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The Forum > Article Comments > Lesson From 2010: more direct democracy, not more representative democracy > Comments

Lesson From 2010: more direct democracy, not more representative democracy : Comments

By Steven Spadijer, published 30/12/2010

Citizens ought to be able to initiate referenda to shape government policy.

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Steven,
the problem with your CIR, in my view, is the ideology that inevitably informs it. Our system is based on wealth extraction in the first instance and competitive self-seeking in the second. Ergo from top to bottom our political decisions, however they are arrived at, are fundamentally selfish rather than ethical, responsible or salubrious. The one advantage of good representative government is that it is ostensibly informed by expert opinion which must, ultimately, be respected over ignorant, popular opinion. I'm talking "ideally" of course; in reality popular politics is so refined, in order to retain the requisite majority, that nothing that might upset the popular centre can be risked as policy.
I'm all for "inclusive" democracy, which is what you're advocating, but it should be based on principles of salubrious sustainability and ethics rather than unchecked glut and self-serving. As long as our system is antagonistically predicated on maximal acquisition in private hands and minimum funds to the public arena, it will continue on unconscionable, irresponsible, unsustainable and ultimately doomed.
Thus we need steep progressive taxation, preferably a wealth cap, and a foundational civic-ethical ideology that informs and edifies public consensus.
The way things are, your recommendation is analogous to handing over CIR to the constituents of a mouse plague, expecting them to initiate reforms.
Having said that, it's worth a try. I move we have a referendum on how much we should up that maximum tax threshold by!
Posted by Squeers, Thursday, 30 December 2010 1:09:03 PM
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Squeers,
Ideology informs Parliamentary voting: does that mean we abolish Parliament? Of course not! The issue is to tame ideology, not to completely constrain it. My burden here today is not to prove CIR is perfect. It’s not. It’s to prove its better than anything else out there (e.g. representative democracy) and I think that is a VERY easy thing to do.

Firstly, money/pure ideology does not automatically equal power under CIR (the correlation could be the other way: the more money you have the less likely a referendum will succeed), unlike the status quo; alot of extremely well-funded campaigns are struck down by the people for precisely the reasons you cited: the people can smell graft and greed, and reject a proposal for precisely that reason. It also commands <empirical> evidence that has a broader private-AND-public purpose. Both left and right-wing policies need EVIDENCE and ARGUMENT to win a majority. Pollies vote the way their parties tell them, often ignoring experts like, say, Steve Keen!

Secondly, I agree regarding the “mouse plague”. As I said, representative democracy (which partly first emerged as a result of landlords in the House of Lords wanting to limit property taxes) has dumbed down the entire populace and it will take time to resolve all the issues and cultural fetishes (say property speculation). CIR, over time, produces a cultural change, hence the Swiss model of “consensus democracy”. People are willing to compromise and realise the virtues of production, over speculation.
Posted by AustralianWhig89, Thursday, 30 December 2010 1:32:32 PM
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Thirdly, and I should stress this, FEDERALISM is the key: if Australia had far more states than it does now (call them cantons), we can therefore experiment with various progressive policy proposals locally. Once the data was in, and it is shown to work, we could adopt them nationwide. CIR may also deal once and for all with the blame game of Commonwealth versus states; I imagine CIR could be used to create new states/regional areas who are sovereign in their own respects (cantons).

Fourthly, prop 13 aside, consider the ideas of Henry George (who advocated replacing all taxes with a single tax on land). Although something like 35-40 percent of the population voted in favour of his ideas (in their purest form) when put up to a referenda back in the 1900s, under the status quo such ideas would NEVER even be discussed publically (the ALP is bribed by Sydney property developers anyways!). At the very least CIR gets people talking and thinking. Curiously, the states who implemented land tax (after the referenda defeats) in the US are the states who today are not hurt by the property bubble (Pennsylvania). So even failed CIR can help the legislature get its policy settings right.

The quality of debating in this country is poor (in Switzerland, the media outlets and organisations are far more intense and have public debates quite alot to discuss issues); and most people don't even know anything about the Constitution - no surprise they vote 'no' most of the time - they have lost the cognitive skills to think about others!
Posted by AustralianWhig89, Thursday, 30 December 2010 1:36:37 PM
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I don't have any deep-seated objections to CIR in principal. But I do believe that we would somehow manage to royally screw up its implementation in this country, and find ourselves with the worst of both worlds. Nuclear fallout shelters under every house, and a citizens' veto on taxation.

It is all very well citing the Swiss as the paragon.

"Unlike oil-rich Norway and Qatar or resource-abundant Australia, it is wealthier than we are..."

Let's not explore the source of that wealth too closely, shall we?

But money laundering apart, where is the evidence that supports this, rather sweeping claim?

"...its success, despite lacking these natural endowments, is thanks to the genius of its people, who can write their own laws"

According to AustraliaFirst...

http://www.australiafirst.net/leaflets/cir.htm

..."In over 100 years of Citizens' Initiated Referendum (CIR), after voting on 300 issues, the Swiss people have approved approximately 50% of issues placed before them."

It is actually 162 years. That's a couple each year. Half are rejected. Is it not therefore a bit of a stretch to imagine that it is these decisions - as opposed to the normal business of the elected parliament - that have created Switzerland's wealth?

Sounds like someone has an axe to grind.
Posted by Pericles, Thursday, 30 December 2010 7:10:48 PM
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Pericles,

“Is it...the normal business of the elected parliament - that have created Switzerland's wealth?”

I visit Switzerland alot and I think the natural reply is ‘no’. As Wolf Linder explains, “the real threat of CIR means when formulating policy the government is *extremely conscious* that if there is no consultation, deliberation, or consensus, the people will take over”. So CIR is responsible: it ensures that representatives represent to begin with, which in turn means sensible, well-thought out policies! Consensus may also imply <evidence> based policy in order for both sides to agree among themselves. Additionally, the more controversial issues which are prerequisites of prosperity (taxation policy, transport policy, health pensions, neutrality) were passed by the Swiss people. ‘The Zurich model’ (the best transport system in the world), for instance, was devised by the people, not the Parliament. Even HECS was modelled on a Swiss CIR proposal. The bad ideas are (quite rightly) rejected – like EU membership! The link in the article "Direct Democracy in Switzerland" gives you a range of policy innovations that have lead to prosperity. See also:
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/rearvision/stories/2010/3047700.ht
Posted by Rosseau101, Thursday, 30 December 2010 8:31:59 PM
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ps as for taxation – who cares if we veto taxation laws? GOOD! The Federal government, as the monopoly issuer of currency, isn’t financially constrained – it is only constrained by real resources (i.e. inflation). Name me one sovereign country in a fiat currency (with flexible exchange rate, can set its own interest rates and issue its own currency) that has ever been insolvent because its spent too much on infrastructure? (No example exists). Why have GST taxes? This is a discussion we ought to have, but cannot under the status quo and lame stream media; Singapore and China ain’t afraid to use their monopoly power to build infrastructure. Plus, we’ve managed to keep the politicians’ centrist tendencies in check via s128 of the Constitution the last 110 years (a Swiss import!). No major “royal screw ups” there. I think the ALP also got rid of CIR, guess why? Because it took away power from Canberra hahaha:
http://menzieshouse.typepad.com/menzies-house/Files/Joseph%20Poprzeczny%20-%20Ballotocracy.pdf

Also money laundering makes perfect sense if I were the Swiss government: the whole point of having a nation state is to promote the welfare of its own citizens. So if that allows it to secure long-term capital via bank secrecy, if I were a Swiss citizen, I wouldn’t care very much at all! That's why they have upheld their own countries interest by doing so. That's natural.
Posted by Rosseau101, Thursday, 30 December 2010 8:38:08 PM
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