On Mar 23, 2007, at 7:56 , Dave Ketchum wrote:
I suggest you look at Trees by Proxy as a better base for your
thoughts.
It provides for electing legislatures, such as boards of trustees
or elders, via continuous elections (proxies).
Unlike Free Associations, these have traditional powers and
responsibilities.
I agree that the "traditional powers and responsibilities" can not be
replaced overnight. And even if it was possible I wouldn't recommend
to do so (often such ideological experiments have failed). The FAs
could however be a useful tool at the edge of the political system. I
don't expect the difference to traditional political ways of working
to be very big, but reminding of the need to keep the system flexible/
responsive/open/discussing is a good thing to do.
Maybe it would be good to discuss separately about each of the
proposed ideas (FAs, proxies, continuous elections, permanent
representatives, use of tree structures etc.) to keep the discussion
clear.
Juho
I said nothing of parties, but said nothing against parties. I
suspect they would have less power than with traditional elections.
The actual "electing" of someone wishing to be a legislator has
little formality. The attracting of enough proxies to make one a
legislator with muscle could get involved.
DWK
On Thu, 22 Mar 2007 21:50:47 +0200 Juho wrote:
On Mar 21, 2007, at 21:02 , Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:
"Free Association"
Is it still "free" if it is part of the "official machinery"?
If it is part of the official machinery, it is not free, most
likely. Free Association is a technical term I coined to refer
to an association with a certain set of characteristics. It's
free in a number of respects. It is free in that it is not
coerced. Membership in a free association is solely at the
choice of the member. You can't be expelled from a Free
Association. Again, necessity allows what may otherwise be
forbidden. The Association is a Free Association in other ways:
freedom of association includes the freedom *not* to associate.
FA meetings can set their own rules; these are the rules of the
meeting, not of the Association.
It is free in that there are "no dues or fees."
FAs are actually the default organization of peers; but peer
organizations very often devolve rapidly into something else,
particularly if they see some success. Power structures appear, etc.
Another important aspect of the FA is that it is "free" from
bias. The FA does not take positions of controversy. You can
join an FA without thereby endorsing *anything.* Except possibly
the simple idea of association itself, of free discussion and
voluntary coordination. So you can join the Range Voting Free
Association and be totally opposed to Range Voting. Indeed, we'd
invite you to do so!
I'm trying to analyse the difference between parties and Free
Associations. The formal machinery calls established political
groupings of people "parties". They are clearly part of the
machinery. In most countries people are free to form new parties.
(Depending on the current political system they may have
different chances of becoming really influential parties.)
The Free associations that you described seem to differ from
parties roughly in that they have a very limited set of rules and
are therefore more "free" than the traditional parties. I noted
at least the following possible differences.
- one can't be expelled
- no permanent rules (only per meeting)
- no fees
- no power structure
- does not take positions of controversy
- members don't endorse anything (except the existence of the
association itself)
- members may be against the basic targets of the FA
A party with very relaxed rules could be a Free Association.
Maybe people are also free to choose whether to influence via FAs
of more formal parties and the system could support a mixture of
these two. (In this case FAs could be part of the "official
machinery" (but only lightly regulated if at all).)
But I'm pointing out that if enough people belonged to a
political FA (which means an FA that is interested in politics,
not one that is partisan, in itself), and if this FA was DP, the
people could control the government, without breaking a sweat.
It would not be the FA controlling the government; the FA merely
provides the communications, it would be the people.
Hmm, maybe I'm trying to point out that the formality of the
groups (FA vs. party) is a flexible concept, and that some people
might feel that "controlling the government" is possible also by
having rather rigid parties that the voters can choose from (and
trust that hey will efficiently drive the policy that is written
in their program).
Indeed, the people already control the government, only they are
asleep, so they act in accordance with their dreams, those of
their own, or those induced by the dream masters.
I'm suggesting that the people awaken, not in the sense of
Awaken and Throw Off Your Chains, but in the sense of simply
allowing group intelligence to arise. I'm not attempting to
prejudge what that intelligence will decide, and I would
certainly advise caution!
Instead of waking up and thrashing about, which in the stupor of
recent sleep can do a lot of damage, just wake up and look
around. Smell the coffee. And start to talk about it.
It seems that what we are looking for is a political system that
allows people to influence and not get e.g. the feeling that
whatever way they vote, the professional politicians (and
potentially also lobbyists) will promote their own goals, never
mind the voters, and will never give anything more back to the
voters/citizens than promises. I'd call that a "working
democracy". Free Associations (="very free and informal parties")
could be one tool in achieving that but I think also formal
parties, different political systems, voting methods etc. can be
used to achieve that. (Same with proxies and "continuous
elections".)
Juho
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