Government by randomocracy

The United States democratic process is dysfunctional.  Big money dominates the electoral and legislative processes.  Gerrymandering protects legislative and congressional incumbents.  A two-party consensus deprives voters of meaningful choice on many issues. Many Americans feel government does not represent them.

A sociologist named Erik Olin Wright has a possible solution.  In his book Envisioning Real Utopias (2010), he proposes supplementing democracy with randomocracy – government by people selected at random, like juries.

This would solve a number of problems.  It would solve the problem of control of the electoral process by monied interests.  Philosophers through the ages have said that the person most trustworthy to hold power is the person who doesn’t seek power; random selection would be better than voting for this purpose.  Many groups don’t feel represented in our present process.  Randomocracy would give members of every group equal opportunity to share power.

Raandom selection would not produce leaders of superior wisdom and virtue, but does anybody think our existing system does?  Maybe average wisdom and virtue would be an improvement.

Wright cited a randomly-selected Citizens Assembly created by the provincial government of British Colombia in 2003 to formulate a referendum proposal for a new electoral system for the provincial parliament.  The idea was that members of the existing parliament had too much of a personal stake in the decision to make an impartial decision, or to select decision-makers, and, if you elected a panel, that would recreate the same problem.

The Citizens Assembly consisted of one man and one woman from each of the province’s electoral districts, plus two “First Nations” representatives – 160 in all.  They met in Vancouver every other weekend during the spring of 2004 for lectures, seminars and discussions about alternative systems.  They received $150 for each weekend’s expenses.  Then they participated in a serious of town hall meeting around the province throughout the summer.

In the fall, they met again in Vancouver and formulated a proposal – a complicated system called Single Transferable Voting.  The proposal was submitted on referendum, and was defeated.  It got more than 57 percent of the vote, but 60 percent was necessary to pass.  Nevertheless Wright thinks the British Colombia Citizens Assembly was successful as a process, and could be applied to many different kinds of issues.

Where a state, provincial or national government has two legislative houses, one could be selected by a random process, Wright said.  This would require (1) a process that assured representation by all significant demographic groups, (2) compensation sufficient that most citizens would agree to participate and (3) a strong professional and technical staff to provide enough information for an informed decision.