This diary discusses a free book that offers a partial redesign of the American government. In a new HONEST electoral system all constitutionally qualified members of the electorate are empowered to take any amount of time to run for office for free. Members may reach out to each other across their states or the entire nation in support of their champions, people that resemble them in body, mind, interests and pocketbook and that truly serve their interests. Congress automatically demographically resembles the ENTIRE electorate. No quota systems, political parties or complex electoral schemes are necessary. People just get to vote for whom they really want.
Using a simple, non-mathematical voting method based on the colors green, yellow and red, the electorate directly sets and maintains nine economic values that our government and nation must use as they function. Along with other economic powers, in a vastly simplified tax system, the electorate has the sole power to tax. It sets the size and distribution of our tax burden.
These direct electoral and economic powers put the electorate firmly in the driver’s seat of our government and redeem it by making it truly representative of the entire electorate as it writes laws governing our market economy and all the rest of society, making them honest and equitable.
This design empowers the electorate to choose how much government and how much private sector it wants. It empowers our nation (or any nation) to evolve peacefully over time and to explore a vast political-economic landscape ranging all the way from unbridled capitalism to full socialism. We are empowered to peacefully and intelligently choose our highest wisdom.
Throughout history and everywhere today the governments of all nations, including what passes for democracy today, have been and are in their essence merely various forms of authoritarian plutocracy, the cultural expression of an underlying biologically-based dominance of a weak, unorganized many by a strong, organized few. All present political-economic systems have been designed by elites that use them to serve themselves first and best and to set themselves up as a privileged ruling class.
I am sixty-seven years old. I have been observing for decades the dishonesty, immorality, unjustness and inequity of our American and other political-economic systems. I have long pondered and attempted to answer such questions as: What is “the good society,” and what kind of government would best produce it? What makes a government legitimate? Why do we always end up with plutocracy, governance by the wealthy? If I, a decidedly unplutocratic, fair-minded person, tried to design an inclusive, honest, just, equitable political-economic system, what might that system look like?
After decades of playing devil’s advocate, mentally creating, attacking and destroying one faulty government design after another, finally, at about the age of fifty-four, I had a series of major breakthroughs in my thinking. I discovered something new under the sun. By then, as the phrases the tyranny of democracy and the rule of the mob suggest, I had come to understand that not only plutocracy but also democracy had deep shortcomings and pitfalls. By this time my mission statement had become to overcome the tyranny of plutocracy and maximize the responsible freedom of the individual while avoiding the tyranny that the wrong kind of democracy can become. And I now held in mind a government design that accomplished all three of these things and much else, a robust design that, I believe, would not only function well in the real world with people as they really behave but also facilitate our evolution toward ever better citizens in an ever better society.
Many of the breakthroughs in my thinking came in dreams. I imply nothing metaphysical, religious or mysterious here. If one’s mind is focused intensely on something every day for weeks, even years on end, it can get carried into one’s dreams where normal mental blocks and blindness may fall away revealing new insights. For three months I slept little and feverishly and frantically wrote by day what became the first draft of a book. So taxing was this agitated state that I seriously wondered if was going to kill me. I got it down! The essence! I spent the next ten years writing, rewriting and polishing the book to the best of my ability. During this process I posted it on the Internet where I continue tweaking it to this day and making its presence known. (It now holds high page one rank at Google and other major search engines for the search term plutocracy. I receive almost always highly complimentary email from around the nation and the world.) My book Beyond Plutocracy – True Democracy for America, hereafter simply Beyond, is available free at www.beyondplutocracy.com.
Beyond offers a partial redesign of the American government that, I believe, really fixes in just the right way what’s really wrong with it. My government design takes our nation beyond dominance, authoritarianism and plutocracy and establishes HONEST, just, truly democratic governance, an equitable market economy and maximum responsible personal freedom. Adapted to the specific needs of other locales, this repair could and should be applied to every government in the world and to every level of government. My design repairs not only our relations within nations but also among nations.
Surprisingly, once discovered, once I finally saw the light, the solution to the problem of governance proved elegantly simple (although it has taken a full length book for me to explain it adequately). It involves a new branch for our government, a new kind of voting system, a new honest electoral system, a new kind of democracy and giving the electorate direct control over a limited set of just the right powers.
The distribution of power is the most fundamental of all political issues. Good government and a good society require the correct distribution of power as their foundation. Excessive power cannot be held by an elite few, the simple majority, any other faction of the populace or even by the government itself. Joining limited direct democracy and limited representative democracy together in just the right way in a limited government and empowering the direct democracy branch with just the right kind and amount of democracy achieves a correct distribution of power resulting in a government that overcomes the shortcomings of both.
I named the new direct democracy branch of government the demos. From Beyond’s introduction:
Adding a new definition to those that already exist for the word, a demos is a direct democracy branch of a government consisting of a nationwide electronic network in which an electorate consisting of all of-age, able citizens practice consensus democracy by deliberating, voting and achieving consensus on a fixed set of a nation’s key economic and electoral issues, setting economic values the government and the nation must use as they function and electing to the representative branches of the government bodies of officeholders that demographically resemble the entire electorate and truly represent the entire body of citizens.
For reasons I discuss in Beyond chapter 5 Reorganizing the Powers of the American Government, a demos can only handle a limited number of very clear issues of central importance. While not carved in stone, using my best wisdom the demos I created for the American government includes nine economic and three electoral issues of fundamental importance to our society. I found no other issues to be necessary. The demoses of other nations and other levels of government would require their own sets of issues, but the guiding principle always remains the same: a limited number of very clear economic and electoral issues of central importance. All other issues including all complex social issues must be left to other areas of government and society. This is necessary not only to overcome plutocracy but also to maximize the freedom of the individual and avoid the oppressive intrusions of government and society into one’s bedroom and other private aspects of one’s life.
Our government’s principal dishonesty is its electoral system. Elections are left to a marketplace, mass media, two political parties and state electoral district systems that are mostly owned, operated and dominated by the wealthy. Elections, offices and the favors of our government are bought and sold just like any other commodity. The result is that wealthy and wealth-serving elites hold a permanent hegemony of seats, offices and power in our government and we get stuck with the best government that money can buy. They then use their offices to conduct economic warfare against the rest of the populace including a tax system and corporate, business and work laws, rules and regulations that overwhelmingly favor the wealthy.
Thus, the most important issues that need to be handled directly by the electorate are electoral and economic. The electorate has the sole power to tax at the federal level.
The twelve demos issues are:
- Election of the president
- Election of senators
- Election of representatives
- Overall federal tax rate (which, over time, determines the size of the federal government)
- Division of the tax burden among three tax revenue sources: corporations and businesses, personal incomes, and inheritances
- Corporate and business tax scale
- Personal income tax scale
- Inheritance tax scale
- Hours in the workweek
- Minimum wage
- Amount of federal debt or savings
- Portion of federal tax revenue for the military, healthcare, other entitlements, and all other government functions
As important as a limited set of clear economic and electoral issues is that the demos practices not the majority-rule ‘democracy’ of old in which the simple majority wins while all others lose but consensus democracy, a new kind of democracy of my own design. Plutocracy only achieves the consensus of the elite. Majority-rule democracy only achieves the consensus of the simple majority. Consensus democracy results in the consensus of the entire electorate, a moderate “golden mean” that avoids all extremes.
Unlike today’s periodic elections, voting in the demos is ongoing. Throughout his or her voting life, each member of the electorate has a vote permanently “riding” on each issue included in the demos that, with one exception discussed in Beyond, he or she may change at any time. Demos computers continuously recalculate vote tallies to maintain the current consensus of the electorate.
Voting on the nine economic issues is surprisingly easy. It is based on the traffic signal colors green, yellow and red. The voter never comes in contact with any mathematics, but only makes a few simple choices: green to increase a given value, yellow to keep it as is and red to decrease it.
The demos functions as an integrated homeostatic system. Heartbeat, respiration and temperature regulation within our bodies are homeostatic systems. The tendency of a homeostatic system is to avoid the extremes and to hover around a moderate norm. Each of the economic issues included in the demos functions like a homeostatic system, ever hovering about a moderate economic norm. And the carefully chosen issues form an interrelated whole. Working together they function like the interactive, self-orchestrating systems in a living organism. The electorate uses the demos as a tool to achieve a moderate consensus on a few values that our government and nation must use as they function, keeping our society functioning smoothly and evolving peacefully as demographics, conditions and our decisions change. The nine values that the demos sets and varies over time are laws. These nine are the only laws directly made by the electorate.
The demos electoral system is entirely new from that which we have today. The Electoral College (which currently elects the president) and all state electoral district systems are entirely scrapped. The president and all senators are elected by direct popular vote from the nation at-large, and each state’s quota of representatives is elected from the state at-large.
All periodic elections, including all primary elections, are scrapped and replaced by a simple ongoing electoral system. In a manner similar to the nine demos economic issues in which each member of the electorate keeps a vote riding on each issue, each member keeps a vote riding on one candidate for president, one for senator and one for representative.
The demos electoral system has a single national Presidential Candidates list and a single national Senatorial Candidates list. Each state has its own single Representative Candidates list. Any number of people may run for office. The person currently receiving the most votes in the Presidential Candidates list, the top 100 people in the Senatorial Candidates list and each state’s quota of representatives from its Representative Candidates list are currently seated in office. Discussed in detail in Beyond, a person gains or loses office when he or she gains or loses a sufficient number of votes relative to other candidates in the office’s Candidates list.
All members of the electorate, rich and poor alike, are empowered to run for office for free and to reach out to each other across states and the entire nation to elect their champions to office, people that resemble them in body, mind, interests and pocketbook and that honestly represent them in the representative branches of the government.
Simply because it gives all members of the electorate the same ability, unlike today’s electoral process, the free, ongoing, at-large demos electoral process also gives non-wealthy people the means and unlimited time to reach out to each other across their states or the entire nation in support of candidates that serve their needs and interests, even as they also go out into their neighborhoods and communities, organize and educate friends, neighbors, co-workers and others as to their true interests. Thus, the economic bottom half is not only included in the government along with everyone else, but it is fully empowered to seek its true self-interests.
No member of the electorate is stuck selecting a “lesser evil” from a small group preselected by the wealthy as is done today. All voters support their goods, their champions, those who resemble and truly represent them. The resulting senate and house automatically demographically resemble and serve the true and balanced interests of the entire electorate. No quota systems, political parties or complex electoral schemes are required. People just get to directly vote for whom they really want.
Voting on the twelve demos issues is not merely a privilege or a right of all of-age, able citizens but a civic duty. The vast majority of voters will already know their minds and only visit the demos a few minutes per year to alter or refresh their votes, the minimal civic requirement. But the demos also hosts a whole organized library full of optional ongoing deliberations, not only about the twelve demos issues but about any and all other issues members want to discuss. These deliberations inform the electorate, the representative branches of the government, the entire nation and indeed the entire world as to the true and often divided mind and will of the electorate. (While the demos has its own unique set of needs and objectives, some of the methods and tools used at Daily Kos and other group deliberation sites—greatly simplified—give inspiration as to how its deliberations might be conducted.)
Functioning using the economic values set by the entire electorate; demographically resembling the entire electorate in body, mind, interests and pocketbook; and honestly representing the entire electorate, the now truly representative branches of our government will write laws and rules for government, corporations, business, labor, mass media, environmental protection, etc. that wisely serve the entire electorate and the nation as a whole. Thus, with its consensus democracy and just the right electoral and economic issues, the demos redeems the currently plutocratic branches of our government by making them truly represent and serve the entire populace.
Now that the electorate is, at long last, participating in a true democracy, what may it do with it? From Beyond’s chapter 22:
Using its limited power within consensus government’s larger context of balanced powers, the demos would, indeed, be capable of effecting profound social change. Depending on the consensus of the demos on various issues, theoretically many radical forms of relationship among us would be possible.
If we voted to pay no taxes at all to support government, then we would have no government but anarchy. Or we could opt for a small, medium or large size government. At its most extreme we could elect to tax ourselves 100% and, therefore, turn all of our resources over to government, have no private property and become a socialist state. We could elect to have no personal income or inheritance taxes and tax only business to support government. This would in effect become a consumption tax, but instead of the consumption tax being in the form of a sales tax tacked on at the point of retail sale, it would be tacked on at points along the production and distribution process. We could set business and personal taxes in such a way as to effectively eliminate almost all variation in wealth, creating a great leveling and something near communism. We could set a business and personal flat tax that would allow any amount of accumulated business and personal wealth, a sort of laissez faire capitalism. A low flat tax would create a small government that interfered little in the affairs of the private sector including in the distribution of wealth, which would please libertarian thinkers.
In previous chapters I have so strongly and frequently criticized the current distribution of wealth in America—10% of our population hoards 90% of our nation’s wealth—and have claimed such a strong correlation between power and wealth you may have concluded that the measures proposed in this book redistribute wealth. But this is not true. They do not redistribute even one penny of wealth. The measures proposed here—a demos, etc.—merely shift a modest amount of power away from the most powerful few and toward the entire American electorate. What the electorate actually did with its measure of new power is not a given. Keep in mind that the demos would not practice majority-rule but consensus democracy. While millions of people would vote in such a way as to narrow the distribution of wealth, millions of others would vote in a way that widens the distribution. The resulting consensus would likely be a distribution more moderate than today but far from a complete leveling.
Thus, by its setting in the demos of the size and distribution of the tax burden and other economic issues, the electorate ultimately effects the overall distribution of wealth in America. Where one resides within this distribution depends upon luck in birth, talent and work, just as it does today. And, being empowered to elect bodies of officeholders that proportionally resemble the entire populace in body, mind, interests and pocketbook, business and labor laws and rules will be altered and created that justly serve the entire populace.
We do not seek and it would be very undesirable to achieve a flat distribution of wealth. That would destroy incentive. We seek a distribution that does not hand an undue measure of wealth to the few but provides everyone who works a reasonable living while retaining a sufficient distribution of wealth to motivate honest entrepreneurship and labor.
As you can see, the demos would be free to create many different kinds of economic relationship among us, some of them quite extreme. If and when a large number of people read this work, no doubt every kind of chaos will be feared and predicted (or not really feared but predicted anyway to strike fear in other peoples’ hearts for political reasons).
Having had a demos, all the rest of government, and the larger society running and evolving inside my head for some thirty years, as you may guess, I also have opinions and predictions: None of the extremes mentioned above would happen. Nor would we turn into chaos; the sky would not fall; and the world would not end. Instead, our ever-evolving demos consensus would hover within very modest limits and avoid all extremes. Most people would get much but not all of what they wanted. Most people would be very pleased with our new relationship. Our modified government with its much improved balance of power would operate more smoothly and efficiently than does our current government. And it would significantly increase our sense of justness, equity, freedom, and happiness. The government described in this work would both permit and facilitate our peaceful evolution to an ever higher state of being and a greater humanity.
The principal reason that the demos would steer away from all extremes is that it is a near certainty that one could not get all of the people to agree on any one extreme at any time. It’s just the way that we cantankerous and quarrelsome beings are. All extreme views would cancel each other out, and a more reasonable and moderate consensus would prevail.
While I personally favor a moderate, healthy free market economy managed by an honest government that truly rests in the hands of the entire electorate, if the electorate chooses to do so, it could vote in ways that create instead a centrally planned economy. Further, in its power to elect an honest, truly representative congress, the electorate, by the people it selects and their political philosophies, platforms and proposals, is empowered to determine the very character and function of our capitalism, socialism or some mixture of the two. Therefore, as you can see, I do not force the version of the market economy that I personally favor onto the nation. But it is certainly one of the many choices within the political-economic landscape from which the electorate may select.
Moreover, my design empowers the electorate to choose that which is most familiar to it, capitalism, and peacefully migrate over time if it so chooses toward an increasingly socialistic government and society as it becomes increasingly enlightened (or unenlightened, if that be the case). No insurrections or revolutions are necessary. Once a great True Democracy Movement (Beyond chapter 26 How to Bring True Democracy to America) successfully put my consensus government design in place by partially redesigning our current government, the electorate becomes empowered to peacefully migrate toward and explore many forms of economic relationship and back away from them in favor of something else if they prove less attractive close up then they seemed from afar, always with all voices heard in demos deliberations and all votes having equal effect upon the demos consensus and the helmsmanship of our nation.