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11.
Direct Democracy “Politics’ means two things: 1. To decide what an entire society should do. 2. To carry out these decisions. In Direct Democracy every citizen has the right to participate in the first task, to propose a policy, to debate and vote on it. Public debates on policies are the core of Direct Democracy. In Athens these debates stimulated people to produce Philosophy, to invent the Theatre, Tragedy, Comedy, and to convince people by logical reasoning rather than by imposing one’s authority. Public debates on policies are genuine only if facilities exist enabling every citizen to participate. How can millions do so? Today - by using TV for the debate, and mobile phones, magnetic cards and touch screens for voting. In ancient Athens citizens debated policy in an open-air space called “Agora”. The modern Agora is TV where every citizen can speak to millions of other citizens. In DD every government Department (Health, Education, Industry, Finance etc.) operates its own TV channel around the clock all year round. Tuning in to a channel will show a panel debating policies for this department. Panel members must have knowledge and experience with issues of the particular department. They will answer questions phoned in by the public. They will explain the good and bad points of every proposal. Panel members will be drawn by lottery (not elections) from a list of people with the required expertise. Panel members will be changed regularly; no member will serve two consecutive periods. Any reward to panel members will be a punishable crime. The TV channel will display lists of all proposed policies and the panel will debate the pros and cons of each one. Viewers will be able to phone in at any time to question, criticize or suggest ideas. Every proposal will be allocated discussion time (set by a Constitution). When this time is up the proposal will be put to the vote. The public will have 48 hours to vote on each one. Any proposal receiving the required number of votes will be submitted to a second round of debates and voting. A policy gaining the required number of votes in the second round of voting will become state policy. If citizens demand a third vote, the proposal will be submitted to a third round of debate and voting. Public debates on policies, by millions of people, are possible today. Clearly, when ‘politics without politicians’ is established, all citizens will have to devise and adopt a Constitution to decide all the procedures. Unforeseen problems will emerge, but ‘where there’s a will, there’s a way’, especially with the help of TV, mobile phones, magnetic cards, touch-screen input and the Internet. What technology to use, and how, will be decided by all citizens when Direct Democracy is set up. For now it is sufficient to realize that by using electronic communication we can establish a political system where every citizen can propose, debate and vote on every law and policy. When a policy has been decided a panel will be set up to carry it out. Panel members will be drawn by lottery from a pool of all those with experience and knowledge of the specific task. They will be changed at reular intervals. Complaints about panel members’ inefficiency or corruption will be invistigated immediately - and punished. |
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