"Referendum democracy" - how it can work

I believe that the best society can be achieved with “referendum democracy” – a rule in the Constitution, that a law can be accepted only with an online referendum (except maybe situations of war).  At first glance, it may seem that such a system will not work, since an ordinary citizen is a layman in matters of governing the country. But this will not be such a big problem, since the referendums will be initiated by the authorities, i.e. experts, and they only need to convince the population of their position (by raising the level of education of the population for this).

However, for this system to work well, one more step is needed: a law on compulsory post-school education. For example, each citizen will have to spend half an hour a day studying materials that help understand how to govern country, and in case of non-compliance, pay an increased tax. Possibly the following principle should be implemented: each citizen can choose what information he will study, but he must justify why, as he believes this information will help him vote more correctly, and this explanation should sound reasonable (this idea develops 20 article of the United Nations Convention against Corruption). Another approach is electing via the internet the people, who will decide, which books and other materials should be suggested for such education.

And then a new problem arises: since the resources of the brain are limited, it is difficult for a person to be versatile, and if he spends a lot of time studying the issues of running a country, he will earn less in his main job. Accordingly, a society in which the state forces everyone to study the issues of governing the country will be more reasonable and less likely to make erroneous decisions, but at the same time, it may militarily and economically lose competition to societies in which such norms do not exist. Therefore, such a society must export its way of life, perhaps even by military means. This is similar to the idea of ​​exporting democracy by military means, which I fully support (“so that the barbarians do not conquer Rome, we must make Rome everywhere”).

I believe that in a perfect democracy, the nation will not only make errors, but also study with its errors. Besides that, for minimizing the profanation, two more measures can be uses:

1) When an online referendum is initiated, a group of randomly chosen citizens should be selected, and some money will be offered for them for studying materials, important for this referendum. This group will vote, and the results of its vote will be a good information for other citizens. It should be noted that a sufficiently big sum of money should be offered for the members of this group, so that the majority of selected people will agree to participate (otherwise this group will not be an representative sample of the population);

2) For referendums initiated by the people (not by the government), two save equal referendums must be performed instead of one, with an interval of a year; only if both referendums accept the initiative, it will become a law.

Next: most referendums will not have a legal force, because, for example, if people vote "Stop a war with this country", this will be not a law but an "Order" to the president, and there will be no ways to punish the president in case of refusal, until the next elections. However, if the president does not fulfill this "order", he can be judged by the society in future, after leaving the power. And possibly the most important thing in my suggestion is to start accepting the referendums relating all branches of power, including the judicial branch.

This will be an optimal choice for implementing the freedom of speech. I don't fully understand the "theory of the freedom of speech", in particular I have realized that some calls can be forbiden, like the banning to deny the Holocaust in Germany.

I belive that a common principle must be the power of the majurity. If the majority of the population votes on a refendum to ban a mass media - let it be so. On the contrary, if the majurity votes to fine some people who slander this mass media - let it be so.

Contents

   I live in Russia and do not know much about the western countries and their customs, so, I excuse for any awkwardness in my blog and for bad English.

The aim of my blog is to promote the ideas of internet democracy. I believe that these ideas could really make the world better, if they are implemented.
Most impotant posts:

Why people do not change their views

About Brexit

"The Medvedev effect" (about propaganda in Russia)

Consumer society and youtube

About democracy

An easy way to rid  the world of misantropy

Social lifts in big politics

Friendship vs sectarianism

The market economy and reputation

Bitcoins and Freedom

Internet democracy

Self-curing society

Criticism of the book "Cloud democracy"

Personal responsibility of power

My blog in Russian:

https://grandrienko.com



Comments to old posts are appreciated.

Previously this blog contained an article about Russia and Ukraine, but I decided to delete it, because it has become dangerous to live in Russia and write about politics.

An easy way to rid the world of misanthropy

 Being a nerd, I have learned a lot of modern literature about the social contract theory (theory of games, cooperation, egoism/altruism, etc). This conception is revealed, in particular, by modern biologists, who write that the ancient people lived, in fact, in an ideal democracy, because they lived in small groups. 10,000 years ago humanity moved from living in small groups to living in states based on a social contract. The authorities in these states began to establish laws against the selfish behavior of members of the states; but the tragedy of humanity was that since the representatives of power are also selfish individuals, they have begun to oppress those who do not have power, and then more and more immerse humanity in their paradigm, in particular, modify moral codes for themselves.

And I came to the conclusion that misanthropy in society arises as a by-product of the fact that the social contract is not abided by effectively enough. It may be difficult for me to formulate this exactly, but I am sure that in principle this is true. Suppose you condemn people for driving selfishly on the roads. But they also suffer from it, so they will vote for laws prohibiting such driving. Those, in an ideal democracy, your attitude towards others will be determined not by how they behave, but by what they vote for. If in the future ways of forming morality in a person are developed (for example, methods of upbringing), in a democracy, people will vote for this to become widespread.

Near-perfect democracy is not so unattainable: for this it is enough to write in the constitution the rule that any law can be adopted only through a referendum (with the possible exception of martial law). At first glance, it may seem that such a system will not work, since an ordinary citizen is a layman in matters of governing the country. But this will not be such a big problem, since the referendums will be initiated by the authorities, i.e. experts, and they only need to convince the population of their position (by raising the level of education of the population for this).

However, for this system to work well, one more step is needed: a law on compulsory post-school education. For example, each citizen will have to spend half an hour a day studying materials that help understand the government of the country, and in case of non-compliance, pay an increased tax. I believe that the principle must be implemented: each citizen can choose what information he will study, but he must justify why, as he believes this information will help him vote more correctly, and this explanation should sound reasonable (this idea develops 20 article of the United Nations Convention against Corruption).

And then a new problem arises: since the resources of the brain are limited, it is difficult for a person to be versatile, and if he spends a lot of time studying the issues of running a country, he will earn less in his main job. Accordingly, a society in which the state forces everyone to study the issues of governing the country will be more reasonable and less likely to make erroneous decisions, but at the same time, it may militarily and economically lose competition to societies in which such norms do not exist. Therefore, such a society must export its way of life, perhaps even by military means. This is similar to the idea of ​​exporting democracy by military means, which I fully support (“so that the barbarians do not conquer Rome, we must make Rome everywhere”).

Consumer society and youtube

  Currently in the whole word (except probably North Korea) the consumer society is dominating. This is shown, for example, by the fact, that most people are anxious very much about their revenue and prosperity. As far as I know, there was not such anxiety in 19^th century. The realities of our century, for example, are that during the wars people often suffer from economical sanctions more, than from the military operations themselves.

  Some people are trying to find out why such a situation has appeared. I have heard such interpretation from some people in Russia: “previously they wanted us to become communist builders, and now they want us to become consumers”. 
  I think that in reality the reason for emergence of the consumer society is unexpectedly banal: such mass media, as TV channels and radio stations, are obliged to put a lot of advertisement in their content, because they do not have other sources of revenue. And the excess of advertisement forms the consumer society itself.
  The first mass media were newspapers, which earned on direct sales. When radio and television appeared, these mass media appeared to have no such possibility of earnings – you can not directly pay for viewing a TV program. Because of that, TV and radio had to earn by the advertisements only. This problem in principle could be solved organizationally, in governments instituted a TV tax, calculated the ratings of TV channels and paid the channels a part of this tax, proportional to the channel’s rating. But this task proved too difficult for the politicians.

  A good amateur video concerning the subject: "history of stuff":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GorqroigqM

  In this video it is said, that the consumer society appeared mainly  in 1950th. This was the time when television became popular, so this video confirms the idea of the connection between the consumer society and TV ads.

  It is great that recently the paid subscription has appeared at youtube. I suppose, when the humanity transfers from TV to paid youtube, the "power of advertisment" will end. However I see that youtube bloggers place ads in their video, so I hope a next step will be made - direct payments to the authors of the videos on youtube (or transfering from youtube to Vimeo).

The market economy and reputation

In market conditions, the larger the firm, the more profitable for it is to take care of its reputation. One-day firms, in particular, can only be small. It turns out that it is often beneficial for small firms to merge into large ones, but in practice this rarely happens for a number of reasons. However, there is another way: a large aggregator firm that provides quality control of the work of many small firms, providing them with a collective reputation. An example of such an aggregator is Uber, which has brought together small taxi drivers, providing them with a kind of collective reputation.   I believe it would be a great good if there were Uber analogues for nannies, housekeepers, repairmen, electricians, etc. Such a company would take a share of the earnings of these nannies and housekeepers, and in return, check the quality of their work, and fire those who did not perform well. There is a kind of paradox here - it is beneficial for an individual nanny to have her work checked with the possibility of dismissal in case of poor quality of work, since those nannies who pass the selection will have a good reputation, and this is very beneficial for them. As an example, I can cite ordinary taxi services: if there are many complaints about a driver, the service fires him, despite the fact that he brought it money.   If there is an analogue of Uber for nannies, it will solve the problem of fertility in Western countries, as well as the problem of “Idiocracy”, since people will be able to combine education, career, and childbirth (parents will outsource parenting to a good nanny).   Further, I propose a new concept: “socially useful commercial advertisement”. This is a commercial advertisement that is useful and beneficial for three parties: the advertiser, the media that hosts it, and the end consumer. The principle of this advertisement is essentially based on the same “taxi principle” described above - to terminate the contract with unscrupulous advertisers for the sake of collective reputation.   Suppose there is a firm that makes cereal breads; these breads are good for health, and the company knows about it. Further, this company offers some media to place an advertisement, and offers to conduct a study (expertise) on the impact of these breads on health. Because expertise is expensive, the firm also pays relatively large sums of money for it. Here again the mentioned principle comes up - not always “those who pay the piper call the tune”. For the media, if it is large enough, reputation is more important than this money, therefore it is interested in conducting an honest examination; in other words, money is received for the examination, but not for its result. And this is already beneficial to end consumers.   It can be assumed that many bloggers ask themselves similar questions when they advertise. Obviously, it is more profitable for a blogger to advertise a relatively high-quality product than a low-quality one.

Friendship vs sectarianism

I have developed a rather nuanced view of friendship. On the one hand, qualities such as honesty, kindness, and adequacy help make and maintain friendships. However, there is an opposing trend: educated and intelligent people are, on average, lonelier than others. Arthur Schopenhauer (2000) wrote about this phenomenon.

Friendship requires common interests. For many, these interests might include football, beer gatherings, or fishing. However, such activities are often not appealing to more intelligent individuals.

Sectarians, on the other hand, do not typically suffer from a lack of communication. People join sects not necessarily because their faith makes them happy, but for more practical reasons—sects provide a sense of community and connections. In a sect, one can find a spouse, rent or lease an apartment, etc. The necessity of having unusual beliefs to join a sect seems to make these individuals more successful and adaptable within that context.

The general idea of this post can be summarized as follows: for friendship, people need common goals and hobbies. The lower a person's level of critical thinking, the easier it is for them to adopt various misguided goals or trivial hobbies, which help them bond with like-minded individuals.

Schopenhauer wrote:

"Nothing betrays less knowledge of humanity than to suppose that, if a man has a great many friends, it is a proof of merit and intrinsic value: as though men gave their friendship according to value and merit! As though they were not, rather, just like dogs, which love the person that pats them and gives them bits of meat, and never trouble themselves about anything else! The man who understands how to pat his fellows best, though they be the nastiest brutes—that’s the man who has many friends.

“It is the converse that is true. Men of great intellectual worth, or, still more, men of genius, can have only very few friends; for their clear eye soon discovers all defects, and their sense of rectitude is always being outraged afresh by the extent and the horror of them.

“A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.

“To live alone is the fate of all great souls."

How to improve the democracy

I am a supporter of democracy, but with one important caveat: I am not satisfied with the lack of efficiency in modern Western democracies. Western countries now face too many problems, and local politicians generally do not even try to address them.

I would like more people to discuss this question: is it possible to improve modern democracy? The main goal is to build social and political institutions so that smart people frequently come to power in a democracy.

I believe it is essential to introduce laws that help people with limited political experience come to power. Firstly, the state must support "technical ministers": individuals who have the knowledge to function as ministers but are not overly motivated to become politicians themselves. A lottery system could be effective for this: suppose the state randomly selects 300 people, provides them with resources, and allows them to elect the most competent individuals among them to become the ministers.

Another idea is the implementation of participatory budgeting: a system in which citizens vote online on how to allocate budget funds. With such a system, ministers would be able to secure funding for their departments through the participatory budgeting portal, making them less dependent on the president or prime minister and more accountable to the population. Consequently, it would become less common for the president to alienate an outstanding minister as a potential competitor.

Additionally, participatory budgeting could create a financial incentive for parties to promote capable leaders. Suppose a party aims to identify and support individuals with exceptional qualities who could become good leaders. If this party succeeds in electing such an individual as president, it could receive rewards through participatory budgeting: the more popular the president becomes, the more the party earns. Thus, promoting outstanding individuals could become a viable business for party members.

If significant financial resources help politicians come to power, participatory budgeting could turn this to society's benefit: a good politician would be able to earn substantial money through popularity and real achievements (albeit with a time delay—first spending, then earning).

In other words, we sugges the idea of appointing some ministers via online voting rather than by the president or prime minister. While inappropriate for areas requiring unified command, like the military, this approach could be suitable for many other domains, especially those involving information dissemination (education).

The political system must enable celebrities or famous scientists to enter politics. They should be able to initiate online voting via the participatory budgeting system, allowing the population to decide whether to allocate state funds for their political training. If these celebrities are popular and intelligent enough to win such votes, they will gain political experience and eventually be able to win regular elections.

Additionally, the constitution should mandate that all ministers maintain personal blogs to share information, assisting new politicians in governing if they come to power.

The idea of "technical ministers" could be implemented at any time with some adjustments. For example, a person could announce their candidacy for mayor, stating that, due to their lack of expertise in areas like housing and public utilities or city transport, they will consult with an experienced individual. The mayor would simply sign decrees suggested by this consultant, and the mayor's salary would go to the consultant. This arrangement would grant the mayor political status and the ability to initiate referendums.

In Russia, we see that independent mayors and governors are often imprisoned by Putin because they become his competitors. I suspect a similar problem exists in Western society, albeit in a more subtle form: an argument for this is that mayors and governors in the USA do not have judicial immunity, unlike deputies. In my opinion, this is fundamentally wrong.