morte ai Tiranni
Dum Spiro, Pugno
You make a good case for why representative democracy is fundamentally corrupt. It seems to me that more layers increase the potential for corruption (and the history of the direct purchase of senatorial seats before direct elections suggests). Wouldn't it make more sense to reduce the number of layers instead? It seems to me that a direct democracy would solve this principle/agent problem inherent in representative democracy. What do you think?
Steve,
One potential drawback is that the aggregate amount of time devoted to the political process would skyrocket. To illustrate, let's take some very rough estimates. Say that right now the 535 members of Congress spend 40 hours a week studying legislation and voting. Add in ten times that many aides and lobbyists spending an equal amount of time per person, and you have 235,400 hours a week being devoted to congressional legislation.
Now imagine that the United States is a direct democracy, with -- to take a wild guess at total voter registration -- 100 million voters. Even if these 100 million people spent, on average, only 1 hour more per week studying and voting on congressional legislation than they do now (i.e. a little over an hour a week total, since the vast majority of them currently spend zero time each week on these activities) that would still mean 100 million hours a week, instead of less then 1 million, being devoted to a process that produces no real goods or services. Surely this would have a significant negative impact on the economy, not to mention general quality of life.
Realistically, of course, the vast majority of those 100 million hypothetical voters would rarely if ever take the time to vote on any but the most high-profile congressional matters (after an initial flurry of interest as the new system dominated the news), unless forced to do so under threat of legal penalty. Most of those who did bother to vote would probably not devote any personal time to studying legislation, but simply cast their votes as recommended by various advocacy groups which *would* have full-time employees or volunteers studying the legislation in detail and mobilizing their constituents to vote in favor of their agendas. All of which raises questions in my mind about how "direct" such a democracy would really be.
Of course I would gladly take this system as a replacement for the one we have now. The disruptive effect on the political establishment alone would make it worthwhile. But I believe a much better solution would simply be to have smaller political jurisdictions. The likelihood of a country the size of the United States being able to sustain a minimal "night watchman" government strictly accountable to the people under its jurisdiction seems rather remote, perhaps akin to the odds of the proverbial camel fitting through the eye of a needle.
Love & Liberty,
((( starchild )))
One pie in the sky idea that kinda makes sense to me, is to randomly pull names out of the hat. or in a modification of that, ten names are pulled of a hat in each precinct, and they elect one of their own to go to the next level up and so on up . All legislative positions could be chosen in this manner.
Starchild wrote:
One potential drawback is that the aggregate amount of time devoted
to the political process would skyrocket. To illustrate, let's take
some very rough estimates. Say that right now the 535 members of
Congress spend 40 hours a week studying legislation and voting.
Do you really believe that "535 members of Congress spend 40 hours a week studying legislation"? Or for that matter, that we need new laws every week?
The Swiss have had a form of direct democracy for a century and in that period have one of the most prosperous and peaceful nations on earth.
Add in ten times that many aides and lobbyists spending an equal amount of
time per person, and you have 235,400 hours a week being devoted to
congressional legislation.
In a direct democracy, lobbyists wouldn't exist because there would no longer be a point in buying legislators as legislators can't vote.