And I’ve always felt that low voter engagement has a lot more to do with our lack of real power. Many years ago I stood as a parish councillor in my Essex village, as much to force a vote as to get myself on the council. I and a friend tried to visit every home in the village. And people voted and there was a lot more engagement in that 4 year term. And then I got voted off, which was also good - I supported the “wrong” side in a controversial issue - that’s democracy. And the council achieved a lot in that time.
The principle of local democracy for local issues etc is found in the Catholic Church social justice term of subsidiarity ie decisions should be made at the level closest to those affected by them. There is no need to reinvent the wheel before conducting a wider search for and deeper understanding of principles and practices particularly (but not exclusively) from the wellsprings of western civilisation Graeco-Roman and Judaeo-Christianity, the European Enlightenment(s) ie empirical method science and political economy
Panocracy has no political hierarchy and so there is no need to determine at what 'level' decisions are taken. The only decision is whether everyone gets to vote on absolutely every issue or whether there are issues that are of no interest to some people and so which can safely be put to a limited vote. In other words, issues where the bulk of the voters would abstain.
For example, if someone in Norwich wants to introduce a new car parking scheme will anyone outside Norwich particularly care? Obviously someone who commutes there for work might have something to say. So in order not to miss someone who might be entitled to their say we could at least in principle offer the vote to everyone.
I believe this is technically feasible but for reasons of cost or efficiency we might want to offer the option to voters. Each RFC will have to declare its scope such as where it applies (Norwich in the above example). So you might be asked "do you want to participate in local votes more than (e.g.) 100 miles from you?" and you might have to pay more to do that. By default, everyone participates in votes which have 'national' scope.
We don't need to have fixed boundaries so if you live between Norwich and Ipswich you might want to have a say in what happens in both.
Well, the way I've envisaged the Panocracy so far is that voter engagement is by default - and that was to address this very issue.
At the moment we elect people to take the load of running things off our shoulders. As you might have guessed I haven't a lot of time for the 'art of the possible' but we do need a system to manage our affairs both local and national.
We once had a councillor who actually got things done and our neighbourhood was noticeably the better for it. He didn't last long. I suspect the party machines stepped in.
I feel you’re being a bit partial about your definition of politics (understandably given the current state of play). The root is polis - city, and that is maybe the real problem. If our politics was local, and we knew our politicians personally, things might be very different. What I feel panocracy lacks is a real town square ie a physical space where all the members of a polis can gather, in the flesh, and thrash out their problems.
I accept your point about the root of the word. In the days of city-states like Athens the citizens (the free mature male ones anyway) could get together and hammer out their policies in person. We still have city-wide politics of course but the problems of representation and policy formation apply on the local scale as much as they do on the national scale.
Firstly, the human aspect of politics. I agree it would be a lot better if we would all go to town hall meetings to discuss proposals and there's no reason why that shouldn't happen under our panocracy just as now. I just don't think people are interested. At the moment the turnout for such meetings is usually a small fraction of the electorate and, as with national politics, activists and ideologies are over-represented.
So anything that came out of such meetings would have to be cast as an RFC and voted on by all those entitled to vote. Which leads to the next question: should votes on local issues be restricted to local people? My unconsidered opinion is yes but that's definitely not my decision to make! Whoever is included in a 'local vote' it could be handled by exactly the same mechanisms as a nationwide panocracy I've been focusing on. For example, a local proposal (RFC) would explicitly state its geographic boundaries and only those inside could vote.
As far as politicians are concerned, I think that many of them are known personally - by people who wish to have special access and undue influence. In its constitution the panocracy is intended to put an end to that and give everyone the same influence.
I hope that's enough. I wish more people would comment and I'm really grateful to you for what you've said so far!
Definitely local votes for local issues.
And I’ve always felt that low voter engagement has a lot more to do with our lack of real power. Many years ago I stood as a parish councillor in my Essex village, as much to force a vote as to get myself on the council. I and a friend tried to visit every home in the village. And people voted and there was a lot more engagement in that 4 year term. And then I got voted off, which was also good - I supported the “wrong” side in a controversial issue - that’s democracy. And the council achieved a lot in that time.
The principle of local democracy for local issues etc is found in the Catholic Church social justice term of subsidiarity ie decisions should be made at the level closest to those affected by them. There is no need to reinvent the wheel before conducting a wider search for and deeper understanding of principles and practices particularly (but not exclusively) from the wellsprings of western civilisation Graeco-Roman and Judaeo-Christianity, the European Enlightenment(s) ie empirical method science and political economy
Thanks very much for raising this interesting point.
The Principle of Subsidiarity is also laid down in the EU Treaty (https://www.europarl.europa.eu/factsheets/en/sheet/7/the-principle-of-subsidiarity) and I daresay in many other organisations.
Panocracy has no political hierarchy and so there is no need to determine at what 'level' decisions are taken. The only decision is whether everyone gets to vote on absolutely every issue or whether there are issues that are of no interest to some people and so which can safely be put to a limited vote. In other words, issues where the bulk of the voters would abstain.
For example, if someone in Norwich wants to introduce a new car parking scheme will anyone outside Norwich particularly care? Obviously someone who commutes there for work might have something to say. So in order not to miss someone who might be entitled to their say we could at least in principle offer the vote to everyone.
I believe this is technically feasible but for reasons of cost or efficiency we might want to offer the option to voters. Each RFC will have to declare its scope such as where it applies (Norwich in the above example). So you might be asked "do you want to participate in local votes more than (e.g.) 100 miles from you?" and you might have to pay more to do that. By default, everyone participates in votes which have 'national' scope.
We don't need to have fixed boundaries so if you live between Norwich and Ipswich you might want to have a say in what happens in both.
Well, the way I've envisaged the Panocracy so far is that voter engagement is by default - and that was to address this very issue.
At the moment we elect people to take the load of running things off our shoulders. As you might have guessed I haven't a lot of time for the 'art of the possible' but we do need a system to manage our affairs both local and national.
We once had a councillor who actually got things done and our neighbourhood was noticeably the better for it. He didn't last long. I suspect the party machines stepped in.
I feel you’re being a bit partial about your definition of politics (understandably given the current state of play). The root is polis - city, and that is maybe the real problem. If our politics was local, and we knew our politicians personally, things might be very different. What I feel panocracy lacks is a real town square ie a physical space where all the members of a polis can gather, in the flesh, and thrash out their problems.
I accept your point about the root of the word. In the days of city-states like Athens the citizens (the free mature male ones anyway) could get together and hammer out their policies in person. We still have city-wide politics of course but the problems of representation and policy formation apply on the local scale as much as they do on the national scale.
Firstly, the human aspect of politics. I agree it would be a lot better if we would all go to town hall meetings to discuss proposals and there's no reason why that shouldn't happen under our panocracy just as now. I just don't think people are interested. At the moment the turnout for such meetings is usually a small fraction of the electorate and, as with national politics, activists and ideologies are over-represented.
So anything that came out of such meetings would have to be cast as an RFC and voted on by all those entitled to vote. Which leads to the next question: should votes on local issues be restricted to local people? My unconsidered opinion is yes but that's definitely not my decision to make! Whoever is included in a 'local vote' it could be handled by exactly the same mechanisms as a nationwide panocracy I've been focusing on. For example, a local proposal (RFC) would explicitly state its geographic boundaries and only those inside could vote.
As far as politicians are concerned, I think that many of them are known personally - by people who wish to have special access and undue influence. In its constitution the panocracy is intended to put an end to that and give everyone the same influence.
I hope that's enough. I wish more people would comment and I'm really grateful to you for what you've said so far!