Beyond Politics
From BeyondPolitics
Beyond Politics is a public wiki dedicated to developing, supporting, and providing public information regarding the rules and systems of delegable proxy democracy, also known as fractal democracy and liquid democracy.
BEYOND POLITICS QUESTIONS:
Is there a FAQ
Yes, there is a FAQ! Follow the link to the FAQ!
What is a Free Association?
A Free Association is an organization which has the following characteristics: This definition assumes Delegable Proxy. Technically Free Associations may choose not to allow delegable proxy or proxy voting at all; however, delegable proxy enhances the freedom of members, thus making them and the association more free; so this definition includes it.
- It is a direct democracy.
- Proxy voting is allowed.
- Proxies are delegable (and preferably are automatically delegated).
- Proxies are not bound to follow instructions. Essentially, proxies vote according to their own, presumably informed, opinion and the votes of those who have trusted them -- and who have not themselves voted -- are automatically added to their own vote.
- The organization has no fees for membership beyond a minimum which might be necessary to meet organizational costs for supporting a member's access. It is expected that most free associations would have no fee at all.
- The organization does not collect or own property beyond its immediate needs and a prudent reserve to meet existing commitments. Free Associations could exercise great power, but they would do it through recommending action to members. The power remains in the hands of the members until actually dedicated to a purpose, voluntarily, by the members.
- While a free association may make any decision by simple majority vote, it will wisely avoid divisive actions and will seek consensus to the extent possible.
- Free associations are structured so that they may easily fission if divisions appear. Such fissioning could alternatively be seen as the formation of special-interest caucuses within the association.
- The association does not coerce or tax its members.
- Contributions from a member, by the nature of the association's financial structure, will never be spent contrary to the wishes of that member. (However, if the association recommends that members donate to or buy shares in another organization, that organization may not have such a limitation.)
Free Associations may be suitable for any voluntary organization, large or small, where it is desired that the association truly represent the class of its eligible members, and where it is considered important that the members trust the association. Free Associations may have special membership qualifications. So, for example, a Free Association of Widget Software Users might require that members be licensed users. Such a Free Association could then truly represent the licensed users to the Widget Software Company, as well as coordinating user resources in various ways, and the Company could also find it useful to communicate with its users through the Association.
- See Free association etc. for more details.
What is Delegable proxy?
Delegable Proxy Democracy is a technique for making direct democracy scalable; theoretically, there is no limit to the size of organization which could function efficiently and effectively while still remaining a direct democracy.
Essentially, Delegable Proxy Democracy is direct democracy with the additional provision that any "citizen" or "member" may, in addition to retaining the right to directly vote on all issues, designate another member as a proxy, so that, if the member does not vote directly, the member's vote is automatically added to that of the designated proxy.
The proxy is delegable, which means that if the member does not vote AND the designated proxy does not vote, but the proxy has himself or herself designated another member as a proxy, the votes of both the original member and that member's proxy are added to that of the third member.
Allowing proxy voting makes the organization scalable to a certain level; however, beyond that size, one level of proxy only will not suffice; so delegability allows indefinite scaling, and also introduces certain other interesting characteristics. In a small organization, proxy rights and delegability may not seem necessary, but if they are incorporated in an organization from the beginning, the organization will not be vulnerable to many problems that often arise when an organization is successful and grows.
In particular, organizational structures typically favor some subgroups, and, in democratic organizations, the most commonly favored subgroup is that group of people who have the most time to devote; sometimes this is associated with strong motivation, which can be either helpful or harmful. Once an organization has been active for a time, the favored groups will typically resist changes, since they will perceive, perhaps correctly, that these changes will dilute their own influence. Such groups typically see themselves as the most informed and responsible members, and so they justify their resistance to changes that would convert the organization into a more equitable democracy as being prudent, since, presumably, the "other" members are less informed and would make irresponsible decisions.
Allowing proxy voting allows members who do not have significant free time to, nevertheless, make a valuable contribution by adding representative authority to other members whom they have come to trust. A delegable proxy democracy is a structure based on the collection of trust. Proxies are revocable at any time; and even without revoking a proxy, a member effectively and immediately cancels the vote of a proxy by directly voting.
Note that while a member in a delegable proxy democracy always retains the right of decision, i.e. vote, on any issue before the organization, the right to address the entire organization is not necessarily guaranteed. Sufficiently large organizations, in particular, are likely to find limits necessary on full and open communication. The reason is, simply, information overload. As one person familiar with Town Meeting democracy told this author, "There are plenty of people with nothing to say, willing to take a long time to say it." So "Meetings" -- which may be face-to-face or conducted on-line, perhaps as a mailing list -- may decide (in a vote in which all members may participate) to limit the right to address the meeting to those who have been trusted as proxies, directly or indirectly, by a certain minimum number of members. Some kind of representation is crucial if a democratic organization is to be truly scalable and sustainable. The required "trust level" would be different for different kinds of organizations and for meetings within organizations. A top-level meeting of a world organization with millions (or perhaps billions) of members might have a very high number for full participation. But every member would still have the right to observe that meeting and to vote on any issue before it. And if they wish to address the meeting or to place an issue before it, they would presumably first communicate it with their proxy. With online communications, software could allow members to set the level of proxy support of the members whose communications they view at a given time.
If they cannot convince their proxy (someone they freely chose as trustworthy) that the issue should be presented, perhaps it shouldn't! But they can still, as well, communicate with *any* other member, there is not just one single path to broad consideration available. Organizations might also choose to limit the number of *direct* proxies which may be collected by an individual; this is controversial among those working with Delegable proxy, see Should limits be set on direct proxies?
There are also a few other issues, each one of which describes a slight variation on delegable proxy.
The organizational structure of a delegable proxy democracy is a fractal, hence the term "fractal democracy." Because it would be fluid and subject to rapid change, it has also been called "Liquid democracy," but at least one worker in the field has rejected that name because it could imply a lack of structure, which is not accurate. Delegable proxy democracies could be highly efficient, quick-response structures. Some delegable proxy democracies may choose to be Free Associations.
Why is Delegable proxy needed?
There are a number of traditional forms of human organization; however, each one, when applied in large organizations, leaves some members effectively unrepresented in one way or another.
In oligarchies and dictatorships, a minority of members or participants in a society explicitly control the society. Oligarchical structures are quite common even within democracies. For example, most businesses are organized oligarchically, as are most nonprofit organizations as well, the common form being a board of trustees which selects its own replacements.
In democracies the members or participants in a society collectively control the society, but in traditional ways of organizing democracies, individuals are not necessarily always fully represented in the decisionmaking. Some democratic organizations are direct democracies, with each eligible member having a vote, and the right to attend and cast that vote at business meetings of the society.
It is not uncommon for democratic organizations to be operated only as periodic democracies; between meetings of the full organization, elected officers control the society. The U.S. government essentially elects a king every four years. As in many monarchies, the powers of the king are restricted, they are not absolute; but the model of government is still that of a single, strong leader, a person who directly exercises much more power than do other individual citizens.
Because of various quirks in election rules, it is quite possible for a leader to be elected who would not have been the choice of even a majority of voters. There are electoral systems, such as Condorcet voting, which could theoretically eliminate this inequity, but there would still remain one significant fact: when a single leader is to be chosen, the minority ends up being ruled by an individual without their consent. It is not the intent of this discussion to condemn any of these systems, it is merely to observe what they are, and what they are not.
In organizations where participation is fully voluntary, the minority is always free to leave the organization. But if they do, the organization may be weakened. Organizations which depend on substantial volunteer effort will typically take more care to make decisions which enjoy broad support.
Direct democracy is known to be reasonably workable when the organization size is small. However, the problems of direct democracy are:
- It can require substantial time from the participants.
- Those participants who cannot devote the required time are left out of the decision-making process.
- The organization can be skewed toward the opinions of those who are relatively strongly motivated; unfortunately, strong motivation is often associated with extreme views. Labor unions were particularly vulnerable to takeover particularly by organized political groups, such as communists; most of the rank-and-file workers being unable to attend long and contentious meetings.
- To make sound decisions requires a knowledge of the issues. This is, again, a problem of available time. If people have trouble even finding time to attend meetings, how can they also find time to research the issues?
So, when direct democracies grow, they typically convert to some form of representative democracy. And, typically, the representatives are elected. In the U.S., these elections are typically won by the candidate with a plurality of the votes. This creates a serious problem: those who did not vote for this candidate are not represented in the government.
Many representative bodies outside the U.S. are elected through proportional representation, which typically assigns representatives according to the vote received by a party in an election. This certainly generates a more representative body, but it still begs the question: how were the candidates for each party chosen? And a member of a party who would have chosen someone other than the winner of party primaries is still left without a representative.
But there is a form of democracy that has existed for centuries; but we often don't even think of it as democracy, because it is used in democracies of money. Share corporations typically allow shareholders to vote their shares at the annual meeting of the corporation. Each share is entitled to one vote (except in companies where there is preferred stock, a complication which it is not necessary to examine here). The owner of the shares may attend and vote those shares himself or herself, or the owner may designate a proxy to attend and vote in his or her absence. Thus the annual meeting is, to this extent, a direct democracy and it is a representative democracy, except that the representatives are chosen rather than elected. No shareholder who wishes to be represented need be satisfied with a representative chosen by someone else.
It is my opinion that the problems of pure direct democracy begin even when the organization is relatively small, but people are not so much aware of them, not realizing that matters could be different. Simply adding the right of proxy representation to the right to vote directly would ameliorate many of these problems. But when an organization becomes very large, even the allowance of single proxies can create a gap between the individual members and those who have collected substantial voting power. Modern share corporations retain the theoretical structure of proxy democracy, but in a practical sense are controlled by management; successful shareholder revolts are rare ... much more rare than misconduct by management!
But what if the giving of proxies were a personal matter, if there were direct contact and communication between the individual member and the person to whom the proxy is given. If there was a single person acting as proxy for thousands of people, and if there was an issue which aroused many of them, the burden of communication could become impossible. There are professional proxies who typically serve large shareholders, such as pension funds. They are expensive, small shareholders could not individually afford to employ them. But what if small shareholders could communicate with each other about the company? What if, in the process of this communication, they came to trust certain shareholders, and were willing to give their proxies to these shareholders, a few at a time, i.e., each such shareholder would not accept more proxies than they could manage. And what if, when such a proxy himself or herself designates a proxy, the proxies of the individual shareholders were passed on as well. The delegable proxy could be the key to making large proxy democracies truly scalable, able to function as a trusted servant of the members even when there were thousands or millions of members. Or billions.
Turning back to why this is needed: two examples, one from small town government and one from a national and world issue. There are many small towns in New England that have Town Meeting government. These are direct democracies; Town Meetings are open and any registered voter may vote at them. However, One does have to attend the meeting to vote. Proxy voting is not allowed. A certain Town Meeting recently decided to raise money by increasing taxes, in order to fund a public safety complex. A majority of the Town Meeting approved this, and it was likewise approved by the Board of Selectmen (a body which essentially is the town government between Town Meetings). But the law of the state requires that such tax overrides be submitted to the voters. It was, and it lost. Why? It is rather obvious that the Town Meeting, while it was theoretically open to anyone, did not, in fact, truly represent the voters of the town.
One voter noticed something. He was a registered voter in the town, had not studied this issue, and did not attend the Town Meeting when the question was considered. So when he came to the question on the ballot, he really did not know whether to vote for or against it. He did know that some townspeople were against it. Since he didn't know, himself, what was best, he cast no vote on that issue. But many people will make a decision even if they don't understand it.... One thing stood out for him. As mentioned, he is a registered voter, his address is public record. No one from the town contacted him to talk with about why he should vote for this measure (or, for that matter, shouldn't vote for it). Why not?
The reason why not is that we don't have an established and easy communications structure in the town, as a means for both informing the citizens about the needs of the town, and the town about the needs of the citizens. This is a relatively open town, it is easy to talk to members of the town government; my comment is not a criticism of the town in itself, for this lack of a communications structure is actually found everywhere.
The gap between government and the people is great; many people feel quite frustrated about it, and often hopeless and cynical. Or, if they have hope, it is, too often, a false hope that a system which is broken in many ways will suddenly by some miracle start to work, particularly if we can get rid of that bad guy and elect this good guy.
The other example is from U.S. national politics. Before the U.S. invaded Iraq, there were massive demonstrations against the war. Which did not prevent it. The President of the U.S. is not concerned about pleasing a vocal minority (and even a less vocal majority.) If he is to be affected by some group, that group would probably need to show substantial political power and perhaps substantial money. It can be suspected that most of the people who demonstrated think of themselves as relatively powerless; certainly most of them don't think of themselves as rich. But collectively, they are rich.
Consider this: had those people, instead of demonstrating, at substantial personal expense, collected and pooled what they would otherwise have spent, how much money could they have collected for their common purpose? It could be comparable to the total amount of money spent in the 2004 Presidential campaign. So why didn't these people do it? Why didn't they pool their resources, in money and in labor, to accomplish what they obviously considered important? The likely reason is that they don't trust organizations. They expect that if they contribute to a huge cause like this, the money will be hijacked for the purposes of some group that manages to gain control of the organization controlling how the money is spent.
So such a group of people needs to have an organization that they can trust. And this is exactly what a Free association is. It is designed to be trustworthy. A member of a Free association remains completely free. But the member becomes part of a network, a network which can make intelligent decisions, that can coordinate member activities and contributions in a way that could make these associations more powerful than any other structure in the society. Without coercion. Every day, some of us notice social problems that could be resolved through Free associations. Since this is a Wiki, and one of us wished we had a list of these potential applications, presto! here it is: Free Association Applications. Feel free to suggest your own for discussion.
What problems could it solve?
- association of tenants
- the problem of spam
- ...
Has it ever been tried?
How would it work?
Who is involved in this?
How can I get involved?
What does it cost?
So how much of my time will it take?
Table
The Beyond Politics Wiki is in the process of being ported to this MediaWiki installation, we apologize for any inconvenience.
Beyond Politics
The Beyond Politics wiki is dedicated to developing, supporting, and providing public information regarding the rules and systems of delegable proxy democracy, also known as fractal democracy and liquid democracy, as well as potential initial low-cost and low-risk applications in Free Assocations.
One of the founding principles of Beyond Politics is what has been called the "wisdom of crowds," in some contexts, and simply the power of consensus in others. The views of one person, no matter how wise, cannot match in breadth and intelligence the considered consensus of many people. If the ideas here are foolish, please contribute by telling us why, so that we can stop wasting our time. Even shallow criticism could be useful to us, although we prefer carefully thought-out suggestions. For questions, comments, or administrative help, you may also write abd AT lomaxdesign DOT com.
See the User guide for how to edit wikis.
Because of frequent spamming, most pages are now semiprotected for the time being, which means that IP editors or newly registered editors may not be able to edit them. However, the page New users is open. If you wish to leave a message or request or suggestion there, feel free. Also feel free to remove spam from there. If you leave a message, be sure to describe it in the edit Summary, or it might get lost in the spam. (Spammers often blank content of wiki pages, but we will be able to see your edits in the page history if there is a descriptive summary.)
