вторник, 20 декабря 2022 г.

"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 the government of the 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 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 from the people (not buy the government), two same equal referendums must be performed instead of one, with an interval of 0.5 years; only if both referendums accept the initiative, it will become a law.

2 комментария:

  1. I fully agree that democracy is impossible without education. This is my main concern on this topic (glad that it's not just mine). However, the idea of imposing education as described here (don't scold me for the literal wording, it's for brevity) is not close to me.

    Of course, there will always be imposition, because children do not go to school because of a strong desire (at least not always). But I want it to be as small as possible. For example, children can be motivated in such a way that they themselves will be interested in absorbing knowledge. I think that people's awareness of the nuances of the adopted laws should be similarly motivated by themselves, and not by the state.

    Imho, this should follow from the general level of education. Therefore, I see the main task of mankind in raising the level of educational programs (sounds too literal, but it is not), instilling in people a logical and rational mindset regarding issues such as laws. Instead, modern governments are only concerned with ensuring that textbooks are as consistent as possible with the policies of these same governments.

    Sounds uncertainly? Maybe, but I think common sense will prevail. I don't believe that in a hundred years homeopathy will be as popular as it is now. Well, there is not far from democracy :D

    By the way, the society you described reminded me of the situation with the adoption of laws in Switzerland. Perhaps we should also learn from them (only good ones)?

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  2. It seems that the Switzerland is almost the best country in general (I have read a book about it).

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