A political podcast I watch frequently recently had an interview with Osita Nwanevu, author of the forthcoming The Right of the People (subtitle: Democracy and the Case for a New American Founding) his book on electoral reform. The book will be well-discussed in political circles as it is one of those rare attempts to take seriously the problems we all know exist with our political system-- among them, the exclusive influence of money, polarization, politicians who do not represent the desires of those who elect them-- and do nothing about. From what I gather the author proposes radical reform of our political as well as our economic system, and the cosmic void knows we are overdue for both. I am always looking for the next thing to read so I have wish listed the book, but to be honest, I am skeptical that it is going to go far enough toward particularly the political changes that I am convinced are needed in order to shake up our democracy for real. In particular, I've read the introduction and Nwanevu appears to offhandedly dismiss the classical Athenian system of sortition-- the selection by lot among all eligible citizens of a body of decision makers (a mini-public to use the terminology) for short, non-consecutive terms, much in the way we select juries for criminal cases-- as something that is clearly no longer how we think of democracy.
Nwanevu quotes Pericles' Funeral Oration from Thucydides as the description of the vaunted strengths of the Athenian system:
Our form of government does not enter into rivalry with the institutions of others. Our government does not copy our neighbors', but is an example to them. It is true that we are called a democracy, for the administration is in the hands of the many and not of the few. But while there exists equal justice to all and alike in their private disputes, the claim of excellence is also recognized; and when a citizen is in any way distinguished, he is preferred to the public service, not as a matter of privilege, but as the reward of merit. Neither is poverty an obstacle, but a man may benefit his country whatever the obscurity of his condition.
Nwanevu dismisses this as "nonsense" on the basis that of course in actually existing sortition, the pool of citizens was limited to landed males. Women, slaves, immigrants and eventually even those with less than two Athenian born parents were excluded from the process. That there could be a fix for these shortcomings is beyond the scope of what Nwanevu appears to have in mind for his book so is never discussed.
To the contrary, I am convinced and reconvinced daily by what our electoral system has wrought that it is sortition with the proper obvious tweaks to the qualification standards to make them as inclusive and representative as scientifically possible*-- even as unfamiliar as the concept has become-- that is the only truly democratic alternative to electoral politics worth replacing our current system with if we're going to take the trouble of replacing it. Furthermore I would propose sortition as the most powerful means of setting a chart for the major course correction required if humanity hopes to make amends for the planetary ravages of capitalism and its most nightmarish successors. The alternative to transitioning quickly to sortition is yielding to the uninformed, brain-dead bad science fiction fantasies of the unself-aware class of billionaires who have insinuated themselves into ownership of our political system and who are too overconfident in and full of self-regard for their talents at representing the needs of humanity for skepticism about their goals, with the result that in their hands the planet is too choked from the way that they would have with it for the survival of life as we know it.
In brief, the system I would propose is one developed by Terry Bouricius at Democracy Creative in which the logistics are entrusted to a number of panels each of which is peopled by random selection from a pool of volunteers each of whom would serve non-consecutive terms of varying (albeit short) lengths depending upon the office. For instance, one panel might determine the methods for random selection and other rules and regulations of the process; another would solicit and compile proposals for legislation; another would solicit expertise and identify and evaluate the best information on the proposed legislation. For the actual passage of legislation, "juries" would be selected by lot from among the entire population for mandatory service. The juries would convene to be informed of the issues to be decided upon and to debate and deliberate on whether more study is needed or to vote on the legislation. Counterpart systems could be set up for the executive and judicial branches as well replacing and vastly improving the current corroded structure for those institutions as well.
It's a system even the left couldn't fuck up.
Some points I would highlight in making a case for sortition over electoral politics:
Sortition is exclusively about governing the people as we would govern ourselves. The process is streamlined to 1) Identification of the problems to address; 2) Empowering a randomly selected scientifically representative mini-public of significant size to inform themselves about the same with the same expert information; 3) Informed discussion about the options and goals; 4) devising proposed solutions and taking a vote on their adoption on our behalf (or, if deemed appropriate by the selected body, in a public referendum).
Electoral politics busies us with a convoluted, purchased process of choosing among self-selected careerists as a way of distracting us from its inability to give us the consent of the governed. The goal of sortition is governing well; the goal of electoral politics is winning. Winning is the wrong goal of government.
While it doesn't have to be this way, the way our society is structured now ensures that in every election there will be winners and there will be losers. The stakes are high and the money spent on the contest is both a result of it and the primary reason that campaign financing perpetually escalates. Our politics is no longer (if it ever was) concerned with improving outcomes for the electorate but merely with kicking the opposing team's ass. No less than half the country is thus kept in misery for the duration of the winning teams' term. This is no way to run a country, but it is an excellent way to run a country into the ground as we see happening around us every day.
Sortition is not about defeating half the country; not about parties or personalities or war chests. It is strictly about government charting the course we ourselves would chart given our current predicament, the best information about what to do about it and ample opportunity to deliberate and the power to decide our future for ourselves without having decisions imposed upon us.
Understanding the resistance to revolutionary democratic change, I look forward to filling in the blanks in my understanding of what Nwanevu proposes. May the best re-making win.
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* Randomness guarantees diversity at the top, in sharp contrast to the depressing sameness of our whiny self-selected elite. No wonder those motherfuckers bitch about diversity. The actual diversity that would result if our leaders were randomly chosen gives the lie to their uniformly curated monopoly.
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