Pirate Democracy
Basic definition
Permanent direct democracy with proxy voting.
Permanent: 24/7, not restricted to once every 4 years
Direct: citizens have the possibility to propose new law proposals and vote on law proposals by themselves, without the need for an elected representative
Democracy: legislative power of the citizens (citizen sovereignty)
Proxy voting: any citizen may delegate her vote to whom she wishes, change delegate anytime, or vote herself whenever she wants to.
Outstanding questions
Principles
- How about the formation of a government? How about executive power?
- What would be the role of sortition ("tirage au sort") and deliberative democracy?
- Do we need other institutions than just the citizens voting on law proposals (e.g. a judicial committee to write law proposals in judicial language, an "expert" committee to provide advices and opinions on law proposals, etc...).
Technical details
- Should delegation be transitive? i.e. I delegate my vote to X who delegates her vote to Y, who delegates her vote to Z, so I delegate my vote to Z.
- Should delegates receive a compensation for their work?
- For: this will provide an incentive for people to invest time in studying law proposals
- Against: This will leave the door open to professional politician who can abuse the system
- Should there be a limit to the number of votes a delegate can gather?
