Democracy Gone Awry

In the last year or so I have come to the conclusion that the root of all the problems facing America today (growing inequality, profligate consumerism, materialism, greed, deception, a sclerotic state apparatus, and many more) is the very bedrock of our governmental system: democracy. To put it concisely, our democracy is based on old-school models of proper government. Such models do not work in the 21st century. The solution is to find a new model, especially adapted to our present epoch.

Most people take it for granted that democracy is obviously the right form of government. But this is not at all patently axiomatic. Most societies of the past, since neolithic times 10,000 years ago, both primitive pastoral ones and more advanced agricultural ones, were socially stratified ones. Some people (such as priests and governors) had clearly defined more power than others, and such societies often lasted for millennia, such as the Egyptian civilization.

By contrast, the few civilizations that did experiment with democracy, had a mixed record of success with it and none of them lasted for very long. The Romans, for examples, inexorably moved from republic toward empire through the various triumvirates, culminating in Julius Caesar's non-official abolition of the republic and declaring himself emperor. It is hard to envision any different historical path for a rapidly surging and prosperous 1st century B.C. Rome.

Greek democracy, almost from its very beginning was characterized by leaders' deception of the masses in order to secure their support for government policy.

Themistocles, the first non-aristocratic Greek politician in the newly-forged Athenian democracy of 508 B.C., sought to channel wealth generated by silver mines that had been recently discovered, into large naval fleet of triremes, in order to defend against what he feared would be an imminent Persian attack. As a populist leader he considered it tactless to cite the true reason for his plea to the masses to not splurge the newly acquired wealth. The people were terrified of the Persians and would have been shocked and dismayed to hear someone argue that Persians may return for an additional strike after having been stopped in the Battle of Marathon of 490 B.C.

Instead, Themistocles cited the the threat of Aegina as the reason for urging the massive naval buildup in 483 B.C. This is rather remarkable since the Persian threat was still quite vivid in the people's minds, and if it were to materialize, the outcome would be more detested than an occupation by a rival Greek city-state, since it would spell a complete annihilation of the Greek of way of life, by despised barbarians no less.

The modern equivalent to this is how the American government cited the threat of nuclear rearmament by Iraq as the reason for invading it and toppling its regime. Experts mostly agree that there wasn't any evidence for an Iraqi nuclear program and even if there were, there would have been other ways to deal with it (including doing nothing, as the administration did nothing about India and Pakistan and North Korea who similarly violated the global non-proliferation pact). The real reason for the Iraq war of 2003 was to appropriate (a.k.a. "steal"?)  Iraq's oil. As a bonus, it would be a boon for the defense industry, with which the Bush administration was in bed (Dick Cheney in particular).

Liberal would cry foul at any such declaration of war for the purpose of stealing the country's natural resources. Paradoxically, however, he might have gained the support of many ordinary Americans who do believe in the "might makes right" doctrine (which used to be taken for granted by all people). Still, in the Bush admin's reasoning, even if American may have retrospectively said decades from now "yeah, it's good that we got Iraq's oil; otherwise prices would have skyrocketed here and our lifestyle would have been crippled. After all, why does the oil belong to the Iraqis merely because it was found on their land?", such an argument couldn't have been made politically IN A DEMOCRATIC COUNTRY in 2003. The majority of American voters just wouldn't buy it, not to speak of the moral outrage the world would evince at this.

Thus, democratic governments are often forced to be deceptive to its electorate if its operating technocracy is to accomplish what is in the best interest of the people. A politician can either be an honest elitist, or deceptive populist, but honest populism doesn't do.

The solution.

The solution is to revoke the franchise from the hoi polloi. Voting for political office should not be an automatic right. Rather it should be a privilege for those who earn it by demonstrating proficiency in politics. Does it make sense for a plumber to get to tell me, a teacher, how to run a classroom, or someone who is not fluent in the social sciences to advise me as to what should and should not be included in the World History class that I teach? Everyone understands that in a highly specialized work force, such as is ours, the system runs best if disparate departments do not interfere in the operations of one another. When a contractor builds a house, the carpenter decides what kind of wood and nails to use and the type of drill, if any; the plumber decides what kind of piping to use and where to install it. The electrician has a slew of decisions to make in turn; and so on. Why then should politics be any different if the system has evolved, as it did, to be so complex as to require political professionals to give competent advice on how to run it?

To put this into practice, we should devise a written multiple choice test, drawn from a bank of thousands of questions. Those who want to participate in the democratic process, will take a 100-question-test, of which test items are drawn randomly from the bank, in a government testing center. If they get a passing score, they are then declared eligible to vote in elections. The test bank should encompass all subject matter that pertains to the contemporary political process, including constitutional law, major judicial rulings (e.g. Plessy V. Ferguson, Brown V. BOE, Marbury V. Madison, Citizen United, Miranda Rights), the branches and duties of our government, the function of government agencies (such as FCC, FAA, SEC, FTC, FDA, CIA, DOJ). You get the idea.

It is important to note that even though we have universal suffrage for all sane, law-abiding adults over 18, whose voting rights can easily be exercised in all elections, the fact of the matter is that an Athenian citizen in the 5th century B.C. assembling in the Acropolis and casting a stone to show their vote, was actually far more influential in government than ordinary citizens are today. For one, there were many fewer eligible Athenian citizens than there are Americans, so the weight of each voter was greater. Secondly, most citizens did not bother voting on any given referendum unless they actually cared about it (they would have probably been forced to take a unpaid day off work), thus further accentuating the relative weight of each vote. Thus, it is ironic that we tend to think that our representative democracy is more "democratic" since everyone gets to have input into who enacts the law; but in fact our system is less democratic insofar as our voices are frequently drowned out in a sea of votes, none of which specify what the elected official should actually do, only that the voters trusts that the official will faithfully represent their interest.

An even more sophisticated voting scheme could feature, additionally, the following:

1) Once a voter is certified as eligible to vote based on his politics proficiency test, the voter can then choose to specialize in one or more specialty fields, (e.g. foreign policy, consumer products, fiscal policy).

2) When a a policy question arises in a specialty field, those who have certification in the field can log in to an online portal where they can cast their vote within a certain time window. This moreover allows the two sides in a debate to make a persuasive verbal case for their respective positions, which the voting citizen "specialist" can then read and ponder prior to casting his vote upon online.

I am actually surprised that I have not come across any online voting proposal yet. It seems natural to me that, like so many other routine tasks that are performed online, voting should be done online as well. Even if we do not restrict access to "uncertified citizens" as my plan calls, one can envision many benefits enabled by an online voting platform.