Monday 18 September 2000

Pic of the day: "There is really no need that the decision making should remain the same in the Information Age as during the Industrial Revolution."

The vote bank

The natives are restless. Here in Norway, voters leave the traditional parties and flock to the Progress Party. Even the leader of that party says in public that this is not a lasting gain, but a protest. Norwegians are not normally like that. And we don't usually block oil terminals either, like some people are out doing right now. There is a growing chaos. The natives are restless.

And I hear quite enough about the American presidential election to know that there are a lot of people - perhaps even a majority - who think that none of the candidates is outstanding in any way. Just some dude who got the money, the friends or relatives, the contacts to land on top of the heap. That, basically, lots of people could have done as well. They are probably right, too.

So today I want to write about politics, and about the missing step between today's representative democracy and direct democracy. I don't think a bloody revolution is the way to go; I believe that the current restlessness should lead to an expansion of democracy into a gradually more powerful form. Just like when women were given the right to vote, or when the landless were given the right to vote. In retrospect we see that it must be so, but at the time there was all kind of arguments. Now, let us bring on the arguments.

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General elections are not fair. If they were fair, your vote would have the same value regardless of who you were and where you were. This is not the case. To take the least controversial first: Election districts have different number of people per representative. Sometimes people move, and a city swells or shrinks, but the elective system lags behind. Here in Norway, there are provinces which have grown a lot without getting more members of parliament. Conversely, others have shed people but retain their MPs. This is not fair.

A more conscious choice of unfairness is the one that favors large parties. In several nations (such as the USA and the UK) voting for the third largest party is equal to voting blank. It is at best registered as a kind of protest, but generally just considered a "thrown away vote". Scandinavian countries have representative voting, but within limits; the system favors large parties. The larger the party, the less new votes you need to add another MP.

In a two-party state, both parties will necessarily try to suck up to the perceived majority, and the differences between them will be mostly symbolic. Unless you're mainstream, your voting right is the same as the slaves of ancient Athens. Non existent. You are allowed to applaud the choices of your masters. You have no say in the ruling of the state, unless you say the same as they.

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The next step in democracy would be to make visible the role of the elected representatives. Today, they act quite a bit like small kings. We should make it visible that they are just wielding the vote of the people. This can be done by what I call a "Vote Bank". Each voter is given a unique but anonymized token, which is deposited with the representative of your choice. Those who prefer to, will certainly be allowed to go for someone local. But others may give their token to someone far away who better matches their overall political view. There must necessarily be a limit to the number of these representatives, though.

Once the parliament (or vote bank) is in session, the representative wields the number of votes according to his tokens. So one may have double the number of votes compared to another, if he is twice as trusted. The number of token votes are counted in each case, not the number of representatives. This way it becomes visible that the MPs (or vote bankiers) are not the ones making decisions. They are acting out the decisions of the populace. They are tools, nothing more. This is what they should have understood long ago, but obviously they have failed. No wonder the natives are restless.

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Further along the road, we will want the tokens to be mobile. If it turns out (as it often does) that a representative is acting differently after the election, his voters will be able to depower him and move their trust token to someone else. This would further cement the notion that the representative is a servant, not a ruler. After all, if you disagree on how the bank invests your money, you move it to another bank. Similarly, the vote bankiers may face a loss of "customers" if they do not stay in sync.

Now you may argue that most people are simply not able to act responsibly. They will place their token on whoever promises a quick fix, bread and circus. Remember, this was the argument against giving the landless workers a right to vote. Or giving the African colonies their freedom. Do you really want to join that line of thinking?

In the very long run, in the fully connected society, it may be that we could abolish the representatives and vote directly. But my hunch is that most of us, most of the time, would not want to be bothered by the minutiae of mending and amending the wilderness of laws and ordnances. Just like most of us don't invest our money personally in various industries, but trust some bank or fund to do the job for us. Certainly this is a much more realistic step than suddenly dissolving our parliament / congress / senate and having a national referendum on every tiny little speck of legislation.

There is really no need that the decision making should remain the same in the Information Age as during the Industrial Revolution. It is time for real progress.