On 03/18/2013 09:58 AM, Paul Nollen wrote:
Liquid democracy is tested for many years in every big (and small) corporation. It is unthinkable that shareholders have the obligation to give their voice for more than one General assembly to anyone. Every shareholder can vote for himself or appoint a representative at his choice only for that dedicated General Assembly. This system of "liquid democracy" is proven over many years all around the world. It is only in politics that voters are forced to give a mandate for many years for decissions unknown.
The way I understand liquid democracy (and correct me if I'm wrong), people can give their votes to proxies, and these proxies can in turn give their votes to other proxies; whereas in corporations, the proxying happens only once. That is, either you vote or you say "X will vote for me".
(I imagine that if indirect proxying had been possible in corporations, we'd heard more about cycles. But again, I could be wrong. I've never been to a general assembly.)
Also, for corporations in general, there are arguments that the real power resides as much with the board as the assembly. This is given as an explanation for the weird incentive structures that often appear, with enormous bonuses given to executives even when the companies struggle or fail. The recent Swiss Minder referendum can be seen in that light.
In effect, that argument goes that the board can more effectively exercise power than the general assembly can counter it, so the real decisions are made by the board. If this is true, then having a more corporate system in the political domain may not be such a good thing.
On the other hand, perhaps the boards are powerful only because the general assembly meets so infrequently. As an imperfect analogy: "you can accomplish lots of things even in a prison if the guards only look on you once every year". And if *that*'s the reason, then liquid democracy could work in a political setting - at least for advisory purposes.
I also note that vote-buying would make less sense in a corporation since voting power is given by wealth, in terms of numbers of shares held, in the first place. And then I wonder if there have been instances of vote coercion on shareholders.
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