Democracy vs direct e-democracy and the rule of law
Representative democracy on a historical scale is a new phenomenon, one might say, experimental. For a little more than 300 years of practice, we can sum up some results, but first we need to note the reasons for the emergence of the very principle of delegation.
The first obvious reason is the impossibility to gather all the people (even having passed some qualifications, for example, property) in one place and, all the more, the continuous functioning of such a nationwide authority. The second reason is the impossibility of nationwide decision-making, requiring a certain education, qualifications and knowledge. This is if you look at the question from the theoretical point of view, but in the historical reality there was one reason - the power did not belong to people evenly because of the uneven distribution of wealth, position in society, influence and other factors. And in the transition to democratic forms, the top simply fixed this inequality through the mechanism of “delegation”, formally declaring the equality of votes.
What has changed since then and do we have alternative ways of government? Of course, over the past 15 years, communications, mobile communications and the Internet have received the biggest leap in development. And it became clear to all that the old representative form of democracy had passed its age. After all, now, for the first time ever, starting from city-states, it has become possible to gather all citizens in the virtual space and without the help of delegates to make direct decisions. “Crutches” are no longer needed in the legislative, executive, or even judicial branches of government. Yes, the concept of "branches" at the same time loses all meaning.
Let us now look back at the representative form of democracy going down in history, parliamentarism, political parties, ministries and departments, the state budget, the vertical of power, the most fair courts, and the lowering of pieces of paper into the slot. What guarantees does a voter have that his deputy, if he is also elected, will lobby for his interests? Change the view will be possible only after a few years. Those who voted for the deputy, who scored fewer points, have no representative at all. And everything that the candidate said during the election campaign, immediately after the end of the voting, is forgotten. What kind of responsibility for violation of the promised is not provided by law, and the words are not fixed by any contract, their execution is completely on the conscience of the deputy. If we say that the chosen one acts somehow wrongly, then he will fairly answer us: “You yourself chose me, it’s your responsibility”.
')
The deputy, official, judge, president, outlaw, albeit for some limited time, but just the limitations of this time pushes them to efforts to “consolidate” their personal positions more than to the efforts of state creativity. As a result, it is much more difficult for us to imagine a crown monarch plundering the state’s treasury than a president selling a country in parts and filling his personal pocket. Naturally, the monarch knows for sure that this country is given to him forever and will remain to his descendants, therefore, he feels responsibility much sharper and it prevails over the feeling of unlimited power.
What is needed for democracy to work? Firstly - information , if the voter does not know something important that could affect his choice among candidates, he will not be able to vote adequately. Secondly, for independent choice, one needs freedom from the opinions of others, the ability to think, the desire to have one's point of view. And the representatives we choose deprive ns of the right to both of these determining factors. What is the opinion of a person if propaganda handles him from childhood, imposing patterns of thinking, and forming persistent associations in his head about key forms of organization of society. To think differently, even just to fantasize, going beyond the questions of material well-being and the most primitive desires, for today's average person is something on the verge of enlightenment.
In the era of global corporations, brainwashing has become the main driving force of consumer society. The slogan “people need to cultivate desire” has become a dogma, not only for business, but also for power. Of course, how can people get their money, attention, and voices in the elections - you need to find in them the vices, desires, motivations. New times and new high technologies have brought more slavery than freedoms, only methods have changed, everything has become much more sophisticated. “No slavery is more hopeless than the slavery of those slaves, Himself who believes free from the shackles” - Johann Wolfgang Goethe. Against this, there is a reaction, which resulted in WikiLeaks, Anonymus, anti-globalists.
But let us distract from the horrors and obscurantism of today and think about how to still benefit from the technologies that have come to every home with communications . So, in what procedures the direct democracy can be expressed, realized with the help of virtual presence.
In general, the concept of a country for electronic space is not natural, there are no boundaries or distances. People may situationally unite according to common interests, views or geographic, national, religious or cultural grounds. The decisions made do not require funding from the state budget, because people can form and fill the microbudget and spend it to execute their own decision. The implementation of self-government will turn into local public projects, and all the necessary goods and services for these projects can be procured through tender mechanisms. The advantages are obvious, no cuts in budgets, no long chains in the passage of funds, the complete absence of parasites, which are in the way of solutions and money.
Obviously, in today's states, unlike yesterday’s empires, it is more and more difficult to perform “great things”, because This requires enormous costs of motivation and bringing the will of a large number of people into agreement with a single vector. But in the electronic environment the possibility of “great deeds” appears again, and, by their nature, they are no different from social projects for small groups. The approach is scalable and flexible.
The monopoly on the media disappears, each person having spent minimal resources can write and publish, broadcast video, voice podcasts, and he himself becomes a reporter from his place of stay at the moment, a news channel about himself and what is happening around him. It will be harder and harder to powder the masses.
It is time to recognize that inequality is the nature of man, and whoever does not want to drive everyone according to the same measure, but there are more or less kind, more or less intelligent, more or less qualified in different areas. It would be foolish to assume that the voice of a milkmaid in voting on global financial issues should be equivalent to the voice of a doctor of science, who wrote a dozen monographs on this issue, or would be equal to the voice of a big businessman who invested heavily in a project directly dependent on the decision made. The question of competence is solved by introducing the coefficient of recognition of the authority of an opinion, that is, each person becomes a public expert and gains “weight” in making decisions that require qualifications.
The abolition of this attribute of statehood also provides for the complete abolition of the state apparatus, the abolition of taxes. The place of taxes will be taken by the financial participation of citizens in public projects, and this participation will determine the “influence” of a person in society, the weight of his voice, the degree of trust and respect for his opinion. The disappearance of state structures will also lead to the distribution of their functions among citizens.
All three branches of government in direct e-democracy are concentrated in every citizen. If everything is somehow intuitive with the law and the executive, then judicial functions can be some service that citizens order from a person or a group of experts with high qualifications in the question under consideration and the authority of this group is recognized by the parties, and the work is paid in open order.
If the features of e-democracy, we have a little sketched in our thoughts, then we turn to alternative forms of government. For example, why not replace elections with exams? Well, indeed, because each position must be replaced by the best challenger, and choosing the best through conducting “tests” is an old reliable way. And now we will think how many of our present deputies can withstand even a small excursion into history, geography or religion, answer a couple of competent questions from economics and finance, solve the simplest differential equation, find the extremum of a function, or solve a logical problem? Yes, astonishing ignorance and lack of qualifications reign in all our authorities. So, exams are more effective than elections.
Now we call into question that the people should be a source of power. But the only real alternative to democracy may be the rule of law over the will of the people . The people are against it, of course, but for the last three hundred years we have been told that all power is from us. True, we were manipulated as they wanted, but the appearance was that, and we got used to the thought of ourselves as the source of power. But then everyone will have to recognize themselves as atheists, since all religions of the world recognize eternity and the steadfastness of the laws established by the higher powers. And certainly, a believer always remembers the rule of law over the will of man. This applies to all religions, the only question is which law. There is a difference in this opinion, but in fact, this is not such a cardinal obstacle, as we can see from the example of the Ottoman Empire, where citizens had the right to be judged according to the laws of their faith, according to Christian, Jewish or Islamic laws.
From the point of view of searching for alternative forms of the state, modern democracy has a very aggressive position and does not recognize any other development paths other than its own, western “civilized” path. Delivering democracy “at home” has already become a common phrase, and after all, Arab countries can also be indignant, they say, look - in Europe and America a complete decline in morals, morality and ethics, legality and decency are not respected, people live in terrible ignorance of Sharia law. It is necessary to save the infidels from themselves. But it’s time to come to your senses, such an approach “let's go save someone” is characteristic only of Western civilization, the eastern world is much more tolerant of alternative forms.
The question of ethics and morality is possible only in a religious society, because without the recognition of a higher authority, nothing can voluntarily keep a person within the bounds of legality. At the same time, “voluntarily retain” applied here specifically to emphasize the most ancient abuse of the interpretation of the law, which we see on the part of the clergy of any religion. As a result, religion is as far from God as jurisprudence is from justice.
Democracy is a form of government for an atheist , it gives people the maximum opportunity to live according to their own laws, change them for themselves, play with justice. And how can laws change? How can justice change?
The form of the state with the rule of law, however, is not so speculative, it existed much longer than modern liberal democracy. Rome with the period of the republic (right was considered higher than the senate), the United States until the twentieth century, the Mongolian state at the beginning of existence (where Yase - Genghis Khan's law code was above the kurultai and the khan), the Arabic caliphate during the righteous caliphs, etc. You can list on the page, these are only the most famous examples.
Total secularism appeared only in the 20th century, and to this day it has completely destroyed the perception of people about responsibility, the concept of family, duty, honor and justice. World wars and millions of lives have become evidence of the faith of individuals in their exceptional will, building their own pride in dogma and recognition of the complete impunity of power. Will it be possible to overcome the consequences of this dark time, which has now brought us universal disillusionment with the idea of ​​the state as such? And what is the role of new electronic media in this process - we have to see in the coming years.
Personally, I think that at a high intellectual and cultural level of citizens, any state form will be good, and at low - any form will degenerate and degrade. Therefore, the key roles of electronic and communication technologies should be educational, cultural, aesthetic and educational roles. Information accessibility is not enough, personal examples, popularizers of this accessibility and, of course, modifications in the structure of education are important. In order to have an idea in your head of a schoolboy to get acquainted in your free time with something of the scientific, philosophical and artistic heritage of past centuries, you need to put more effort into inventing new electronic forms of democracy by discussing scandalous showbiz news.
The first obvious reason is the impossibility to gather all the people (even having passed some qualifications, for example, property) in one place and, all the more, the continuous functioning of such a nationwide authority. The second reason is the impossibility of nationwide decision-making, requiring a certain education, qualifications and knowledge. This is if you look at the question from the theoretical point of view, but in the historical reality there was one reason - the power did not belong to people evenly because of the uneven distribution of wealth, position in society, influence and other factors. And in the transition to democratic forms, the top simply fixed this inequality through the mechanism of “delegation”, formally declaring the equality of votes.
What has changed since then and do we have alternative ways of government? Of course, over the past 15 years, communications, mobile communications and the Internet have received the biggest leap in development. And it became clear to all that the old representative form of democracy had passed its age. After all, now, for the first time ever, starting from city-states, it has become possible to gather all citizens in the virtual space and without the help of delegates to make direct decisions. “Crutches” are no longer needed in the legislative, executive, or even judicial branches of government. Yes, the concept of "branches" at the same time loses all meaning.
Let us now look back at the representative form of democracy going down in history, parliamentarism, political parties, ministries and departments, the state budget, the vertical of power, the most fair courts, and the lowering of pieces of paper into the slot. What guarantees does a voter have that his deputy, if he is also elected, will lobby for his interests? Change the view will be possible only after a few years. Those who voted for the deputy, who scored fewer points, have no representative at all. And everything that the candidate said during the election campaign, immediately after the end of the voting, is forgotten. What kind of responsibility for violation of the promised is not provided by law, and the words are not fixed by any contract, their execution is completely on the conscience of the deputy. If we say that the chosen one acts somehow wrongly, then he will fairly answer us: “You yourself chose me, it’s your responsibility”.
')
The deputy, official, judge, president, outlaw, albeit for some limited time, but just the limitations of this time pushes them to efforts to “consolidate” their personal positions more than to the efforts of state creativity. As a result, it is much more difficult for us to imagine a crown monarch plundering the state’s treasury than a president selling a country in parts and filling his personal pocket. Naturally, the monarch knows for sure that this country is given to him forever and will remain to his descendants, therefore, he feels responsibility much sharper and it prevails over the feeling of unlimited power.
What is needed for democracy to work? Firstly - information , if the voter does not know something important that could affect his choice among candidates, he will not be able to vote adequately. Secondly, for independent choice, one needs freedom from the opinions of others, the ability to think, the desire to have one's point of view. And the representatives we choose deprive ns of the right to both of these determining factors. What is the opinion of a person if propaganda handles him from childhood, imposing patterns of thinking, and forming persistent associations in his head about key forms of organization of society. To think differently, even just to fantasize, going beyond the questions of material well-being and the most primitive desires, for today's average person is something on the verge of enlightenment.
In the era of global corporations, brainwashing has become the main driving force of consumer society. The slogan “people need to cultivate desire” has become a dogma, not only for business, but also for power. Of course, how can people get their money, attention, and voices in the elections - you need to find in them the vices, desires, motivations. New times and new high technologies have brought more slavery than freedoms, only methods have changed, everything has become much more sophisticated. “No slavery is more hopeless than the slavery of those slaves, Himself who believes free from the shackles” - Johann Wolfgang Goethe. Against this, there is a reaction, which resulted in WikiLeaks, Anonymus, anti-globalists.
But let us distract from the horrors and obscurantism of today and think about how to still benefit from the technologies that have come to every home with communications . So, in what procedures the direct democracy can be expressed, realized with the help of virtual presence.
Autonomy and self-management of small groups
In general, the concept of a country for electronic space is not natural, there are no boundaries or distances. People may situationally unite according to common interests, views or geographic, national, religious or cultural grounds. The decisions made do not require funding from the state budget, because people can form and fill the microbudget and spend it to execute their own decision. The implementation of self-government will turn into local public projects, and all the necessary goods and services for these projects can be procured through tender mechanisms. The advantages are obvious, no cuts in budgets, no long chains in the passage of funds, the complete absence of parasites, which are in the way of solutions and money.
Great things
Obviously, in today's states, unlike yesterday’s empires, it is more and more difficult to perform “great things”, because This requires enormous costs of motivation and bringing the will of a large number of people into agreement with a single vector. But in the electronic environment the possibility of “great deeds” appears again, and, by their nature, they are no different from social projects for small groups. The approach is scalable and flexible.
Direct information
The monopoly on the media disappears, each person having spent minimal resources can write and publish, broadcast video, voice podcasts, and he himself becomes a reporter from his place of stay at the moment, a news channel about himself and what is happening around him. It will be harder and harder to powder the masses.
Personal competencies
It is time to recognize that inequality is the nature of man, and whoever does not want to drive everyone according to the same measure, but there are more or less kind, more or less intelligent, more or less qualified in different areas. It would be foolish to assume that the voice of a milkmaid in voting on global financial issues should be equivalent to the voice of a doctor of science, who wrote a dozen monographs on this issue, or would be equal to the voice of a big businessman who invested heavily in a project directly dependent on the decision made. The question of competence is solved by introducing the coefficient of recognition of the authority of an opinion, that is, each person becomes a public expert and gains “weight” in making decisions that require qualifications.
Lack of state budget
The abolition of this attribute of statehood also provides for the complete abolition of the state apparatus, the abolition of taxes. The place of taxes will be taken by the financial participation of citizens in public projects, and this participation will determine the “influence” of a person in society, the weight of his voice, the degree of trust and respect for his opinion. The disappearance of state structures will also lead to the distribution of their functions among citizens.
Lawmaking, executive power, judiciary
All three branches of government in direct e-democracy are concentrated in every citizen. If everything is somehow intuitive with the law and the executive, then judicial functions can be some service that citizens order from a person or a group of experts with high qualifications in the question under consideration and the authority of this group is recognized by the parties, and the work is paid in open order.
If the features of e-democracy, we have a little sketched in our thoughts, then we turn to alternative forms of government. For example, why not replace elections with exams? Well, indeed, because each position must be replaced by the best challenger, and choosing the best through conducting “tests” is an old reliable way. And now we will think how many of our present deputies can withstand even a small excursion into history, geography or religion, answer a couple of competent questions from economics and finance, solve the simplest differential equation, find the extremum of a function, or solve a logical problem? Yes, astonishing ignorance and lack of qualifications reign in all our authorities. So, exams are more effective than elections.
Now we call into question that the people should be a source of power. But the only real alternative to democracy may be the rule of law over the will of the people . The people are against it, of course, but for the last three hundred years we have been told that all power is from us. True, we were manipulated as they wanted, but the appearance was that, and we got used to the thought of ourselves as the source of power. But then everyone will have to recognize themselves as atheists, since all religions of the world recognize eternity and the steadfastness of the laws established by the higher powers. And certainly, a believer always remembers the rule of law over the will of man. This applies to all religions, the only question is which law. There is a difference in this opinion, but in fact, this is not such a cardinal obstacle, as we can see from the example of the Ottoman Empire, where citizens had the right to be judged according to the laws of their faith, according to Christian, Jewish or Islamic laws.
From the point of view of searching for alternative forms of the state, modern democracy has a very aggressive position and does not recognize any other development paths other than its own, western “civilized” path. Delivering democracy “at home” has already become a common phrase, and after all, Arab countries can also be indignant, they say, look - in Europe and America a complete decline in morals, morality and ethics, legality and decency are not respected, people live in terrible ignorance of Sharia law. It is necessary to save the infidels from themselves. But it’s time to come to your senses, such an approach “let's go save someone” is characteristic only of Western civilization, the eastern world is much more tolerant of alternative forms.
The question of ethics and morality is possible only in a religious society, because without the recognition of a higher authority, nothing can voluntarily keep a person within the bounds of legality. At the same time, “voluntarily retain” applied here specifically to emphasize the most ancient abuse of the interpretation of the law, which we see on the part of the clergy of any religion. As a result, religion is as far from God as jurisprudence is from justice.
Democracy is a form of government for an atheist , it gives people the maximum opportunity to live according to their own laws, change them for themselves, play with justice. And how can laws change? How can justice change?
The form of the state with the rule of law, however, is not so speculative, it existed much longer than modern liberal democracy. Rome with the period of the republic (right was considered higher than the senate), the United States until the twentieth century, the Mongolian state at the beginning of existence (where Yase - Genghis Khan's law code was above the kurultai and the khan), the Arabic caliphate during the righteous caliphs, etc. You can list on the page, these are only the most famous examples.
Total secularism appeared only in the 20th century, and to this day it has completely destroyed the perception of people about responsibility, the concept of family, duty, honor and justice. World wars and millions of lives have become evidence of the faith of individuals in their exceptional will, building their own pride in dogma and recognition of the complete impunity of power. Will it be possible to overcome the consequences of this dark time, which has now brought us universal disillusionment with the idea of ​​the state as such? And what is the role of new electronic media in this process - we have to see in the coming years.
Personally, I think that at a high intellectual and cultural level of citizens, any state form will be good, and at low - any form will degenerate and degrade. Therefore, the key roles of electronic and communication technologies should be educational, cultural, aesthetic and educational roles. Information accessibility is not enough, personal examples, popularizers of this accessibility and, of course, modifications in the structure of education are important. In order to have an idea in your head of a schoolboy to get acquainted in your free time with something of the scientific, philosophical and artistic heritage of past centuries, you need to put more effort into inventing new electronic forms of democracy by discussing scandalous showbiz news.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/123324/
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