Sortition as I explained last week is the selection of members of the public, by lottery, who have declared that they wish to hold position in their country’s legislatures.
The complete opposite of sortition is the form of governance called ‘epistocracy’ which is a system in which the votes of people who can prove their political knowledge count more than the votes of people who can’t. In other words, it’s a voting system that privileges the most politically informed citizens. Incidentally, of course, passing a test set by an elite!
If this was ever introduced it would be a small step to require those that wish to govern us to ‘qualify’ by having certain criteria like specific educational qualifications and levels of IQ.
Whether weighting the votes of the educated or the selection of candidates based on their qualifications this would be the rule by an elite who believe that only they know what is best for the rest of us. Ironically, given the mostly closed selection processes to become a party candidate, it is virtually what we now have here.
THA on the other hand trusts and values the opinions of all
the people and aims to give everyone the mechanisms to be properly heard. The people's innate common sense should not be underestimated.
It was Thomas Jefferson who said :-
"Educate and inform the whole mass of the people ..........they are the
only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty"
An informed public is the very antipathy of epistocracy and the more the
people directly take part in their governance the better they will get at it.
They will of course make mistakes but they will be their mistakes, from
which they will learn, unlike our current politicians who make endless mistakes
and are seldom if ever held to account for them.
The trouble is on so many policy issues those that currently govern us have no interest in our views believing that they alone know what is best. They take us for fools and believe we are too uneducated to decide on what we want.
The arrogance and contempt that those that govern us have for our views will be their eventual undoing once the people decide they have had enough of the poor level of governance we have and the unrepresentative form it takes. The people need to be reminded that there are far more of us than them.
It is time the 'People' demanded real power so that what they want happens leaving our politicians in no doubt they are our servants and not our masters.
I think that we are rapidly approaching the point about which you are writing. "The people" are waking up to the fact that something is very seriously wrong but where this actually leads us is quite worrying.
ReplyDeleteBTW, Thomas Jefferson said many great things, but was somewhat of an enigma in that his life didn't exactly reflect his written advice.
"Educate and inform". It depends who does that.
ReplyDelete