Implementing Democracy
Part 2 of a series on Democracy
Individual’s Requirements of Society
What do individuals need, in order to participate in making collective decisions?
If you need to make an important decision which will have a significant impact on your life, you will need to have the information you need to make the decision, which means you will need to have trusted sources for that information.
You will need time to participate. This implies that the other demands on your time must leave sufficient to carry out your responsibilities. In particular, the need to meet basic needs must not occupy so much of their time that they do not have any left to participate effectively in collective decision making.
Society’s Requirements of Individuals
Should people have to meet minimum requirements in order to participate? Most democracies limit the participation of individuals. For example, there is usually a lower age limit, below which people are not considered mature enough to participate in collective decision-making.
For many elections, only “citizens”—those who meet special criteria—are allowed to vote, though some cities allow citizens—residents of the city—to vote. Why should someone who has lived in a place for many years and intends to stay not be allowed to vote? Why should I be allowed to vote in a distant land that I left decades ago be allowed to vote there?
Requirements for System Design
In order for people to achieve their collective objectives in distributing political power, systems will have to be designed accordingly. They will have to provided what people need. This is not limited to explicit support for things like voting, and legislative, executive and judicial bodies, but to the education and information systems that are essential for people to make informed decisions, to the economic systems that ensure that people have the available time away from meeting their basic needs to participate to a desirable extent and the social systems that make people likely to want to participate, rather than finding participation to be a burden.
Notes
I have used examples above based on mass voting in a “representative” democracy, but that is just because of familiarity. I think we need different systems to achieve true democracy—power to the people—and I will suggest some possibilities later.
#democracy #socialSystems