We've all seen the pictures. People assembled on the commons in metropolis or rural town listening to each other. They wiggle their fingers skyward or toward the ground to signal how they feel about the speaker's comments. Another person rises from the crowd to add something to what is being said. The conversation spirals from the speaker, to the crowd, to the moderator.
Unlike its warlike predecessor, majority-rule democracy, this democracy is more enlightened, civilized. It takes everyone's opinion into account--not just the opinion with the most brute force. This democracy is about sharing not winning. We are learning what consensus democracy looks like, and it makes my heart sing. They are showing us democracy on a personal, local level and I want more.
It makes me wonder, though, what would consensus democracy look like on the grand scale? How could we run our federal government on consensus? It might surprise you where I found the answer to this question. Not Noam Chomsky or Buckminster Fuller, but a little known, believer in the capitalist way, Roger Rothenberger. Light years ahead of its time, his book left me longing for a different world, a democratic world. Today, I bring you a brief peak at that vision.
The Problem:
In Beyond Plutocracy: True Democracy for America, Roger Rothenberger hits the nail on the head about the cause of our suffering. The wealthy are using government to commit warfare on the rest of us.
Aristocracies of an entirely different sort exist within our societies. The most aggressive, competitive, domineering, greedy, and ruthless people among us claw their way to the top of the political-economic heap. They gain, hold, and wield a hegemony of power. They take, hoard, and squander most of our wealth. They define themselves to be an aristocracy or create laws and rules that make themselves into one in result if not in name. It is an aristocracy of power and affluence. By brutal and legalistic means this aristocracy perpetuates itself generation after generation no matter how incompetent, insane, corrupt, or base become its members and no matter what the consequences are for everyone else. It is a sickness within our race and a burden to us all. –Beyond Plutocracy
The aristocracy has used Congress to create a plutocracy. Recently, the Supreme Court. sanctioned plutocracy as our legitimate form of government.
Plutocracy is governance by the wealthy. Most of America’s many political, economic and social ills are caused or aggravated by its most fundamental problem: America is not really a democracy but a plutocracy dominated and governed by a wealthy few. The wealthy hold a perpetual hegemony of power in our government through the generations, much to the detriment of the rest of the populace. Elections and our government’s offices, laws, actions and favors are bought and sold just like any other commodity. America has the best government that money can buy.
While the major political parties and the elites that occupy office embrace some differing secondary issues that attract each of us to one over the other, all parties are bought by, serve and never fundamentally alter the ever present plutocracy. The fundamental injustices and the many economic and social problems caused by the plutocracy are never repaired.
The problem is not which party or elites currently populate our government. And superficial reform and tinkering will never fix the problem. The problem lies in the design of our government, its basic structure, a distribution of power that overwhelmingly and perpetually favors the wealthy.
He goes on to point out, contrary to popular opinion, America was never a democracy.
Our current plutocracy is not the result of irresponsible wealthy corporations and individuals corrupting in recent decades our once-sacred democracy. The creators of America’s constitution and government were among the wealthy aristocrats of their day. When they created their new government, the founders excluded democracy to the extent politically possible at the time. They embraced instead the republican form of government, so-called “representative” democracy.
The great failure of our ‘representative’ democracy is that our supposed representatives do not fairly represent the entire populace but themselves and their wealthy clients first and best. Its greatest service for the wealthy is that while excluding democracy it appears to be one. People dutifully vote in elections and believe the myth that America is a democracy, albeit a strangely unresponsive one that they repeatedly try and fail to make work for them. Thus, unrecognized for what it is by most people, the continued existence of the American plutocracy is assured.
The Solution:
Rothenberger's solution is a type of direct democracy but not the majority-rule direct democracy envisioned in the past.
Precisely because our government lies at the heart of the problem it also lies at the heart of the solution. If we alter our government in a way that makes it honestly include and serve the entire electorate, then we can easily and permanently correct the profound unfairness and inequity inherent in our current political-economic system.
Direct democracy—in which the electorate votes directly on issues—is the most commonly prescribed solution for the problem of plutocracy. But as the phrases “the tyranny of democracy” and “the rule of the mob” suggest, democracy also has some profound problems. Referendum-style, majority-rule, direct democracy with an unending stream of issues, if it were ever really tried, would only result in another form of tyranny: the political, economic, religious and behavioral tyranny of the simple majority over the rest of the populace. It would lead to conformity, mediocrity and a decline of freedom and excellence. It is only because majority-rule direct democracy has never really existed in the governments of nations that most people fail to see its shortcomings.
Further, direct democracy has rather severe natural limitations. A busy electorate whose members have varying capability is simply not capable of handling the myriad complex details of the modern state. And few people would want handling a never-ending avalanche of complex political issues to be the centerpiece of their lives. Therefore, of necessity, even with a measure of direct democracy, we still need representative branches in our government with elected and appointed officials to handle the myriad details of governance.
Direct democracy is indeed the answer to the problem of plutocracy. But given its pitfalls and limitations, we must design it carefully and choose very wisely what to include in it. Understand that it is by the inclusion in our government (or in any government) of just the right kind and amount of direct democracy that its representative branches are rendered truly representative, the tyranny of plutocracy is overcome, the democracy itself does not become a tyranny and the freedom of the individual is maximized.
Instead he purposes a different type of direct democracy built on consensus.
Consensus government overcomes the principal shortcomings and evils of our current, so-called representative government.
• It produces a moderate consensus of the entire electorate on our most important issues.
• It increases the responsiveness of our government to the will of all of us rather than to just the will of an elite few.
• It increases the personal and public power and freedom of everyone and of liberty throughout the nation.
• It brings greater justice, morality and legitimacy to our government.
• Despite the addition of a new fourth branch, it reduces the overall size of our government and increases its efficiency.
• It produces a balanced, equitable, more stable market economy.
• It makes possible the correction or mitigation of most of our nation’s other political, economic and social ills.
The Demos:
Rothenberger envisions keeping our government largely the way it is, but adding a fourth branch of government called the Demos. This branch is a consensus-building branch comprised of all adult American citizens. The system would tally the electorates opinion on 12 key decisions constantly. The voter could change their vote at any time from multiple secure locations.
• The demos consists of the entire electorate participating in a true democratic process called consensus democracy by directly deliberating, voting and achieving consensus on a permanent set (twelve) of our most important political-economic issues.
• The demos has a nationwide, electronic voting system in which votes are not cast periodically but permanently “ride” on the issues having a continuous effect on them. Any member of the electorate may change one or more votes on the issues at any time.
• Unlike majority-rule democracy, consensus democracy produces no winners or losers. Every vote always counts, continuously and equally affecting the slowly changing, ever current consensus of the electorate.
• The consensus of the electorate in the demos serves as our social contract and sets, within its limited sphere of power, some parameters within which all of government and society must function.
Representation at the National Level:
Political candidates would campaign on a government-supported website, very much like the blogosphere. They post their comments about events and discuss how they would govern. Citizens read and vote toward the candidate they like the most. The most popular candidate rise to the top. However, posts with limited popularity would still enjoy a few moments on the front page every day so they have an opportunity to garner more attention. No commercial activity would be allowed on this site.
Any number of candidates (who need not be wealthy or wealth supported) may take any amount of time to run for office for free within the demos and build a following. Members of the electorate may take any amount of time to study and deliberate about candidates and to reach out to each other across states or the entire nation to directly elect not “lesser evils” that are financed and, therefore, preselected by the wealthy as is done today but their champions, truly representative officeholders that resemble them in body, mind, interests and pocketbook.
The resulting senate and house automatically demographically resemble and serve the true and balanced interests of the entire electorate as they create laws, rules and policies for government, business, labor, mass media, environmental protection, etc. No quota systems, political parties or complex electoral schemes are required to achieve this balanced, honest representation. People just get to directly vote for whom they really want.
Voting would not take place on a specific day or time, but continuously through electronic means. The President would remain the President, until his term ended or until he lost the majority. If he lost his majority, the person with the majority would take the seat. Because there is a learning curve to these jobs, the President could not be unseated by the Demos for the first two years. After that, he would serve at the pleasure of The People.
The same concept would apply to the House of Representatives. If you were a Representative who, let’s say, voted to end collective bargaining for federal workers, you might find your butt out of the Representative’s chair the next day.
The Senate, in Rotherberger’s plan, would be very different. Instead of voting for a pair of state Senators, voting would be for a nationwide champion of your cause. In this system, everyone gets just one Senate vote. You can cast that vote for any person running for Senate from any state. If you are reading this blog, you might cast your vote to the Senator who declares they will work to make the U.S. a non-capitalist country. Or you might want a Senator with a track record of championing environmental causes. Or Gay rights. Or women’s issues. In this way, even small and underserved groups get at least some representation in Congress.
Economic Consensus:
The most intriguing aspect of the Demos system is that it gives the electorate the sole power to tax at the federal level. This sounds crazy, but the scheme is well thought out and argued in the book.
The Demos would constantly moderate 9 other economic issues:
*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 work week
* Minimum wage
* Amount of federal debt or savings
* Portion of federal tax revenue for the military, health care, other entitlements, and all other government functions
The decisions of the electorate would be constantly averaged to create constraints for the government. We, the people, would decide how much tax was too much, which also determines the size of our government.
We would also decided who gets to pay the tax. If you are happy with Bank of America and GE making oodles of money and paying no tax, by all means, vote for them to continue that activity. On the other hand, if you would like to see them pay more tax, vote to have the corporate slice of the tax pie be a little bigger than personal income tax.
Should the rich get to hand down all they have acquired over many years to their offspring? This perpetuates family dynasties like the Bushes or the Kennedys. Shouldn’t some of the money go back to the people after the capitalist, who confiscated it, dies? The percentage of inheritance tax deals with that issue.
After you have chosen how big a piece of the pie each main tax group should shoulder, then you chose how progressive or regressive our tax system should be. Should the percentage of tax go up quickly as the total income of the person or business increases, or more gradually? Should a poor man be able to pass most of his “wealth” on to his sons and daughters while a rich man should have to give the lion’s share back to the state? The Demos collectively gets to decide this issue by adjusting the tax scales for each of the major sources of tax.
Did you know that Americans work more than any other nation? A full month more than most. Is that the way it should be? The way you want it? Can you live off of what you make, right now? The Demos pushes the government from the other end as well. The Demos sets the minimum wage and the maximum work hours in a week. It lets the people find equilibrium between not enough jobs in the country, and jobs that are too physically and socially taxing.
Right now, in a capitalist system, it makes sense to increase our national debt. We have vast unemployment and increasing costs. Borrowing money to build infrastructure would put people to work and increase our “worth” as a nation. But the deficit looms large in the mass media. Increasing taxes on the rich is unthinkable. So we are squeezing the last turnip juice from the poor, hoping to find blood. What if the people could decide how much deficit was too much and where to spend the money at our disposal? Would a New Deal blossom, or would mass media be able to convince the people to cut their own throats?
You might be of the opinion that making these decisions would be too complex for Americans. Given the state of our educational system, I might agree with you, except that Rothenberger made it so simple. Each of these categories breaks down into a simple question. “Should the minimum wage be bigger, smaller or stay the same?” This is presented in traffic light colors: Bigger=Green; Stay the Same=Yellow; Smaller=Red. You can sample just how simple this system is here. Each potential selection is accompanied by a brief pro/con argument.
Of course it would change things. Media would have to cover economic issues and discussions. Schools would have to teach a basic understanding of macroeconomics. Also, the masses would learn by doing. The changes in consensus would create changes in the real world. There would be no more finger pointing between two parties doing the exact same thing. The only one we could point the finger to, would be ourselves. Then the conversation changes to how do we make it the way we want it?
That is my very brief overview does not do the suggestions in Beyond Plutocracy justice, but the book is free for anyone to read at Beyond Plutocracy.com.
Upcoming Diaries
Oct 30: NY Brit Expat On wages, Austerity Measures and the Role of the State in Class War
Nov 6: Robin Upton, host of Unwelcome Guests, will be a very welcome guest at our site! He will also be discussing education.
Nov 13: Geminijen: Cooperatives Changing Relationship to Unions, Part III
Nov 20: Erica Goldman's speech, Here I Stand.
Nov 27: TBA by Justina
Dec 4 + 18: I will be discussing Miliary Democracy as a way to reclaim our power.
Dec 25: Blue Dragon will discuss teaching from radical texts in the college setting. (She is using Shock Doctrine in her class.)
Jan 1 (or thereabouts) I will post a rather odd bit about making resolutions and I will have an exciting announcement at that time.