‘Direct Democracy’, the only form of Democracy
In the Direct Democracy, all people participate directly to the political decisions. Basically, people can vote to approve all the laws. The duty of the governance is just to execute and implement the approved decisions.
Of course the small daily decisions of the ordinary administration would not require to be voted by the population, but all activities of the governance would be transparent and publicly visible.
Nowadays it is possible to implement this system using the voting online. It was not possible before the era of Internet. If you are worried about sabotages, they happens also with the traditional voting system. For very important themes, a parallel sample voting on paper could be done anyway.
By collecting a sufficient numbers of supporters, people can directly propose laws. Of course also the elected members can propose laws, but the people will vote to approve them.
Now many people would object: “What if only 10% of people participate to the vote for a law? Would they decide for the whole population?”
Yes! As well in the Representative Democracy, if only 1% of the population go to vote at the general elections, the 1% decides for the whole population.
And furthermore, even the 0,5% of the population is more representative than a few hundreds of parliamentary members, which are the 0,00…% of the population. And there is no reason to trust the parliamentary members (PM) more that the other people. PMs have mostly zero knowledge and competence on the laws they vote for!
The details of the laws proposals are tuned by the groups of ‘technicians’ who work behind the parliament. The parliamentary members vote only for “yes” or “no” to approve single proposals.
There is no reason to trust these few hundreds of PMs more than few thousands (in the very worst case) of interested citizens, which would be surely more motivate to give their vote.
To vote is not a must. Nobody is obliged to vote. If someone is not interested to inform himself and vote about a certain decision, he automatically entrusts the other people to decide also for him. As well he entrusts the PMs in the Representative Democracy.
Differently than citizens, the PMs who vote laws in the Representative Democracies are constantly subjected to pressure by lobbies and other groups of private interests, which push them to vote laws in their favor. Very often paying and corrupting the PMs. In the Direct Democracy it would not be possible, because the lobbies should corrupt all the voting people!
And finally the last critic which you may hear about the Direct Democracy:
“What if people vote about important decisions, without to be sufficiently informed about it? Like the Brexit?!”
Well, Brexit is a perfect example of Direct Democracy, when the people doesn’t inform themselves good about what they are voting for.
Everybody is responsible for its own doing, not for the doings of the others. If people are too lazy to inform themselves about what they are voting for, it is right that they will pay for the consequences of their vote. They will can’t blame the Government or anybody else for that.
To get informed about what you will vote is up to you. It is obvious that the politicians in the representative democracy tell you lies, to drive you to sustain their ideas. So it was the result for Brexit.
Probably about to attack Iraq, the result would have been different with the direct democracy.
In every true Democracy, the people should have the chance to vote about all the big themes which directly affects their life, and without a quorum (a minimum required % of voting people).
Who doesn’t take part to a voting, automatically entrusts the other more interested citizens, who go to give their vote.
How many bad decisions (cutting of fundamental services, ecc.) are daily taken by the democratically elected Governments in the world? The ‘Representative Democracy’ is not a true Democracy.
Unfortunately there are very few political parties which promote the system of the Direct Democracy. The “5 Stars Movement” (Movimento Cinque Stelle) in Italy, and the “DiB – Demokratie in Bewegung” (Democracy in Movement) in Germany.
The 5 Stars Movement in Italy is the only, which has reached a government position. They have made errors (and also big errors) from the beginning, but they are the only party, which has started to apply some principles of the direct democracy in a national Government, and also in local governments.
The Democracy in Motion (DiB) party in Germany is a very small party and is not yet present in all the regions to be voted. It promotes some principles of the direct democracy, but in a much milder way than how it should be, for a proper Direct Democracy. But it could be a very first step.
Since the prehistoric traditional parties (CDU, SPD, ecc…) of the Representative Democracy in Germany are not acting so bad as the Italian traditional parties, it is very hard to get the German people aware about the advantages that the Direct Democracy would give.