That ideal being far from likely, we have governments consisting of the few to make decisions that affect the many.
There are many different types of government, but fundamentally they perform the same task - put people who are supposed to be more clever than the most stupid person in a position to make decisions in their (the stupid people’s) place. This usually takes the form of producing policies to be implemented by something the equivalent of the public service.
In a democratic system, this body of government is elected in some manner to represent some qualified element of the population (by birth-place, age, gender, nationality, etc). Under these circumstances (people’s representatives) it often has the role of overseeing the public service (rarely controlling it). In a more autocratic system (monarchy, despotism), the government may be a part of a hierarchy that manages the implementation of policies.
My interest is in elected representation - what is euphemistically referred to as democracy. Because it is ‘expected’ that an elected official represents their constituency, there are all sorts of pitfalls in the system. For any voting system, no representative actually has the full support of those who elected them. By definition, unless they were the only candidate & anyone could qualify to stand, then *someone* wanted someone else in the role.
Even those who voted for the elected official don’t necessarily support them - they could be the best of a bad bunch, the devil they know, a party hack, a donkey vote, blind luck, a mistake, or any of a number of other unfortunate side-effects of the system. In Australia, for example, where voting is compulsory, *someone* has to get the vote - or else you vote informal (invalid) - in which case, your opinion is ignored.
This is the root of the problem with democracy in general. It produces people who are by definition disliked by some percentage of the population that they represent. It also makes that person elected dependent upon the favour of voters to retain their position if they want to remain within the government. This rather ties their hands in terms of being effective. Nobody elected agrees whole-heartedly with the people who elect them - because of misinformation, mistaken identity, party affiliation, propaganda, the quality of the opposition, etc.
Now I’ve brought politics into the fold. Political parties like to hold power. I’m not sure what they do with it, but they are greedy & like to hold it - or at least ensure that no other party holds it. That’s what they do. It’s their sole purpose. People join political parties to be a part of that success, to feel the warmth of the power in the party, to share in the reflected light. A party makes them larger than they are themselves.
It doesn’t matter what the policies of that party are, the fact of the matter is that the party itself has a self-preservation built into it to ensure that it gets power - re-election of its representatives - regardless of its idealisms or the people that it is supposed to represent on the ground level.
On this basis, a party will never be too controversial. This is a given. This means it will never intentionally introduce policies that - no matter how good they are for the population, society, country, world - will upset the electorate. But isn’t that exactly why we need elected officials - to make the decisions subjectively that we wouldn’t make subjectively? Don’t we abregate our responsibility by putting our trust in the democratic representative?
I have always said that we get the politicians that we can afford - that is, if smart people can get a better livelihood & satisfaction out of not being in politics, then only extreme altruism could draw them to it.
Similarly, political parties can only allow those who toe the party line into the upper echelons of representativeness. Any official who is a danger to the party’s electability cannot be allowed to voice their concerns or make public statements that might be embarrassing to the party, no matter how well-intentioned.
The system does not work.
I have no choice in the collection of people from whom I have to choose a representative - unless I stand for election myself. If I am lucky enough that the person for whom I vote is popular with my neighbours, & I agree whole-heartedly with them & the party that they represent, then I may otherwise be happy, or blissfully ignorant of what I lack - true representation.
What’s the alternative - allow everyone direct input on every governmental decision? Worse than anarchy. That gives people all the more reason to bitch & moan about their opinion not being carried through to policy - or else policy-making stagnates to general popularism.
A better thing is that people who want to be representatives be trained as such - have to pass some sort of civics course that includes an understanding of the workings of government & an appreciation of how the system works. In my heart, I think that all voters should need a qualification, but then the uneducated have no representation.
From those who are qualified, all should stand for election. The election should then be random, across reasonable lines of geographic, demographic, ethnic, gender & age spread. The terms of reasonableness would have to change over time from its current randomness which we shall call a baseline of incorrectness, towards some form of ideal (more young people, more women, whatever) until a happy balance is achieved. These random people are given a fixed term.
Those willing & who qualify during that term as being most active & effective are thrown into a pool from which returning representatives are randomly chosen (again, the number can slowly change from whatever the average is now). The rest are still qualified for general election, if they so wish to stand after their experience.
The only politics left are around issues, rather than around re-election. That is something I could stomach as healthy debate, & keeps the politics out of the government.
Unfortunately, the only way I can get these changes in place would be to sneakily be elected under the wing of a political party & work against them, or else become so popular a solitary figure that people listen. I could also campaign from outside of the elective system, but that means no practicing what I preach.
Let me think more on the subject …
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