patrick.net

We are brought up to think that voting is important, that it is a necessary condition of being a politically serious person, that we can’t complain about politics if we don’t vote. This last principle has echoes of the more reasonable parental admonition, said of lima beans or cauliflower: don’t knock it until you’ve tried it. But that principle is based on sound epistemological grounds: you might, for all you know, like cauliflower or lima beans. The voting thing is, as Brand argues, stupid. There are ways of participating in public affairs other than voting. For example, one can become a celebrity and call for revolution in a television interview.

More to the point, the inference from not voting to not caring is a poor one. As Brand points out, you might care a lot about what happens and what the system is doing, but still realise that voting doesn’t affect what happens or what the system does. In most elections, the chance that your vote will make any difference to who wins is much smaller than the chance that you will be hit by a car on the way to cast your vote. But people still turn out to vote. They even drive through snow, miss work, and wait in line for hours.

This has puzzled political scientists and economists. Why do people vote? This is an empirical question; it concerns our actual motivations. Many answers have been given: we vote because we enjoy it; because we think others will think badly of us if we don’t; because we want to express ourselves; or cheer for our team; or because we believe that we have a duty to do so. One worry about all of these answers is that they seem disconnected from what makes voting seem so morally significant, something that it might be worth fighting and dying for the right to do.

In the modern world, we often find ourselves in the following situation. I know that whether I do X rather than Y won’t make a difference by itself. I also know that everyone else knows this about me and about themselves. I also know that if all of us do X, rather than Y, it will make a difference. And everyone else knows this, too. So it’s striking and surprising that a celebrity such as Brand would come out and say, to millions, ‘Don’t vote,’ rather than ‘Vote for X.’ That was the revolutionary part of the interview. A thousand lefty celebrities have gone on TV and advocated for causes. Very few have gone on TV and said ‘Don’t vote.’ Very few have gone on TV and said, essentially, X and Y can both go fuck themselves.

More: 3,600 words. https://aeon.co/essays/forget-voting-it-s-time-to-start-choosing-our-leaders-by-lottery

Definition:

Government of the People by People chosen by Lottery.A theory of government run by people recruited for office via a public lottery system. The lottery system would largely resemble the various systems in place today for choosing jury pools.

There would be no repeat public service required – previous service would be a valid exemption. Holding a position for two terms would be almost impossible. Some individuals would not qualify, just as they would not qualify for jury duty. Some would qualify for a temporary or hardship exemption.

Eligibility would be based on age and residency. Citizenship may be required for some posts.A Lottocracy makes wealth and fund-raising non-issues for a candidate for public office, as we would all be candidates with a more or less equal probability of being chosen.Additional checks and balances may be required that do not exist in America’s system of Democracy.

For instance, no single position could hold ultimate power over any individual, group or organization. However, a Lottocracy would be almost free of special interest groups and so-called partisanship. It would also guarantee equal representation – a concept proposed by the founding fathers of the United States, but one sorely lacking in today’s government.



#Lottocracy #Voting #Elections #TermLimits