Democracy vs direct e-democracy and the rule of law

    Representative democracy on a historical scale is a new phenomenon, one might say experimental. For a little more than 300 years of practice, some results can be summed up, but first, the reasons for the very principle of delegation should be noted.

    The first obvious reason is the inability to gather all the people (even those who have passed a certain qualification, for example property) in one place and even more so, the continuous functioning of such a public authority. The second reason is the impossibility of popular decision-making that requires a certain education, qualifications and knowledge. This is if we look at the issue from the theoretical point of view, but in historical reality there was one reason - people did not evenly belong to power because of the uneven distribution of wealth, position in society, influence and other factors. And in the transition to democratic forms, the top simply fixed this inequality with the help of the “delegation” mechanism, formally declaring the equality of votes.

    What has changed since then and do we have alternative ways of government? Of course, over the past 15 years, the greatest leap in development has been received by means of communication, mobile communications and the Internet. And it became clear to everyone that the old representative form of democracy was out of date. Indeed, now, for the first time in all time, starting from city-states, it has become possible to gather all citizens both in virtual space and without the help of delegates to make direct decisions. “Crutches” are no longer needed in both the legislative and executive branches, and even in the judiciary. Yes, the very concept of a “branch” loses all meaning.

    Let us now look back at the historical representation of democracy, parliamentarism, political parties, ministries and departments, the state budget, the vertical of power, the most fair courts and putting pieces of paper in the slot. What guarantees does the voter have that his deputy, if he is also elected, will lobby his interests? Change of opinion will be possible only in a few years. Those who voted for a deputy who scored fewer points have no representative at all. And everything that the candidate spoke about during the election campaign is forgotten immediately after the end of the vote. Nor is any responsibility for violation of the promised promised by the law, and the words are not fixed by any agreement, their execution is entirely on the conscience of the deputy. If we say that the chosen one is acting somehow wrong, then he will rightly answer us:

    A deputy, an official, a judge, a president are outlawed, albeit for a limited time, but just the limitedness of this time pushes them to efforts to “consolidate” their personal positions more than to efforts for state creativity. As a result, it is much more difficult for us to imagine a hereditary monarch robbing the treasury of the state than a president selling the country in parts and stuffing his personal pocket. Naturally, the monarch knows for sure that this country was given to him forever and will remain to his descendants, therefore, he feels responsibility much more sharply and it prevails over a sense of unlimited power.

    What is needed for democracy to work? Firstly, informationif the voter does not know something important that could influence his choice among the candidates, he will not be able to vote adequately. Secondly, an independent choice requires freedom from the opinions of others, the ability to think, the desire to have one’s own point of view. And the representatives we have chosen deprive the ns of the right to both of these determining factors. What is the opinion of a person if propaganda processes it from childhood, imposing patterns of thinking, and forming firm associations in his head about the key forms of organization of society. To think differently, even just to fantasize, going beyond issues of material well-being and the most primitive desires, for today's average person is something on the verge of enlightenment.

    In the era of global corporations, brainwashing has become the main driver of a consumer society. The slogan “in people you need to cultivate desires” has become a dogma not only for business, but also for the authorities. Of course, how to get their money, attention, and votes from the people from the people - one needs to find their vices, desires, motivations. New times and new high technologies have so far brought more slavery than freedom, only methods have changed, everything has become much more sophisticated. “There is no hopeless slavery than the slavery of those slaves who consider Himself free from fetters” - Johann Wolfgang Goethe. Against this, there is a reaction that spilled over into Wikileaks, Anonymous, anti-globalists.

    But let’s digress from the horrors and obscurantism of today and think,how can we nevertheless benefit from the technologies that have come to every home with communications . So, in what procedures can direct democracy be expressed through virtual presence?

    Autonomy and self-government of small groups

    In general, the concept of a country is not natural for electronic space, nor are there any boundaries or distances. People can be situationally united according to common interests, views or geographically, nationally, religiously or culturally. The decisions taken do not require funding from the state budget, because people can create and fill out a micro-budget and spend it to implement the decision they made. The implementation of self-government will turn into local community projects, and all the necessary goods and services for these projects can be procured through tender mechanisms. The advantages are obvious, neither of any cuts in budgets, nor of any long chains in passing funds, the complete absence of parasites sitting on the path of decisions and money.

    Great things

    Obviously, today’s states, unlike yesterday’s empires, are getting harder and harder to do “great things”, because this requires enormous expenses for motivation and bringing the will of a large number of people into harmony with a single vector. But in the electronic environment there again appears the possibility of “great things”, and, by their nature, they are no different from social projects for small groups. The approach is scalable and flexible.

    Direct informing

    The monopoly on the media is disappearing, everyone, having spent minimal resources, can write and publish, broadcast videos, voice recordings of podcasts, he also becomes a reporter from his current place of residence, a news channel about himself and about what is happening around. Powdering the brains of the masses will be harder and harder.

    Personal competencies

    It is time to recognize that inequality is the nature of man, and no matter how anyone wants to drive everyone by the same standard, there are more or less kind, more or less smart, more or less qualified in different areas. It would be foolish to assume that the voice of the milkmaid in voting on global financial issues should be equivalent to the voice of the doctor of sciences, who wrote a dozen monographs on this issue, or equal to the voice of a large businessman who invested heavily in a project that directly depends on the decision made. The issue of competencies is solved by introducing a coefficient of recognition of the authority of opinion, that is, each person becomes a public expert and gains “weight” in making decisions that require qualifications.

    Lack of state budget

    The abolition of this attribute of statehood also provides for the complete abolition of the state apparatus and the abolition of taxes. The place of taxes will be taken by the financial participation of citizens in public projects, and this very participation will determine the “influence” of a person in society, the weight of his vote, the degree of trust and respect for his opinion. The disappearance of state structures will also lead to the distribution of their functions among citizens.

    Lawmaking, Executive, Judiciary

    All three branches of government in direct e-democracy are concentrated in every citizen. If everything is somehow intuitively clear with legislation and the executive branch, then judicial functions can become some kind of service that citizens order from a person or a group of highly qualified experts in the matter under consideration and the authority of this group is recognized by the parties, and the work is paid in an open manner.

    If we have already sketched the features of e-democracy in our thoughts, we will move on to alternative forms of government. For example, why not replace the election with exams?Well, indeed, after all, each position should be replaced by the best applicant, and choosing the best through conducting “trials” is a long-standing reliable way. Now let's think about how many of our deputies today can withstand even a small excursion into history, geography or religion, answer a couple of competent questions from economics and finance, solve the simplest differential equation, can find the extremum of a function, or solve a logical problem? Yes, amazing ignorance and unskilledness prevail in all our bodies of power. So, conducting exams is more effective than elections.

    Now we doubt that the people should be a source of power. But the only real alternative to democracy can be the rule of law over the will of the people. The people, of course, are against it, for the past three hundred years they have been telling us that all power is from us. True, they manipulated us as they wanted, but that was the appearance, and everyone managed to get used to the thought of themselves as a source of power. But then everyone will have to recognize themselves as atheists, since all religions of the world recognize the eternity and unwaveringness of laws established by higher powers. And certainly, a believer always remembers the rule of law over the will of man. This applies to all religions, the only question is what kind of law. This disagrees, but in fact, this is not such a cardinal obstacle that we see in the example of the Ottoman Empire, where citizens had the right to be judged by the laws of their faith, by Christian, Jewish or Islamic laws.

    From the point of view of searching for alternative forms of the state, modern democracy has a very aggressive position and does not recognize any other development paths other than its own western “civilized” path. Home delivery of democracy has already become a common phrase, but Arab countries can also be outraged, they say, look - in Europe and America, the complete decline in morals, morals and ethics, law and decency are not respected, people live in terrible ignorance of Sharia law. It is necessary to save the infidels from themselves. But it’s time to come to your senses, such an “let's save someone” approach is characteristic only of Western civilization, the eastern world is much more tolerant of alternative forms.

    The question of ethics and morality is possible only in a religious society, because without the recognition of supreme authority over itself, nothing can voluntarily keep a person within the framework of the rule of law. At the same time, he applied “voluntary restraint” here specifically to emphasize the oldest abuse of the interpretation of the law, which we see from the clergy of any religion. As a result, religion is as far from God as jurisprudence from justice.

    Democracy is a form of government for an atheist , it provides people with the maximum opportunity to live according to their own laws, change them for themselves, play with justice. And how can laws change? How can justice change?

    The form of the state with the rule of law, however, is not so speculative; it has existed much longer than modern liberal democracy. To this form, with slight deviations, one can add Rome to the period of the republic (law was considered higher than the Senate), the United States until the 20th century, the Mongolian state at the beginning of its existence (where Yase - the code of laws of Genghis Khan were higher than the kurultai and khan), the Arab caliphate during the period of the righteous caliphs etc. You can list on the page, these are only the most famous examples.

    Total secularism appeared only in the 20th century, and to this day it completely destroyed the people's notion of responsibility, the concept of family, duty, honor and justice. World wars and millions of lives have become evidence of the faith of individuals in their exclusive will, raising their own pride in dogma and recognition of the complete impunity of power. Will it be possible to overcome the consequences of this dark time, which has now brought us complete disappointment in the idea of ​​the state as such? And what is the role of new electronic means of communication in this process - we will see in the coming years.

    Personally, I think that with a high intellectual and cultural level of citizens, any state form will be good, and with a low one, any form will degenerate and degrade. Therefore, the key roles of electronic and communication technologies should be educational, cultural, aesthetic and educational roles. Accessibility of information alone is not enough, personal examples are also important, popularizers of this accessibility and, of course, modifications in the structure of education. In order for the idea to familiarize yourself with something from the scientific, philosophical and artistic heritage of the past centuries, and not to cut into primitive two-way games or discuss the scandalous showbiz news, in your schoolchild’s head, you need to make more efforts than to invent new electronic forms of democracy.

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