A structural fault in society owing to a design flaw in the electoral system

[Alex Rollin]

What I hear in the initial "there is a flaw" statement is a noticing  
that parties are poor mediators and that the people ought to be more  
directly involved in creating the ballot, that this "other" unmediated/ 
less-mediated method is likely to restore "power" and interest in  
Democracy by simply removing a structural, systemic component of  
decision making that can result in tye procedural alienation of a  
person from the process and eventually their vote.

I have previously experienced a similar insight during US primaries  
and I found the feeling of alienation, akin to what was described  
here, sufficiently powerful to rationalize my own dropping out until  
such a time as I could find a solution.

My understanding of the drive behind Votorola and from what I have  
seen of the workings, most of which I have tested and viewed myself,  
is that Votorola does accomplish much disinternediation with a   
technical solution and that the group working on Votorola, and I  
consider myself a member of that group or at least in league with, is  
very interested in the production of the technical solution with a  
full acknowledgement and in the shining light of truth that the  
technical solution for a constantly open and changeable ballot with a  
never closing poll is in fact only a technical solution and therefore  
only a partial solution.

Indeed I found Votorola technically sufficient even with the (current)  
lack of pollwiki replication.  I am out in the field doing social  
research now building interest in direct democratic decision making  
and almost soleley through social contracts.  Votorola answered my  
original question "can the issue I have previously encountered, a lack  
of a technical solution, be solved".  My current question is "will  
further social production require the same solution (Vototola) or will  
I find untreated and/incompatible use cases and requirements?"

Bests,

Alex Rollin
Http://commoning.com





On Nov 4, 2011, at 5:16 AM, conseo <4consensus at web.de> wrote:

> Hi Mike,
>
> I'll quickly answer to the latest online version:
>
>> An individual vote in an election has no meaningful effect in the  
>> objective
> world, and no effect whatsoever on the official outcome of the  
> election;
> whether the vote is cast or not, the outcome is the same regardless.
>
> This is a strong claim. In fact it already polarizes the audience.  
> The main
> problem you have to explain then is why the majority of people still  
> vote if
> the outcome is zero. Those who have voted for political concepts and  
> believe
> in some policies which have been implemented in the past will oppose  
> you for
> the very reasons of this policy. There are some societies like in  
> Scandinavia
> where the social welfare state definitely marks social progress and  
> it is
> driven by voted parties.
>
>> Beneath this fact lies a structural fault that emerges here and  
>> there in
> society as a series of persistent discontinuities between facts and  
> norms, or
> contents and forms.
>
> This is an abstract conclusion, which is not bound to the first  
> claim and you
> have to elaborate that more as you do later. I don't think it helps  
> clarify
> your claim here in the second sentence, but rather confuses non- 
> theoretical
> readers.
>
>> One rightly expects to be free because he lives in a democracy and  
>> has a
> vote; but the truth is, he has no political freedom at all. I trace  
> the
> underlying cause of this fault to a technical design flaw in the  
> electoral
> system wherein the elector is physically separated from the ballot.  
> This
> separation removes the elector as voter (the active decider) from  
> the social
> means and product of decision, thereby rendering him individually
> powerless.QCW
>
> This is ok for an introduction.
>
>> No electoral power exists in the vote itself, it exists purely in  
>> external
> communication networks; although the votes are brought together to  
> make a
> result, the voters are not brought together as such to make a  
> decision,
> therefore no valid decision can be extracted from the result. In the  
> 1700s and
> 1800s, middle class society was able to partly overcome this flaw by  
> engaging
> in politically animated practices of decision formation and  
> expression that,
> even without the benefit of a concrete ballot, were nevetherless  
> voter-like.
>
> If you make historical claims, you have to narrow it down and  
> reference your
> sources. I don't know what you are really talking about. In the US  
> there has
> been the democratic party since the independence. In France after the
> revolution there were different groups forming the democratic  
> spectrum from
> right to left, which gave the right/left terminology its basis.
>
>> This ad hoc practice of "abstract voting" enabled them to  
>> reconstitute
> electoral power within the flourishing communication networks of the  
> day.PPS
>
> I don't understand what "abstract voting" means here. Develop your  
> abstract
> argument with an historical/social example showing the general  
> dynamics and
> social reasons for the change. I guess you are talking about private  
> entities
> like stock corporations, which practice some kind of democratic  
> management by
> owners? The concept of voting was not new, if you refer to a  
> historical
> development, can you quote where the historical background comes  
> from? Even if
> you keep it simple for normal readers to understand, it allows to  
> argue much
> better.
>
>> As voting rights later expanded into the population, however, the  
>> franchise
> came to include more people who lacked the personal or social means  
> to engage
> in abstract voting and make rational decisions of their own. Their  
> cumulative
> disengagement amounted to a power vacuum that coincided with the  
> rise, after
> 1867, of the modern party system in Great Britain. The modernized  
> Liberal and
> Conservative parties each responded by packaging its own ready-made  
> decision,
> thus reducing the input of the elector to a choice of which package to
> consume.
>
> But Great Britain is different from all other countries in its  
> system. What
> was the social reason for mass parties and more interestingly how  
> have they
> been organized internally? Why? People know that parties have a  
> fixed program,
> I would leave it out unless it helps the argument. More interesting  
> is why
> parties formed at all. Because if they formed to realize a certain  
> concept of
> society, then this ready-made decision is the reason for their  
> public support
> and therefore their existence.
>
>> The resulting transfer of power from the weaker members of the  
>> electorate to
> the organized parties was the historical event that opened up the  
> structural
> fault. It opened between the two formal components of political  
> liberty,
> namely individual power and equality.
>
> I would reformulate it in individual freedom and equality as these  
> have been
> the liberal terms. But if it opened there, then it opened in the  
> middle of
> liberal ideology, where freedom and equality were revolutionary  
> claims leading
> to antagonisms. Many political studies of the 19th century have  
> tried to find
> a compromise for this problem, leading to all kind of utopian and  
> formalist
> solutions.
> The liberal revolutions of that time freed up the individual  
> property from
> feudal barriers. But if private property is the foundation of the  
> new society
> then equality cannot be against private property, which was the  
> material
> driving force behind the revolutions. Both in the US and in France the
> revolution were driven by farmers which saw equality in owning their  
> property
> and the revolution gave it to them. The basis of society was private  
> property
> and the belief that liberal rights give everybody the private property
> necessary to enjoy these freedoms.
> The liberal solution is formal equal rights, but real inequality. The
> resulting democratic systems ensured a society based on private  
> property. And
> private property is the same no matter who the owner is. In that  
> sense it is
> emancipating. But if private property is the basis for human rights  
> and
> freedom, then the state is only a superficial institution  
> guaranteeing the
> development of private businesses. From a liberal pov the state has  
> little to
> decide and may not touch the basis of liberal society, which is  
> private
> property. But if the true freedom of society lies in private  
> property, then
> democracy applied to the state is alienated anyway. The division of  
> the voter
> from the ballot is only logical from a liberal pov, because  
> government is not
> meant to intervene in any private individual rights even if these  
> private
> properties are larger than the government. Allowing to replace public
> management (government) every few years is all that is necessary for  
> a private
> business owner. Too much democracy/equality is a thread to private  
> property.
>
> You just claim that it is a design error. But technical designs  
> don't drive
> societies. While it might sound compelling that they couldn't do  
> what we do in
> analogue ways, something like the general assembly would have been  
> possible at
> any time. This doesn't disqualify your formal analysis, but I think  
> we can
> improve it if we understand the historical reasons and where we have  
> to focus
> to create new forms for new social institutions.
>
>> These two components were torn apart for lack of any structural  
>> binding in
> society.
>
> Exactly, but you have to make that concrete imo. See prev. point.
>
>> Society is well equipped to handle the various forms of inter- 
>> personal or
> mass communication in which electoral power alone exists, but it  
> lacks any
> concomitant support of equality. The ballot itself formalizes  
> equality, but
> only internal to the electoral system; its structural strength  
> cannot be
> realized unless it is externalized and personally bound to the  
> elector.
>
> For this to work the state as we know it in the liberal sense would  
> have to be
> abandoned and a new totality of consent has to be introduced. See  
> also above.
> Instead of private property the guarantee for individual freedom has  
> to come
> out of this new process. If individual freedom is lost then consent  
> is not of
> interest any more. So we have to progress in both directions to  
> enable a
> consent based process. Better collective management guaranteeing more
> individual freedoms. The problem is bigger than the tying of vote  
> and voter.
>
> Instead of continuity in private ownership and decisions new  
> institutions have
> to form which can manage social reproduction without private property
> directly. Private property is the negation of collective assets as the
> medieval/feudal commons.
>
>> With that as a foundation, society could have provided electoral  
>> services on
> the basis of form rather than content;
>
> I assume you mean form in the sense of *non*-distinction between  
> voter and
> vote and content as the party-program. But socially the program was an
> expression of classes forming these parties. So while the form does  
> not fit
> the content of consent based society, it was designed for the  
> society it has
> been applied to. This doesn't mean that it was designed with the  
> majority of
> people in mind, but for the liberal prototype of a business owner.
>
>> services in support of decision making as opposed to a one-size- 
>> fits-all
> consumption. Ordinary competition among service providers would then  
> be
> sufficient to ensure that all electors regardless of personal and  
> social means
> had access to their share of constitutional power and its associated
> opportunities.
>
> That is a technical solution in the voting system. I am interested  
> more in the
> problem how society changes if we create forms for new social  
> organisation. If
> you talk about that with the occupy movement and the general  
> assembly in mind,
> you might be able to work out some shared analysis/vision on how  
> consent based
> action can be implemented. For example: How do you run a certain
> infrastructure service based on consent? We don't need the answer,  
> but maybe
> the flaw you see can be better mapped in the collective question of  
> our time.
> How to reach a consent-based sustainable future?
>
>> It was only ever a technical design flaw that precluded this  
>> development in
> the first place, and brought us instead to the present situation  
> where the
> organized parties make the decisions and exercise the rightful power  
> and
> political freedom that were intended for the citizens.
>
> See above why this sounds naive from a sociological pov imo.
>
> conseo
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