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18. Replies to critics Many people value their authority more than their property, and their status - more than their income. They will vehemently oppose DD as it challenges every dominant authority - in the family, in education, at work and in the state. Therefore any attempt to implement DD anywhere will encounter fierce opposition from all present-day authorities, and decision-makers. Republicans and Democrats, Conservatives and Liberals, Socialists and Communists, Monarchists and Anarchists will all oppose DD. RR supporters will denounce DD as ‘populist’ while anarchists will reject it as ‘centralist’. Actually DD has no “centre” but it accepts majority decisions. Most anarchists reject majority decisions. Many believe that ordinary people cannot themselves make responsible decisions as they lack the required knowledge. If policy decisions require special knowledge, why isn’t such knowledge taught anywhere? Every doctor has a certificate confirming his qualification to practise medicine. Why has no politician a certificate confirming his qualification to practise politics? This is so because deciding policies is not, was not, and never can be a special skill. To decide is to choose, and no special knowledge is required for choosing. To choose is to prefer. People prefer what they consider ‘best’ according to their priorities, not from some special knowledge for deciding. No amount of skill, information or reasoning determines a decision. Priorities do, and they are arbitrary and cannot be justified. They are what justifies everything else. In DD, panels of experts - chosen by lottery - will discuss every policy on TV, explain its advantages, its drawbacks, its cost, and the consequences of accepting or rejecting it. They will answer questions phoned in by citzens, thus providing all with the necessary information to make a decision. The experts will advise. The citizens will decide. Some fear that if all citizens have the right to propose and decide all policies there will be too many decisions to vote on. This is disproved daily in every parliament as the number of proposals is much less than the number of its members. The subject of a proposal, not the number of those entitled to propose it, determines the number of proposals. Parliaments require three rounds of voting on every policy proposal. Proposals failing to get a required minimum of votes at every stage are dropped. This method can be used in DD and will reduce the number of decisions to vote on. Contrary to popular belief, corruption is not a necessary part of politics. It occurs when a few people decide for many. Seekers of favours from the few try to bribe them, while those few use bribes to keep their role of decision-makers. When all citizens decide all policies there are too many to be bribed. Drawing decision-makers by lottery makes bribing useless. Lottery fraud can be prevented, so DD politics can be free of corruption. Some believe that DD is far more complicated than a Rule by Represenatives. This is not necessarily the case. Representatives complicate problems so they will be called to solve them. Running a society by DD is simpler than running it by RR, but even if this were not the case most people prefer more freedom, even in a complex system, to less freedom in a simple system. Dictatorship is simpler than RR. One ruler, without opposition or a coalition, decides all policies. Yet most people prefer RR - despite its complexity - to dictatorship, since in RR they have at least freedom to choose their rulers. A society can be run by Direct Democracy only if most of its citizens want to decide policies themselves. Until the majority wants DD it cannot be implemented as no minority can force a majority to make policy decisions. No minority, however positive its intentions, can impose DD on society. Only when most citizens want to decide policies themselves can they dismiss their representatives and take over the role of policy makers. Political representatives have no authority to represent those who refuse to be represented by them. In the past kings could impose their authority by force. In a modern industrial society authority to decide for others cannot be imposed by force, only by deception or belief in an illusion. In a modern industrial society if people refuse to let others decide for them then those representing others loose their authority to do so. They may try to impose their authority by deception and bribes but this cannot last for long. Direct Democracy - unlike all other political systems - cannot be imposed by force or by undemocratic means. Any political system that can be imposed against the will of the majority cannot be democratic. Either the Demos decides all policies or someone else decides for the Demos. In the parliamentary system representatives decide policies on behalf of all citizens (the “Demos”) hence such a system is not a “demos-kratia”. The parliamentary system is not, was not, can never be - a democracy. When the majority - in a school, municipality, borough, village, church, place of work, or the entire country, decides to make all policies, it will face fierce resistance from all those who currently decide policies. It is a dangerous illusion to believe that those who have authority to decide for others will give up their role as decision-makers just because the majority demands it. They will resist the decisions of the majority by all means possible. Such people stand to lose their authority and income and will use every trick to retain them. It must be clear to every DD activist that while DD can be implemented locally, in a school, borough, village, or town, any attempt to implement it in the entire country will require a long and fierce struggle. DD activists must prepare themselves in advance - psychologically and technically - for this struggle. If they are unprepared for it they will loose it. Opponents of DD will use every trick, to defeat DD. Many tricks are deceptions and psycological maipulations designed to confuse and scare the majority. Many will be scared or confused but if the majority persists in demanding DD no minority can defeat it. Struggle for DD is the school for DD. It prepares people for DD and teaches them how - and why - to run society as DD. This answers the criticsm of DD opponents who argue that most people do not want to make policy decisions, and do not know how to make them. They assume that peoples’ responses and behaviour will always be the same as they are today in societies whose rulers have a vested interest in remaining rulers and cultivate a sense of political inferiority political apathy of most of their citizens. Using undemocratic societies as examples to prove that citizens’ political apathy is prevalent and constitutes an eternal “human nature” is misleading as the rulers and the educational system in all such societies oppose rule by all citizens and cultivate their apathy. Such arguments use what needs to be proved as a proof and are logically false. Critics of DD argue that most people do not want to be in a position where they must decide all policies of society. This is certainly true about many people today but not necessarily in DD. Clearly, most citizens do not want to decide every policy. In DD all citizens have the right to decide policy but not a duty to do it. Most citizens will participate only in debates and decisions that concern them but when they will have to obey decisions they oppose on issues that didn’t interest them their response may change. Some oppose DD even though they accept that all its difficulties can be overcome. These are principled elitists. They abhor direct rule by all citizens. Elitists denounce DD as ‘populist’. They believe majorities will make decisions causing disasters to themselves and to others. One such example is the majority that voted the Nazis into power in 1933. That event happened in RR and is not an argument against DD, but against every system of decision-making. Hitler came into power in parliament. Elected representatives can make disastrous decisions just like all citizens. In fact, the less decision-makers the more do psychological whims, phobias and craving for power shape political decisions. A single ruler’s decisions depend only on one person’s psychology. The more decision-makers the less influences does their psychology have on the final political decision since different people have different psychological whims which cancel each other out lowering the chance that the fate of society is determined by personal whims. No political system can protect society from decisions that have disasterous results. However in DD decisions that produced disasters can be revoked quickly, and those who made them are forced to reconsider their motives. In RR, citizens may change representatives who made disastrous decisions, but they leave intact the motives for such decisions, which lead to the repetition of bad decisions. Many assume that the selfishness, greed and political apathy pervasive in society today implies that DD will be a ‘jungle’ ruled by the unbridled selfish instincts of most citizens. They believe this selfishness is part of ‘human nature’. Selfishness, greed and indifference to society are a by-product of political systems that prevents most people from deciding what their society should do. Such systems depend on the political apathy of most of their citizens. Every political system shapes peoples’ motivations by creating conditions where people can ‘succeed’ only if they accept the norms of that system. Drawing conclusions from current behaviour patterns is misleading as it ignores the influence of the political system on the norms of individual behaviour. When this influence is taken into account, this argument against DD collapses since DD - unlike RR - depends on its citizens’ concern for society so its influence on its citizens is diametrically opposed to that of RR. This means that DD is not just a new way to make political decisions - it creates new patterns of individual behaviour motivated by the will to improve society. It changes norms, aspirations, personality, and individuality. Making a decision implies responsibility for its results. Some fear this responsibility, and hence fear freedom. This is the attitude of children fearing the loss of parental love. Adults suffering from fear of freedom need support and help to overcome it. Fear of freedom stems from immaturity and can be overcome. Some people support DD but do not define it as politics without politicians. They support reformed Rule by Representatives. They want citizens initiatives and referendums (I&R) to control representatives. Basically, they accept Rule by Representatives.. I&R merely tries to reform or ameliorate the faults of RR, while upholding RR. I&R supporters do not define DD as ‘politics without politicians’ since this exposes I&R as reformed RR. Cooperation between supporters of DD and reformers of RR is possible if both sides recognize the differences between them and each respects the role of the other. Although they must eventually part company, each can benefit from temporary cooperation with the other. As long as cooperation is beneficial it should be maintained. However, cooperation is not an end in itself but a means to an end. When means cease to serve their aims, they must be discarded. The Church was a means to spread Christianity and the Communist Party was a means to spread Communism. Both became ends in themselves at the expense of the ends they were supposed to serve. They turned their former ends into means to serve themselves, thus destroying them. The tendency to turn means into ends must be constantly resisted. Elitists must be reminded that contrary to Plato’s critique of Athenian Democracy 2,500 years ago, his teacher Socrates supported it. The Athenians tried Socrates and sentenced him to death, as some of his students (who misunderstood his teaching) had tried twice to overthrow Democracy by force and caused many deaths. Socrates could have escaped, but decided not to. He prefered to die by the verdict of DD even when it condemned him unjustly. By deciding not to escape he demonstrated his support for DD. Academic and political establishments today ignore the meaning of his last demonstrative decision. Today we still benefit from the contribution of Athenian DD to politics, philosophy, art and theatre. All these benefits grew from the public debates on policies in which every citizen could participate. The public debate on policy in DD stimulates citizens’ concern for their society. It developes people’s humanity. It inspires political creativity and goodwill, stifled by all other political systems. It raises humanity to a higher level by upgrading society and individuality. It upgrades the ‘person’ from a selfish, bored, indifferent member of a static, corrupting and alienating political system into an active participant in a consciously evolving society concerned with the wellbeing of the individual, of the community, of society, and of humanity as a whole. |
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