Re: [apsa_itp] community law-making, a system based on recombinant text

[Michael Allan <mike@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, Aug 16, 2007 at 01:11:42PM -0500, Peter Muhlberger wrote:
> Hi Michael:
> >
> > Probably, they should be able to... The proposed system incorporates a
> > collaborative medium; people could use it to pool their expertise.
> > . . .
> 
> Interesting!  I wonder to what extent the lawyers, legislators, and
> smart people more generally would acquire unequal power by virtue of
> their ability to select the language of the legislation.  Probably a
> lot less than in the current system, but only to the degree that the
> broader public proves attentive.  Much depends here on the social
> context in which the system is embedded.  I guess my overall point is
> that a lot of attention has to be given to how to set up a social
> context in which people become more engaged, knowledgeable and, well,
> sane.  Getting from where we are to such an alternative world probably
> will take a lot more than a technical fix.  My research focuses on the
> transformative effects of political engagement:  how political
> deliberation can in the long run make people more engaged,
> knowledgeable, and more likely to adopt reasonable political values.
> For anyone interested in this, check out my website:
> 
> http://geocities.com/pmuhl78/

Hi Peter,

Agreed, a technical fix alone does nothing. But if technology opens a
new door to political/social engagement, engagement itself can become
the transformative instrument. Technology would then recede into the
assumed infrastructure.  So, if we can somehow look that far ahead,
and frame the discussion in that future context, we could approach
closer to the truth.  I already *assume* the technology in much that
sense, because I am so familiar with it (on paper); but I lack a deep
understanding of society and politics.

And I may assume too much.  The technology depends heavily on the
strength and behaviour of the delegate cascade, which is not proven
(at least not to me).  The system is all on paper, and the newest
piece is the cascade.  It figures prominently, both in the community
legislature, where it entwines with distributed bill drafting; and in
the open electoral system for executive/judiciary, where it operates
on its own, freely. So everything depends on it.  Intuitively, I
believe it to be strong and well-behaved; but I have no proof
yet. (Hopefully an expert on will join the discussion, and help with
this.)

> >   * Being *able* to meaningfully participate (for first time)
> >     is bound to increase the level of interest.
> 
> For some.  On the other hand, there are a large number of Americans
> who have authoritarian tendencies and who do not think the public
> should 'arrogate the proper privileges of political elites.'  There's
> a literature in political science arguing that the average American
> has a basic and reasonable preference not to be more politically
> involved and that in fact involving people politically would have
> devastating effects:  angry and disgruntled citizens and a political
> system overloaded with impossible to meet demands.  A prominent recent
> installment of this line of argument is a book called _Stealth
> Democracy_, which provides evidence, from a representative sample
> nationwide survey, that most Americans are 'stealth democrats' who
> want a government run by business and technical elites with little
> compromise or input.

How would these social biases play out if political engagement was a
fact, and not merely a proposal? You partly answer that Q, in the next
paragraph.  (More, below, on the reasons you might assume a large
degree of political engagement. Another reason is the potential
international context, which I will try to use in response to Steffen,
in the other thread.)

Also 'system overload' should not be a problem.  A community
legislature would scale up to handle any load that was placed on it.
The only means of public involvement, after all, would be to *do*
legislation; there would be no way to place a demand on the system,
except by acting on that demand yourself.

> What I show in a recent paper is that stealth democracy tendencies are
> largely explained by authoritarianism and related tendencies such as
> low desire for cognition, poor socio-political perspective taking, and
> so forth.  The paper also shows that democratic deliberation reduces
> both this authoritarianism and stealth democracy tendencies.  The
> reductions are modest and the participants were those willing to
> engage in an all day deliberation in the first place.  Also, the
> deliberation was not direct democracy but held at a major university
> and sanctioned by community and academic authorities.  I suspect it
> would take a lot of such experiences to move the public in a direction
> that would make direct democracy more feasible.

(This partly answers my Q, above.)

> >   * Community legislators might be paid by the state. They might
> >     also share amongst themselves the prestige, access to state
> >     resources and other benefits that are accorded to traditional
> >     legislators.
> 
> This would take major changes in the use and distribution of state
> resources, something the current purveyors of state power are likely
> to resist tooth and nail.  It will take a lot of legitimacy building
> in civil society before the state would be willing to accept such
> changes.  Again, it's necessary to chart a careful course from here to
> there.

Since an open electoral system for executive/judiciary is probably
only a few years away we can assume a dramatically altered political
climate.  The reason to expect it soon is two-fold: because the
technology is relatively simple (unlike open legislature); and because
even an unofficial system would have a decisive influence on the
official elections (unofficial candidates becoming official
candidates, and usually winning).

So we can assume, beginning in a few years, more and more high offices
will be filled by candidates who have the direct backing and trust of
the public. There would be no power brokers in such a system (the
delegate cascade would assume that function).  So there might be no
severe antagonism/tension between these new office holders and the
public that elevated them.  Consequently, state power could become
more disposed to open democracy in general, altering the environment
in which policy decisions, such as distribution of state resources,
were made.

> >   * Even if it happens that an elite group does the bulk of the actual
> >     legislative work (being the most competent for it) they would
> >     not be a closed elite, but an open meritocracy.
> 
> Assuming the public can correctly evaluate merit (may be difficult if
> they have 'twisted' political values, among other things) and the
> elites don't collaborate and manipulate to protect their exceptional
> status, which history suggests is probable.  It would be helpful if
> the public and the elites were reasonable, community-minded, and not
> self-centered.  Transformative changes would be needed.

The delegate cascade will allow even the least informed people to make
a *positive* contribution (Pivato argues children, mentally infirm
too, to show how powerful the effect is).  My understanding is that
even twisted values will be corrected to some extent, especially over
time, as people discuss their differences, and as the cascade adjusts
in response.

Secondly, an elite supported in such a pyrimidal meritocracy cannot
easily become out-of-touch with the public, on which its support
depends directly. They cannot easily protect their status, except by
continuing to merit it.
 
> > I depend on the political theory being a sound one. As I understand
> > it, our laws rest on the authority of the public, and are intended to
> > be broadly reflective of society.  Accepting this theory, my job (as
> > an engineer) would be to build a system that could put that theory
> > into practice.
> 
> We call ourselves a democracy based on the legitimacy of the public
> will, but we're not.  In fact, many people we would expect to defend
> democratic values, including many political scientists, argue
> strenuously against more direct forms of democracy and in favor of a
> heavy layer of 'representation' that insures the public get what it
> should want rather than what it does want.  I agree with you that we
> should strive to be a democracy that draws legitimacy from the public
> will.  However, I suspect we would have to do a lot of social,
> political, and educational preparation to have the kind of public we
> could safely entrust to pursue the good.

A community legislature would, in fact, depend on a heavy layer of
representation.  It would even be heavier (deeper) than a traditional
legislature.  (This is the cascade, entwined in the collaborative
medium.  All drafters would self-organize into a hierarchy of trust,
through which legislative info would flow/filter.)  The difference is,
the representation would be much more direct and accurate. Law (and
all of democracy) would thus be based more immediately on the public
will.

We could argue (if we do not accept it on faith) that the public is
good, almost by definition. The only thing is, we never gave them a
chance to express that goodness, and to act on it.  Instead, not
knowing better, we gave them a distortional and disconnected medium
that twisted their expressions, poisoned their discourse, and
amplified their worst tendencies into carictures and monstrosities.
And it is these that we fear -- not the public.

> > In practice, then, if society is broadly wrong-headed, it should get
> > wrong-headed laws. Those laws would cause problems, of course; but
> > that would lead to society's political eduction.  Having nobody to
> > blame but themselves (cannot blame politicians anymore) the public
> > would have no choice but to pull together, and correct the
> > wrong-headed laws.  In the end, therefore, society would no longer be
> > so wrong-headed.
> 
> You're assuming people will respond to feedback and will do so
> rationally.  There's plenty of evidence that the average public
> (unlike the highly educated users of /., Digg, etc.).  You might check
> out a book called _The Myth of the Rational Voter_ for a recent run
> down.  Among other problems:  most people don't basically understand
> politics because they can't conceptualize complex social systems (for
> that matter, they can't conceptualize systems period).  They will
> either be uninvolved politically, which means their interests aren't
> being adequately represented, or, worse, involved and making seriously
> bad choices due to blind spots in their reasoning.  Think of all the
> Americans who seem to be voting against their own interests....  I
> suspect many authoritarians fall in this category.  They can't
> conceptualize a governmental system of checks and balances based on
> overarching principles, so they lobby for a government they *can*
> understand:  hierarchical governments with a single strong leader who
> never changes his mind, never admits defeat, pursues all problems with
> forceful action whether or not such action will prove disastrous, and
> violates rights and liberties with no second thought....  For people
> who can't understand how the political and economic systems actually
> work, being confronted with evidence that their choices resulted in
> bad problems won't necessarily lead to a eureka experience in which
> they see the limits of their own thought.  A likely outcome is that
> they will seek an explanation within their own limited understandings,
> which often enough leads to finding scapegoats:  the Jews, the kulaks,
> whatever.  Human history is littered with millions of murders and
> other horrible abuses in part because people couldn't see the basic
> flaws in their own reasoning and create communities based on fear and
> distrust.  Americans, so far, are more practical:  they see that one
> party led to disaster, so they vote for the other one.  The problem is
> that in the long run they don't understand *why* their preferred
> party's approach led to disaster and it'll be a short time before they
> vote for the same foolish rhetoric and policies again.

I can't do justice in my response. You understand the social reality
far better than I understand the proposed system. What we need is a
detailed technical plan. Then, maybe with mathematical models,
simulations, or experiments, we could test it against reality. That
might help -- though only, I suspect, if we take into account how the
system itself will transform the context, the reality in which it
operates.

> > I agree. It would have to be one small step at a time. There'd be much
> > to learn along the way.
> 
> Yup!  I think what's needed is some serious consideration of how to
> combine both technical and social efforts to move America in a
> direction that could make a more engaged democracy possible.  The
> technical systems need to be tailored to the limits of the audience
> and designed to help people improve their own reasoning.  One thing
> that might be very helpful would be to have people reflect on their
> own political values and ideologies--such reflection would get right
> to the heart of people's limited understandings and perhaps reveal
> better ways of thinking.  A nationwide online dialog of how people
> differ on political values and ideologies and how these result in
> major roadblocks to addressing a wide range of serious policy problems
> could remake the American political environment.  The whole thing
> would have to be framed in more concrete terms, of course.  I proposed
> this to a major Democratic party funder before the last presidential
> election, but no one bit.  The Dems really need to think more
> strategically.

I hope you will get this, with or without party approval!  :)

All the best,
-- 
Michael Allan

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