Rant: Governance

[WarBlade]

I've been thinking lately about governance.  The more I think about it, the stranger systems like democracy seem:

1)  Indirect influence.
There is a level of indirection between the populace and the decision making process.  The population has no say in the decisions, they just get to vote for who has a say in the decision process.

True. But then how much deciding do you think it's plausible for the masses to do? Using this forum as an example and referring to the 1.10 wishlist threads of yesteryear in particular, we've all seen the chaos inherent in an open discussion where the vast majority of opinions range from a little corny tp wildly ridiculous in some cases. I can only imagine what the results would be if the opinions of the many to have a direct say in national decision making and the imae isn't all that pretty.

Besides, delegation works after a fashion. We've delegated the task to making the decisions to people who are actually willing to sit down and debate the situations at length to collectively hammer out a plan.

Oh, and don't forget referendums. ;)

2)  Timing.
The population only gets to make the above decision once every (3,4,5,?) years.

Sounds ok to me. The turnover is usually about 9 years in our case and a comparable length of time in other countries. I don't really see a point to having to go through the election process more than once every three years if the incumbant government is statistically likely to sit in power for at least 6 years.

3)  Quantisation.
Depending on the setup there may be only the representative of the largest voter segment making decisions.  This might not even be from a majority vote.  Even with systems of proportional representation where a coalition may form there is usually an 'opposition' block essentially negating the point of proportional representation.

Go go MMP!
Actually, I prefer to think of the minor parties of a coalition as being something akin to a consience. They might not hold the power but at least with their support being necessary to the major partner, their voice will be heard and will actually carry some weight.

It could be worse. We could have FPP again! :blink:

4)  Assymetric Information and 'expertise'
If each person voted on each issue there would be issues with whether they could collect all relevant information, and if they had the ability to assess it.  This is probably the secondary reason for centralised governance behind voting costs, and may become primary.

There would also be issues how much time you want the country's workforce not actually being productive, but sitting and analysing the data for the next big decision.

"Hey Roger! You studied that tax reform bill yet?"
"No, this replacement diff is taking longer than usual."
"Well you'd better hurry. The vote is in 15 minutes."
"But we were going over that loophole in building construction codes only an hour ago! I'll never get this done!"

I'm quite accepting of the idea of delegating tasks actually. :D

5)  Voting costs.
The cost of collecting and counting votes prohibits frequent use of direct governance.  This may eventually change with online technologies, however that would be far in the future (access being a major factor).  As far as I am aware the most abitious schemes are for allowing online voting for representatives at the general elections (N.Z. is supposed to be prototyping it as a voting mathod option for the 2005 election)

WTF??? That's news to me. I wonder how they'd pull that off. Hello security loophole expoit! :blink: It would be up to my own sense of honour to stick to the one vote wouldn't it? :blink:

6)  Compromise
Sometimes coalitions form in centralised government such that compromises are made which may advance the position of more than just the largest represented 'party'.  Coalitions, however, also allow the potential of getting votes from a number of alternative minority blocks hence reducing the leverage (appropriately?) of minority parties.
Could/Would compromise exist under de-centralised government where no-one has the authority to vote for a group of people?

I think compromise would be the last problem on anyone's mind if no-one had the authority to vote on people's behalf . . . :unsure:

7)  Selling votes.
Under de-centralised governance would you be allowed to give your vote to another person?  If so, I can see people transferring their votes to relatives, and/or leaders of their 'religion' (or company or recreational group).  I think it would be almost certain for a market to form in votes (e.g. a tradeable commodity)... imagine, hiring votes for a period of time, following the price of votes, cornering the market of votes(!).  But then again the cynical(?) view would be that we already have vote buying, and individual vote trading would just allow smaller sized units (i.e. individuals rather than lobby groups) to gain some benefit.  The rich would have more say in the direction of the country: is this just economic efficiency at work? is it fair? again, isn't it already happening?

Ditching one form of representative for another? Why?
Not to mention the increased likelihod of numerous small vote buyers of dubious quality gaining a disproportionate share. :blink:

P.S. sorry for ignoring current ettiquette and not posting this as a poll "Politics, is it neato?"

LOL :lol: Good shot! ;)