Ron Peterson wrote:
I don’t see how A. Sarovic is solving a problem, it seems to meet the desires of the capitalist exactly, each person should get to vote in proportion to their wealth. If you measure a person’s contribution by the number of hours he has worked in his life, a 40 year old would have twice the voting power of a 30 year old. Ron
Aleksandar Šarović wrote:
First, I believe that an equal voting right is probably an ideal we should long. But, at this moment, it is absolutely unacceptable to the powerful people around the world because an equal voting power in real democracy may easily decide to take the power from the most powerful people. The point is that powerful people has been creating rules in society alone without matter what kind of so called democracy has been established. They get all kinds of benefits from the system and they would rather produce huge destruction then give a really equal voting right to the people. On the other hand, one could find justification in giving more voting rights to the people who contribute more to the development of society. Such a measure may be very stimulative for the productive orientation of society.
In such circumstances, a compromise I offered looks like the best solution. The compromise should be equally acceptable to all the people. We may base voting power on equality as it is today. On top of that, we may give an additional voting power to each man proportionally to the wealth of each man. A total number of life time working hours of workers may be included somehow as well. In addition the value lies in creating new lives (birth of babies), education, also in any contribution of a man that improves the life of society (which is more difficult to determine), etc. The impact of each kind of value to the voting power will be subject of a hard negotiation among political parties. But finally, they may produce the result (by consensus) with which will be easy to calculate the voting power of each man. The final result may be an equal voting power (if for example all agree that the voting power should be given only by one’s existence) up to let’s say an unlimitedly different voting power among the people.
Would the different voting power among the people be unjust? Hardly. If we compare it with what we have today. Today a 17 year old does not have any voting power but an 18 year old does, which decides nothing. My offer makes the system equally acceptable to all. Powerful people will give up from ruling the society but will get decent and recognized voting power and many other benefits such as a high income for example. Others will lose a non-existent equal voting power but will get some real voting power maybe for the first time in the history of mankind. The whole society will benefit in stability, security, and productivity. Is it possible? Similar phenomenons happened when some European kings voluntarily gave up from the absolute power and gave it to parliaments.
Cyrill Vatomsky wrote:
The biggest problem with this is its idealistic notion: we can create some mechanism that will work wonders. Well, who is going to participate in the task of pooling? And finally, who is going to make the final decision? Can you guarantee that such an unnatural exercise will not be a) botched by misjudgements or (likely) b) corrupted from within? Impossible to implement. Specialization in modern world require professional decision makers. In your system, every knee-jerk emotional reaction will have its voice as well.
Aleksandar Šarović wrote:
In the system I have proposed, the people will choose political parties as they do today. Political parties will prepare the Constitutional Law and few of the most important laws such as the law about decision making in society and about labour. These laws will be made by consensuses of political parties and after that they will have to be accepted on referendum by let’s say 2/3 of total votes and that will be final. I cannot see significant changes here.
Democracy will especially be needed in economy. Every member of society will participate in making decisions about the macroeconomic policy of society. Each voter will actually divide his voting points (the quantity will be equal to the gross income of the individual) for the individual consumption, collective consumption and for the development of production in the possible range determined by the parliament. The sum of all these voting points made by all the voters for each group will determine the amount of money allocated for each group. The number of decisions might be made about the distribution of money for collective consumption as long as that would be in the interest of the people. The people may directly decide about the minimum wage as well. These decisions will be final.
I do not think that any education is necessarily needed for such voting. People will simply, through their living experience, consider what funds will need more money to be allocated in and what less and that is all. These few decision points will manage the whole macroeconomic policy of society and therefore it would simply and extremely efficiently manage the whole society. I cannot see why you think that a direct democracy is impossible to achieve, or why it would be unnatural, or how it might be corrupted? On the contrary, I think such a democracy will make the best choice to society. I guess there would be no need for more democracy than what is described above. All other decisions in society will make leaders and they would be directly responsible for the people.
Cyrill Vatomsky wrote:
Consensus implies no disagreements, vs. majority rule. Political parties will have a very hard time coming up with anything based on consensus. When was the last time that a consensus was achieved on anything in a democracy and on public level, not among representatives? So, no consensus.
Aleksandar Šarović wrote:
Well, each decision made against the wish of minority on a long run makes damage to society. The damages manifest in all possible kinds of destructions inside society. Will the political parties come to their wisdom after a disaster occurs or will their wisdom be faster? In the worst case, the political parties will wait a couple of years or more and try to find the consensus again. However, somewhere around the world the consensus might be found soon and it would certainly show the world that it is the best choice for humankind and most likely the only good one.
Political parties will prepare all the main decisions by consensus, which means a small party may stop the referendum (It certainly gives an unequal voting power as well). Once the direct democratic practice is established, the people will simply not allow anything less than democracy the same way they would not allow slavery today.
At the end, it comes to my mind that an unequal voting power will be a pretty much formal power. It will rather present how much each individual has contributed to building the values to society than anything else. One man with one vote or with thousands of them cannot significantly change the voting result where millions or billions of votes decide. Real individual power will come from democratic anarchy and there, each man has to have an equal power.
