In my younger days I thought direct democracy was unworkable, but now I realise that might have just been my brain conforming to the bourgeois representative government status quo.
Obviously we easily have the tech to do DD these days, everyone has a smart phone in their pocket, we could do it instantly and on the go. But how you could manage a planned economy that way I’m not sure.
Lots of people have no interest in being involved in government and I think that's fine. Representative democracy is good enough for me provided reps can be recalled at any time by a vote of constituents.
ppl only lose interest when they know they have no involvement in government, which most don't.
being able to fire your boss isn't the same as being your own boss, its still giving another power over your life - this is the trick of republican 'terms' in office, it gives the illusion of choice where you have none.
Do you think we should at least scrap the standard upper/lower house concept, and just have one “people’s assembly” of some sort? Seems like in most western countries the upper house exists to protect the status quo.
I’ve also seen people say a good reform for the Westminster system would be multi-member electorates, where each district/division doesn’t have a single MP/congressman/whatever, but several, allocated by vote share.
That's basically the NZ MMP system. You have a single house, a local rep and then extra reps are allocated by popular vote