...Most federal governments are an accident of history rather [than?] efficient resource decision making, with a high variation in a population, they are anti-democratic.
This points to the various layers of local, national, and federal government interacting with each other in anti-democratic ways. As you say, democracy is undermined by complexity and information issues as well as jurisdictional demarcation. Then the issue of democratic sovereignty rears its head. Explicit hierarchies of sovereignty: federal, national, and local are baked into our current systems as we have experimented with the technology of democracy and allowed it to develop and evolve. However, there will always be areas where local, national, federal governments, and supranational trade agreements come into conflict. Healthcare is an example that springs to mind.
I agree we need to constrain this shared sovereignty over us with some sort of declaration of human rights or a bill of rights, as in the US model; but it would need to be extremely well-thought out; and even then we run into problems of language, meaning, and dispute resolution - the latter of which (dispute resolution) you have dealt with in the preceding paragraph, the former (the problem of language and meaning) point to an underlying problem we will never solve and have to adjust our policies accordingly. This is why I think we always need wriggle-room.
I do however much admire the way you have structured your arguments to be able to include such things as limited heads-of-state with ceremonial and veto powers, and other slightly non-democratic institutions. My opinion (as you well know) is we should always be striving for a synthesis of the best of the old and new; which is constantly modified by new information leading to a different understanding of our circumstance. We have to be able to preserve continuity of culture and to evolve into whatever new form of governance we attain, rather than replace our present structures at one fell swoop. I think your post is a good analysis and gives a template for setting aims and objectives within the idea of representative democracy being a technology for overcoming asymmetrical information issues. You address the problems of most folk not having the time to be aware of the issues involved in any political decision. But the moral and ethical requirements of representatives are not really factored in here. A democracy led by a politician or a clique or oligarchy may be larcenous, corrupt, or outright evil, but may not have failed; indeed may even be enacting the will-of-the-people, who themselves may be larcenous, corrupt, or even genocidal.
One big problem with politics is that normative judgements are a driving force for many political decisions, which leads to something more complex in all of our polities. I know you have limited yourself to structural analysis, but I still want some structures in place to limit the amount which, for example, religious opinions can inform legislation, yet at the same time hold democratic representatives-of-the-people to standards of ethics in public life that bear the strictest scrutiny. My ideal Tribunes are righteous folk, and seen and known to be righteous too. I hope they will be dull, intelligent, efficient, and compassionate, and not given to imposing their personal righteousness on other folk but to draft legislation within the framework of the needs of the people, and the possibilities inherent in any situation, and the utility of any legislation for the polity in general and specifically. And we can go a long way to getting those sort of people together if we ensure the right structures are in place.
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Date: 5/5/19 08:50 (UTC)...Most federal governments are an accident of history rather [than?] efficient resource decision making, with a high variation in a population, they are anti-democratic.
This points to the various layers of local, national, and federal government interacting with each other in anti-democratic ways. As you say, democracy is undermined by complexity and information issues as well as jurisdictional demarcation. Then the issue of democratic sovereignty rears its head. Explicit hierarchies of sovereignty: federal, national, and local are baked into our current systems as we have experimented with the technology of democracy and allowed it to develop and evolve. However, there will always be areas where local, national, federal governments, and supranational trade agreements come into conflict. Healthcare is an example that springs to mind.
I agree we need to constrain this shared sovereignty over us with some sort of declaration of human rights or a bill of rights, as in the US model; but it would need to be extremely well-thought out; and even then we run into problems of language, meaning, and dispute resolution - the latter of which (dispute resolution) you have dealt with in the preceding paragraph, the former (the problem of language and meaning) point to an underlying problem we will never solve and have to adjust our policies accordingly. This is why I think we always need wriggle-room.
I do however much admire the way you have structured your arguments to be able to include such things as limited heads-of-state with ceremonial and veto powers, and other slightly non-democratic institutions. My opinion (as you well know) is we should always be striving for a synthesis of the best of the old and new; which is constantly modified by new information leading to a different understanding of our circumstance. We have to be able to preserve continuity of culture and to evolve into whatever new form of governance we attain, rather than replace our present structures at one fell swoop. I think your post is a good analysis and gives a template for setting aims and objectives within the idea of representative democracy being a technology for overcoming asymmetrical information issues. You address the problems of most folk not having the time to be aware of the issues involved in any political decision. But the moral and ethical requirements of representatives are not really factored in here. A democracy led by a politician or a clique or oligarchy may be larcenous, corrupt, or outright evil, but may not have failed; indeed may even be enacting the will-of-the-people, who themselves may be larcenous, corrupt, or even genocidal.
One big problem with politics is that normative judgements are a driving force for many political decisions, which leads to something more complex in all of our polities. I know you have limited yourself to structural analysis, but I still want some structures in place to limit the amount which, for example, religious opinions can inform legislation, yet at the same time hold democratic representatives-of-the-people to standards of ethics in public life that bear the strictest scrutiny. My ideal Tribunes are righteous folk, and seen and known to be righteous too. I hope they will be dull, intelligent, efficient, and compassionate, and not given to imposing their personal righteousness on other folk but to draft legislation within the framework of the needs of the people, and the possibilities inherent in any situation, and the utility of any legislation for the polity in general and specifically. And we can go a long way to getting those sort of people together if we ensure the right structures are in place.