The size of government should be reduced until its voters can meaningfully participate, and understand the scope of its responsibilities.
People who live in entirely different communities should not be governing each other. One office, like the US President, should not govern millions of people. A legislature of a few hundred should not govern hundreds of millions.
Larger government doesn’t necessarily enforce your sense of justice. China is a large government. The axis powers were large governments. USSR was a large government.
And what of the human cost? Millions of lives have been expended in the quest for justice. War is a path to universal law and one-world government. And what has history shown us? The larger the government, the larger the union, the larger their wars.
Yes, this is a problem which has already caused issues, and mostly been resolved under the current scheme. Most states have some laws that preempt local jurisdictions from enacting anything beyond what the state has already enacted on the issue in question.
I don’t think city states will last long. Is there a name for this political opinion? What happens when governing a city state becomes too complex, as you might say it already is for LA or NYC?
Another thing to consider is that some states are rich, some are not. In many countries, it's because the big cities are getting rich off the less developed, but resource rich states. You'd have taxes heavily distributed to industrialised or develop highways in an industrial state. The poorer states are used for oil or corn farming. A richer state processes that into soda. And an even richer city has all the CEOs, lawyers, marketers, banks, etc, used to power that soda company.
It’s interesting you bring up loose borders as a benefit. Some communities may prefer strict borders. Others may prefer to welcome anyone. Why should the entire continent be forced to have one immigration policy? Size makes a mockery of democracy.
Also you've unwound the tenuous Federal solution to the tragedy of the commons. Only high level control can come anywhere close to fixing that.
I don’t understand why goods would necessarily be more expensive because a government is smaller. The price of goods is mostly a function of economics, not government price controls. Consumable goods in Singapore or Monaco sell at prices similar to other very large governments.
Remove: Disproportionate representation. One vote should count as much as any other vote from anywhere in the country.
Remove: Politics is popularity contests and soundbites for fame. Remove this by allowing people to assign their votes to experts by proxy.
Remove: Ban lobbyists and lobby groups.
Remove: Ban anyone in government from holding financial interests in anything.
Add: Digitally secure elections. Somehow.
I don't think lobbying should be completely banned. Maybe just restricted to organizations funded by individuals with contribution caps. I think concerned citizens should be allowed to organize a group to represent themselves as a unified voice.
I agree with removing parties in their current form. I'm not sure banning them entirely will be a fix, but I also don't know what would.
I'm not sure how we address disproportionate voting while preserving rural faith in the system. The issues are mostly split in an urban vs rural fashion. The Senate provides assurances to each state that the state's interests will be equally heard.
If the votes are consistently that close, then I think this points to a deep ideological divide in the population. Possibly pointing to a lack of understanding and empathy of the opposition's position. This seems to lead to people feeling their voices don't matter because legislation is just crammed through the system without compromise or protections.
Such a change would force traditional parties and this neutral group of citizens to compromise on all legislation removing extreme policies from the equation. Because legislation has a direct effect on this neutral body and there terms are short, career politician agendas and "loss of connection" to the common needs of citizens is virtually eliminated. It would also eliminate the us vs them ideology, as common citizens become an actual party to the governmental process and have skin in the game from their own participation in the process.
The 33% solution provides the biggest bang for the buck with the least impact to current government structures and election processes.
In order for the act of democracy to perform better, barriers to entry for participating need to be dropped and representation has to be improved.
Big steps that can be made are
- getting money as far away from politics as possible. This will be done by limiting spending and limiting time spent campaigning.
- mathematically designed districts
- instead of first pass the post, many will say instant runoff. Instant runoff is fine, but it is still super linear. To get closer to a direct democracy, liquid voting is far more effective. I personally like log-liquid voting that scales a representative influence logarithmically with their constituent size. This logarithmic scaling allows smaller communities to be heard and dissuades clout chasing.
- typically smaller countries are able to represent the diversity of their citizens better
- term limits on all positions
- remove advertising from news outlets
- Break apart information and monopolies like all of the major social networks and news stations
2.) A two party system will always end up with candidates most voters "can live with". Everyone else than the biggest candidates are wasted votes. This leads to populism, like how you can be hard on crime/immigration/whatever and the other candidates have to beat you. This leads to laws like "Three strikes and you're out" and candidates like Donald Trump. No more Dem. vs Rep. It fuels hatred / Us vs Them mentality.
It strikes a good balance of something that would have profound systemic effects and influence many ongoing issues but at the same time it's also achievable.
It must be removed. https://youtu.be/LkH2r-sNjQs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kE5B9uGpqrM
tl;dr A firewall between money and the leaders doing politics
