Making government of, for and by the people work
The recent presidential election in the United States (and Brexit in the UK and similar movements elsewhere) was a clear referendum for change. Either people voted for Trump or Sanders demanding change or they stayed home, not willing to support the relative lack of change offered by Clinton, even to protest Trump’s vision for change. While much has been made of the political differences between different camps the people are actually more united than ever before. “We the People” share a desire for maximizing Freedom and Opportunity for all citizens. We all want a voice in our government, even if our side does not win the election. In short, we all want “government of, for and by the people,” teased by Abraham Lincoln so many years ago.
But what unites us has been obscured. It’s time to focus on it. Let’s have a discussion about how to make government of, for and by the people work.
In case it can be helpful to you, in the following pages I chronicle my attempt at the above exercise. I provide a high level review of the shortcomings and flaws inherent in our current systems (both political and economic). And then taking Freedom and Opportunity as my goal imagine what a people’s government might look like.
Even if you disagree with my conclusions completely (or more likely especially if you disagree with it completely) your voice and your action are needed now. Spread the call for a discussion to all your friends, and your enemies too. Broadcast it on all your social media channels and organize meetings to brainstorm on these questions, but also how best to get together a large-scale conversation. An early priority in spreading the word will be to find the people who are most capable at putting something like this together.
Don’t doubt that this is possible. Don’t believe the politicians about all that divide us. Don’t doubt that you are important to success. You have a voice in this process and it all begins with you spreading the word. It fails if you don’t.
(This is a slimmed down version of a much longer and more detailed piece available here)
The current systems
Political
The US government has rarely seemed to act as if it represented the people. More perks and rewards in office came by serving the interests of the wealthy minority than those of the majority so that is where most politicians put their energy. And as campaign funding became critical to election and reelection the priority further tilted toward policies that favored people and organizations with money to “donate” to a politician’s cause. The way the system works in practice means that even those who might enter office to serve the people would need to satisfy upper class constituents in order to stay in office. The resulting lack of genuine representation is something that frustrates potential voters to the point that many decide to stay home on voting day. They simply don’t see the point in participating in the charade.
In practice the two political parties put much more effort into fooling the voters than understanding them. Tactics and slogans are tested and explored until the right cocktail of words and imagery is hit upon to sell a candidate to an electorate. Nationalism and fear are some of the more common and destructive tactics, creating and expanding animosities both within and outside of the country instead of finding ways for different viewpoints to compromise and get along. Fear of Great Britain, France, Spain, natives, slaves, new immigrants, Mexico, Canada, Germany, farmers, labor, Communists, the Soviet Union, Muslims and the poor have all taken their turns. Candidates who communicate a commitment to a strong defense against these threats to “our way of life” win elections despite the fact that these defenses typically mean denying liberty and opportunity to large swaths of the US population.
Despite being such a fundamental requirement, the ideas and logic of representation are poorly formed. It is difficult to imagine that people living in the same geographical area all really hold the same basket of ideas and preferences. Yet it is expected that a single representative could represent all the diverse opinions and views of hundreds of thousands (up to millions) of people on all topics. If 51% of the people in a person’s district view things one way and 49% the opposite way there is no one to represent the large minority. Worse yet, if 51% of the people think issue A (social issues, for example) is most important in choosing a representative, then that would drive their voting decision. But the person best suited for that issue would also represent them on issue B (corporate tax policy perhaps), even though only a tiny minority might share that representative’s views on that issue. It is this dynamic that the political parties and ruling powers skillfully exploit to push through policies contrary to the interest of the majority.
Even if real representation could be achieved, there are issues with Democracy in theory that cause difficulty in practice. The guiding principle of Democracy is the rule by the majority. Between two different options the choice that receives more than half the votes is the one that is pursued. This however can be quite oppressive to those in the minority. In the United States the Bill of Rights is the primary defense against government abuse and is needed to shield minorities from the worst assaults by the majority. But it can only do so much. The myth alone that the United States has majority rule creates a great deal of animosity and anxiety. The nature of Democracy encourages people to be more aggressive in pursuing their agenda and less considerate of other people’s viewpoints. Furthermore, to secure their position those in power often change the rules in their favor. They find ways to game the electoral system including limiting voting rights and realigning districts to make sure they retain their power. Such is the fear of Democracy. People feel in order to avoid being its victim they have to manipulate it.
Economic
Especially now with the overwhelming power of money in politics, it is difficult to disentangle the political system from the economic system. Capitalism gives power to the wealthy which can in turn be used to corrupt any political system.
The basic assumption of Capitalism is that people pursue their own interests with all their energies at the exclusion of other concerns. The core principle is that humans are fundamentally selfish and greedy. Capitalism therefore proposes a system in which everyone is equally empowered to pursue their own personal agenda with the struggle between competing interests resulting in a fair and balanced outcome. These theories in Capitalism fall apart pretty quickly in the real world. It turns out that people are more social and less overwhelmingly selfish than assumed, different levels of sympathy and kindness between two sides of a negotiation can upset the balance. And both sides of a trade do not have access to the same set of information as expected for Capitalism to produce a balanced outcome. In order to remain competitive and avoid being swindled at every turn people need to be experts in a broad range of topics. This is completely impractical for most if not all people. Yet there is typically someone around to exploit anyone’s lack of perfect knowledge. Fortunately the government stepped in to bridge some of the gap. But the government can only do so much to mitigate the deceptions encouraged by real world Capitalism particularly with the capitalists campaigning heavily to limit the government’s regulatory capabilities. Meanwhile the weight of those regulations designed to trap dishonest operators hamper the ability of honest small businesses to operate.
The rules of supply and demand that apply for goods also apply to labor. Capitalists have several ways to leverage their wealth to increase supply and diminish the negotiating power of labor to get lower wages. Capitalists have invested heavily in automation to decrease their reliance on low-supply (and therefore costly) skilled labor and push more people into the unskilled labor pool. The gains from introducing automation went therefore predominantly to the capitalists with lower costs and greater profits while the costs — which manifested themselves in increased crime of all types, drug use, destruction of families, etc. — were picked up by the society.
Countries started competing against each other to persuade capitalists to set up their businesses and provide jobs for their citizens. For those countries like the United States that are not willing to invest in education it becomes a bidding war to see which country is willing to provide more tax breaks, lower wages, lower concern for environment and least of all the best infrastructure. And it isn’t just the countries that compete. States within the United States also compete with each other, pushing up the profits to capitalists and down the wages for everyone. It is truly a world for the capitalists.
On the other side of labor negotiations, employees are almost completely powerless against the oppressive weight of the free labor market. To balance the power of employers, the employees tried to unite together in unions and negotiate as a group on wages, working conditions and layoffs. This proved successful at times but as people become more desperate for work during economic downturns, capitalists are able to break apart unions and put in protections against their forming again.
Even consumer purchases which people feel they have control over are heavily manipulated by big business through advertising. It is true that companies look to develop products and services that they can sell to people. This is how it is possible to argue that Capitalism is democratic. The problem is that it is not a very direct representation of the people’s will. It involves a great deal of unnecessary risk for the capitalists, which is why they demand high profits when they get it “right.” And it creates a strong tendency toward products that can be sold at high profit-margins often through deception instead of ones that people genuinely want or need and offer maximum value to them. Often as much or more money is spent on marketing and advertising to convince people that they need a product than in discovering and addressing real needs.
Under Capitalism life is tolerable for the poor in good times. For most people there is work to do and money to cover the basics. However during the regularly recurring economic crises it can get horrific, completely inhumane. People see a government bending over backwards to save the bankers while showing no concern for the rest of the country’s population. In fact those in control often blame the poor and middle class for the crisis.
Alternatives
Economic
Most people take Capitalism for granted. Communism is the only alternative anyone ever talks about in the mainstream and that concept has been completely corrupted by the Soviet Union, making it a dead issue. But if we put the focus on maximizing Freedom and Opportunity for all it is possible to come up with real alternatives.
In Capitalism money typically comes from banks and is directed by a tiny segment of the population (the capitalists) based on their instincts on where the most money could be made for themselves and their investors. To compensate them for this “risk” a large portion of the gains from that investment goes back to the capitalists and banks. The whole banking and investment infrastructure is therefore huge and extremely complex. It takes a large number of people to make it work and since banking is so critical to a working economy many of them (particularly in the higher echelons) are paid extravagantly. It is an enormous hidden tax just to keep the system working. An alternative to the bankers and investors is needed in the new system. Someone has to make decisions about where money is spent. We already have as part of our collective “common sense” the answer to power being accumulated in the hands of just a few people: Democracy.
Many of the concepts of the free market and flow of money from Capitalism can be maintained, with some critical refinements of course. Consumers would choose what they buy just as they do now, allowing for the complete expression of personal preferences. Freedom in fact would be even greater than in Capitalism because there would be less incentive for corporations to sell products people don’t want or need and buying power would be more evenly distributed. Those purchases would sustain manufacturing and services as they do in the Capitalist model.
How decisions about where to allocate limited resources (labor most especially) would be made differently than in Capitalism however. Profit motive would not drive such decisions. It rewards people too heavily for manipulation and exploitation and is intended as a compensation for individual risk taking that we are targeting for elimination. All that anxiety isn’t necessary or productive. If the problem with Capitalism is that too few people are deciding where to allocate money used for research, development and community improvement, the solution would be to find some way to distribute investment decision making among everyone. A “democratic” investment model is called for. It means taking the investment money typically controlled by a small minority and distributing those decisions among the entire population so that they can make decisions directly instead of having their interests interpreted (and corrupted, not always maliciously) by capitalists. It would also eliminate what we view today as “taxes” paid to the government. People would therefore not have to pay for something they did not fully support.
The key to the plan is keeping the investment money separate from a person’s earned consumer money so that it can only be used for investing. This money isn’t intended as a reward for hard work but instead as a weighted voting mechanism for citizens to provide direct input on how the country’s limited resources will be allocated. Money truly becomes free speech, speech that is evenly and fairly distributed. People would choose how they want to use the money, from fixing up the local park to funding research on fuel-efficient cars. If people want something they can make it happen on their own.
To many used to Capitalism this idea might sound like a lot of extra work for the ordinary citizen, distracting people from their lives by transferring responsibility from a few individuals to everyone. Some way is needed that would allow people as much detailed control as they desire without posing a serious burden to those who don’t want to involve themselves too much. Thus reenters the capitalists, with a twist. Instead of investing in specific projects which may require detailed understanding and a great deal of research to choose between competing options, individuals could instead invest money through new-style capitalists, each working toward a particular outcome. All capitalists would be answerable directly to the people however, a dramatic shift from the old Capitalism. Any money they managed would be part of the public record, its purpose clearly stated. If people don’t like how someone is directing the money, the money would simply flow to a different capitalist who shares more people’s vision. The capitalists would of course get paid by the hours they work just like everyone else without any extra compensation derived from their position of trust. They would be taking no personal risks for which additional compensation could be demanded. And with the capitalists in place people could choose to invest with them or directly into projects, the Freedom would be theirs.
One of the more contentious issues could be around compensation. Capitalism claims that through the free market of labor people are compensated more for careers that provide more value to society. In reality however the Capitalist free market is like the political system: it is easily taken over to serve the elite instead of the people. Instead of compensating people doing the most good it gives the wealthy cover for taking enormous sums of money for themselves with only a tenuous connection to public good.
The idea of varying compensation based on the value the work provides to society is a demand-side approach to the question of value. The question it tries to answer is what society demands more. But there is also virtue in exploring the question of value from the supply side: how could a system improve the quantity and quality of effort people put into an economy? It seems natural to assume that if people are doing what they want to do, what they are passionate about, then they would be better at it and put more sincere effort into it. More total value would be created by having people do what they enjoy as long as it provides enough value to society to justify the doing in the first place. In fact any system that didn’t deny opportunity to work to people willing and anxious to work would be a significant improvement on the supply-side. Instead of aiming (and failing) to maximize public good a system could maximize personal choice and personal opportunity. This approach would align with the goal of maximizing Freedom and Opportunity but presumably it would increase total value of the output as well.
These ideas of supply-side drivers for value maximization seem to be pointing to something that will be fairly unsettling for many in the United States: a fixed hourly wage regardless of work. Education and training would have to be included as part of one’s work. Otherwise few would be willing to become a doctor, which requires lengthy and expensive training. But the price of that education is already built into their fees, so why not factor it in from the start?
A real advantage of this proposed plan over the traditional Capitalist system is that paying the same rate for all jobs adds urgency to improve working conditions at the least pleasant jobs. In Capitalism these jobs and the people who work in them receive little attention. It is more cost effective to ignore complaints of faceless employees whose life issues can be kept out of sight of decision makers than to “fix” the jobs. Suddenly there would be greater urgency to improve the efficiency of these jobs instead of filling them with desperate workers whose forced silence masks real problems in humane working conditions and inefficient use of human potential. The real costs of the work would surface, costs that are shouldered by the society in Capitalism instead of the employers.
One of the most disturbing features of Capitalism is that when there is not enough work it creates a very serious crisis. It is difficult to imagine anything more absurd. Imagine in a domestic setting you find yourself with no household chores to do during a long weekend. Would it be a problem? No, you’d enjoy the extra time to relax or otherwise come up with some new way to improve things in your life. It should not be any different in the public arena. With the idea of currency tied almost entirely to labor and practically no way to avoid spending the money (either as a consumer or as an investor), it is essentially impossible for a community to be completely devoid of projects that people interested in working could do. If everyone has the consumer goods they needed then the money would flow to community projects or research or some such investments.
The last major piece that is missing in this new system is determining prices. In Capitalism pricing is determined by the free market. Sellers only sell at the price they are willing to part with the item and buyers are only willing to pay what they think the item or service is worth to them. The system not only offers opportunity for manipulation by controlling information it also allows for control over supply to raise prices. When you don’t have to provide profit incentives for companies to invest in what the people want pricing can be driven from costs alone, a much simpler model. For most products the total labor costs required to make an individual unit would make up the bulk of the price. Because research, development and manufacturing startup costs would be paid for from the investment funds the price wouldn’t include these factors. One of the advantages of this pricing system — in addition to its simplicity, stability and predictable nature — is that the pricing could also factor in environmental impact costs associated with manufacturing and distribution. In traditional Capitalism it is most commonly just the poorest in society who pay the full environmental and social impact of products. In the new model those who want the products would pay. No longer would there be a forced choice between maintaining the environment and maintaining the economy.
There are some very interesting implications of this new pricing approach. Products for which prices today are made largely of research and development costs would drop dramatically. The actual manufacturing costs for most medicines, for example, can be measured in cents per pill. What forces the price of healthcare up are development, marketing and profit cost implications. An even more extreme example would be computer software. What is the cost of distribution of software to your computer? Thanks to the Internet it is only the cost of the server from which you (and millions others) download the software. The cost of software would become negligible, greatly enhancing productivity.
Something new is taking shape, something we might call “Democratic Capitalism,” since it maintains so many components of the old system but makes it much more democratic in the sense that the people are much more in charge of how things are done. The new economic model puts a strong emphasis on free choice: in purchasing, in investing, in how many hours worked, and in what career to pursue. The new system should also be more responsive and more efficient, cutting out the hefty “tax” capitalists take today in the way of profits. A system that encourages collaboration and community instead of competition and manipulation could be an exciting one to participate in. Trust could resurface. Everyone has a fair chance at success. As an added bonus the plan also seems likely to improve the value from the work people want to do, taking advantage of people’s passions more strategically to increase the competitiveness of the country.
Political
Democratic Capitalism would make corruption of the political system much more difficult and the ill-gotten rewards much less attractive. With that said however the economic changes don’t address the fact that the current political system is not capable of representing the diverse opinions of the United States or handling compromise sincerely.
Many of the functions of government required in a traditional Capitalist society go away. Restraining and regulating abuse by corporations is hardly an issue when the profit motive for abuse is eliminated. The government would also no longer be needed to fill in the gap between what Capitalism provides and what humans need in terms of basic living conditions.
Where some form of government is needed is to provide a channel and tools for different interests to resolve differences of opinion. Clearly for this purpose a strongly representative system reflecting the true interests of the people would be required in order to live up to the demands of the people.
Conventional wisdom suggests that in order to achieve real representation a very strong public participation in government would be required. But it is difficult to imagine people want to be experts on all matters political any more than they want to be experts on all matters related to the things they buy. They don’t want to have to evaluate complex plans for fixing a broken economy any more than they want to learn how to test milk or beef to be sure it is safe before buying it. We want experts we know we can trust handling these issues in our interest so that we can focus on what we do and want to do. We want someone who could — if asked — explain patiently why what they are doing is going to help us. Those criteria obviously knock the current representative system out of the running. Representatives in the current model more commonly tell voters what they want to hear instead of proposing realistic plans and then act in the best interest of only their wealthy constituents instead of all their constituents.
But there may yet be inspiration from the current system. There are places where people actually are represented faithfully and reliably. The answer is a bit surprising. It seems clear that lawyers and lobbyists, two groups with poor popular appeal, actually do typically provide fairly sincere and passionate representation. When someone hires a lawyer it is very common to have faith that the lawyer would navigate the complicated legal terrain in the client’s best interest. The lawyer earns that trust despite typically coming from a completely different background from the client. The reason they have such a bad reputation is that they have become tools of the wealthy since their advantages are for purchase. If everyone has equal access, maybe the judicial branch and the courts could be the basis for a government. If sufficient power could be given to discontented citizens it would be a powerful check on government abuses and remove much of the hopelessness people feel above their role in public policy, all without increasing their responsibility or expectations placed on them.
This is meant to be “government by the people” so it should be the people who initiate government. If ever anyone has an issue with how things are being run they could initiate a “reconsideration.” They would engage with a “lobbyists” (which seems a better word than “lawyer” which will continue to be needed while current lobbyists would fade away quickly). People could also appoint someone from their own interest group or even serve themselves if they prefer. When evaluating a lobbyist for the job however it wouldn’t matter much if a person shares the group’s views but whether he or she has past experience learning and respecting other people’s views and whether the person demonstrates passion in pursuing compromise in the best interest of the group that initiated the action.
To keep the number of frivolous actions to a minimum and in keeping with the pay for what you use philosophy, the person or group of people initiating the reconsideration would be responsible for paying for the time of the lobbyist plus any additional incidental costs. Since it would typically be a public decision that was sought the funds for the lobbyist would likewise typically come from the person’s investment funds, not his earned consumer credits. Unlike the current system where lobbyists and lawyers work almost exclusively for the benefit of the wealthy this would be a level playing field since no one would have more investment capital to spend than anyone else to bias the results.
Once assigned the lobbyist next would estimate the number of people included in the interest group. Depending on the interest group these estimates could come from census reports or may require significantly more creative or elaborate techniques. The idea isn’t to determine who has the largest group and then simply rule in their favor however. This isn’t majority rule but instead a search for compromise between competing interests. Having a sense of who is involved in an issue however could impact the lobbyist’s next steps and ultimately affect the sort of compromises that would be practical and reasonable. In addition to consulting experts in the topic under discussion the lobbyists then would go out to talk with a sample of the people they were representing. The purposes of these outings would be two-fold. First it would be important that the lobbyist fully understand what the group wants and needs. Secondly, if the topic strikes a chord with the people she encounters they could contribute to the case funds. If the case ran out of funds, it would be put on hold until new funds are available so there would be a real incentive for people who care about the topic to contribute.
The lobbyists would then come together to negotiate a compromise. This type of compromise would be a dramatic change from what passes as compromise today where elites meet with other elites and agree on how they would exploit the non-elites. At the core of these conversations would stand the basic principles of the country: maximizing individual Freedom and Opportunity for all types of people and views as long as doing so didn’t impinge on someone else’s freedoms and opportunities. Open to the public and with transparency strongly valued, anyone could attend the meetings of the lobbyists but only the lobbyists would have a voice in the negotiations. Throughout the discussions however the lobbyists would remain keenly interested in getting all possible insight so would be sure to make themselves available to anyone with new ideas or perspectives to share. In the end all sides would be motivated to find a compromise acceptable to all interest groups in order to avoid having anyone initiate a new reconsideration.
Once a decision is made the decision would be released in a full report proactively to all funders, another benefit of providing funds. The report would also be available to anyone upon request. If any group affected by the decision were unhappy with the final result they could submit a new reconsideration and start the whole process all over again. The key to this arrangement and what is substantially missing from the current system is a clear and direct explanation of the decision and how it met the interests of the groups and honored the core principles. Each year everyone would also receive a report telling them which decisions they were counted in, to close the loop.
The system would provide for a more accurate and realistic representation, by making it representative by topic and tying the responsibility of the lobbyists directly to the people. This new representative model would allow people to become active when they need to be but otherwise trust that the government — what little there is of it — would not fall into the hands of an elite. The people would become firmly and decidedly the check on government abuse.
Something for everyone
The political and economic systems discussed above satisfy both the people arguing for small government and those who advocate for controls to prevent abuse by elites. Institutions and organizations that would fit the current notions of “government” are difficult to find in the new systems and what can be found are very close to the people. But this is done without giving the country over to the elite but instead by addressing at the source issues that government is otherwise needed to regulate.
Likewise the new economic model keeps many of the concepts and tools that capitalists believe so firmly in while addressing most of money’s corrupting side effects. Money is still at the heart of the economy, the primary tool used to influence decisions of all sorts. The free market concept is expanded and democratized. Individual choice is maximized while encouraging and motivating people to make individual choices in harmony with a larger community as a way to make their money go further.
In the social and religious realm, the Christian community can take comfort in the fact that their representatives on religious issues would no longer be tied with the party of the exploitative capitalists. Their voice will be heard more clearly and more constructive conversations will result. By overturning the principle of majority rule and replacing it with a more complete and sincere respect for different views and faiths their freedom to worship is safe even if there were somehow a major shift in the beliefs of the people from one generation to the next. The change would allow churches to focus on spiritual matters and their followers instead of worrying so much about what the rest of the country is doing. Meanwhile, non-Christians also can take comfort that they would no longer be represented on social and religious issues by people advocating a Christian agenda.
While working toward a goal that can inspire much emotion and passion we must remain committed to keeping the rhetoric respectful and about systems instead of an attack on individuals. Most important is keeping any form of actual violence completely out of the discussions. This is about ideas and ideals not about getting any sort of justice from people who may have benefited from the systems either by luck or even through direct manipulation or exploitation. It is about creating new rules to live by not judging people’s past actions by new standards. Whenever a disagreement starts to get heated we should take a step back and start from the principles again. As long as people can agree on basic objectives (in the above I propose Freedom and Opportunity) that are at the heart of anything the country does then we always have some place to retreat back to. When people do disagree with these foundational principles the conversation should get interesting rather than heated. Many valuable ideas and innovations can evolve from these disagreements, they help anticipate future issues and deal with them in advance.
