From: Paul Cockshott (wpc@DCS.GLA.AC.UK)
Date: Thu Dec 06 2007 - 09:18:30 EST
Chosing leaders is an elitist and aristocratic principle ( aristos =
best) one choses the best people and lets them decide.
In practice it goes with a centralist form of decision making with one
person, a president, or prime minister in charge.
The crowd chosing its leaders is not direct democracy, it might be
called 'indirect democracy', but it is really aristocracy.
The democratic approach relies on having a sufficiently large number of
ordinary people in the deliberative body for their collective wisdom to
exceed that of one man or woman.
From: OPE-L [mailto:OPE-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU] On Behalf Of GERALD LEVY
Sent: 06 December 2007 13:25
To: OPE-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU
Subject: Re: [OPE-L] the wisdom of crowds
> Gerry, have you read 'The Wisdom of Crowds' by Surowiecki?
Hi Paul C:
No, I haven't. I'm not sure I see the relevance, though.
I agree with the proposition that large groups of people
are smarter than an elite few. But, how does that
speak to the choice between direct democracy (where the
'crowd' chooses its leaders) and random selection
where the crowd does not choose (except to the extent
that they consented to the process of random
selection to begin with)?
In solidarity, Jerry
----------------------------------------
[JL wrote]
A process where there is a random selection of
administrators/leaders
is a worthwhile goal. But - especially in the early period in
the development
of post-capitalist societies, there may be advantages to forms
of direct
democracy whereby administrators/leaders are selected on the
basis of
the program (and possibly other criteria, like experience) which
they
advance. We should not be so naive, after all, to assume that
all
conflicts and self-interest will cease with the emergence of
post-capitalist
societies and in that context selecting leaders randomly is a
bit like
playing Russian roulette.
[PC wrote]
2. I think that the institution of the randomly selected
assembly combining legislation with executive function is the key here.
So long as you have a state structure based on an elected or appointed
head of state - the roman dictatorial or imperial model, the role of
leadership and command are combined. In a randomly selected popular
assembly, the working masses will be in the majority ( except perhaps
in a highly parasitic rentier state). As Aristotle says, the poor are
always many and the rich are few. This class character of the state then
provides a high probability that it will make decisions in the interests
of the masses, provided that leadership in the original Leninist sense
of mass education is there.
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