George Monbiot sees democracy as failing in the way political systems are currently set up. They are corrupted, no longer working as they were intended, and the population no longer trusts them, as seen in the recent Brexit and Donald Trump votes.
While GM recognizes there is no magic formula to solve our democratic problems, he has looked at various policies others have proposed. Here are those that seem to address the problems without bringing in further problems.
Reform Political Funding
# Radical reform of campaign finance
(political funding). The power of money in politics poisons everything – the 'dirtiest' companies spend the most on
politics to avoid being regulated out of existence, so they dominate politics. "Banks designing dodgy financial instruments; pharmaceutical
companies selling outdated drugs; gambling companies seeking to stifle
controls; food companies selling obesogenic junk; retail companies
exploiting their workers; accountants designing tax-avoidance packages:
all have an enhanced incentive to buy political space, as all, in a fair
system, would find themselves under pressure. The system buckles to
accommodate their demands. GM"
# Reform party funding. Every
party can only charge the same small fee for membership
(£50?), matched by the state, with a
fixed multiple. All other direct or indirect political funding would
be illegal. Parties would then be forced to re-engage with voters. "The corruption of our politics by private
money costs us hundreds of times more than a funding system for which we
would pay directly. That corruption has led to financial crises caused
by politicians’ failure to regulate the banks, environmental crises
caused by the political power of the dirtiest companies, and lucrative
contracts for political funders; and overcharging by well-connected
drugs companies. GM"
Help voters make informed choices.
# Germany
has a "federal agency for civic education
which publishes authoritative but accessible guides to the key political
issues, organises film and theatre festivals, study tours and
competitions, and tries to engage with groups that turn their backs on
democratic politics. It is trusted and consulted by millions. GM"
# Switzerland
has a Smartvote system, which presents a list of policy choices with which you
can agree or disagree, then compares your answers with the policies of
the parties and candidates contesting the election. A graphic shows which party / candidate most closely matches your interests. "There is some excellent civic technology produced by voluntary groups
elsewhere (such as Democracy Club, Crowdpac and mySociety in the UK). But without the funding and capacity of the state, it struggles to reach people who are not already well informed. GM"
Reform Election Processes
# Move to proportional representation - the US presidential elections are distorted by the electoral college system
and UK general elections allow a minority of the electorate to
dictate to the majority. "Ideally, in parliamentary elections this
would mix the national with the local by retaining constituency links,
such as the single transferable vote or the additional member system. GM"
# Simply using proposals such as Sortition (randomly
selecting delegates) or direct democracy (referendums and citizens’
initiatives) would be a recipe for disaster in populations as large and complex
as ours. We will still need professional, full-time politicians. But both approaches could be used alongside representative democracy. Sortition might be seen as "political jury service, with citizens chosen by lot
are presented with expert testimony then asked to make a decision. As an
advisory tool, it could keep representative politics grounded in the
real world. It could be used to create constituional conventions,
at which proposals for better political systems are thrashed out. There
might even be some virtue in the idea of a second parliamentary chamber
(such as the House of Lords or the US Senate) being chosen by lot. GM"
But there are dangers - not system is immune to fraud. "The Westminster government’s
first experiment with citizens’ juries (Gordon Brown’s attempt to
determine whether doctors’ surgeries should be replaced with giant
clinics) was corrupted from birth. Jurors were hand-picked and presented with one-sided evidence, then the
results were buried when they came out “wrong”. GM"
# Ballot Initiatives. Once political funding is reformed, ballot initiatives (if you gather enough signatures you can demand a vote) become a
powerful political instrument, enabling people to propose legislation
without waiting for their representatives. But "without reform they are
another means by which billionaires rig the system. GM". For some simple, especially local, issues (a new road be built?, should a
tower block be demolished?) carefully designed ballot requests can enhance
political transparency. NB. Referendums on big
questions (eg. UK membership of the EU) suffer from an imbalance
between the complexity of the issue and the simplicity of the tool: they
demand impossible levels of political knowledge.
# Sociocracy is a system "designed to produce inclusive
but unanimous decisions, by encouraging members of a group to keep
objecting to a proposal until, between them, they produce an answer all
of them can live with. A version designed by the Endenburg Electronics firm in the Netherlands is widely used in companies and cooperatives.
While it might work better than the average
local authority meeting, it might not scale up well without losing intelligibility. GM"
"Change happens when we decide what we want,
rather than what we think we might get. Is a functioning democracy an
outrageous demand?"
Our democracy is broken, debased and distrusted - but there are ways to fix it by George Monbiot in The Guardian, 25 Jan. 2017. Read in full: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/25/democracy-broken-distrusted-trump-brexit-political-system
