Is there any concept for a jury-based form of government? - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#14856657
I'm wondering if there are any concepts for jury based governments? What I mean is a government where people (from a pre-selected group, maybe technocrats?) are chosen at random and who form a kind of jury to run the government. After a term ends a new jury is chosen, and so on. A new constitution in Iceland was developed that way (but politicians rejected it) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icelandic ... E2%80%9313
#14856659
@Second_best

There are studies that show that a lottery-based form of corporate governance works yet it hasn't been tested on any political entity (for example, on a party or a government). Regardless there are too many factors in politics to pick, at random, the future leaders of the government and therefore the country itself even if you choose from a group of technocrats.
#14856670
Try Marxism!

CLR James wrote:The city [of Athens] was divided into 10 divisions and the year was divided into 10 periods. Each section of the city selected by lot 50 men to serve on the council. All the councillors of each section held office for one tenth of the year. So that 50 people were always in charge of the administration. The order in which the group of 50 councillors from each section of the city should serve was determined by lot. Every day, the 50 who were serving chose someone to preside over them and he also was chosen by lot. If on the day that he was presiding, the full assembly met, he presided at the assembly.

The council had a secretary and he was elected. But he was elected only for the duration of one tenth of the year. And (no doubt to prevent bureaucracy) he was elected not from among the 50, but from among the 450 members of the council who were not serving at the time.

When members had served on the council, they were forbidden to serve a second time. Thus every person had a chance to serve. And here we come to one of the great benefits of the system. After a number of years, practically every citizen had had an opportunity to be a member of the administration. So that the body of citizens who formed the public assembly consisted of men who were familiar with the business of government.

No business could be brought before the assembly except it had been previously prepared and organized by the council.

When decisions had been taken, the carrying out of them was entrusted to the council. The council supervised all the magistrates and any work that had been given to a private citizen to do.

The Greeks had very few permanent functionaries. They preferred to appoint special boards of private citizens. Each of these boards had its own very carefully defined sphere of work. The coordination of all these various spheres of work was carried out by the council. A great number of special commissions helped to carry out the executive work. For example, there were 10 members of a commission to see after naval affairs, and 10 members of a commission to hear complaints against magistrates at the end of their term. One very interesting commission was the commission for the conduct of religious ceremonies. The Greeks were a very religious people. But most of the priests and officials of the temples were elected and were for the most part private citizens. The Greeks would not have any bunch of Bishops, Archbishops, Popes and other religious bureaucrats who lived by organizing religion. Some of these commissions were elected from the council. But others again were appointed by lot.

At every turn we see the extraordinary confidence that these people had in the ability of the ordinary person, the grocer, the candlestick maker, the carpenter, the sailor, the tailor. Whatever the trade of the individual, whatever his education, he was chosen by lot to do the work the state required.

And yet they stood no nonsense. If a private individual made propositions in the assembly which the assembly considered frivolous or stupid, the punishment was severe.

...What kind of a man was this Greek democrat? Karl Marx has stated that the future type of man, the man of a socialist society, will be a “fully developed individual, fit for a variety 20 of labors, ready to face any change of production, and to whom the different social functions he performs are but so many modes of giving free scope to his own natural and acquired powers.” Here is how Pericles, one of the greatest statesmen of the Greek Democracy, described the ordinary Greek citizen:

Taking everything together then, I declare that our city is an education to Greece, and I declare that in my opinion each single one of our citizens, in all the manifold aspects of life is able to show himself the rightful lord and owner of his own person, and do this, moreover, with exceptional grace and exceptional versatility.

Marx and all the men who have written of a society of democracy and equality had to place it in the future. For our Greek, this conception of the citizen was not an aspiration. It was a fact. The statement occurs in perhaps the greatest of all the Greek statements on democracy, the speech of Pericles on the occasion of a funeral of Athenians who had died in war.

The Greek democrat achieved this extraordinary force and versatility because he had two great advantages over the modern democrat. The first was that in the best days of the democracy, he did not understand individualism as we know it. For him an individual was unthinkable except in the city-state. The city-state of democracy was unthinkable except as a collection of free individuals. He could not see himself or other people as individuals in opposition to the city-state. That came later when the democracy declined. It was this perfect balance, instinctive and unconscious, between the individual and the city-state which gave him the enormous force and the enormous freedom of his personality.

Pericles shows us that freedom, the freedom to do and think as you please, not only in politics but in private life, was the very life-blood of the Greeks. In that same speech, he says:

And, just as our political life is free and open, so is our day-today life in our relations with each other; We do not get into a state with our next-door neighbor if he enjoys himself in his own way, nor do we give him the kind of black looks which, though they do no real harm, still do hurt people’s feelings. We are free and tolerant in our private lives; but in public affairs we keep to the law. This is because it commands our deep respect.

We give our obedience to those whom we put in positions of authority, and we obey the laws themselves, especially those which are for the protection of the oppressed, and those unwritten laws which it is an acknowledged shame to break.
#14856871
Thanks to all who answered my question. The ancient Greeks were on to something, as one of the main problems in politics (today) seems that the skills one need to be elected into a position of power are not the skills needed for leadership. Sortition also eliminates the bias for shorttime policies, that are mainly introduced in order to be re-elected. At the same time authoritarianism is put paid by setting exact term limits. At least on a theoretical basis interesting. Is there any movement/party today, anywhere in the world, that you know of which supports that idea and wants to introduce it?

Edit: Sortition would also solve the problem of (accused) identity politics and representation.
#14857287
Second_best wrote:I'm wondering if there are any concepts for jury based governments? What I mean is a government where people (from a pre-selected group, maybe technocrats?) are chosen at random and who form a kind of jury to run the government. After a term ends a new jury is chosen, and so on. A new constitution in Iceland was developed that way (but politicians rejected it) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icelandic ... E2%80%9313


I don't see a jury system in the Icelandic proposal.

Either way, the idea of electing politicians is that they (hopefully) represent the preferences of the electorate. You can only do that by lot if you select lots of individuals from the population, such that their preferences approach the average in the population. Thus I'd say sortition is only more democratic if the number of randomly selected individuals that make up a decision-making institution is sufficiently large.

The Immortal Goon wrote:Try Marxism!


All we ever got from Marxism is vanguard class bullshit.
#14857476
David Graeber mentioned this in one of his books but didn't go into detail. I'd imagine that there'd be thousands of delegates and meetings would be conducted in the same manner as anarchist meetings with people taking turns to be in charge and to speak and efforts made to reach a consensus that includes as many people as possible. You could use quotas to ensure at least 40% of participants are female, 40% male or 10% black, 10% Latin, 1% native, 60% white, etc.

Occupy Wall Street conducted meetings with large numbers of participants so you could read up on their methods.

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