open source legislation, community law-making

[Michael Allan]

Could this work?

Recombinant text [a kind of distributed Wiki] could serve as a
medium for the proposal, drafting and enactment of laws...
Ultimately, it could serve to transfer full legislative power to the
community, where citizens would assume responsiblity for all stages
of civil law making...
1. Any citizen could draft a proposal (bill) for a new law;
or the amendment or abrogation of an existing law.
2. Other citizens (drafters) could copy the bill, modify it,
and thus create their own variants (drafts) of it.
3. Each citizen would have a single vote per bill,
which he might use to 'back' any draft of the bill.
A drafter could thus aquire a 'constituency' of backers.
... and so on

http://zelea.com/project/textbender/d/overview.xht#Law-Making

It can't be that simple. I just finished drafting it. There must be a
flaw in the idea, somewhere. But I can't see it...

--
Michael Allan

http://zelea.com/

[Rick Innis]

On 8-Aug-07, at 4:12 PM, Michael Allan wrote:

> There must be a flaw in the idea, somewhere. But I can't see it...

The phrase "tyranny of the majority" comes to mind.

R.

[Michael Allan]

> > There must be a flaw in the idea, somewhere. But I can't see it...
>
> The phrase "tyranny of the majority" comes to mind.

How old, I wonder, is that phrase? As old as democracy?

But it can't be democracy you are opposed to. Nor a democratic
legislature. You must be thinking of something more specific -- some
particular abuse of democratic power.

Do you feel that a part-time citizen representative (community
law-making) is more likely to abuse her power and "tyrranize"
minorities in the community, than would a full-time professional
representative (traditional law-making)? Both have political power,
conferred by a majority of electors. Why do you suppose the citizen
representative (and her electors) would be more intolerant of
minorities, than the professional politician?

[Chris Wheeler]

On 8/8/07, Michael Allan <mi...@zelea.com> wrote:

Could this work?

  Recombinant text [a kind of distributed Wiki] could serve as a
  medium for the proposal, drafting and enactment of laws...
  Ultimately, it could serve to transfer full legislative power to the
  community, where citizens would assume responsiblity for all stages
  of civil law making...

</snip>

It can't be that simple. I just finished drafting it.  There must be a
flaw in the idea, somewhere. But I can't see it...

Low voter turnout? In Canada, our last federal election had a turnout of 64%, in the US, 55%. I wonder if that would correlate to low participation in social lawmaking.

Pushing on that a little further, could this have a tendency to give too weak a voice to those who are in need of a stronger voice? For instance, would social lawmaking have led to same-sex marriage and other constitutional protections for same-sex partners? Would it have led to cancellation of aboriginal treaties? What about Kyoto? What about Afghanistan, where would our troops be today if social lawmaking was the vehicle for policy change? How about budget spending on health care? Or, would Toronto have gotten 1% of the GST?

Additionally, what type of person would participate in this social lawmaking engine and would it be representative of the whole? For instance, in Canada, would the needs of northern Inuit be met if they members of that community were not savvy enough to 'get it'? How about my 98 year old great-aunt, socially conservative, yet wouldn't know her elbow from a keyboard? How about the economically disadvantaged in Regent Park?  Would this system be too heavily populated by young, wealthy, ultra-liberal urbanites in Toronto, Montreal or Calgary? Would it be overly saturated by two-car, 3 kid, right leaning suburbanites from Brampton, Newmarket, and Richmond Hill?

So, are there flaws in what is being proposed? I'm not certain there are flaws in the technology so much as there are a number of things that need to be considered when representing diverse populations of human beings.

Thanks for giving me something to think about,

Chris.

[Oshoma Momoh]

Michael, I love the spirit of your idea. 

 

Chris points out many difficult challenges. But those challenges exist in today's system too: in a nutshell, the people with the most money, media access, and political connections are the only people who have a meaningful impact on policy. If we want a true democracy we must solve that problem.

 

I don't buy the notion that some powerful elite "knows best" how a country ought to be run.  I'm convinced that spreading the power to as many citizens as possible is, on the whole, better than what we have today.

 

Personally, I would focus upstream of the actual legislation: let the politicians transcribe desires into law, they're pro's at that.  I would focus instead on empowering individual citizens to decide which issues/needs get acted on. 

 

Picture this: a world where everyday citizens can directly influence political agendas, instead of being sidelined by lobbyists and powerful political action groups. A world where politicans are true representatives of their constituents. A world where each citizen has a voice -- really -- and we can aggregate those voices, our needs and our wants, in a simple, trustworthy way.

 

One approach I find appealing is a market -- call it a "planning market" -- where each citizen has a fixed amount of funny money to allocate amongst the governmental issues they care about.  The aggregate market picture would provide a meaningful suggestion to politicians on how to spend their time: just look to see how much money is being spent, in total, on each issue.

 

How much meaning would you attach to this? Little, at first... the market would initially have few participants, the demographic would not represent society as a whole, the market might not cover all issues, there might be problems managing issue fragmentation, etc. But over time you could incrementally address those problems, and move from "interesting political experiment" to "powerful political tool".

 

A nice side effect: by fixing the dollar amount in each person's bank account you force each individual to balance the budget at their own level. 

 

Power to the people!

 

osh

[Michael Allan]

> Low voter turnout? In Canada, our last federal election had a turnout of
> 64%, in the US, 55%. I wonder if that would correlate to low participation
> in social lawmaking.

People often predict that participatory systems would have a high
turnout. Actually, it's hard to predict in advance.

...or even in retrospect. I was surprised to read, once, that ancient
Athens had turnout problems. Citizens were often busy on their farms,
and it was a long walk into the city, where the assembly met.

> Pushing on that a little further, could this have a tendency to give too
> weak a voice to those who are in need of a stronger voice? For instance,
> would social lawmaking have led to same-sex marriage and other
> constitutional protections for same-sex partners? Would it have led to
> cancellation of aboriginal treaties? What about Kyoto? What about
> Afghanistan, where would our troops be today if social lawmaking was the
> vehicle for policy change? How about budget spending on health care? Or,
> would Toronto have gotten 1% of the GST?

Maybe Rick had similar concerns (in another post) when he mentioned a
"tyranny of the majority". It tells something about us that we raise
such questions. We live in a tolerant society. And we are wary of
any challenges to it. We expect our laws to be tolerant too; we
expect them to be generally reflective of society. And the question
then becomes, is there any reason to suspect that the proposed system
could be *less* reflective, and result (for example) in intolerant
laws?

That might seem to be a contradiction. How could a system of
social/community law-making produce laws that the community would view
as un-social? But systems can sometimes contradict themselves. To
take an extreme example, it happened that the liberal democracy of
Weimar Germany (in the 1930's) turned upon itself, and transformed
itself into a dictatorship. The National Socialists did well in
elections; assembled a majority coalition within the legislature; and
used it to dismantle democracy piece by piece, and institute a police
state in its stead. So they used the system against itself. (Germans
were then led where they would never have chosen to go, if only they
still had a choice, and could have turned back.)

All things being equal, is there any reason to suppose that today's
legislatures are immune from usurpation in the same way; or in
countless smaller ways that could result in intolerant laws?

On the other hand, is there any reason to expect that a system of
community law-making would be immune? There is one: All legislative
power would be conferred temporarily, conditionally. It would be
impossible, therefore, to dismantle the legislative institution
itself, because people would learn of it, and immediately withdraw
their backing. And if society is truly tolerant, it would be difficult
to pass intolerant legislation. Those affected would raise their
voices, and, for shame, the legislation would lose public backing.

> Additionally, what type of person would participate in this social lawmaking
> engine and would it be representative of the whole? For instance, in Canada,
> would the needs of northern Inuit be met if they members of that community
> were not savvy enough to 'get it'? How about my 98 year old great-aunt,
> socially conservative, yet wouldn't know her elbow from a keyboard? How
> about the economically disadvantaged in Regent Park? Would this system be
> too heavily populated by young, wealthy, ultra-liberal urbanites in Toronto,
> Montreal or Calgary? Would it be overly saturated by two-car, 3 kid, right
> leaning suburbanites from Brampton, Newmarket, and Richmond Hill?

Or more generally: How would the nature of public society (that
fraction of society that participates) affect the nature of the
legislative process, and of the laws themselves? What would a
thoroughly socialized legislation *really* be like?

By the same token: How would public involvement in the political
process affect society? How would it affect the people who are
engaged in it, day to day? And, on a larger scale, how deeply
politicized would society become, and where would that lead it?

[Michael Allan]

> Personally, I would focus upstream of the actual legislation: let the

> politicians transcribe desires into law, they're pro's at that. ...

>
> One approach I find appealing is a market -- call it a "planning market" --
> where each citizen has a fixed amount of funny money to allocate amongst the
> governmental issues they care about. The aggregate market picture would
> provide a meaningful suggestion to politicians on how to spend their

> time...

The "planning market" is quite different from "community law-making".
But we can look at both with the same critical eye...

A possible flaw is that the "funny money" lacks any hard value. It
does have information value (more on that in a moment) but it has
nothing that a legislator would be forced to take seriously, in
comparison with, say, a vote on election day; or orders from the party
whip; or the expressed concerns of "donors" who pay in real money. In
conflict with any of these, the funny money would be ignored. And if
we, in the public, were to suspect that the legislators were ignoring
our funny money, then few of us would be inclined to participate. And
with low participation, the information value of the funny money would
also be low, making it less likely, once again, to be taken seriously.

Community law-making also has a "currency" in the form of allocatable
votes. So there is some similarity between the two systems. But each
citizen's vote attaches directly to a draft bill, where it is easier
to interpret what it means exactly -- what it is a vote 'for'. More
important, each vote has a hard value in a legislative context;
because, without a sufficient number of these votes, a draft bill can
never become law.

[Oshoma Momoh]

Yeah, they're fundamentally different concepts. A planinng market is more like a real-time ongoing poll.  So to begin with it could be taken at least as seriously as polls are. (Or Digg. Or Google's pagerank.)

 

As you point out in your doc, though, you can progressively build up real power by tying the software to real-world outcomes, e.g. budget dollars, electoral votes, public consultation, actual legislative power. For example, a natural progression for the planning market is, "I want my tax dollar allocated this way".

 

I think participation would be the real challenge. People are busy. Few have the time or desire to track law-making, much less to draft new laws. Perhaps you need easy steps...

Level 0: bystanders -- don't participate at all, beyond paying taxes

Level 1: voters -- participate by voting in elections

Level 2: advocates -- participate in something like a planning market

Level 3: legislators -- draft actual laws

...and you aim to increase the percentage of citizens participating at each level over time.

 

This discussion feels to me like it's best pursued further over beer. :-) If anyone's up for that sometime, shoot me a note.

 

over and out

 

osh

[Michael Allan]

On Sat, Aug 11, 2007 at 01:46:04PM -0400, Oshoma Momoh wrote:
> Yeah, they're fundamentally different concepts. ...

>
> This discussion feels to me like it's best pursued further over beer. :-) If
> anyone's up for that sometime, shoot me a note.
>
> over and out

Beer? That changes everything. My vote is yours. ;-)

[Brett]

Technically you can't say "over and out". Your either 'over' or your 'out'

'Over' means you completed your sentence and your waiting for a response.

'Out' means theres nothing more to say and I don't need a response.

So what you really said was. "What do you think? Nevermind Shutup.!"

; P

 

brett.

 

IA Leads the Way!  http://www.ialeadstheway.com

[Rick Innis]

On 9-Aug-07, at 10:53 PM, Chris Wheeler wrote:

> Pushing on that a little further, could this have a tendency to
> give too weak a voice to those who are in need of a stronger voice?
> For instance, would social lawmaking have led to same-sex marriage
> and other constitutional protections for same-sex partners? Would
> it have led to cancellation of aboriginal treaties?

These are precisely the examples I had in mind when I made my
"tyranny of the majority" comment.

R.

[Michael Allan]

I suspected that, so I replied to Chris:

'Maybe Rick had similar concerns (in another post) when he mentioned a

"tyranny of the majority". It tells something about us that we raise
such questions. We live in a tolerant society. And we are wary of
any challenges to it. We expect our laws to be tolerant too; we
expect them to be generally reflective of society. And the question
then becomes, is there any reason to suspect that the proposed system
could be *less* reflective, and result (for example) in intolerant

laws?'

I then attempted to answer that Q. See my post:
http://groups.google.com/group/torcamp/msg/2a223fa3acbdacc0