Is participatory delegate democracy practical without internet access

[Subhaditya]

I read in an article that apart from the 'tyranny of the majority' the other reason why the founding fathers of the USA didnt favor direct democracy was that it would be economically too costly to implement. But if all voters had access to the internet it can be implemented cheaply enough.

The direct democracy parties today are saying the internet is what they will use to get to know what their members are wanting and act according to their members decision. 

So my question is is it true that implementing participatory delegate democracy will be prohibitively expensive if every citizen does not have access to the internet and so we must stick to representative democracy until every citizen gets internet access.

[Anonymous]

It is irrelevant how you vote to be ruled over. You will have a limited choice with the same outcomes, of waged slavery for the majority and massive accumulation of wealth for the minority parasitic ruling class. Whether they make it easier or harder for us, to vote for our own oppression, is neither here nor there.Capitalist representative democracy is minority capitalist government over the people.Capitalist democracy an administration, of and over, 'people' in the interst of a minority.A commonly owned, production for use, free access, post-capitalist society, will have a revolutionary different organisational criteria, thus facilitating the organising tenet in my signature below."From each according to their ability to each according to their needs."Socialist delegatory democracy is the immense majority, the people, governing over production and distribution of resources.Socialist democracy an administration over, 'things' in the interests of all.We will be able to make full use of whatever communication technology exists at the time, to further this outcome.

[Anonymous]

Subhaditya wrote:

I read in an article that apart from the 'tyranny of the majority' the other reason why the founding fathers of the USA didnt favor direct democracy was that it would be economically too costly to implement. But if all voters had access to the internet it can be implemented cheaply enough.The direct democracy parties today are saying the internet is what they will use to get to know what their members are wanting and act according to their members decision. So my question is is it true that implementing participatory delegate democracy will be prohibitively expensive if every citizen does not have access to the internet and so we must stick to representative democracy until every citizen gets internet access.

Who ever wrote that article probably was smoking Marihuana. The so called Founding Fathers of the USA were the landlords who stole all the lands and possession from the real founders and discoverers of the Americas., and it was built by the tyranny of a minority group of peoplesBlacks, Latinos, and Indians were let outside the constitution,  because it was a country that was built over slavery. At the beginning peoples had to pay money in order to be able to vote, and then, any white person without being born in the US was able to vote too. The whole official  history of the USA is based on fairy tales.  Women were also kept out of the pictureThe USA was going to be a very small nation surrounded by 4 big nations, and all the lands stolen from the Aztlan created the expansion toward the West and the South.Democracy can not exist in a capitalist society with internet and without internet, at the present time it is just the dictatorship  of the minority, or the democracy of the minority 

[Anonymous]

The same illusion was spread during the presidential campaign to elect Barrack Obama,  most of his political campaign was also made thru the internet, and the rules of the minority continued, and he became the next representative of the US ruling class.They can elect Mickey Mouse and it will do the same job. Whoever control the means of production control the economical base, the society, and the state, and all presidents have their own bossesIn a socialist society where the majority of the peoples will democratically control the means of production, we can use smoke signals and real democracy will prevail, and we are going to give  a permanent retirement to all the politicians, we would not need a state, or political parties

[ALB]

"Participatory delegate democracy" is not the same as "direct democracy" (where everybody votes on everything). It's where everybody gets a chance to elect a delegate to pursue the mandate of the group (community, workplace, etc) of which they are a membe and where the person elected is answerable for their decisions to that group and who can be recalled by a vote at any time.This could have existed long before the invention of the internet. It doesn't rule out some issue requiring a yes or no answer being but to a referendum, but this is not appropriate in all cases since in most cases there are more than one possible answer and so best decided by a committee of elected delegates.

[Subhaditya]

ALB wrote:

"Participatory delegate democracy" is not the same as "direct democracy" (where everybody votes on everything). It's where everybody gets a chance to elect a delegate to pursue the mandate of the group (community, workplace, etc) of which they are a membe and where the person elected is answerable for their decisions to that group and who can be recalled by a vote at any time.This could have existed long before the invention of the internet. It doesn't rule out some issue requiring a yes or no answer being but to a referendum, but this is not appropriate in all cases since in most cases there are more than one possible answer and so best decided by a committee of elected delegates.

But how is this all that different from representative democracy… I mean if we add the ability to recall a representative and have referendums like the swiss do representative democracy looks the same as participatory delegate democracy with most of the decisions being taken coming from above and the bottom only selecting their guides and occasionally holding a referendum and if they get suspicious of their guides they recall him…. so most of the decisions are being taken by a minority at the top or where am I going wrong here…

[ALB]

Here's something on this from our pamphlet What's Wrong with Using Parliament?:

Quote:

Because MPs themselves say they are representatives and not delegates, some anarchists have felt compelled to draw a rigid distinction between “representation” and “delegation”: “In a democracy it is natural that we will appoint people to do certain things – this is a vital division of labour that must be used. But this appointment should be on the basis of delegation not representation. Delegates unlike representatives are subject to recall (if they don’t do what they were asked to do by the assembly, they can be relieved of their mandate and their actions reversed)” (Parliament or Democracy?, p. 41). “…delegate democracy  . . . strongly contrasts with representative democracy (such as Parliament) where, an MP having been elected, he/she then takes decisions on personal, party and ultimately ruling-class grounds, with little reference to the working-class part of the electorate” (Anarchist Federation, Against Parliament. For Anarchism, 2000 edition, p. 54). This is broadly a valid distinction, but it is a distinction rather between accountable and non-accountable representatives. It seems an over-narrow definition of “delegate” to say it is someone given a single specific mandate; this may be the case in some instances but we don’t see why delegates need to refer back to those who mandated them for every decision – that would be as unworkable as direct democracy without any delegation.

So, what do you understand by "delegate" in the term "participatory delegate democracy" that you introduced?

[Subhaditya]

ALB wrote:

So, what do you understand by "delegate" in the term "participatory delegate democracy" that you introduced?

Sorry if I got the terms wrong… I am not very familiar with these terms.I thought local assemblies would have final say on delegates decisions… that is after delegates arrived at a decision the individual local assemblies would have to approve it for it to come into force. That is every decision needed to be approved by the local assemblies unless they were of routine nature.But I suppose the power to recall and reverse the decision of a delegate can more efficiently do the job of making them more accountable.

[Anonymous]

This is a much better approach to this particular situation, and it is not based on bourgeois illusionshttp://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/pamphlets/whats-wrong-using-parliament

[Anonymous]

Subhaditya wrote:

ALB wrote:

So, what do you understand by "delegate" in the term "participatory delegate democracy" that you introduced?

Sorry if I got the terms wrong… I am not very familiar with these terms.I thought local assemblies would have final say on delegates decisions… that is after delegates arrived at a decision the individual local assemblies would have to approve it for it to come into force. That is every decision needed to be approved by the local assemblies unless they were of routine nature.But I suppose the power to recall and reverse the decision of a delegate can more efficiently do the job of making them more accountable.

 It contradicts what you have said on your first post, you show up as a  teacher, and now you are student on Democracy. This situation  will not take place under the capitalist demcoracy. One thing is to understand the real concept of democracy which can only takes place under a socialist society, and another thing is to propagate or repeat the same rubbish of the capitalist society

[Dave B]

I would prefer to change the debate a little bit by looking at democracy in general and how it could work or not work in communism as I think a perceived weakness of the communist democratic model is that it would be incredible complicated and unwieldy. One basic problem is the number of decisions that would need to be taken and thus the number of votes that would have to taken. You could trivialise it, a bit, by taking the example of decision over street lighting in a small town in Peru etc and multiplying that problem up. Second  problem is just the technical way democratic decision making is made with all its amendments to resolutions, addendums and all that crap that most organisations go in for; as does the SPGB. When I first joined the SPGB I attended a conference and was horrified by the complexity and confusion involved in the process and lack of transparency about what was actually happening; and I was fairly well educated. Not that I wasn’t already familiar with that kind of thing as I had previously briefly attended student union political meetings and associated with the kind of middle class gobshites who liked to spend their time doing that kind of thing. For them it was a game for the elitist nomenklatura, understanding or the technical procedures. It gives a decision making advantage to the intelligentsia, who know how to play the system, of so called democratic procedures and latent bureaucrats. The old Bolsheviks knew how to take advantage of it during the very brief period before they could dispense with even that. Third problem is that so called mandated delegates can just be a euphemism for representative democracy. Where the delegates get selected on the same basis as representative democracy; clever sounding and convincing bull-shitters irrespective of what kind of system they are intended to administer and or corrupt.     I think delegates should be selected by lottery, or randomly selected by picking a name out of a hat; with the caveat that people can vote to exclude them just in case a self serving latent bureaucrat whose ambition is to organise those that do real work chances to get picked. The fourth, L bird problem, is decisions being made by people who aren’t ‘qualified’ to make them; like me. So recently I was in a what turned into a lively debate between me and several other informed scientists about the relative merits of (photo electric) solar versus wind power. We were all ‘informed’, there was no doubt about that, however there was some argument about ‘capital’ outlay (set up cost’s), maintenance ( the solar power people think their no moving parts solar PV panels will last for 10,000 years whilst these windmills will grind to a halt after 30) and transmission costs ( getting solar power from hot sunny places like the Sahara to Manchester etc etc, etc).        The solution to that kind of problem is that you randomly select say 1000 people from all walks of life including Peruvian peasants, Warrington bin men, and even the least qualified people, with double firsts in Oxbridge in the humanities, who are likely to be a drag on it, and force them to gem up and make a decision.  It is called Demarchy. It rests on well established mathematical statistical principals that a rigorously exercised ‘poll’ will represent the views of a majority. And decisions made by it can go through on the ‘nod’. It is of course an anathema to bureaucratic social climbers of all descriptions.

[Anonymous]

Dave B wrote:

I would prefer to change the debate a little bit by looking at democracy in general and how it could work or not work in communism as I think a perceived weakness of the communist democratic model is that it would be incredible complicated and unwieldy. One basic problem is the number of decisions that would need to be taken and thus the number of votes that would have to taken. You could trivialise it, a bit, by taking the example of decision over street lighting in a small town in Peru etc and multiplying that problem up. Second  problem is just the technical way democratic decision making is made with all its amendments to resolutions, addendums and all that crap that most organisations go in for; as does the SPGB. When I first joined the SPGB I attended a conference and was horrified by the complexity and confusion involved in the process and lack of transparency about what was actually happening; and I was fairly well educated. Not that I wasn’t already familiar with that kind of thing as I had previously briefly attended student union political meetings and associated with the kind of middle class gobshites who liked to spend their time doing that kind of thing. For them it was a game for the elitist nomenklatura, understanding or the technical procedures. It gives a decision making advantage to the intelligentsia, who know how to play the system, of so called democratic procedures and latent bureaucrats. The old Bolsheviks knew how to take advantage of it during the very brief period before they could dispense with even that. Third problem is that so called mandated delegates can just be a euphemism for representative democracy. Where the delegates get selected on the same basis as representative democracy; clever sounding and convincing bull-shitters irrespective of what kind of system they are intended to administer and or corrupt.     I think delegates should be selected by lottery, or randomly selected by picking a name out of a hat; with the caveat that people can vote to exclude them just in case a self serving latent bureaucrat whose ambition is to organise those that do real work chances to get picked. The fourth, L bird problem, is decisions being made by people who aren’t ‘qualified’ to make them; like me. So recently I was in a what turned into a lively debate between me and several other informed scientists about the relative merits of (photo electric) solar versus wind power. We were all ‘informed’, there was no doubt about that, however there was some argument about ‘capital’ outlay (set up cost’s), maintenance ( the solar power people think their no moving parts solar PV panels will last for 10,000 years whilst these windmills will grind to a halt after 30) and transmission costs ( getting solar power from hot sunny places like the Sahara to Manchester etc etc, etc).        The solution to that kind of problem is that you randomly select say 1000 people from all walks of life including Peruvian peasants, Warrington bin men, and even the least qualified people, with double firsts in Oxbridge in the humanities, who are likely to be a drag on it, and force them to gem up and make a decision.  It is called Demarchy. It rests on well established mathematical statistical principals that a rigorously exercised ‘poll’ will represent the views of a majority. And decisions made by it can go through on the ‘nod’. It is of course an anathema to bureaucratic social climbers of all descriptions.

 Now we are talking properly. Democracy can only exist on a socialist-communist society

[Subhaditya]

mcolome1 wrote:

It contradicts what you have said on your first post, you show up as a  teacher, and now you are student on Democracy. This situation  will not take place under the capitalist demcoracy. One thing is to understand the real concept of democracy which can only takes place under a socialist society, and another thing is to propagate or repeat the same rubbish of the capitalist society

In that post I was giving my opinion on our sexual behavior and how it can affect the chances of socialism succeeding.Here I am asking how technically you will implement majority participation in decision making…. a socialist society will still need to implement democracy… as Dave B said there could be technical difficulties in implementing the majority's participation in decision making. The only place I heard which successfully implemented majority's participation in decision making sort of was Athens… and that was a small city-state. It didnt have a chief or a small council instead a good chunk of the population from all strata of society was always involved in decision making.. I mean no decisions could be made without a good chunk of the population from poor peasants to landlords approving the decision. There is also the problem of information access… if flow of information is controlled by a small minority as we have now even under socialism the leadership 'the delegates' will be able to make people do just about anything including murders by selectively revealing information or outright lies and it will all be done 'for the greater good'. 

[Anonymous]

Subhaditya wrote:

mcolome1 wrote:

It contradicts what you have said on your first post, you show up as a  teacher, and now you are student on Democracy. This situation  will not take place under the capitalist democracy. One thing is to understand the real concept of democracy which can only takes place under a socialist society, and another thing is to propagate or repeat the same rubbish of the capitalist society

In that post I was giving my opinion on our sexual behavior and how it can affect the chances of socialism succeeding.Here I am asking how technically you will implement majority participation in decision making…. a socialist society will still need to implement democracy… as Dave B said there could be technical difficulties in implementing the majority's participation in decision making. The only place I heard which successfully implemented majority's participation in decision making sort of was Athens… and that was a small city-state. It didn't have a chief or a small council instead a good chunk of the population from all strata of society was always involved in decision making.. I mean no decisions could be made without a good chunk of the population from poor peasants to landlords approving the decision. There is also the problem of information access… if flow of information is controlled by a small minority as we have now even under socialism the leadership 'the delegates' will be able to make people do just about anything including murders by selectively revealing information or outright lies and it will all be done 'for the greater good'. 

I think you are all confused. In a socialist society we are not going to have any leader, or leadership, the leader is a product of the class society.Greece was never a democratic society, it was a society based on slavery, and the only ones who have rights were the nobles. Democracy can only exist on a classless, stateless, and leaderless society, and the vast majority of the human beings must have control over the means of production.We are going to have social problem in a socialist society, but they are going to resolve them  in a different way, we are not going to have law like in the capitalist society, problems are going to be handled in a different way, in this society we have legal and illegal crime.As soon as you mention the expression city-state, it is an indication that we have domination over the majority

[Subhaditya]

mcolome1 wrote:

… the vast majority of the human beings must have control over the means of production.

How will you implement this… spgb is proposing elected delegates who can be recalled and their decisions reversed…. it looks fine to me, much more accountable than what we have today…. But you see these delegates will be the acting leaders of the socialist society. Even the media will be run by elected delegates… so we will still have leaders in a socialist place just they will be much more accountable to the majority than we have today as we can 'reverse their decisions' immediately if we dont like them thus giving us much more power than we have today.I only hope information flows freely in such a place or we will have another ruling class coming up.

[Author]

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