The Future of Democracy
The word democracy derives from the Greek words that mean “people govern.” Generally, it is assumed throughout the world that the democratic way of decision-making is the best possible and therefore, the most acceptable. The only problem is that nobody knows what exactly it means. It would be ideal if people mutually agree and create rules on an equal basis that would be valid in their collective, but it is impossible to achieve because every society brings an unlimited number of decisions about which all people cannot decide on either due to lack of interest, knowledge, or time.
Therefore, today an indirect form of democracy where people elect at the polls their representatives in government is generally accepted. Candidates who win the most votes of the people receive the mandate to govern on behalf of the people in a given period. The peoples’ representatives in government should represent the interests of their electors, but they cannot successfully do it, because they have insufficient insight into the wishes of the voters who have elected them. It goes without saying that an elected government has no desire at all to meet the needs of those people who did not vote for them. Besides that, representatives of the people are quite privileged, and as such they more often represent their own interests or the interests of a privileged class of people who help them in elections rather than the interests of the people. So that in practice, indirect forms of democracy cannot adequately follow the will of people and therefore, they are not satisfactory. Also, the democratically elected leaders can cause significant harm to the people of which there is not an adequate defence. For example, democratically elected Adolf Hitler and George Bush are remembered mostly by the destructions they initiated “in the name of the people.”
The will of people may be followed to a greater extent by a direct form of democracy through referendums, where people directly decide on issues of self-interest. The intention of the majority of people accepts or rejects the proposed decision. This form of democracy also has significant disadvantages. Firstly, I would mention that a majority of people might outvote a minority and thus cause inconvenience to the minority, which is unacceptable. The principle of consensus among representatives of people on issues that people should vote about, make such a form of democracy more acceptable. But direct democracy is rarely applied, primarily because governments do not like people messing with their businesses and then because the organization of referendums is not a simple process. Finally, each society brings a vast number of decisions about which one could not call for referendums because people do not have enough knowledge about making all the decisions or are not interested in it or do not have time to participate in them. And so decisions in society are always brought by privileged authorities that do not follow the will of the people sufficiently.
Does this mean that the will of the people cannot be carried out? That democracy cannot be developed? Scholars of social sciences do not see a solution to the problem of democracy and cannot establish any consensus on how a developed democracy should look like. The establishment of a developed form of democracy requires the discovery of a new pathway that will effectively implement the will of people. To reach it, one needs to think outside the box. I have managed to create a straightforward and original way, leading to a fully developed democracy.
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Let’s allow every person, who within the scope of his activity can affect us in any way, to do it freely upon their will. We do not even have many choices because we cannot interfere with the freedom of activities of presidents, doctors and mechanics, or any other worker, nor do we have the ability, nor the time, nor the right, perhaps not even the desire to do so. However, all these people may create advantages and disadvantages through their actions to individuals and society. We indeed have developed the ability to sense whether or not the activities of a president, doctor, mechanic, or any other person, brings some advantages or disadvantages to us. And according to it, we should have the right to award a person who through his or her acting creates convenience for us and punish a person who does inconveniences to us. Such a right would certainly direct all people to perform the least inconveniences and the greatest conveniences to other people. Such an orientation of society would undoubtedly follow the will of all the people in the best possible way and therefore, would present a developed democracy.
My philosophy is based on the equal rights of people because it is the only proper orientation of society. In this regard, let each person have the same power to punish let’s say three individuals who hurt him or her the most in any month, and to award let’s say three individuals who realize the most significant benefits to him or her each month. This is the essence and the rest is a technical matter which will be performed through an application on the internet. Everyone will be able to negatively evaluate people he or she does not like, for example, their prime mister, neighbour, or boss. And vice versa, everyone will be able to positively evaluate people they like, for example, their friend, teacher, or singer. The sum of all of the positive and negative evaluations that individuals receive will tell every individual how he or she is appreciated in society.
I propose also that the rewards and punishments have an equivalent value of let’s say one dollar. Each award a person receives from somebody will bring them one dollar and each penalty will take away one dollar from them. In that manner, all people will become the same authorities who have a small direct power in society. Given that all people will have equal rights and the power of evaluation, and that they can give their rewards and punishments to other people regardless of any written rules, such a democracy will present the form of anarchy. That is the reason why I have called such an evaluating system democratic anarchy. I am confident that this is the only possible path toward full democracy and good society.
Democratic anarchy will direct each member of society to respect other people. People will become values to all people. They will create the most significant possible advantages for the community and diminish or abolish the creation of all forms of disadvantages. Such a measure will definitely decrease uncontrolled or insufficiently controlled individual power originating in privileged social status. I have to stress that the privileged status of individuals causes the greatest inconveniences and problems to society. In this straightforward way, the populus will realize a great direct power in society for the first time in the history of humankind, which will result in highly harmonious and constructive social relations.
Many people, including university professors, have given me remarks in the sense that people are not able to objectively judge other people. I have answered them that objectivity is desirable but not essential. People will judge others the way they feel, and every person is obliged to take into account the consequences his actions may have on other people. By adopting this system, this will happen, and that is what will bring considerable benefits to society. Furthermore, a system that supports the equal rights of people will develop objectivity in the community, and when that happens, people will certainly objectively judge other people.
Individuals will not have much power in society, but their evaluations joined together will be very powerful. A person who receives a large number of negative assessments would try hard to avoid doing anything inconvenient to other people. Besides, the person who receives bad evaluations would never know who has evaluated him negatively so that he would try to improve his behaviour towards everyone. As a result, bullies will not harass children at school anymore; bosses will not abuse their employees at work, neighbours will not produce noise at night, salespeople will not cheat their customers, politicians will not lie to people, etc. They will all try to please other people in the best possible way. This is what will take privileged powers from all the people; this is what will eliminate social evil and form a good society.
The system of democratic anarchy will especially affect authorities. The higher the position an authority has in society, the greater the responsibility they would bare to society. For example, The President of the US might get 100,000,000 bad evaluations from the American people for bad policies, lies, and criminal aggression on countries. That would cost him 100,000,000 dollars in only one month. On the other hand, I doubt that his supporters would certainly evaluate him positively because they might easily have higher positive evaluation priorities and would spend their positive evaluations elsewhere. Non-privileged presidents would no longer dare perform bad policies anymore. And if it happens somehow, they would run away from their positions very fast. Only the most skilful and brave individuals would dare lead countries. They will not be authorities anymore, but our servants.
People will judge other people freely. In this regard, I have received many complaints in the sense that people may evaluate other people maliciously because of spite or envy. I answered that such a risk exists but I would add that individual assessment of one dollar might not cause significant harm to anyone. The damage that an individual can make is insignificant compared to the damage authorities can make because they often pull back the whole society. Take the example of Adolf Hitler and George Bush again. In the system that I have proposed these individuals would get so many negative evaluations from people from the very beginning of their careers that they would no longer dare to cause evil. Their followers would receive negative assessments as well so that organized evil would hardly rise in such a society. It is possible to forbid people who receive a large number of negative evaluations from governing society. In this way, authorities will no longer dare to carry out aggression and wars.
Is it worthwhile to allow individuals to wrongly judge others for one dollar if such trials would abolish all forms of destructiveness in society? Sure it is. Also, the new system will develop objective values and the conscience of the people where malice and envy would hardly exist. If something like that would still exist, each person would be able to correct a possible wrongful assessment that he gave to another individual by instigating a correct evaluation even many years later when he experiences enlightenment under the influence of the new system. And they will.
So what if influential people who own mass media unfairly accuse someone of evil in society and thus prompt people to give bad evaluations to the wrong person? Such things are easily possible in today’s society. However, there is a proverb that says: “Lies have short legs.” One day the lie will be revealed, and then I would not like to be in the skin of these individuals who lied because they will be punished by the people for sure.
Democratic anarchy will finally and unconditionally create a good society, and therefore it presents the greatest invention of all the time.
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Under pressure from democratic anarchy, an elected government will inevitably follow the needs of the people. The authorities would indeed not dare to make the most important decisions for society alone because they can easily make mistakes that might bring about the wrath of the people and a large number of negative evaluations. If the authorities are not sure what the needs of the people are then their responsibility, clearly defined by the fear of peoples’ evaluations, directs them to discover love towards peoples’ participation in decision-making processes through referendums. In this regard, they will develop a simple, fast, and efficient method for direct decision-making of the people, most likely over the Internet.
The people will directly create the macroeconomic policy of the society because it is the foundation that directs the economy, and that means an entire community. How? Quite simply, one first needs to enable every person to decide how much money from their gross income they want to pay for taxes. The average values of all the peoples’ expressions will determine what percentage of salaries each worker will put aside for taxation. Furthermore, in the same way, each person can decide on how tax money is spent. Each person will determine how much tax money they would set aside for: the defence of the state, public safety, education, health, housing, recreation, infrastructure, etc.
Theoretically, people can decide on a collective consumption within the consumer groups as much as they want. All these groups of shared consumption will have a far greater overall impact if they are democratically allocated. Following the living experience, people will learn how much money should be collected for taxes and what the best way to spend it is. Thus, this spending will follow the needs of people in the most efficient way because it will no longer be alienated from society. In such a way, the people will become active members of society and so; they will accept their community a lot more. Given that the new system offers stable and good relations among nations, people will no longer allocate money for the needs of armies and armies will cease to exist. In the democracy I have proposed, war will no longer be possible.
The people must directly make strategic decisions in society because that is the only way the policy of society certainly follows the interests of people. Professionals could make all other decisions, and they will be directly responsible to the people for those decisions. Once people get the power to participate in the decision-making process of their own interests and when they can judge those who make decisions on their behalf, which will present the most developed form of democracy. There’s no better political way. Such a democracy will realize all the dreamers’ dreams in the history of humankind. Once such democracy is accepted, people will become so satisfied with it that they will not allow anyone to seize it from them.
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This is just a basic idea about the future of democracy. It cannot be understood well enough without reading and analyzing my book “Humanism” available free of charge here: Table of Contens.
January 15, 2011
