Liquid Democracy and a Free Political Economy

[dsernst]

Idea for a post comparing the party-decides mechanisms of picking a nominee as similar to USSR-style central planning. Right now, the major party candidates on the ballot were selected by only a handful of party leaders. Hopefully these party leaders do their best in making their choices, but their low-numbers still limit them.

Goal is to show how Liquid Democracy ends up picking better leaders because it includes much more signaling information in the democratic process. Parallel is the comparison between a centrally planned economy (which led to widespread poverty) vs millions of more participants sending supply & demand signals.

[dsernst]

Making progress on this. Final section still needs a lot of work:

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Liquid democracy and a free political economy.

The goal for this piece is to show (1) how the US is directed as a top-down planned political economy, (2) how liquid democracy offers an alternative, and (3) how this would improve the public space for everyone.

We live in a centrally planned political economy.

In a democracy, voting is a citizens’ purchasing power. Like the private market, the economy of politics is subject to supply and demand. Politicians are the supply; votes demonstrate demand.

Unfortunately, citizens can only vote once every few years, limiting the rate of feedback within the market.

Furthermore, the nature of our electoral process artificially constrains supply. Voters’ options are limited to those at the top of the ballot. Winner-take-all elections means that a vote for anyone other than the front-runners is a “wasted” vote.

Liquid democracy lifts these restrictions.

Liquid democracy uses modern technology to evolve our political process, offering new options to the public.

Citizens can use liquid democracy software to directly vote for and against legislation, an activity historically limited to elected legislators. Since voting can occur daily, rather than every few years, this greatly expands liquidity in the market.

Furthermore, individual citizens may select delegates as new personal representatives, to vote on legislation for them. This greatly expands the markets’ options, since these liquid democracy politicians don’t need to formally campaign, nor get anywhere close to 50% of a jurisdiction’s vote. They don’t need to quit their jobs, nor even vote themselves on legislation, choosing instead to pass their voting power along to their own delegates.

This still allows for all of the options of a traditional representative system. If a citizen wants to pick one individual and let them vote on all legislation for them for 4 years, they can still do that.

These new options create a smarter democracy

Because it includes more signaling information in the democratic process, liquid democracy can pick better leaders and more widely supported policies. Parallel is the comparison between a centrally planned economy (which led to widespread poverty) vs millions of more participants sending supply & demand signals.

[dsernst]

Might want to work in this line from an early draft of the video script:

As a country, we're unimaginably wealthy in our private sphere. But we could be doing so much better in our public life.

[dsernst]

Good potential intro quote:

[dsernst]

Liquid Democracy and a Free Political Economy

The most significant fact about this system is the economy of knowledge with which it operates...by a kind of symbol, only the most essential information is passed on. ...The marvel is that in a case like that of a scarcity...without an order being issued, without more than perhaps a handful of people knowing the cause, tens of thousands of people whose identity could not be ascertained by months of investigation, are made to...move in the right direction. — Friedrich A. Hayek, The Use of Knowledge in Society, 1945

I want to show how the US is directed as a top-down planned political economy, how liquid democracy offers an alternative, and how this can improve the public space for everyone.

We live in a centrally planned democracy

In a democracy, voting is a citizens’ purchasing power. Like the private market, the economy of politics is subject to supply and demand. Politicians are the supply; votes demonstrate demand.

Unfortunately citizens can only vote once every few years, limiting the rate of feedback within the system.

On top of that, the nature of our electoral process artificially constrains supply. Voters’ options are limited to those at the top of the ballot. Winner-take-all elections means that a vote for anyone other than the front-runners is “wasted”.

Low resolution signal

The 114th Congress introduced over 10,000 bills in its two year session. Since each can be supported or opposed, that works out to 2 ^ 10000 (10 ^ 3000) different possibilities.

And yet for all but the five hundred members of Congress, our only vote is basically red or blue, every two years.

That's a low quality signal.

Liquid democracy lifts these restrictions.

Liquid democracy uses modern technology to evolve our political process, offering new options for everyone.

Citizens can use the Liquid platform to directly vote for and against legislation, something previously limited to legislators. Since voting can occur daily, rather than every few years, this massively expands our public space's liquidity.

On top of this, individuals may select personal representatives, who can vote on legislation for them. This greatly expands the political economy's supply, since these liquid politicians don’t need to get anywhere close to 50% of a jurisdiction’s vote. They don’t need to quit their jobs, nor even vote themselves on legislation, choosing instead to pass their voting power along to their own delegates.

And this still allows for all of the options of our traditional representative system. A citizen can still pick one individual to vote on all legislation for them for 4 years.

These new options create a smarter democracy

Because it includes so much more signaling information, liquid democracy can pick better leaders and more widely supported policies.

Compare the Soviet centrally planned economy, which led to widespread poverty and starvation, vs free market economies' unprecedented wealth. History shows that by including millions of more participants, each sending their own supply & demand signals, orders of magnitude more peoples' desires can be accommodated.

As a country, we've unlocked unimaginable wealth in our private sphere. But we could be doing so much better in our public life.

Liquid democracy represents a free political economy.

Join us. Show your support by signing up: https://join.liquid.vote

[dsernst]

https://github.com/liquidvote/blog.liquid.vote/commit/759cb16d440f5d584ffa1083d6b8ababbe1a0cef posted this as an unlisted draft:

http://blog.liquid.vote/2017/04/12/liquid-democracy-and-a-free-political-economy/

[dsernst]

Have revised this a few more times. Getting pretty close to ready to publish, I think.

[dsernst]

Published http://blog.liquid.vote/2017/04/17/liquid-democracy-and-a-free-political-economy/