Democratic Anarchy is the Future of Democracy
This article presents a simple implementation of equal human rights, which will finally solve social problems and make this world a wonderful place to live.
What is wrong with democracy!
Generally, it is assumed throughout the world that the democratic way of decision-making is the best possible and, therefore, the most acceptable. The problem is nobody knows precisely what this really means. It would be ideal if people mutually agree and create rules on an equal basis that would be valid in their collective. But this is impossible to achieve because every society brings a vast number of decisions about which all people cannot decide on, either due to lack of interest, knowledge, or time. We also cannot do it because all the people can hardly agree about something and can never agree about everything. The democracy we know cannot be created directly by people.
Therefore, today we accept an indirect form of democracy where people elect their representatives in governments to rule in their names. Candidates, who present the best choice to the people and win the most votes at the polls, receive the mandate to represent the people and govern on behalf of them in a given period. The peoples' representatives in government should represent the interests of their electors. Still, they cannot do it successfully enough, because they have insufficient insight into the wishes of the voters who have elected them.
An elected government has no desire to meet the needs of those people who did not vote for them at all. Besides that, representatives of the people are quite privileged, and preferably represent self-interests or the interests of the elite who help them win elections than the interests of the people. So that in practice, indirect forms of democracy cannot adequately follow the will of people and therefore, people are hardly satisfied. Also, the democratically elected leaders can cause significant harm to the people from 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 pursuing their interest. The majority of people either accept or reject the proposed decision. This form of democracy also has significant disadvantages. Firstly, 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 policy-making and also 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, or are not interested in, or do not have time to participate in them.
As a result, all decisions in society are brought by privileged people who do not follow the will of the people sufficiently. The political, judicial, and executive branches of government support the needs of the elite over the people. It is unjust. People cannot reach justice through the development of democracy as we know it. The democracy we have is a fraud that cannot improve society. All the improvements in society have only happened when the elite had an interest in them. It had nothing to do with democracy because no improvements have happened where the elite did not support them.
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. 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 simple idea that will establish a fully developed democracy.
Democratic anarchy will solve the problems with democracy
The future of democracy will normally be created through the equal rights of people. The news is, developed democracy will give every person a small direct power of influence in any matter of their interest in society. Individuals will actually get an equal and independent legislative, judiciary, and executive powers in society. The power of all people joined together will completely change the world and make it a wonderful place to live.
Let's allow every person, who within the scope of his activity, can affect us in any way, 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 person, nor do we have the ability, nor the time, nor the right, perhaps not even the desire to do so. However, all these people create advantages and disadvantages for other people through their actions.
We have developed the ability to sense whether or not the activities of a president, doctor, mechanic, or any other person, bring some advantages or disadvantages to us. And according to it, we should have the right to award a person who creates advantages for us and punish a person who creates disadvantages for us. Such a right would undoubtedly direct all people to perform the most significant benefits and the least damages to other people. Such an orientation of society would undoubtedly follow the will of 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 evaluate negatively, let's say, three individuals who hurt him or her the most in any month, and to assess positively, let's say, three individuals who create the most significant benefits to him or her each month. For example, if the prime mister, neighbour, or boss, harm a person the most in one month, he or she will negatively evaluate them. If a friend, teacher, or singer, produce the most significant benefits to a person, he or she will normally positively assess them. Equal power of individuals to award and punish individuals will present a developed form of democracy. This is the essence, and the rest is a technical matter which will be performed through an application on the internet.
The sum of all of the positive and negative evaluations that individuals receive from other people will be publically presented on the internet. The counting of these evaluations will tell everyone how appreciated they are in society. These evaluations will become as important to people as visits, likes, and followers are important today. Nobody would like to be on the negative side of assessment, but on the positive one as much as they can. They will achieve this goal by working hard to create the most significant advantages for the community and to diminish or abolish the performing of all forms of disadvantages. This will create a good society.
In this manner, all people will become equal 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 awards and punishments to other people independently of any written rules, such a democracy will present the form of anarchy. That is the reason why I call such an evaluating system democratic anarchy. I am confident that this is the best possible path toward developed democracy.
People will get direct power in society for the first time in the history of humankind. Such a measure will eliminate uncontrolled or insufficiently controlled individual power originating in privileged social status. I have to stress that the privileged status of individuals causes the most significant problems for society. The lack of equal human rights is the main reason society was never good. Democratic anarchy will direct each member of society to respect other people. People will become values to all people. People will be considered equal for the first time ever, and that will result in harmonious and constructive social relations.
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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 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 proposed system these individuals would get a large number of negative evaluations from people, which through minor regulation, may prevent them from leading people and causing the evil they are famous for.
Is it worthwhile to allow individuals to wrongly judge others 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 still happens, each person would be able to correct a possible wrongful assessment that they gave to people by instigating a correct evaluation even many years later when they experience enlightenment under the influence of equal human rights. And they will.
Something similar to democratic anarchy is already implemented on YouTube where people get a chance to vote for songs or videos with a "like" or "dislike." There is never more than 5% of people who evaluate songs or videos dishonestly, which means 95% of the people value others properly. This suggests that democratic anarchy will serve justice in society well, even better than YouTube because people will appreciate having direct power for the first time.
For those who are still suspicious about democratic anarchy, we may first implement it by presenting the result of the evaluations only to the evaluated people themselves, and not to anybody else. Everyone would like to know how much they are appreciated in society. As a result, they will try to improve their behaviour in society. However, the secret results of the evaluation will not stop the worst people from continuing bad behaviour. Then society may decide to stop the bad people by democratic acceptance of the full implementation of democratic anarchy.
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. Besides, voters do not need to be smart or educated to have the right to vote. People will judge others the way they feel, and every person will be obliged to take into account the consequences his or her actions may have on other people. This is all that is needed for creating a good society. By adopting democratic anarchy, people will respect other people, 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 objectively judge other people.
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Individuals will not have much power in society, but their evaluations joined together will have enormous power. A person who receives a large number of negative assessments would try even harder 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 obnoxious 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.
We may increase the anarchic power of people significantly. After people get accustomed to the mutual evaluation, they may increase the power of each assessment by assigning the value of just one dollar to each of them. Each positive evaluation a person receives from somebody will bring them one dollar and each negative one will take away one dollar from them. These evaluations would not affect ordinary people much. If two people do not like each other, they may negatively evaluate each other for years, which would not be a big deal. Getting or losing one dollar in the developed world does not mean much.
The power of evaluations will extremely efficiently affect authorities responsible for making decisions in society. 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.
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 the people will punish them for sure.
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The point of democracy is to make rules which will make people live well. So far that was only possible through law. In the future, democratic anarchy will replace the democracy we have today because democratic anarchy will mathematically create the best solution to all individuals and to society as a whole. People themselves being equal to others will make their lives better than the authorities were able to do for them.
Democratic anarchy will replace the vast regulation imposed by authorities, which has failed to create a good society. As people get the power to enforce justice on their own they will seek justice in courts less. Once democratic anarchy is established the need for laws will be significantly reduced and courts will start losing their purpose, together with the state oppression apparatus. I believe in the future they will become obsolete and will go down in history.
And finally, democratic anarchy cannot be corrupted. It will eliminate immorality in society. Through equal rights of evaluation, people will learn what is moral and will obey the principles of morality they spontaneously establish.
Democratic anarchy will finally create a good society, and therefore it presents the greatest invention of all time.
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Under pressure from democratic anarchy, governments will inevitably follow the needs of the people. The authorities would 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, will direct them to discover love towards peoples' participation in strategic 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 the entire community. How? Quite simply, one needs to enable people 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 state defence, safety, education, health, environment, 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 more significant overall impact if they are democratically allocated. Following the living experience, people will learn how much money should be collected for taxes and what is the best way to spend it. Thus, this spending will no longer be alienated from society; it will follow the needs of people in the most efficient 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 direct power to participate in the decision-making process and when they can judge those who make decisions on their behalf, it 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.
This article presents a basic idea about the future of democracy. I've defined it in much more detail in the book Humanism available free of charge at my web site.
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The main lesson of this article is not just about how easily we can solve social problems and make a good society, but also why it is difficult to do so. This article was offered to left-wing journals in the western world, and not one wanted to publish it, even though they pretend to represent the interests of the deprived. They all must be either controlled or financially supported by the elite and do not publish new ideas that may take power from the elite. No wonder humankind cannot improve.
Simon Heath Thu 6 Jan 2022 2:41PM
Hi Alex, https://centrefordemocracy.org.uk/ has their map of current democracy orgs, if you find the link on the page it take you to a google doc giving background. which then opens a google sheet which is their database of current groups what they are working on and size in people and funding.
Alex Cooper · Fri 31 Dec 2021 12:05PM
I absolutely agree @Simon Heath fragmentation is a huge problem.
This has been recognised by many and the idea of a network of networks is not new.
I think the key to eventual success for any online platform will be initial engagement at a low level. More people will sign a petition than will engage with others in online debate.
The rewards you speak about are also key and don't have to be monetary or prizes. People like earning reputation and "likes" - I think under the right circumstances that could be incentive enough - I'm thinking of gamification and nudging - (just googled this https://bvanudgeunit.com/a-behavioral-engagement-path-combining-nudge-and-gamification/ - haven't read it yet 🙂)
Direct/distributed democracy is a great ideal - one of my inroads to engaging with the idea that it is possible to reform our democracy was reading the book "The Wisdom Of Crowds".
We all know a mob can be anything but wise, but the author describes the conditions under which a non-expert crowd can be smarter than an expert in the field. This demands decentralisation, diversity and independence plus a voting system where anonymity is guaranteed and we don't create tribes who'd rather engage in arguments of identity and culture rather than focus on issues, and what we have in common
There's a part of me that hopes there will soon become a successful online voting platform that can engage more people in the political issues that will affect them now and in the medium and long term future. I could then stop spending so much of my own time thinking I can do it alone.
The platform I'm working on is based on Consensus Decision Making
But I'm pretty sure you can't throw newbies into this, without a simpler introduction - Twitter style posts are the beginning.
All for now - but would love to see the list of 131 organisations working to improve democracy - (I must be aware of 30 to 40 maybe)