deezelboy – Virtual Democracies

To what extent is the US, or any other Western capitalist state, actually a democracy? Xander has, I think rather inadvertently, given me a tool by which to explore the question in his use of supply and demand. I offer my own modest proposal fully aware I am standing on the shoulders of giants.

The demand for democratic representation can be measured in the turnout of elections as much as that for a particular type of shoe can be gauged from its sales. This graph shows turnout percentages for the US between 1948 and 2004, and provides a certain amount of illumination to the demand for democracy.(Information on the source data and calculations can be read here)

Being an outsider I look to you all for explanations of the peaks and troughs of voter turnout, but the paranoid within me can’t help but connect them with the wars and conflicts the US has engaged in. There’s high turnout during the intense phases of the Cold War that lowers during its long thaw. A sudden upsurge of participation during Gulf War I and its sequel. Perhaps peaceful eras reduce the demand for democracy?

The first thing you notice is that turnout among the eligible never got beyond 65%. For my untrained eye, it looks as if turnout hovers around the 55% mark, at least during my lifetime. This leads me to think that even in troubled times a substantial proportion of the population is indifferent in who runs where they live.

The second is the widening gap between those of voting age and those eligible to vote, apparently due to the increase of non-citizens. These are people who would, I expect, be influenced by political change but for whatever reason have chosen to live in a place where they have no influence over it. As they have no buying power into democracy they should not concern us greatly.

I can speak better about the UK, or at least rant, so here’s some information that suits me well. The overall level of voting’s higher than the US but follows a similar trend. Cold War and stand off. 1974: the energy crisis, the three day week. Hits again in 1979, then Thatcher takes it over. Peak at 1992, the fall of Thatcher and the first Gulf War. Blair. Then, by 2001, the near universal realisation that New Labour was just less bad than the other mob.

Here’s a more up to date one. While the War on Terror has increased participation in the US, it’s bludgeoned it in the UK. 2004 was more of the same: no matter how bad Labour was, the Conservatives would be worse. Through sheer bad marketing, 10% of the target audience has just been lost.

So around 40% of the citizens of each state fail to buy into the idea of democracy. In the spirit of free enterprise, I ask why should these prudent people be forced to pay for services they have no use for and do not participate in?

I feel certain that the costs of holding an election could be sustained by the sizable majority that actually use them. While a demographic of democracy’s customer base is regrettably rather difficult to obtain, we are forced to really on generalisations and best guesses.

In the case of the UK, we find that all the lowest areas of turnout are spectacularly poor, so I would maintain taxing them for elections is basically unethical as fewer than 50% actually use the service whatsoever. The nicer areas, middle class through and through, have both the spending power and the customer base to fund elections in their constituencies.

Back to the US, courtesy of this site. If what Dr McDonald says bears any relation to reality, then we find that the higher the socio-economic status the greater the incidence of voting. It is clear that those who vote can afford to do so.

I do not suggest that an income bracket be set to provide funds for this exercise of democracy through taxation, for that would simply compound the problem. I suggest that the act of voting be charged at point by, if at all possible, private companies to ensure economic and administrative excellence.

The cost need not be prohibitive, or so I am told by a quick hit of research. If the costs of the election for all eligible voters in 2001 was $1.80 in the UK – roughly within the middle of the $1-$3 range given for Western democracies including the United States, then it should be possible to come up with the cost of the vote. If only 60% intend to vote, then each product has an initial cost of around $3.00.

Such a low cost for a product that could, in the right hands, be marketed as an event in itself as successfully as a blockbuster movie, increasing voter participation (and thus democratic ideals) whilst maximising profit, thus showing the harmonious potential of the free market.

In the UK, where I have more field experience and thus offer a slightly more detailed response, a monopoly could be averted through the events managements sector bidding for a General Election contract in each constituency. Any customer with doubts about the winning company’s ability to handle their vote can simply make arrangements with their competitors in a neighbouring constituency.

While British politics has had little success with the celebrity, government funded lottery initiatives have exploded within the low income areas. I therefore suggest a lottery is held in which any profits that are made in an election, less administrative costs, be won by a randomly chosen voter of the winning political party. This ensures that the privatisation of democracy will not exclude the poor but advertise inclusiveness by offering them a tangible image of a brighter future.

As with any enterprise, there is an element of risk. Commercial advantage is dependent of an understanding of a highly changeable business environment, and it is probable that the companies entrusted to the administration of democracy might make a loss from low voter turnout during peaceful or mundane periods. The low voter turnout of 2001 in the UK is held to be due to the widely accepted perception that it was a foregone conclusion, for example

It is therefore suggested that instead of elections at set periods, a customer satisfaction survey on whether to hold elections during the given period be conducted instead to safeguard the company’s interests. This program could perhaps be self-funding: if people are prepared to vote, what percentage of them would pay to vote for the right to vote itself?

In this way we could gather a truly representative picture of the demand for democracy itself and so optimise its supply as with any other commodity.

deezelboy – The Virtual State

There was a lot of talk at the close of the Twentieth Century of the virtual state, much of it on the rapidly evolving Internet. What it meant depended on who you asked: answers spanned from a wired-up Internet-savvy government through the installation of direct democracy to declarations of independence from cyberspace. Predictably I was most interested in the loonier end of the concept.

It was one of those blinding moments of serendipity. The Internet had found an interface the public could use at the same time as a government remembered it existed. Between them they nurtured an information infrastructure, allowing its web of superhighways to spread out beyond the ivory towers and into the suburbs, commercial districts, and the government itself. Its ubiquitous presence would enhance the way we live, learn, work and communicate by improving the way we used and exchanged information, and it would be open to all. Armed with that vision, the Internet blossomed.

The Clinton administration saw the Internet as a tool that would increase and ease communication between the government and the public in the interests of democracy. All Government information could be disseminated through the web, allowing cheap and instantaneous access from any internet port in the world and thus greater public awareness and participation. Government was to have universal participation, at least for its citizenry, and the National Information Infrastructure enticingly offered the proposition of Government procurement of data from the public.

And this, in its mildest form, was the virtual state: government, citizens and businesses, all wired up together, in competition or in harmony. This happened, and if you’re reading this, you’re most likely living in one.

The direct democrats argued that you could take it a hell of a lot further: a wired up government meant that voting could be performed electronically. People could vote online during an election far easier than by mere physical methods such as voting stations and snail mail, increasing the number of voters. Better still, it would provide accurate, near instantaneous, and up-to-the-second results. And even better yet, it could be vastly quicker, cheaper and more secure than existing methods.

This might have been technologically possible, if only for a very small demographic of the population, when they were talking about it then. It was all talked about as a near-future thing, a technological inevitability much like the commercial uptake of the web.

It’s certainly possible now, if only in a technical sense. I give that caveat simply because the talk has become much quieter in recent years and the climate colder. Because such a system would, by extension, lead to discussion of the direct democrats’ second argument.

Forget opinion polls, it goes, and give us the real thing. Imagine a system where you could vote for and against a proposed piece of legislature that you felt strongly about. Imagine a system where you could decide what proportion of your taxes get spent on which area every year. Hell, why not imagine a system years from now where you could actually propose legislation yourself if you were so inclined, or drum up support for amendments. And all from the comfort of your armchair or office computer. It really could be that easy.

And in truth, it still is. The technology has been with us for almost a decade. There is a huge amount of experience gained from the commercial sector’s embracement of the Internet in almost all relevant sectors. We have a population whose access and ability to process information is absolutely unrivalled in time and space. We even have the examples of open source programming and open publishing to show that at least theoretically even the most extreme forms of a similarly open government might be possible.

To the direct democrats the virtual state was a future Athens, an online democracy engendering a greater political participation and empowerment for any citizen who chose to be involved. This never happened. This hasn’t even begun to be explored by anybody influential, even in its most passive implementation. The political will just isn’t there anymore.

There was a third group, the ones with heads full of science fiction, who dreamed of building guerilla states out of electronic communities, but I think I will leave it with the direct democrats’ vision for now.

Whether you think it right or wrong, we’ve spent an awful lot of time, money and lives trying to impose democracy on Iraq. We could have deepened, and strengthened, democracy in our own countries for far less, and it’s not exactly an either/or situation.

There is something rather distasteful when you realize that these ideas have not been pushed through, that there is little talk within the political parties of even experimenting with it. There was renewed talk of e-voting in 2000 after the Bush/Gore elections, for example, and briefly checking up on Google I find that the UK was once aiming to be the first country in the world to install it. The Swiss beat them in 2004, but only because the UK had instantly forgotten about it. That’s about it, really.

At the same time, the entertainment industry has pushed interactivity with interesting results, public communication and gossip has hugely increased with the rise of blogging and websites, and internet commerce has proved that worries about security issues are mostly a smoke screen. It seems the only thing holding us back is a fear of increased responsibilities and a desire to keep the status quo.

I am interested in your thoughts. Do you think your government should be better represented online? How far should it go? How do you feel about your own level of representation in your own country? Am I hopelessly naïve for loving the direct democrat’s virtual state to bits?