Introduction – the problem
There is an ancient manuscript from 2nd century BCE India called the Arthashastra1 ("the science of wealth") composed by one Kautilya, chief minister to the emperor Chandragupta (c. 300 BCE), the founder of the Mauryan dynasty. It was translated into English only in 1915. The book sets out for rulers a system for organizing society, money, alliances and trade. It is highly detailed, much more so that later works on statecraft such as Machiavelli’s “The Prince”.
Crucial to the success of a king, asserts the book, is self-control. Without it, the king will become corrupt, unjust and rule so badly that he will eventually be overthrown by his family, his rivals, factions within his people or other states. A king is nothing without his people, so a ruler can always be challenged. Hence it is better to be just than forceful, even though wielding force is a key role of the king. In the end it is a flourishing state that makes for virtue.
The need for such a book during the first of the great Indian Empires illustrates that human societies have always been in danger of extractive and ineffective leadership. No sooner have families and groups become well off through hard work and trade, than violent and coercive leaders have found ways to appropriate wealth and distribute the benefits of hard work to the undeserving2. In modern democracies, particularly in the West, we have been taught to believe that our form of government insulates us from the abuses of extractive tyrannies, but it is clear over the past few years of pandemics and political crisis that we have been misled. Several leading so-called democracies have been hijacked by self-serving political gangs. I use that term to emphasise the irresponsible and damaging nature of the so-called “political parties”, which as will be explained below, have failed to exercise any meaningful role they might be expected to have in a genuine democracy. The gangs support populist leaders who claim to represent the will of the people while lining their own pockets and damaging their economies to the detriment of wealth and hence virtue. Divisiveness has become endemic, militating against the need in a democracy for government to be by consent of all the people, not just a particular faction.
George Washington, the only American president not to represent a political party, said as much in his Farewell Address in 1796 after his Presidency was over3: “the spirit of party … serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection”. Washington was only too aware that political gangs would extract wealth from the people and use it to support the pressure groups that give them their electoral power base4. How prescient he was.
The one role that parties might be expected to have in a democracy is to ensure by dint of experience and level-headedness that unsuitable candidates – that is those who are likely to be extractive, self-interested, tyrannical or biased against particular groups in society – do not reach the upper levels of party candidature5. This has manifestly failed in the US and the UK in recent years, as well as in many other countries where parties have ridden on the back of populist candidates just to achieve or maintain power. The politics of empty promises, division and incompetence has taken over from constructive debate and a focus on quality of life for the people. And the party grandees have done nothing to prevent it, being more concerned with accumulating donations from dubious sources than even-handedly guiding the nation.
At least in the UK, the extent to which politicians directly enrich themselves or their families as a result of being in power is somewhat limited, although the enjoyment of perks from donors is a common fault6. In many so-called democracies, however, political leaders end their terms of office vastly better off financially than they were at the start. Furthermore, pretty much all governments do set out, or end up, favouring or helping particular interest groups. This is a denial of the crucial principle of “Open Government”, to which we will return in a moment.
But back to the abuse of democracy by the so-called “parties”. In modern times, the deception is maintained in the persistent “left” and “right” labelling of the political groupings – an anachronistic terminology guaranteed to promote division and only one of the dimensions of political positioning7. It has been clear for a long time that neither left- or right-wing parties have a monopoly of truth on either social or economic issues, and that neither, in their pure forms, can create successful countries or governments. No; what matters for government to be successful is that it must be open rather than exclusive – that is the government should govern for the good of all the people, as Washington sought to do, not just those who belong to its inner circle. Thus, it should devise and support inclusive institutions and not extractive institutions – ie it should build government agencies that work for all the people, and that it should not extract wealth for its own benefit or those of its families or supporters8.
Few if any governments even in Western Europe have comprehensively succeeded in these aims. The fact that in the last 70 years, for most people on the planet, life has got better in most respects9 is far more due to the impact of effective technological innovation than down to good government. There have been some innovative policies, especially in Europe, but these policies often misfire10, and the politicians behind them must bear a great deal of the blame for this. We forget that most countries in the world with the exception of UK, US and France were absolute monarchies until the first world war. Democracy in its modern form is very young and is falling prey to mischievous individuals and self-serving special interest groups. This is not because democracy is a bad idea, but because it is a very good idea that is being perverted due to structural faults in the way it is applied.
We should note that the original Athenian democracy, which, in my view, was better structured in some important respects than many modern democracies, lasted 186 years until it was suppressed by the violent re-establishment of absolute monarchy under Philip II of Macedon11. Admittedly, ancient Athens was small in scale, which made it easier to manage, but many modern democracies have lasted only 100 years before becoming worm-eaten from within.
In countries like the UK, it has been easy to hide the abuses behind the self-importance of the Westminster system, whereas in for example, modern Greece, it has been quite obvious from the 1960s onward that the main political parties are thinly disguised extractive special interest groups, robbing the working people and distributing the benefits to their mates. That period may to some extent now be over thank goodness. In Britain, however, the Brexit fiasco has revealed the truth. The Tory and Labour parties have shown themselves to be self-serving cliques led by despotic and warring leaders who are concerned about representative democracy only when it suits their personal aims and their lust for power. It is time we freed ourselves from such gangster politics and what follows is a suggestion about how this could be done. It leans somewhat on the more successful aspects of the early democracy of Athens12, but in a much more open form with a universal franchise. What I describe is a strategic target, not yet an implementation plan, but even getting a target onto the table at this stage is a step forward.
Karl Popper opined that democracy is not about getting good governments but about getting rid of bad ones without too much violence13. So, although democracy is not just about elections, we will begin with the electoral process. Who should be eligible for election to be a representative of the people and legislator; and who should be eligible for election to national leadership as a Minister in the Executive ? Then we can discuss how elections to representative or leadership posts should be carried out. I am assuming here that we retain the important idea of three branches of government – Legislature, Executive and Judiciary – that have an appropriate degree of independence. I have also assumed that, for checks and balances purposes, there would be two legislative “Houses”, all elected, with no appointees. Much of what follows focusses on the UK system, but the principles can readily be applied to other countries, including the US, although the details would differ.
Eligibility for leadership
Let’s start from a simple premise – being in government is a matter of public service not personal aggrandisement. No-one who is interested in power for its own sake should be allowed within 100 miles of national leadership. Nor should those who seek celebrity or popularity. Leadership is about humility, intelligence, listening skills, management capabilities and strategic planning14, not about ranting, overconfident speeches full of half-truths. In fact, the kind of people who can readily get themselves elected under our current system are exactly the kind of people you don’t want running the country. So, here is one possible scheme in which representatives and national leaders should be selected.
To begin, let us ensure that people eligible for election to a parliament are suitable for the job. Modern government is more about management then about leadership. Those eligible should be people who have shown solid abilities and effective leadership in their own fields – in business, science, public administration, academia or, possibly, entertainment, journalism and media, provided that they understand that leadership does not involve the opportunity for celebrity. Someone who has shown themselves to be a good, careful and conscientious truck driver would be a better choice than some of the people we currently have serving as MPs, in my humble view. So, I propose a pool of eligible candidates of, say 10000 people in a country the size of the UK, who would form the basis of worthy leadership material. They could apply or be proposed like magistrates are and similarly undergo rigorous tests regarding their judgement and fairness; and undergo both psychometric testing and detailed training with a demanding exam at the end. Rooting out potential sociopaths15 would be an important aspect of this.
Such an approach begs the question, famously asked by Juvenal “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” Who would set the tests and judge the results? How do you pick a suitable truck driver as opposed to an unsuitable professor? The processes of governance would need to be carefully constructed, but it is done effectively in the commercial world and, indeed, in public corporations, so why not in Government?
This way we can at least get rid of pretty talkers with nothing else to offer. It is not necessary that all members of the pool of eligible candidates be graduates, nor that they be conventionally well-educated (and certainty not that they had attended privileged secondary schools or universities). They must show that they have skills, experience and achievements relevant to the task of representation and leadership.
Direct election to this pool might also be a possibility if such elections can be conducted more like interviews than the circuses we have to endure at present. The group would be dynamic in its membership, not static. People could resign or retire from the pool. Some will die, some may be expelled if convicted for criminal activities or malpractice, and the numbers will be maintained by an ongoing round of appointments, proposals and elections. This is an ongoing governance process, not a dog and pony show that takes place every few years.
Elections
So, having established a group with leadership potential, our representatives (the Legislators) and ministers (the Executive) will be selected from the group. We could argue that members of the pool would be selected on the one hand as potential representatives and on the other as Executive leaders. There will be some who are blessed with both sets of talents along with the humility and service-orientation needed for true democratic leadership. Nevertheless, whichever way the selection is done, there will be huge differences from the current process which encourages the gang mentality, extremism, overspending, overpromising, pork-barrelling and pandering to special interest groups.
Election of representatives
I will not attempt to cover the job description of the representatives in detail in this short paper. It is true to say that a large proportion of the time of MPs is taken up with acting as some form of social worker, helping their constituents to resolve issues with government agencies, local authorities, health providers etc. There is a sense in which elected representatives should be paid peoples’ champions, whose role is to help ordinary people to navigate their way through difficulties with many and varied official agencies, whose byzantine regulations should constantly be reviewed, simplified and pared down. Ordinary constituents would need to be convinced that the new system provides at least as much support as the current one. It will be important to spell out exactly what a representative is expected to do. And he or she would be expected to do it full-time, with no other employments.
Among the other elements of the role, the grinding work of tabling, refining, processing and enacting legislation is a key one, as is holding the Executive to account. Related to both those elements is raising issues for debate and consideration in a national forum. We should set up the parameters so that there is less legislation, more simplification of existing statutes and less government interference on matters which would be better left to the private sector.
The scheme I suggest does away with the idea of constituencies based on geography, at least in the longer term. Geographical constituencies are, in my view, a dangerous anachronism. They were necessary in the past when it took a day to travel 20 miles. Under those circumstances, most issues were bound to be local. Local issues, however, spawn special interest groups, as one locality feels it is worse off than another, and richer geographical constituencies wish to preserve their advantages. Now, and indeed since the mid-nineteenth century in the UK, people are not confined to the locality in which they were born. Issues are regional, national and global.
There is an important piece of psychology here, though. People are very tied to the comfort of the familiar local area, and when it changes suddenly they feel an acute disruption, even when in the longer run the change will be beneficial. A reform of constituencies away from geography is a concept that may well have to wait a while. It needs time and consent to achieve. Indeed, the rush to Brexit was in part driven by the fear that arises in human beings via their evolutionary background when they see their immediate environment change rapidly in ways they find hard to understand and cannot do anything to stop, and a (correct) belief that Government is not listening to them. The good thing about geographical constituencies is that they create a sense of belonging, which is a status that human beings seek fervently. If people do not feel any relationship to the fellow members of their constituency, they are unlikely to feel that the person elected is truly representing them, and they will not buy into the system. It may take some time, and perhaps, a social media-based scheme, to both fulfil the desire to belong and to avoid the focus of belonging becoming a special interest group. Fewer, larger constituencies including both urban and rural interests would help as a step on the way.
Nevertheless, in the longer term I believe we need constituencies which eschew special interests. This approach would make politics issue-based, not ideology-based. Each voter would be seeking a representative that reflects his or her views on specific issues, not on some broad, over-simplified political porridge.
I have thought hard about the nature of constituencies and discussed it extensively. To create constituencies that are issue-neutral, they must be based on a physical characteristic that is stable, but not tied to a behavioural characteristic. The simplest way to do this is to use a measure that everyone possesses and is unchangeable and well-documented. Date of birth is a good one. It is hard to fake. It cannot be changed, and in a modern society your birth date is well-attested. However, age groups do readily translate into special interests. Older people have different issues to younger people, so you have to mix the individuals around to avoid special interests clouding the neutrality of the constituencies.
An easy way to do this is to use calendar birth dates rather than birthdays. So, for example, you have a constituency of all people born on 1 January and 1 July. The spread ensures that any time-of-year effects there may be are also diluted sufficiently to avoid the creation of lobby groups. For example, there may be differences in the average characteristics of people born in the winter compared to the summer. If you mix the birth dates, this would be avoided.
Just as an example, our 1 Jan – 1 July group would be complemented by a 2 Jan – 2 July group, a 3 Jan – 3 July group etc. (We must handle leap years too of course, but let’s keep the example simple). The size of the constituencies would vary a little by the cycle of birthdates which is a little different in different locations and because of the shorter months. However, the variation would be a lot less than the variation across current constituency size. Moreover, there is much less prospect of gerrymandering – fiddling with boundaries to favour one political grouping over another.
So, we end up with about 180 constituencies. Depending on the absolute numbers each constituency can elect 1, 2 or 3 representatives. In a country the size of the UK, it would only need to be 1. In the US, it could be as many as 4, so that there is a reasonable chance that a constituent can gain an audience in a reasonable time with their representative. Representatives would serve for a fixed term of 5 years and would be eligible for re-election only once. The voter franchise would be unchanged, so all adults would be eligible to vote, subject to the current conditions. There would be no artificial barriers to voting as has been a major source of contention in the US since the civil war as one party or the other has sought to limit the electoral base of its rival16. More of this is going on in the US as I write, mainly, it seems to many commentators, aimed at enhancing the influence of the powerful to the detriment of the poor.
One potential compromise which would enable some advance on the current situation is to preserve geographical constituencies as now for the lower House – the initial legislative chamber – but with a greatly reduced number of representatives. There would also be an electoral process for the “Senate” equivalent. I think we can do without the current medieval titles. Senates typically consist of people who have a degree of political or public service experience. The electoral process for the Senate could have a narrower eligible pool and there would be a different, but complementary, electoral system for the second House. In his case, representatives for based on the suggested “birthday” system could be used, again with a greatly reduced number.
As an example, the electoral process for the lower House would be carried out as far as possible on-line, although manual voting would be available for those who do not wish to use the on-line methods. The candidates would be members of the eligible pool and would put themselves forward as representatives when a constituency is due for an election, which means on a rolling basis. There could be a maximum of 8 to 10 candidates to ensure a wide spread of views. The system would allow staggered elections so that there is never a need for all representatives to be replaced at once – a costly and disruptive aspect of the current system.
One of the main current abuses is the use of financial clout to gain influence. This has been exacerbated in recent contests by manipulation of social media17. Hence, taking money out of electioneering is a key step. Each candidate would be allowed three TV broadcasts, working with a fixed, small budget provided by the State. Each candidate standing would be asked to set out their position on the 10 or 20 policy questions of greatest interest to the public in the circumstances of the particular election. The person elected would be expected to vote in Parliament in line with their previously declared position, or to justify themselves to their constituents if they did not. In this way, there would be different groupings of MPs on each policy question. It would avoid the present system of candidates standing for a political party, and then subsequently being committed to a manifesto drawn up by a central group in the party, whether or not it is what they themselves believe, or what their constituents elected them to support. It would also go some way towards allowing voters to choose the candidate who best reflects their own views.
The first broadcast would be a short presentation of their positions on social political and economic issues, especially matters of current concern, which would be fact-checked, as is now, thank goodness, becoming common practice when politicians make pronouncements. The issue of accurate facts is crucial to democracy. Populists gain power because they appeal to voters’ emotions and try (often successfully) to bypass the facts and harness the evolutionarily powerful experience that people are always suspicious of their current leaders and will kick them when they can.
The second broadcast would be a rebuttal of the ideas of other candidates, preceded by correction of any factual errors made in the first session; and the third a session in which genuine constituents can ask questions on live TV and streaming video. This is made possible because the 180 constituency elections would not happen at the same time, so the logistics of managing the electoral process is a continuous one, not a one-off event every four or five years.
There would be no campaign contributions, merely funding of the simplified hustings by the exchequer, so the richer candidates would have no advantage, and the current buying of policies by super-rich individuals or interest groups would not be so readily possible. A small number of meetings at constituency level would also be permitted, but any formal campaigning outside the system would result in fines.
The current problem of charismatic but vacuous candidates would be partly overcome by the fact that candidates would already have had to qualify for the eligible pool. The broadcast approach, with professional interviewers, would also help to weed out candidates who could not coherently explain their policies and intentions. After each TV session there would be a broad poll of the eligible pool members who are not involved in any current elections in order to cut the voting list down to a short list of 3-5 candidates (where one is to be elected) or more where multiple candidates will be elected as representatives.
These 3-5 candidates would then enter the election itself where the constituents would vote for their preferred candidate, preferably via a Single Transferable Vote system, as used in about 10 countries now (including Australia, India, US, UK for certain types of election) to avoid deadlocks. There is nothing to stop people voting on a whim, as they do now, but there is a greatly reduced chance of voting for a party, pressure group or political gang. It would be important to establish governance methods which would assure a fair choice of interviewers and overcome the risk of pressure groups stuffing the question sessions with their own people.
You may think this process sounds very tough and would be very demanding on the candidates. Yes, it is, but it is much more structured and less uncertain that the current process of geographical constituency meetings and baby-kissing walkabouts. To ensure that there is good motivation, however, the salaries of Members of Parliament would be about three times the current figure, so something over 200,000 GBP, and not taxed, although it would be subject to social security contributions to pay for medical support and pension. The remainder would be salary. This is congruent with the upper salary levels of commercial companies and designed to reduce the temptation to accept funds from pressure groups or rich donors, which would be a sackable offence in this system.
Private secretaries would be appointed and paid by the State, not by the MP. Family members and other close associates would be excluded. This is designed to avoid the temptation to corrupt practices and to enable some savings to be built up for the return to civil life after political service. It would be best if some 40%, corresponding to the “higher rate” tax band in force were held back, to be delivered as a lump sum over the three years following the end of the service period. The investment of the held-back amounts would be the responsibility of the representative while in office or could be delegated to the State if desired. The large lump sum would help to ensure a smooth transition from representative or leadership service to community life.
Retired representatives, having completed two terms, must stand down from the eligible pool regarding future representative service but can stand for ministerial posts in the future up the three times. There would be a balloting process for this, as explained below.
Election to ministerial office
One of the most heinous anti-democratic aspects of the current British parliamentary system is that the Prime Minister is elected, or in many cases appointed, by the ruling political party and now, appallingly, by the tiny clique of party members which practically guarantees extreme choices. 7 out of the last 8 British Prime Ministers, for example, have been elected by political cliques either of MPs or so-called “party activists” who are about as representative of their constituencies as a green salad. This is a disgrace. The leadership of the country should not be decided by politically motivated pressure groups. Ministers, including Prime Ministers, should be elected by the people, as follows, for a fixed term of 5 years, with the possibility of re-election only once. Two term leadership is one feature of the US system which is laudable, but has only been formally in place since the second world war. The process would be similar to the election of representatives. And again, the election would not happen all at once, but would be held when a leadership position becomes vacant, so would not be a logistical nightmare.
For a Ministerial post, of which there will be relatively few (around 20 should be sufficient18), there would again be around 10 candidates for a post in the initial round. They would present their views in an hour-long broadcast or two shorter broadcasts if desired. Each would be challenged by a subset of other candidates in a second session and then questioned by members of the public and by specialists in the final session. A filtering process would be carried out as before, and finally a public vote of all eligible voters would decide the result. During the process of an election for a major office, newspapers and social media would be discouraged from running any gratuitously scurrilous material and any media outlet found (by an independent commission) to be purveying “alternative facts” or misleading half-truths would be guilty of an offence and subject to substantial fines.
The role of a “Prime Minister” would not be the current pseudo-presidential role and would be more like a “Cabinet Chairperson”. Their election would be like that of a Minister.
Anyone seeking to be Cabinet Chairperson would have to have held a representative or Ministerial post before, although exceptional candidates who are members of the pool of eligible candidates could be put forward by a ballot of members, even if they had not held previous leadership roles. Retired representatives may also become candidates for a Ministerial post. In this way proven skills can be accessed and brought back into the leadership arena. However, since politics is not a career but a matter of public service, no Minister can be elected to a Ministerial position more than twice, other than standing as a candidate for Cabinet Chairperson in the election immediately after their retirement as a Minister. There should be no such thing as a career politician.
Ministers will have salaries in the region of 3-400000 GBP. The same holdbacks of salary would apply as for representatives. The total Parliamentary wage bill would still be substantially less than it is today.
Retirement
When a representative, Minister or the Cabinet Chairperson leaves leadership service, they would not have a special pension or any privileges. If security is necessary for a while it will be provided by the State, but otherwise, housing, a car, new civil role and pensions would be a matter for the ex-Minister to arrange privately. We can be confident that successful representatives and Ministers will be welcomed into private sector institutions readily. State pension arrangements would be exactly the same as for an ordinary citizen, since the leadership office would have been paying social security contributions. Representatives and Ministers who fail to deliver, over-promise, bungle or become embroiled in scandal will suffer the consequences of failure and may find re-employment difficult, as in any other job or profession. But they would not be immediately reduced to poverty because of the salary arrangements. This seems to me to tread the difficult line between accountability and draconian pumishment.
Reaction
Few policymakers understand that human beings react to change like any natural system – they resist it.
Such radical proposals as those in this paper will be sure to elicit resistance especially from the political cliques who have hijacked the democratic process. The implementation of these proposals will come piece by piece and there are steps that can be taken to calm fears. For example, opening up ministerial elections to the public or reducing the vastly excessive number of MPs would not be as controversial as banning political parties and changing the nature of constituencies.
One simple first step to limit the power of the parties is to remove the concept of the “whip” as it is called in the British Parliament, whereby representatives in Parliament (or the equivalent) can be forced to vote for (or against) certain measures rather than having a free vote. In other words, remove tribalism from politics. Those who sit in Parliament, Congress and the like need to be one step ahead in their thinking from the cognitive biases of those they represent. We would never have got rid of the death penalty and other primitive tribal conventions if that condition did not apply. Voting by representatives must therefore be based on logical decision-making backed by sound information. It must not be driven by an ideological goad. Brexit, for example, would not have happened but for the Whips, when 70% of sitting MPs knew very well it was a disastrous idea for the British people and the British economy. It has turned out to be at least as bad as anyone with the first idea about international trade had expected. But our representatives failed to stop it.
There is a danger that the media would regret the loss of political careerists, who are always good for an interview. The attention paid to populists and chancers by the media is an indication that they are more interested in ratings than balance. We can’t blame the media for that – they would not exist if they presented nothing interesting or controversial. Encouraging spectacle is not necessarily to be condemned out of hand. The continuous nature of the reformed electoral process, however, would provide rich material for the media. They would be able to follow the activities of the legislature and executive in a new way and without having to wait five years for one night of political overindulgence.
To advance these proposals, the media, like many other interest groups must have their say. Indeed, the ability of the media to see the benefits of the proposals for the people, and the disbenefits to the political cliques might well be to the advantage of progress. Campaigning journalists, focussed on truth, are very important in a democracy. Preventing bribery of the less responsible media by the current powerful interests would have to be heavily policed. The self-serving political groups who have poisoned the democratic ideal must be tamed and they will fight hard to maintain their power against an increasingly well-informed public who realise it has been conned.
A significant risk that must be carefully managed is the corrupting of technocrats by the rich, powerful and mad. The tendency for the worst to get to the top is a part of human nature, as Hayek warned19. Human psychology explains the allure of “no-nonsense, let’s get things done” political demagogues like the current populists – who are less than pale shadows of the 20th century dictators20 whom Hayek had in mind. Hence, there is a danger that technocrats, despite their management skills, may fall prey to manipulation by narcissists or sociopathic populists who will attempt to influence or bribe them. Not all our elected technocratic managers will have the wily skills of politicians, and may be open to influences diverting them from their open-government responsibilities. A support network for representatives and Ministers aimed specifically at combating such risks will need to be in place as part of the reformed democratic institutions.
Further, some sociopathic populists may try to undermine the system as a whole by manipulating the media and social media, and indeed by force in some cases. The main constraint on this is the popularity of the system. If people are getting more of what they want through the new democratic process, there will be less incentive to undermine it. It is encouraging to recall that even insurrections like that of 6 January 2021 were stopped, because the instigators did not in the end have the numbers or the bare-faced bravado to carry it through.
Conclusion
Some of the more radical ideas in this paper may seem to be too abstruse or intellectual to be able to gain much traction in the real world. However, experience in some other countries, which I will not attempt to catalogue here, let alone the Arthashastra and Machiavelli, provide pointers to what measures work and what do not work, and what changes will be acceptable to human psychology. Further details will be proposed in due course. What needs to be emphasised is the huge benefits that even a small reduction in the monolithic power of the parties and the insidious influence of their self-interested backers will bring to ordinary people.
From the all-important point of view of the average voter, then, what will be different ? Instead of the adversarial system we currently suffer from, with anachronistic “left” vs “right” battles, there will be a gradual moving of views focussed on issues as the membership of the legislature and the executive evolves in a gradual manner, instead of through precipitate ideology-driven semi-revolutions. This will enable consistent, long-term, national strategic planning (today only possible in stable absolute monarchies). The result will be better quality of life, better services, the maintenance of free expression, and let’s face it, greater personal wealth for individuals and families, as at last the engines of innovation and government start to work together instead of pulling in different directions.
Representatives will be generally more capable, intelligent and well-informed than they are today and free of the distortions of anachronistic ideologies. They will not (on the whole) be driven by naked ambition, but by public service. The public will see, as Washington hoped, a governmental process that is designed to benefit all the people, wherever they are, whatever age they are, whatever work or profession they have, whatever special needs they have. Moreover, government will be not just for the rich, nor just for the poor; and especially, not for the benefit of itself and its cronies.
In this way, we can hope to rebuild democracy and renew democratic institutions, such that government is truly open and inclusive. What we need is government for all citizens, because as Washington believed, unity not division is necessary for a democracy to survive. We will never be entirely free from special interest groups, or charismatic personalities intent on power at all costs, but we must have a system that will ensure that the special interests are subject to sufficient checks and balances, out in the open, where they can be seen. We will also need a way to cut down the tall poppies before they flower, and, since the political parties have failed in this responsibility, the media has a special role to play in that battle, in my view.
The benefits will come when we achieve a system that most people accept is good enough to put competent people into positions of responsibility, to prevent sociopaths getting into power, to get rid of incompetent or corrupt Ministers and thus eliminate extractive politics, reduce the chance of the super-rich increasing their control on political decisions, and to produce results that, over the course of time, sufficiently further the interests of the population as a whole.
This requires an active programme of focussed ideas implemented step by step. Hope is not a strategy.
1 – See eg https://www.britannica.com/topic/Artha-shastra
2 – Matt Ridley – “The Rational Optimist” p165
3 – See https://www.mountvernon.org/george-washington/the-first-president/political-parties/. The US Constitution makes no mention of political parties, and it clearly did not anticipate them.
4 – See for example Hans-Hermann Hoppe “Democracy-the God that failed”; and Muammar Ghaddafi’s “Green Book” which recognizes the problem of political parties, but does not in the end find a workable solution.
5 – Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt – “How democracies die”, 2018
6 – See “Great Parliamentary Scandals -Four Centuries of Calumny, Smear & Innuendo” by Matthew Parriss.
7 – See Hans Eysenck – “The Psychology of Politics”, 1954
8 – See for example Daron Acemoglu and James A Robinson “Why Nations Fail”, Crown Publishing Group, New York, 2012
9 – Hans Rohling – “Factfulness” set out the information in convincing detail
10 – See my article “Chasing the Wildebeest, ICBEF Brunei 2017 and on www.manandcyberman.com
11 – http://www.stoa.org/demos/article_democracy_overview@page=all&greekEncoding=UnicodeC.html
12 – Government in Athens:
https://www.wsfcs.k12.nc.us/cms/lib/…/Government%20in%20Athens%20text.doc
13 – Popper: “How can we so organize political institutions that bad or incompetent rulers can be prevented from doing too much damage?” The Open Society and its Enemies Vol1 p 121. Popper saw the role of the people as simply to provide a regular and nonviolent way to get rid of incompetent, corrupt or abusive leaders.
14 – BBC article on leadership by women vs men
15 – Some of the current batch of “populist” leaders share some of the same characteristics as the “great dictators,”, especially the idea that they are ordained to fix the world, transform reality and forge it into an image of their own making. All for their own greater glory and the consequences be damned.
16 – Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt – “How democracies die”, 2018
17 – See Carole Cadwalladr’s famous TED talk about the manipulation of Facebook by domestic and foreign interests: https://www.ted.com/talks/carole_cadwalladr_facebook_s_role_in_brexit_and_the_threat_to_democracy?language=en
18 – I am writing elsewhere about this point. In my view, which is less radical that the Austrian economists, but recognises the general incompetence of government in most matters to do with commerce, trade and business, government should be concerned primarily with maintaining peaceful relations with other nations, internal regulation to ensure businesses and individuals do not gain unfair advantage over each other; universal, affordable healthcare; literacy and numeracy through well-focussed education; and basic infrastructure, both physical, technological and financial.
19 – ”Friedrich Hayek’s “Road to Serfdom” has a chapter on “Why the worst get on top”. Although the book is a critique of communism, the arguments apply equally to all forms of extractive government
20 – The likes of Mussolini, Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, and we would now add, Mao, who between them were responsible for the most deaths in both war and peacetime in the last Century, after heart disease and cancer. Just 5 men.
