At 03:50 PM 4/26/2010, Andrew Myers wrote:
I'll be surprised if a version of asset voting is appealing to these folks. To me, asset voting has always sounded very similar to Soviet "democracy".
This is downright weird.
A multistage process with a hierarchy of voters creates rich opportunities for various forms of coercion, and distances voters from the choice of leaders even more than they are now. That's the way it worked in the Soviet Union, and I'm sure the Czechs are familiar with the history.
Asset doesn't resemble what the Soviets had in the least.... There is no "party" control, parties become unnecessary with Asset.
It's also not necessarily "multistage." If voters fear coercion of small-scale electors, they can decide, in advance, to give large numbers of votes to single candidates whom they trust. Those candidates will simply be elected, and will have extra votes to distribute, and if they could be coerced when they hold that many votes, they could be coerced, period.
I find the response fascinating, because what is being proposed is what solves the problems that have prevented the promise of democracy from being realized.
I remember a friend who, when I described delegable proxy, said, "Oh, I could never trust anyone with my vote." Now, I hadn't suggested that the proxy could *actually vote* for her, those who know the proposals would know that. But this is the reality: Because she will not trust anyone with her vote, someone is nevertheless voting for her -- based on her existence in the population, since seats in Congress are based on population -- whom she did not trust, almost certainly. The choice is not whether or not someone will vote for her. Someone will. The choice is whether or not she will choose this person.
One aspect that I suspect might be operating. As long as people imagine they are powerless, they imagine they are not to blame for what happens. After all, it's "them." But what if we actually do have power? And we don't use it? Horrors! We might then be to blame for the Bad Stuff that happens!
And this is the fact: the people have the power, but we do not believe it is possible to use it. So the machine rolls on, unperturbed.
In order to use the power, people are just like capital. Capital is powerful because it is organized and because it can be spent for purpose with an efficient decision-making system. The people have more power than the corporations, and that is easy to show; corporate power is almost entirely dependent upon the people and the choices that people make. But the people are not organized.
What's stopping them? Some will say that the corporations are preventing it, but I strongly suspect not. I don't think the corporations believe it is possible for the people to organize either! No, the obstacle is what we are seeing right here, with this charge of "Soviet democracy." I don't for a second think that Mr. Myers is a stooge of the corporations. He's merely ignorant. (As we all tend to be when encountering new ideas that we haven't actually explored. Ignorance can be fixed, if we don't get attached to it.)
We will organize anyway, whether Mr. Myers likes it or not. He can join us, or not. We are not going to coerce him.
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