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.
The following three things have to be reconciled.
First, the people have a right to rule themselves that should basically never be surrendered.
Second, it's impractical to do something like have everyone gather in a giant coliseum once a month to vote on every little issue.
Third, tyranny of the majority is real. If everyone has a say in everything, including things that are none of their business, people will be repressed.
The solution, in my opinion, is for the general public to ordain institutions whose job is to concern themselves with the process of government, without actually giving those institutions themselves any power. Any decisions they make are only valid with public support; if, for example, the municipal transportation council wants to construct a new rail line to ease congestion, that's treated the same as if some train expert had convincingly argued the case to the public and the public had directly voted to build the new line.
Of course, in real life, it wouldn't be possible for these institutions to actually have no power whatsoever. They would always have some power in practice, and not recognizing that fact would make it impossible to respond to it. So, alongside the idealistic framing under which institutions have no power of their own, there would be additional protections; human rights, nondiscrimination, anticorruption, etc. Since an institution's area of power is small, perhaps as small as a single workplace, it would be easy for its peers to keep it in line.
Interesting points. Something your “tyranny of the majority” comment brings to mind is that it’s extremely likely, in the West at least, that any post-proletarian-revolution society would be comprised of a majority of reactionary/non-proletarian/non-revolutionary people. These wouldn’t be third-world revolutions of the majority of the people rising up against colonial oppressors, the seizure of power by the working class in the imperial core would be of a different character.
We’d still be dealing with a probable majority of the population who are stuck in a capitalist, petit-boug, settler mindset. It would be sort of like the Russian revolution in the sense that the proletariat doesn’t make up a majority (I think we can make a general comparison between the smallholding peasant and the “suburban petit boug” of, say, the USA). That context makes the question of democracy quite puzzling - after a hard-fought proletarian revolution, we can’t simply allow the underdeveloped elements of the working class to vote the bourgeoisie back into power.
"the municipal transportation council wants to construct a new rail line to ease congestion, that’s treated the same as if some train expert had convincingly argued the case to the public and the public had directly voted to build the new line."
do you mean in this example, that the public would get a direct vote upon the proposal, or just that it would be treated as if that were the case because the public voted on the institution?
and how can we treat an institution as equivilant to a train expert, unless it is staffed by train experts? in which case is your point that the public would vote a technocratic institution in, and the composition of it, and thereafter cede decisions to them?
also, with your three reconciliations:
isn't it the case that material conditions mean that we do not have a right to rule ourselves, at least isn't it more complicated than that - we a are helpless for time and cannot do so, and some people are disabled and cannot. our right to self rule is necessarily bounded by our physical powers and our relation to society surely, such that we can't treat 'everyone has a right to self rule' as a fundamental proposition, at least in all aspects of human experience? or do you mean just politically?
Why? We consider it necessary for the function of government to do all sorts of things requiring great effort and cost, why is this any different? I agree regarding every little issue, but I'd say at least every significant issue is possible once a month?
yes, but i think this is resolvable via the implemented structure of dd. So you don't get a vote on everything, just things that affect you. You can end up voting on something that doesn't directly affect you, but not on something that doesn't directly or indirectly affect you.
i struggle with the solution you present with creating powerless institutions, like you say i think it would be create appropriate checks and balances - they need some power to function.
This is less of a description of a system of government than a description of the principles behind it. So, who exactly votes on what and when remains to be seen, but it's based on a particular set of ideas.
Institutions have no power of their own in the sense that they're basically employed by the people. Like, if the CEO hires a manager to run a convenience store or something, the manager isn't really the ultimate authority over the store, despite the fact that they make many decisions over how it runs. They've just been chosen by the CEO because the CEO isn't personally interested in micromanaging every aspect of the store, and while they have some range of personal discretion, ultimately if they started acting out of line with the CEO's vision they'd be removed.
So, the manager lacks nominal power, but it's also important to recognize that they will have some power in practice and set up checks against them abusing that power.
On the reconciliations:
You're right, I shoudn't have said this right should "basically never" be surrendered. For example, children surrender it to their parents, and if they didn't it would be pretty disasterous. I should have said, this right can't be surrendered without a very compelling reason.
Some people just don't want to be hassled about certain things, and so long as the thing isn't huge and immensely consequential, they should be able to turn down the chance to exercise their democratic power. Also, knowing what to do in a lot of situations could require a lot of research, and if people are forced to weigh in you're either putting a large burden of research on them or forcing them to vote on something they have no idea the consequence of. This point is really just the reason to have any institutions at all.
Yeah, this one doesn't contradict dd. If any of the points contradicts direct democracy, it's the second one, but am I wrong to say that a system that works like I described could still be considered direct democracy? Every policy is still implemented on the authority of the general public.