If I were president ...
According to the US department of state (source), the number of democratic nations grows for several decades, and today, our planet hosts more than a hundred of such states. The working of them may be familiar to you. They are made of :
- a president (or prime minister, a chancellor, or whatever), whose goal is to win the next pools.
- a king, to keep up the TV show (optional item).
- a parliament, where hundreds of people argues endless in a kind of theater.
- a couple of parties, which are supposed to represent a fraction of the people.
- a central bank and several levels of courts, which do their jobs on their side.
- campaigns once a few years, to keep busy journalists and voters.
Photo by DAVID ILIFF. License: CC-BY-SA 3.0
All that stuff works pretty well, according to its defenders, it avoids war, respects the human rights, and by being pretty stable, enables economic expansion.
What's the matter ?
However, this machinery is not perfect, here are the main issues I see :
- the two of three main parties centralize the decision making process, and as a crypto-enthousiast, it sounds me pretty bad. People who disagree with all of big parties have no way to express their opinion. For sure, they could create their own party, but the entry costs are very high.
- parties bring about division inside the country. In order to increase the mobilisation of their militants, they are used to denigrating people who do not thing the same way. That's not a very positive way of debating.
- the president, once elected, has no obligation to have good results, nor to apply the policies he promised his voters during his campaign.
- enacting a law is a slow process, due to the debates in parliament. Certainly, debates are useful in many cases, when the law is very technical, but sometimes, speed is more important.
- there's high risk of corruption of member of parliament, and other state members.
- The charges attributed to minister do not necessarily match with their domain of competence. (for example, french minister of armies is a former CEO of Paris transport company).
do better options exist ?
liquid democracy
You may be already familiar with liquid democracy, as it looks like delegated proof of stake, which powers steem blockchain. In a liquid democracy, each citizen can vote for each decision and new law. It would be done online (on blockchain for example). But let's suppose that I am not interested in health policy, or I have not the required knowledge, I can decide to delegate my vote to who I want, probably a doctor I trust. I can question my trusted delegates at any time, so inciting the delegates not to deceive their supporters.
Thus, parties will be far less important, as this democracy does not inciting centralization of power. In addition, the most powerful delegates in a given topic will be likely the most competent experts in this domain.
majority judgment
The most spread poll system is the majority vote: people vote for one person. The candidate having the highest number of votes is the winner. This system suffers of serious deficiencies. As I have already pointed out, it incites the emergence of two parties.
Indeed, each voter should better choose a party likely to win. If he doesn't, his vote is wasted. Thus tiny parties cannot emerge, because they are tiny. Big parties remains irremovable.
An alternative to majority vote exists: majority judgment, invented by two mathematicians. french-speaking research report. Each voters must rate each candidates in a six-step scale (excellent, very good, good, and so on). The winning candidate is the one having the highest median rate. According to the researcher, this pool system would mitigate the issues of majority vote.
and ... dictatorship
Yes, dictatorship can be terrifying, like Xi Jinping censoring free-information, and Saudi Arabia forbidding women to drive a car and have bank account. But all of these countries have an advantage over democracies : efficiency. When Xi Jinping decides to build a new city, the job is done the next month.
Let's give some cooler example. In France, the president is the chief of armies, he can start military operations at any time (whereas in Germany, the chancellor needs parliament approval. I don't know in the US). In 2014, the french president, François Hollande, triggers a military operation in Mali. Islamic terrorists were about to overthrow the legal government, and make the country sink into chaos. The french operations saved the Malian government.
In a nutshell, some degree of dictatorship can help the overall institution to remain efficient.
if I were president ...
... here would be the constitution I would submit to people :
- By default, the state do not intervene in economy, health, education. Everything is ruled by free-market.
- People can vote laws, using
DPoSliquid democracy. Laws can alter the default free-market rules is needed. - The army, police and foreign diplomacy are entirely controlled by the president.
- The justice applies the laws voted by people. In case of non existent, or unclear legislation, it's up to the president to rule.
- cities are managed by their inhabitants, using liquid democracy. The mayor is chosen using liquid democracy also.
- I don't know how the president is chosen. Maybe voted by majors, using majority judgment ?
In the paragraph above I gave my personal opinion. Now give me yours in comments. What would you do if you were president ? I'm sure we can have exciting debates ...!
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