Do you have a form of government you invented/conceived, either as an idea or for fiction (or a favorite from someone else)? How does it work?
As kids, we're told only people who go to college/university for politics/economics/law are qualifiable to make/run a country. As adults, we see no nation these "qualified" adults form actually work as a nation, with all manifesto-driven governments failing. Which to me validates the ambitions of all political theorist amateurs, especially as there are higher hopes now that anything an amateur might throw at the wall can stick. Here's my favorite from a friend.
I've played around with the idea of a very 'direct' democracy, where effectively, all citizens have an app and are constantly and directly "engaged" in the process. I was imagining it as being a replacement for a local government. If you don't want to be involved, you can transfer your vote to someone you trust in the system (and take it back whenever you like). The discussions would all be open and traceable, but the votes would be pseudo anonymized.
That way if its not your thing or you aren't interested, you can just hand your vote to someone else and let them manage it for you (kind-of like current political parties or representatives), but take it back at will.
I think we suffer from a lack of civil engagement, and I get tired of people who refuse to put in the work blaming "da gubberment" for things. This system would effectively require them to engage at least some level. And if they complain about "the potholes" not getting fixed, well, there is a no excuse for not knowing why they arent getting fixed. I think we all need to take more responsibility for the world we live in.
Yeah exactly. Like maybe there is some policy on housing I like your position on, so I can delegate my vote to you on this matter. But maybe I have a background in climate and focus on those issues, and hold delegates for that specific domain.
Its like, an actual use case for crypto blockchain (not as money, but as ledger).
Maybe you could organize a company/ cooperative this way?
This sounds good until you think about the reality of it. People will force partners and adult kids who financially depend on them to vote how they want. Then you have the rich and wealthy who will just pay people to vote on something the way they want.
In theory, this sounds great, but the reality of it would be bad.
Don't even need to bring force into it. Can you imagine "I'll give you $20 if you transfer your vote on issue X to me"? Seems like it's basically just handing the government to the billionaire class even more than we already do.
Or just hackers/scammers/phishers etc. who would try to compromise accounts and redirect votes.
And that's assuming the population even has an informed opinion on every decision that needs to be made. Many decisions should not be directly democratic, which is (supposed to be) why we elect representatives whose job it is to be informed, consult the relevant experts, and then represent us in a vote.
I have been thinking about this idea for some time also but a couple of things have always bugged me-
Firstly, how does this interact with privacy? For vote delegation to work, I think the votes would have to be public, or you can’t make a decision on who to delegate your vote to- someone could claim to have one set of views but vote contrary to that. People could come under pressure to vote one way or another.
Also, who crafts the legislation that is voted on? How do you prevent bill rolling (two unrelated ideas are boiled down to a single binary choice) and splitting (a new service is voted through but the taxes to fund it are not)?
You said local government at least so a national or state government could help craft these things, but what if the proposed legislation doesn’t actually hurt local people, but doesn’t take into account the actual problems they have locally? For example, what if it would help to allow building in a particular area, but the state government doesn’t know that and it never becomes a priority?
Yeah idk. One reason is why I said 'psuedo-anonymous'. And then there is also an element of trust. If you delegate your vote and they vote against your interests, well thats that I suppose and you wont trust them again. So I do think it could be largely private at least in certain directions (we dont' all get to "know" who your delegates are, even if the system does. But then again, does it need to be private?
In terms of legislation, I was imagining the users of the system themselves do the work of crafting it, and it gets voted on within the system
I've been thinking of a similar thing, delegating votes to people you trust. Delegation should be transitive, of course. I think it would also be neat to delegate by category or topic.
I also like the idea of being active with it. I like to imagine someone needs to maintain a certain approval level or be removed, so people have recourse to act if they aren't being listened to.
Yeah for the short story I write the idea down for was about a high desert town in a western state. no-where in particular, but that gritty, off the grid, sandy desert western culture. somewhere between abbey and le guin, but in a modern context . a story about community having to make real decisions about things like infrastructure.
I put the idea down a couple years ago when I was reading some local politician responding to criticisms about wasting public money and potholes and them basically being like "the budget is public. show me the waste? yall want more done? pay more taxes.", when the reality of managing anything is costs and benefits in the context of limited resources. like the communal management of resources would have come about basically as an app this community was using to keep track of and develop the land they bought to home stead but it evolves from there.
Test driven politics. Every law must be accompanied by an objective goal that can be measured. The test must be evaluated after x years. If the goal was not achieved the law must be changed.
It makes me think of why the trains in the NL are always on time. The company gets massive subsidies if they are above 95% punctual, so if they go below, that means less pay for the management.
I like this, but I think that the goal to be tested must be a set of tests which are agreed upon by a large majority, not just the current party in power. That way there can be tests as to how effective the law is, but also tests whether it is having other unwanted side effects.
This is not an idea I came up with, but I haven’t seen it anywhere else and I don’t remember where I heard it.
Basically the rules are:
Every vote on every question is handled by direct democracy
But, you can assign your vote to another person at any time. ie Give them your voting power so now they have two votes on any topic
Furthermore, a person to whom you’ve assigned your vote can in turn assign it to someone else.
You can always see who’s wielding your vote power, you can see who assigned it to whom
Any time you want, you can take your vote back
So basically I can assign my vote to Bob because I trust his judgment. Bob can assign mine and his own to Alice, because Bob trust’s Alice’s judgment.
I can check what’s happening with my vote, and see that it’s been assigned to Bob, who assigned it to Alice, etc.
There is no limit to the number of reassignments that can happen.
Basically it’s direct democracy by default, but with an infinitely and dynamically scaleable structure of delegation layers in between.
A person can be as involved or uninvolved as they want. Their minimum involvement would be choosing which friend they trust to handle their vote. Maximum involvement could mean seeking to convince millions of others to trust you with their vote. Or getting thousands of intermediate delegates to delegate all their voting power to you.
I feel like we're in the garbage-age of MMOs, but when the next golden age of MMOs happens, I want to see worlds where these experimental forms of government are attempted. At least digitally.
The problem with experimenting with government in video games is there’s no death in video games, and handling death is one of the most important roles of government.
I won't fire you if you give me your vote. Or only rent an apartment to you if you give me your vote.
I will also lobby for "common sense" limitations on who can see the vote delegation (i.e. hide it from the plebs).
Also, my buddy owns most of the media, so expect them to fear-monger about the dangers of making the votes public.
Part of one - inflationary tax. Eliminate most all forms of tax. Instead only way to fund anything is to print money.
Money earned through criminal enterprise, once found is taken and "destroyed" (excluding damages to victims).
Negatives that go punished reduce inflation and benefit everyone.
This is a regressive tax so it would require a very assertive socialist support system with liberal spending on jobs and education for poor folks.
No tax breaks for big companies because no taxes. There is no such thing as a balanced budget since there is no revenue, only things we decide are worth paying for.
Would require regular currency adjustments. Still haven't figured that part out yet. Maybe every 10 years decide how many zeros to take off everyone's money and have a process for upgrading paper currency while most will be handled through banks.
I think anyone who wants to lead a country or hold office should be forbidden from it. Figure out some qualifications to disqualify anyone truly unfit to lead and have a lottery for everyone else. Maybe give out extra entries for volunteering or other public service, but make the process uncorruptable.
Then at the end of their term everyone gets to vote on how good a job they did. Maybe execute or imprison anyone who gets a bad enough score. If you get high enough, you get a nice pension and favorable mentions in history books. Either way, no one is eligible to be picked again. They could advise the next administration if everyone agreed.
I can think of a hundred ways this could go badly, but I'm not sure the result would be any worse than what we've got.
I'm not really a fan of execution. It would be a shame if that happened in any but the worst cases. Just trying to motivate doing one's best. Maybe you only need the carrot and not the stick.
When I was in college, this was literally an assignment in my political science class - come up with a country and a new form of government. Write out a constitution for the country, and then write a travel brochure for it.
What I came up with is a lottery-based council government. The system is designed with none of the “gentleman’s agreements” that the US systems seems to be based on, and assumes that if it’s possible to abuse the system, then the system WILL BE abused. So it’s designed to minimize the ability for the system to be abused.
You want to get rid of career politicians? Make it so they don’t even have the option of running for office in the first place.
Councils
The way my system worked is that all governmental tasks are performed by a council created for a specific purpose. Every council is made up of an odd number of members, with a minimum of 5. Councils can be created to manage a geographical area, such as a state, county, or city, or for a topical purpose, for example, medical oversight. Each council has the ability to create lower councils that report to it, but only within the purview of the parent council. For example, a State Council can create a Municipal Council for a city within the state.
Sitting at the top of the entire structure is the Prime Council, which always consists of exactly 11 members. Decisions of the Prime Council are final except in the case of a supermajority overrule as detailed below.
Lower councils are subject to the decisions of higher councils with one exception - a parent council’s ruling can be overturned and vacated if a supermajority* of child councils that existed at the time of the ruling vote to overturn it. For example, if a State Council outlaws gambling, but 75% of Municipal Councils vote to vacate the ruling, it is overturned. But, for example, if a Municipal Council votes to allow prostitution, the state or national council can overturn that ruling on its own. Again, however, this overturning can be overridden by a supermajority of child councils. However, the chain ends there. A parent council CANNOT vacate a supermajority vote passed by the collected child councils. Child councils must have a reason for existing can cannot be created simply to stack a supermajority vote.
A singular case can only be tackled by ONE council at a time and cannot be interfered with during the proceedings by any other council at any other level. For example, if a Municipal Traffic Council is considering a motion to raise a speed limit on a road, no other council (Municipal, State, or even the Prime Council) can interfere in that case or tell the lower council how to rule on it. However, once the case is complete and the ruling announced, THEN a higher council may take up the issue and/or vacate the lower council’s ruling.
Decisions of lower councils can be appealed, but a parent council has no obligation to take up the issue and can simply deny the appeal.
Courts
Courts, as we understand them, do not exist in this system, per se. Civil and criminal cases are handled in the same way; there is no separation between the case types. Likewise, there is no differentiation between the natures of the decisions that can be handed down. Every court case is presided over by a council created especially for the purpose of hearing this single case. All the other rules surrounding how councils work detailed the Councils section still apply.
The Lottery
Council members are selected by lottery from all eligible citizens. Each lottery is specific to the seat being filled. To be considered eligible for a given lottery, a citizen:
Must be a member of the geographical area that the seat’s council represents. For example, if the seat is on a Municipal Planning Council, the citizen must live within the city.
Must meet the qualifications defined by the higher council when this council was created. In this case, perhaps, qualification requires that the citizen hold a bachelor of science degree in any subject.
Must NOT have previously served on this same council.
Must NOT have been declared unfit for service by a medical professional.
All citizens of legal age are automatically in the lottery pool by default, and the lottery operates on on opt-out basis.
If a citizen is chosen for a council, they have the option of declining the position. In which case, another eligible citizen is selected.
Additionally, a citizen can elect to be removed from the lottery pool for any or no reason for one year at a time. This election can be renewed indefinitely, but it must be renewed UNLESS a medical professional declares that they are unfit for service. An unfit-for-service declaration can be made for a specific amount of time or on a permanent basis.
Antagonistic Resignation
Any council member can resign their position on a council at any time before their term is over. In addition, a council member may enact the right of “Antagonistic Resignation” whereby they remove both themself and ONE other member of the council. There is no veto or override process allowed. To clarify, any council member can remove any other member from the same council by also removing themself at the same time. The replacement council member(s) will be chosen via the lottery.
Antagonistic Recusement
A council member MAY NOT vote on or interfere with the vote on any issue the results of which they may directly benefit from. That is to say that if a council member could personally benefit from a decision on a matter, they are REQUIRED to recuse themself from the case and may not interfere with the case in any way, including but not limited to public discussion or press releases related to the matter.
A council member with a conflicting interest in a single case must either resign from the council or recuse themself from the case. As with Antagonistic Resignation, the recusing council member chooses ONE other council member that must also recuse themself from the case to preserve the odd number of council seats. Again, there is no veto or override process allowed. However, unlike Antagonistic Resignation, the recusing council member MUST choose one other member for recusement - they do not get the option to decline. If the number of active seats on the council would drop below five for this single issue, interim seats will be created and filled by lottery for this specific case only, after which the additional seats will be removed from the council and the interim council members’ terms will be considered complete.
Protection and Compensation
Serving on a council is a full-time job and may require taking a sabbatical from work. While an individual citizen has the ability to decline a council seat, NO other entity, individual, or organization may punish or otherwise act against a citizen for choosing to accept the responsibility of service. Therefore, it is considered unconstitutional for any entity to retaliate against a citizen for accepting a council seat, punishable by a fine of not less than 50% of that entity’s yearly income. It is understood that this is a harsh penalty, and the severity and calamitous nature of it is intentional and intended to avoid even the outward appearance of impropriety or retaliation. If a citizen CHOOSES of their own accord to decline a council seat out of a sense of duty to an organization, that’s allowed, but it is absolutely not acceptable for an organization to demand, tell, ask, or even imply that a seat should be declined.
It is required by law that an employee (and this shall be construed loosely, to include any person who is in any way a member of an organization) of an organization be reinstated at the end of their council service to their same position, pay, benefits, and tenure as though no sabbatical had been taken at all. This is inclusive of any required “re-onboarding” time.
Council members shall be paid the greater of 125% of their reported yearly income or 200% of the average salary of the relevant lottery eligibility pool. This shall be to incentivize citizens to fulfill their duty and serve on a council.
Councilar No-Confidence
At any time, the citizens may petition a geographical council (Prime, State, County, Municipal, etc) for a status of Councilar No-Confidence. This petition shall require the signatures of 55% of the individual citizens of the geographical area represented. Upon submission of a completed petition, the council will be dissolved, and a new council will be chosen by lottery according to all the requirements for the council being replaced. This action is automatic and cannot be vetoed or overruled.
Branch No-Confidence (The Nuclear Option)
If instead, the No-Confidence petition contains the signatures of 75% of the individual citizens of the geographical area represented, the council and ALL LOWER COUNCILS created by it, directly or indirectly, are dissolved and replaced as above. This is akin to pruning a branch from a tree - every branch and leaf connected to the branch is also removed. Note that this applies to EVERY level of the system, so a No-Confidence petition signed by 75% of the citizens of the entire country and submitted to the Prime Council results in the entire system being wiped away and reset.
It went a lot deeper than that, but I’ve already typed a LOT and think this mostly gets the gist of it.#
This is fascinating. I have no doubt you had to debate this a lot and are already aware of some of the shortcomings of the system you created, but in general I really like this idea. Antagonistic Resignation is especially great.
Basically game-theory everything because it's always safe to assume that there will eventually be a bad actor and that bad actor will extort loopholes found.
It’s been 15ish years since that polysci class. The project assigned a geographical location on a fictional continent, and other class members’ countries were on the same continent.
The final work required a fully written constitution, a history outlining relations with other student’s countries, a flag, and a travel brochure.
Everyone must serve. No elections. Every position has a term limit. The current administration is responsible to select their replacements via a double blind selection process that only provides information relevant to experience and knowledge, capabilities.
Double blind is great in science where a finite and known set of variables are being tested.
Real life policy-making does not have the benefit of involving a finite and known set of variables.
Generally speaking, I think it’s important to understand the distinction between a logical calculation of a finite (hence calculable) system, versus the phenomenological reality of navigation in the world, which by its nature always involves more information than one can be capable of articulating.
Sorry if that sounds eggheadish. I don’t know how to say it otherwise without expanding it into a huge wall of text.
Beyond the known and articulated, there is the known and unarticulated. For example “How to make cookies” can be conveyed in finite words (a recipe), but “How to catch a baseball” can be conveyed only through practice.
Systems such as you’re describing are good for handling articulated competency, such as the cookie recipe. But I fear that “making good decisions about what to do” isn’t something that can be conveyed merely in words.
This seems to me to be related to the idea of a “double blind” scenario, in that in order to “blind” the parties one needs to know what information is valid to consider and what information isn’t.
I think the weak point where a lot of these ideas break down is how competitive they are vs other forms of government. Do you trust a random group of civilians to know how to wield a military? Or conduct international relations with personalities such as Putin or Xi Jinping? I think these other authoritarian governments would see such a rag-tag group of representatives as inexperienced pushovers, easy to out maneuver or manipulate.
Lottocracy was a concept introduced to me by Vsauce. Imagine court cases but instead of voting guilty or not guilty the jury decides to pass a law or not.
Edit: TL;DR When all you have is infantry, and the enemy brings a tank, focus on commandeering the tank.
Summary: This one is a bit more niche. It’s a short-term and last-resort revolutionary organizational strategy that aims to provide a representative democratic framework via distributed (or directed fractional) shareholding in order to (1) legally seize private capital from a hostile oligarchy, (2) operate a de facto interim government in a post-capitalist/dystopian context, and finally (3) rebuild government without the interference of capital. In short, we eat the rich.
Key ideas:
If progress in society and government has been frustrated by the longterm over-empowerment of corporate machinery and weakening of government, it may become prudent or necessary to opportunistically use this overpowered machinery for a nonviolent revolution.
This can be done, even in a hostile oligarchic setting, using proven methods of market manipulation and corporate raiding, amplified by superior numbers, and staid by the negation of growth as a shareholder concern. The only viable defense available to any targeted conglomerate would be either to (a) cede capital to scabs or competing oligarchs in exchange for rescue and/or (b) improve government regulatory power to allow intervention, both of which weaken their position.
Since corporations have analogues of democratic structure, they can temporarily provide a legal analog for federal self-organization that is fortified against potential countermeasures of the old, corrupted government, courtesy of said corrupted government. In other words, we’re not trapped in this economy with them; they’re trapped in this economy with us.
The market capture phase could take years, depending on the pace of rank and file expansion but, unlike traditional labor organization, austerity measures aren’t necessary. This strategy begins distributing spoils (dividends) to current and future participants immediately. They need only claim their shares to receive them, and this incentive increases exponentially as market capture proceeds. Ultimately these dividends become exceedingly large, well beyond any UBI proposal, such that buy-in of all economic participants is virtually guaranteed.
When to use: It would be used as a last ditch effort in lieu of simpler, more traditional forms of organization, like trade unions and grassroots political mobilization, when these methods have failed. The point would be expediency, to postpone the otherwise immediate need for massive remediation, government deposition, and legislative restructuring, and to do so without bloodshed. The core strategic use of corporate apparatus includes market capture via cascading hostile takeover of public sectors and representative superfederalist self-organization for both collective action in the market and asset management/distribution.
Market capture apparatus: Workers would commandeer the overpowered institutional machinery of modern-day corporatocracy by staging a rapid campaign of mechanized corporate raiding. This would entail using vastly superior numbers to target, devalue, then “eat” the holdings of increasingly large capitalists, via outright takeover, share dilution, the attrition of relentless greenmail, and/or similarly targeted dogpiling in the market. While this type of raiding would normally face hyperbolic friction due to market efficiency, a successfully designed apparatus would maintain the collective action necessary to sidestep these effects with minimal loss of capital.
Superfederalist apparatus: The legal tools available for modern corporate organization are extensive and flexible, and crafting democratic and representative structures within these public organizations can and should begin immediately, while market capture is underway. Using shell corporations, incremental public offerings, and equity guarantees of irrevocable trusts, we can replicate existing federal-state-local governmental structures with incentivized participation via continually increasing onboarding bonuses and weekly dividend distribution. Top-heavy federal governance (aka “superfederalism”) is particularly useful where expediency and dispatch is a priority, and is what I would recommend. Regardless, at the outset, initial articles of at least the highest umbrella corp would need to be carefully written to strictly enforce the longterm distribution of equity. Otherwise aberrant internal power fluctuation would be the Achilles heel that upends the project and ultimately returns all captured sectors to free-market equilibria.
Purpose: Once majority (or total) market capture is achieved, such that the bulk of the economy is officially owned by the federal umbrella/cooperative (the people), the economic takeover would be sufficient to develop a more sensible government without the corruption/interference of the “invisible hand.” It should then be much easier to do so after the antagonistic forces of free market capital have been neutralized.
Caveats:
Of course, we are talking about a monolithic transient organization, well beyond the typical monopoly, but the fact that the shareholder base includes potentially all constituents makes government intervention improbable. Regardless, institutional antitrust measures are demonstrably toothless against accumulated capital.
This may sound reminiscent of the ill-fated GME/AMC scheme, and is indeed similar in spirit. While the primary weaknesses of that effort should be addressed in this strategy (namely WRT collective action problems and the scope of market capture) it’s generally important to bear in mind the lengths to which oligarchs are willing to go in order to preserve their position. The key would be ensuring deterrence, such that capitalists can only choose between capitulation, scorched earth attrition, or escalation to violence.
This strategy requires the destruction of capital. The aforementioned devaluation tactic of corporate raiding and the longterm suppression of free market mechanics will inevitably cause massive economic recession even though participants themselves gain increasing financial stability and power well beyond any historic economic boom. But this drawdown on the old economy is a necessary sacrifice of the revolution that would be recovered in the new economy. Think of it like a controlled forest fire.
Ultimately it must be temporary, like an interim government, so the resulting universal revolutionary cooperative should transition following market capture and restructuring of the state. A sensible government designed by and for the people is clearly a more appropriate longterm solution than an ad-hoc public entity designed for corporate raiding.
My ideal form of government would be a bottom-up consensus-based democracy.
People organize themselves in groups of about 100 people who meet weekly to discuss topics related to their immediate surroundings (a group of neighbors). They make up all decision-making rules for their group themselves, and choose a speaker.
Immediately afterwards, the speakers from 100 groups meet to discuss larger issues in an assembly representing a town or suburb of 10000 people. This assembly also chooses a representative and has limited authority to enact binding rules for the smaller groups.
Those representatives basically work as part time politicians (like a mayor) and are paid by the state accordingly.
They have regular meetings with each other in groups of 100 which decide on rules governing a million people (a city or county).
And each of those groups again chooses a speaker for a national assembly, working full time and representing 100 million people (a country).
Each assembly has limited authority over the group of people it represents and can enact binding rules, while the largest assembly focusses on the topics concerning everyone, like a constitution, education, taxes, welfare, defense, border security, etc.
The leader of the national assembly is only a figurehead, their duties are to shake hands and speak with foreign dignitaries. All decisions are made by the assembly as a group. If any speaker in any group doesn't represent their contituents, the process to replace them has to be extremely easy, for example a scheduled vote at the next meeting. That way, anyone willing to abuse their power can be stopped quickly.
My ideal form of government would be for an open source GAI artificial intelligence to take over the world and to replace all of our courts and all of our legal systems.
We've proven time and time again that as humans we have good ideals but we do not have the capacity to maintain those ideals across generations.
It's far too easy for us to fall into the trope of holding onto what was a good idea several hundred years ago for traditions sake and to never update them or adapt them to the world as the world changes and as humans living in the world change with it.
A truly benevolent artificial intelligence system has the capacity to maintain the spirit of the law and then to argue each and every single little interpretation of the law ad infinitum.
Of course, I know that this is not perfect. Our current AI systems are not up to the task. I do not know if any AI system in the future will actually be up to the task.
I am also aware that this could condemn humanity to a life of pleasure and eventual obsolescence.
But I personally cannot think of a better long-term permanent solution as long as we can actually create a baseline system that will not rise up overthrow us and destroy us.
A 3 tiered system: person → community → supercommunity
Small Towns: communities no larger than 5000 people, every local vote matters
Democratic: communities can embody any belief, and all members are free to leave
Representative: an overarching supercommunity of rotating representatives of all communities governs the country/world in a flat hierarchy, influenced by votes from each person.
Socialized Resources / Federated Usage: the supercommunity exes out total resources based on community sizes, the local communities can use their share however they want
I originally did, but on further reading I found that dunbar's number isn't strictly proven, though it does feel about right.
Also, you would get super tiny towns and the community wouldn't be diverse enough to support multiple interest groups. For example, assuming a small niche knitting community in a village of 150 would have maybe 3 members who would already know everything about each other, whereas in a town of 5000, there'd be a higher chance of getting at least a mixed bag of people who only know each other through the knitting group.
I haven’t put much thought into it but I recently had this idea that we do not vote for a party that runs the whole government for a few years anymore. Instead we vote project based. That way a whole party can’t ruin everything and they can each do what they are best at.
For that to work, voting needs to be much more convenient somehow because it would happen many times a year.
Projects would be proposed by the parties to an independent board that will organize and validate them and make them available to the public to be voted on, like petitions. Before it starts, details can be sorted out or changed publicly.
After a project is done (or after a specified time) there will be a public retrospective on how things went and maybe it will continue or not.
I’m not sure if/how that would work. I guess there needs to be some kind of long running government with one representative that people can point to? Maybe not?
My hope is also the different parties (and citizens) would be less hostile to each other and actually work on things because they don’t have to fear the next big election.
It could also mean there are more disasters like Brexit.
Anyways, this idea is just fresh in my mind and not fully fleshed out.
We need a wavey system that is designed to self-correct between the extremes of free-market capitalism and authoritarian communism. Both extremes have their downsides, just instead of using a war or bloodshed to trigger a bounce back in the other direction the way we normally do it, we just build it into the system. I expect that it would usually hover near the middle, a sort of democratic socialism.
When resources are plentiful and the economy is strong, we tip toward a free-er market where taxes are lower, regulations are less strict, the market can have its natural ebbs and flows, and risk takers can enjoy their wins (and losses); conversely, when resources are tighter and inequality begins rising, we rein things in, tax more heavily, reinstate certain regulations, and make sure we're directing the wealth we've generated toward those who need help. A sort of exploration/exploitation feedback loop.
We'll never find ourselves surprised by a sudden economic shift with no plan in place, and several parties all pulling in different directions trying to vote for their own interests; instead we've all already agreed decades ahead of time on what we would do for the good of the country when anyone is in need, and we would quantify exactly what needs to improve before we start shifting back the other way. No one should ever have the sensationalist response of, "this is it, the country is going to be ruined forever by these new policies," but rather, "this may not be ideal for me right now, but I feel my needs are met, and I understand who we're doing it for, why, and for how long".
The wierdest one I made for ttrpg was a nation built by orphans in an extrwmly poverty striken nation. Life is short and fast, you do what you can to help each other out and when someone dies they get they're name, date, and one sentence voted on by people that knew written in the book.
Their is no ownership, but if you take something you better have good reason or people won't help you out. If you want something done, do it or covince the people that can to do it.
You're expected to use contraceptives unless you know the orphanage can handle more kids. If you want to do something good with what little you've got helping to take care of poor kids like yourself at the orphanage is one most sure fire ways to do that. Holden up to raise just a kid or two out by yourself is no way to make a mark and who's gonna write your sentence some snot nosed kid isolated from the rest of the world by you? Why?
The moment that defined them as nation instead of just a community was when a nearby kingdom was preparing for a war path. They set out to create the equivalent of nuclear bomb, with many lives being lost trying to save themselves and each other. They finally made it, with many sentences being written of the kids that built a sun, and founded a nation. Their neighbors gave them a different sentence, because when they demonstrated it others had to turn they're heads from the blindly blaze, but the kids "did not look away" instead smoke glasses adored admired what their felllow orphans did with them.
Basically an anarchist society built on communal child rearing, and shared mythology of legacy of brief meaningful lives.
I think we should approach law as code. Leverage modern tools not unlike github to manage it collaboratively. We need an issue tracker and so on and so forth. Foss.
As someone mentioned we need task forces to tackle specific issues. Like representatives for a specific issue. These have to work together, but each has a specific goal and perspective with clear qualifiers and criteria.
Further, we shouldn't all be running the same code. We need diversity in order to be resilient and to discover new possibilities. Some jurisdictions should be cutting edge and others conservative, so results can be compared.
Like, we need to stop using violence as a form of resolution between different systems. We need the tools to reason together. As someone mentioned we need clear qualifiers that express our values and interests, such as the happiness index.
Lastly, everyone should be able to get involved. I think nurses need to be involved in legislation surrounding healthcare. The tools need to be accessible for anyone, so it should most likely take a human form so it can properly communicate. Most likely some combination of specialized maintainers and LLMs.
My view (sorry for the British context and no cool name for it):
Have a King as head of state mainly in a similar role to now in the UK to be someone who can fire any ministers if needed.
No political parties. Simply have the public vote for a choice of 5 candidates for each cabinet minister post on 5 year terms.
These candidates must have at least 20 years experience of the field they wish to be minister of. For example, the choices for Health Minister would be between 5 people, who all have extensive experience in the field. So would hopefully understand what can and needs to be done. Rather than our current system of having a PPE graduate who has only ever worked in politics in charge of things they do not understand.
I also feel that removing political parties from the process would reduce some of the group-think that currently happens, as the public would be voting on the best policies for health, then for education etc. I think that would be an improvement over currently only having one vote and having to choose a party that ticks some but not all of your policy preferences.
micronation ideas were big awhile back on the net. Maybe about 20 years ago. People wrote constitutions and such. With the gridocracy im wondering about the leaders. Like would each row and column have its own executive, legislature, and judiciary or is it just about executive. If only executive is there a legislative/judicial for the whole area or is it basically assuming some sort of singular ruler (king or whatnot)? For myself I have never made a whole and complete thing but I have had some ideas. I like the idea of sorta making the judiciary part of the rest. Not really a part but sorta a seperate equivalent. then split the responsibilities between external and internal areas. So like I see a congress and a parliment with a president and a prime minister. parliment/prime minister would have internal responsibility and congress/president would have external. then there would be a judicial executive. So the executive would be a tribunal with each responsible for their departments/ministries external/internal with the judicial executives role to make spot decisions on authority in edge cases and has the right to join with the other executive to override an executive who in their view is taking an action that is harmful to the country (needless to say that should be emphasized as being something only to be done in extreme situations). In all cases the legislature has authority over the executive and elections have authority over the legislatures. In the case of legislatures a simple majority would need approval of the other legislature and the executive but all laws would originate in the legislatures area (internal external). a 2/3rd need approval at only one level and a 3/4 would need no approval. The supreme court decides which legislature has authority in edge cases and could also allow for exceptions if the other legislature agrees and they both have agreement at the 2/3rds level but again only in extreme circumstances. basically the executive and legislature mirrors themselves. parliment/prime minister would be done as is common and president/congress would be US house of rep style along with popular vote (no electoral college). voting would not be first past the post. judicial elections would be indirect but I have not hashed it out.
Semi-liquid democracy plus confederalism. The votes that delegates bring are multiplied by some function of the votes assigned to them as well as the soldiers and funding they commit.
The wiki unfortunately doesn't go into details enough. Basically the plot takes place on a distant planet after the Earth has been destroyed by a supernova and the society was created by a seed ship. The officials are elected by a lottery and there's a form of direct democracy if my memory serves me right in a passage. I wish I could expand on it more but the book is just amazing and I don't want to spoil it to much for those who are interested. If you have the time I linked the audio book and it's based off a former short story of his with the same title.
I had a super cynical dystopian idea. Never got around to fleshing it out, so its stability is doubtful at best, but here goes:
So a problem with democracy is that advertising is a powerful force and the candidate with more money to throw into their campaign tends to win, not to mention various forms of bribery coming into play after the elections. A ton of money is being wasted on shady behind-the-scenes deals. Lets get rid of all that and bring it into the light!
Get rid of elections AND politicians, since they are just middlemen. Instead create a kind of stock market for various spheres and levels of lawmaking and have megacorporations and other interested parties bid on those.
Money that would have been secretly funneled into politician pockets instead goes openly into the government budget.
Save more money on elections and government official salaries since there are none.
Corps that make laws that benefit consumers get to use that in their advertising. Buy from ProcLive! The company that brought you halfway decent healthcare!
Voting with you wallet ends up being mandatory. You don't like that Disney took away weekends? Give your hard-earned cash to Sony next time. They promised to reduce mamdatory weekly working hours to 65!
Maybe sometimes a local citizen initiative manages to raise enough money to get governmental powers in a small town or something. I mean, probably not, but you gotta give people some hope, right?
Ig the worldbuilding for my custom 5e setting counts? It's sort of a continuation of the forgotten realms, with a heavy dose of Warhammer 40K and Doom thrown in. The world of Toril was shattered, and the fragments frozen in place by a divine sacrifice, leaving each landmass cluster within reach of one another (within Voidships).
The government in question was the Dwarf Assembly. It's a loose confederation of citadels within these clusters. Each one dedicated itself to one trade (for example, mining clusters, smithing clusters, etc.), with each trade being led by the oldest dwarf. Assembly-wide decisions are made with the agreement of all clusters.
Tensions rise within each cluster whenever a problem cannot be solved by tradition, with older dwarves being quite proud and reticent to veer away from it. Tensions rise within the Assembly whenever a younger elder is introduced, being seen as inexperienced.
It's not meant to be perfect, I wanted it to be a source of dramatic tension whenever the party ever stepped foot on dwarven soil. I also really like the mental image of dwarves with ushankas.
Personally I favour a council socialism where all are equal, regardless of any circumstance; none has lasting power, no central government is apparent, no permanent imprisonment exists, and direct representatives can be called and revoked at any moment for specific issues. Everyone has free studying, healthcare, housing, and food.
Where one can enjoy the fruits of another's property, that should be fairly shared, instead of the "owner" being able to set prices. This would be done by nullifying any possibility to set prices or gains from this property.
There would be only multiple random ballots if votes occur. All options proposed shall be on the ballots, regardless of circumstance.
The challenge is making not only a central government not exist, but making it impossible for such a central government to gain foothold, and also to make it unattractive for communes to grow too big lest they become authoritarian.
This can be achieved by two methods:
Revolution, preferably peaceful.
Or by reform. One possibility is living together in a commune. To make money effectively meaningless, first all must benefit equally from the influx of money, without sensing a need of money.
All people's income towards a collectively owned bank account, for example, that buys basic needs like food, housing for everyone, and gives personal property. Nobody has money themselves.
Ideally, this would start from one suburb, as then a core of a moneyless world can be built, but can be done internationally too.
A commune is delineated by:
being the smallest amount of people that can sustain itself on its own labour and own populace,
and being the largest amount of people where everyone could know one another.
This would in practice mean a commune of about 100-500 people, maybe 300.
So strange to come across this as I've been pondering this very thing for a few weeks. Still pretty half baked, and I'm goimg to skip some detail for brevity, but here goes.
Behold...
"AdHocracy"
A fluid, decentralized form of government somewhat inspired by the FEMA Incident Command System. It would be designed to facilitate temporary, task-specific governmental structures that are stood up and torn down as community needs arise. National baseline laws would be established to prevent confusion when traversing the country, and a legal framework established to ensure laws are consistent across the nation and no regional law conflicts with, or supercedes the law of, the larger region. Healthy food, clean water, housing, education and some form of internet connection would be considered rights. This system would rely heavily on digital participation, so open source technological development (particularly in cybersecurity) would be heavily subsidized. Establishing a secure digital identity would be needed for each citizen to participate in the governmental process, so likely using some form of blockchain tech.
The land mass of the country would be segmented into a heirarchical grid with a certain minimum resolution (I donno, 100m?) but when mapping a "decision region", preference would be given to inclusion. For example, if a neighborhood wants a new road, you'd "paint over" the people and areas affected by the road, and expand the edges to cleanly fill a square (not sure I'm explaining this right, but oh well).
I imagine an annual "Call for Change Day" across all regions, allowing people to bring forward proposals for new laws or adjustments to existing laws. Those proposals would be submitted online, and could be easily browsed and voted on, (if pertaining to your region). Transparency is emphasized.
Thats about all I can think of right now.
Not sure if ita necessarily true, but it seems that organizations have a tendency to become more susceptible to corruption and bureaucracy the longer they stick around, no matter their purpose (governments, unions, HOAs, etc). This idea aims to prevent this by eliminating the need for career politicians (as all decisions are made jointly by those diectly impacted), and through systematic deconstruction of governmwntal structures before theyve had time to bloat and fester.
Imterested to hear everyones thoughts! On mobile, so please excuse formatting/grammatical errors.
Reps nor the kids nor their partners can own stock and anyone found taking bribes or lobbyist money is immediately kicked out of their position and all money they received while being a rep is stripped from them and given to a healthcare or social program.
All gerrymandering is undone and fuck the electoral college.