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
> 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.
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?
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...
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?
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.
Level 0: bystanders -- don't participate at all, beyond paying taxesLevel 1: voters -- participate by voting in electionsLevel 2: advocates -- participate in something like a planning marketLevel 3: legislators -- draft actual laws
Beer? That changes everything. My vote is yours. ;-)
brett.
IA Leads the Way! http://www.ialeadstheway.com
> 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.
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