Fixing Democracy

By John Cunningham

A practical and radical solution for the awful political mess that plagues democracy worldwide - using the internet  and replacing the politicians with smart dedicated democratic coordinators.

• Language: English
• Publisher: John Cunningham
• Release date: Feb 13, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386436263

John Cunningham

John Cunningham was born in 1949 and grew up on the coast north of Boston, in Marblehead Massachusetts. He has an undergraduate degree from Dartmouth College and graduate degrees from Yale University, all in economics. There is an unfinished dissertation on communal economics, as his fields of study were industrial organization and comparative economic systems. While in school full time he supported his family with software gigs at Dartmouth and Yale. He left academia in 1974 to help found Shannon Farm Association, an intentional community on the outskirts of the Blue ridge Mountains in Virginia, where he lives to this day, with his wife of twenty years, Rebecca L'Abbe. John has three children by two previous wives. He helped create a Mondregon coop, Starburst Computer Group, which dealt in computer hardware, software, and support. That lead to his involvement with Interact Systems, where he has provided technical services and support for about thirty years. As a systems analyst and programmer, he has designed and written extensive accounting and database software for small businesses, in addition to polling software, and a brief stint working with meteorologists. He has zero public involvement, but a lot of professional work with small non-profit organizations, in addition to forty years of participatory democracy and consensus decision-making experience at Shannon Farm. This includes the design work and implementation of democratic and economic structures within communal and cooperative settings.

Book preview

Chapter 1  -  Internet Direct Democracy and Implementation in a Nutshell

How to Fix Democracy

Humankind has a new tool.  On the monumental scale of fire, writing, the printing press, the industrial revolution, now we have the internet, which gives billions of people nearly immediate access to most of the assembled knowledge and misinformation of the entire history of the human race.  This tool has been used more recently to subvert democracy.  We need to use it to constructively fix democracy.  This book descibes a very viable practical way to to that and how to get there.

The American political system is broken.  If, as an American, you voted for Donald Trump, you felt that things were broken and he could fix them.  If you voted against Donald Trump, his election and the subsequent nightmare farce is prima facie evidence that our election of leaders system is broken and something needs to be done.

Depending on your spin, the American political system is either distressed, or an effin' mess.  Many other democracies are dealing with similar dysfunctional stress,  but this book will relate directly to American democracy because that is culturally where I come from.  But to summarize, given the vehement politicization of the governing process, combined with our checks-and-balances legislative structure, we have a legislature that seems to accomplish very little, cannot experiment with anything to see if it might work better, and cannot fairly evaluate programs enacted.  Leaders are hamstrung by special interests, who wield far too much influence.  But worst of all, almost all debate and discussion is carried out in a nasty truth twisting, unforgiving public arena that makes it nearly impossible for representatives to work together in the governing process.

Of course, there will be massive disagreement on the nature of the dysfunction, who is to blame, and how to make things better, but you have to be a sadist or masochist to like the current process.

Barack Obama in 2008 and Donald Trump in 2012 both campaigned on change platforms with criticism of existing political mechanisms.  But Obama got caught up with the increasing political partisanship within the legislative process, and a Republican Congress for most of his term.  Trump has the same Republican Congress, thanks to the extreme gerrymandering that happened after 2010, but his vitriolic neo-fascistic campaign has generated divisiveness similar to the 1960s’ antiwar movement, and as I write this in the spring of 2017,  his effectiveness of change and governing capability quotients are really in serious question.

I offer a relatively simple, straightforward, very achievable solution to this long term political and democratic morass, even for people who disagree about the cause.

You already have an eminently satisfying answer in your heart - get rid the politicians. Those remaining will be more humble and useful.  Surprisingly this is a side effect of my proposal.

We replace the politicians with twenty-first-century technology and know-how - via the internet.  Simply put, we can use the internet to vote directly on all the issues,  and indirectly on laws and budgets.  We replace politicians with capable and caring technocrats and run a direct democracy through the internet, enacting policies based on  the majority will of the people.

It is not hard to get there from here.  We can try out the idea in a pilot project to see how people like it.  Using our existing political institutions, we can see whether the people like voting directly on the issues instead of complaining to and about the politicians' actions.

What it would take is an astute political economist, democratic facilitator, or someone like that to run for Congress, as either a Democrat or Republican, but as a single dimension candidate.  The candidate promises and delivers a web-site. The elected rep puts all the issues and votes on the website, and votes how the people direct him or her to vote.  It is important that the web site would need bank-type security for initial voter setup and login so that only registered voters from that district count.

The candidate promises no positions on any issue.  The candidate votes only how the majority in his/her district directs her/him to vote on each issue.  The direction would be in the form of an on-line, updatable super-poll that clarifies the voters’ interests and wants, so that the representative can determine how to vote on individual bills.  This super-poll is highly preferable to voters directly voting on bills, because practically speaking, the vast majority of voters do not have the time, inclination, patience, or attention to detail to genuinely and effectively vote on each bill.

This change hands power directly to the voters for that district.  The special interests would have no say.  The representative would have no power.  The voters would have the power.  The web site itself would even show how much people like the system because voters would be polled on that as well.

If people like the system, others will run on the same direct democracy platform (and win), and we will have a growing internet democracy movement that can replace the entire political system,  under the existing constitution, without changing a single law.

Existing politicians who are motivated by service rather than power, can take the direct democracy pledge to vote as ordered - and keep their vastly redefined jobs as truly working for the people.  The power seekers will either quit or fight over the few administrative elected positions available.

There are numerous other advantages to internet direct democracy, some even involving our political and personal mental health.  I will go into more detail on these and on how this whole wonderful dream can become a reality in the rest of this book.  There are some complications and problems, but internet direct democracy can fly, just like you can, in airplanes and in your dreams.

The Case for Internet Democracy

The political parties have been mud-slinging with occasional forays into lies and slander pretty much since they evolved.  The political systems are mostly about getting power and holding it.  The ostensible goal is good government, but it all starts with getting and holding power. That power-grabbing aspect has evolved dramatically over the past two hundred years, while the good government aspect has not evolved so much at all.  Many more people particpate in the elections, but we still end up with politicized governments and, now, near gang-war relationships between the parties.  The political rancor and infighting in Washington has reached historic sludge levels reminiscent of both the great depression and pre-civil war.

Our forefathers (while pretty much neglecting foremother input) thought of representative democracy as picking highly qualified and competent people - the best leaders - to work out the laws to govern ourselves.  When they drew up the Constitution, they did not anticipate political parties and were extremely hopeful that factions would not develop.

But factions did develop and quickly morphed into political parties.  Now, people spend millions of dollars every election to support candidates who hold their position, or to get the incumbant.  Millions of dollars are spent on provocative spin, slander, half-truths, and outright lies - because these are highly effective election techniques.

Elected officials cannot stay in personal touch with the electorate because there are too many people.  So they work with the interest groups, especially the interest groups that got them elected, because they represent a significant number of  votes. Getting these interest groups on their side is the formula for remaining in elected office.

But now we have the internet -  the almost supernatural system that facilitates communication between people almost everywhere in the world.  The internet has transformed a large and growing number of industries, businesses, and professions, because the internet and computers have changed the base conditions for civilization as dramatically as the industrial revolution overhauled humanity starting in the 1800s.

Now we have the technological capability to implement direct democracy in a way no one could envision even fifty years ago.  People have actually been talking about it for several years - as there are direct democracy political parties - and even direct democracy websites have been set up where you can particpate in pretend direct democracy and send your results to your congressperson's web site.

These have not been effective moves.  They have not really been on anyone's radar, although Iceland's Pirate Party made a big blip in 2016.  Building a party or creating some kind of democratic internet influence group is very hard work with very uncertain prospects for success.

On the other hand running a single campaign costs a bunch of money, but with a unique broad-based platform (genuine power to the people, etc.- see the next 80 pages) fund  raising is highly feasible.  Setting up the website requires more money or free labor, but is completely do-able.  Managing the website will cost money, but that is within the normal function of a congressional staff. Voila, direct democracy - for one district - and we all get to see how it works because it is all publicy happening on the internet.

The breed of people to be elected would not be politicians, but more service-oriented democratic facilitators able to hear and present all viewpoints for the people to vote directly on, and to help focus the discussions on solutions,  actions, and viable alternatives for those who are unhappy with what the people are voting for.

Any more goodies to this?  People who want to work for an issue can work directly for that issue - not vote once every two years for someone with various and possibly illusionary commitments to a whole raft of issues.  Direct democracy makes the discussions between people count, because your votes count - all the time.

Bills and discussions in the legislature become open and easier to understand.  Strange back-room deals will not be possible because voters will not accept them.  Deals must be out in the open, between groups of people, because that is the only deal that voters can accept.  Conspiracies and back room deals cannot function out in public.

People will still be able to lie, but character assassination will not be an effective weapon.  Votes will be on the issues, and choices will be clearly defined.

Special interests will not be able to bribe, seduce, spin, influence, or otherwise work the system in the ways that they have learned to do.  If the voters decide every issue, then the special interests have to convince a majority of the voters about an issue, and keep them convinced, because a voter scorned is a political enemy for life.

A direct democracy will not be fickle about dumping failed solutions.  Plans that are not working will lose their majority support, and be replaced by new plans that will hopefully work better.  Otherwise, they will be replaced, until we voters find a situation that works for most of us.

The Magic Fix:  Real Democracy for Dummies

The following pages will provide a detailed blueprint for overhauling our political system using the internet - using twenty-first-century technology to upgrade our eighteenth-century designed governing system to one that truly gives power to the people, that rips power away from the special interests that play the current system so well, and that fixes our politicians, so that they are people we can look up to instead of people that we rhetorically castrate because we disagree with the causes that they espouse. 

The ideas presented here work for all Americans - conservatives, moderates, liberals, libertarians, tea party members, the Green party - everybody who believes in democracy as an ideal, but is unhappy with how it currently plays out in America - or any place else in the world, for that matter. This is a head-on challenge to our dysfunctional political system.

We can create a system where we can literally all work together to make better government, a system where really good ideas can come from anywhere and anyone, and be fairly (and unfairly) evaluated by people, and then voted on and implemented without going through the torturous political nightmare of a gauntlet that faces a new idea now.  It is not that hard to do and it is not expensive.

Right now, to get elected in our representational democracy, a candidate must stake out a number of positions on a whole raft of subjects, so that voters will know how the candidate will vote when elected. America has evolved into a two-party system, so that most of the time voters get a choice between two people- two parties.  The winner then goes to the legislature and helps create legislative proposals and votes for or against all the legislative proposals that come up in that session based on the statements and promises made during the campaign.

We should change the role - the job of representative - using the concept of direct democracy and the capabilities of the internet.  A direct democracy representative would be a one-dimensional candidate, taking no position on any issue.  Instead s/he would have an internet site set up and managed by the rep, essentially letting every registered voter vote on every issue.  The rep promises to vote based upon how the people vote on every issue.

To emphasize an important point – the voters do not generally vote on specific bills, because keeping track of barrels of detailed bills is beyond individual capabilities.  The voters vote on positions and issues and the rep translates their votes into the proper vote on any particular bill.

This removes all power from the representative.  All power passes to the people voting using the internet.  It does require every voter getting login names and passwords that allows them access to the internet site.  This does require that voters be involved with what is being proposed and voted on.  There are time, accessibility, and attention issues that will be addressed in later chapters.

Polling subsets of the voters by phone or internet polling is not  involved.  The only selectivity is self-selectivity in that voters can choose not to vote on an issue.  The issues and positions should