Government By Chance : Sortition — An Alternative to Electoral Reforms.
The term “Tom, Dick and Harry” is used to describe the common men, who generally form a large majority of any population group. In representative democracies, they are blamed both for their parochial attitude — seeking favours in exchange for electing irresponsible governments; or being disinterested and allowing the unscrupulous politicians to take advantage of their absent vote.
Politicians, the rich, elites and intellectuals routinely dismiss them as fools — people with little knowledge of political and economic affairs of the state — prone to making mistakes. The burden of ensuring the ‘common good’ and ‘progress’ of the society, as a consequence, falls on the ‘responsible shoulders’ of those very elites. Democratic capture suddenly becomes an inevitable and often essential political choice — the threat of anarchy and mob rule, standing right beside.
Let us admit, democracy is an idea — that appeals only in thought. In real life human beings are driven by power and greed. Realpolitik — the euphemistic bridge between the ideal and the real — a convoluted moral justification for wrongdoing in the name of democratic rule, strangely, is explained away as sometime essential for the good of the very ruled. The worst ruler will justify his excesses by pointing to the still worse treatment that people may be exposed at the hands of his adversary if elected to rule — Hitler reminds us all.
Our lived experience and recored history confirms that democracies invariably descend into the hands of the few — it is immaterial what mantle they take — kleptocracy, oligarchy, aristocracy, ethnocracy or the more pronounced dynastic rule; election, an incredibly expensive exercise offering the possibility of a limited choice — from amongst a small pool of existing politicians and elites. The charade of democratic politics remains — people clap and applaud — as vested interest entrench and exploit and benefit from the ‘public good’ that elected officials are trusted to guard. Then democracies fail. Once power is captured, various institutional mechanism are put in place to ensure that it is retained. Obviously all this is legitimised through elaborate processes and manufactured public approval and consent. Reforms are sham.
The most striking characteristic of Greek democracies, that prospered in 4th and 5th century BC, was that government officials were chosen by a method that amounted to drawing names from a lot — as Marxist theorist CLR James noted in his 1956 essay ‘Every Cook Can Govern’. “ A Member of Parliament in Britain would fall in a fit if it was suggested to him that any worker selected at random could do the work that he is doing, but that was precisely the guiding principle of Greek Democracy. And this form of government is the government under which flourished the greatest civilization the world has ever known’ — he wrote.
The process of ‘Sortition’ — a form of election of government officials, eliminates not only gender, ethnic, economic, religious and political discrimination, it goes a big step further by obliterating considerations of “resume”, “education”, “intelligence”, “beauty” or even “charisma”. Sortition produces, mathematically and scientifically — a true representation of its people — in societies both small and large — in conscience and soul.
Dr. Roslyn Fuller, the author of “Beasts and Gods: How Democracy Changed its Meaning and Lost its Purpose” claims ‘ When I first started researching ancient, democratic Athens, I was struck by the layers of randomness built into the political system. Sure, it wasn’t a utopia, but under Athenian democracy wresting control of the decision-making process was at least a difficult and continuous task, because the thrust of the system worked against the machinations of the few’
‘Lottery selection for most office-holders, as well as for Athens’ enormous juries was one aspect of that randomness. The more I read, the more I was impressed not just with the practice of sortition, but the way the Athenians went about it: dropping their pinakia (identity-tickets) into baskets, having them shaken up, the presiding official randomly drawing a ticket, that person becoming the pinakia-inserter and in turn randomly drawing tickets, dropping the kyboi, or coloured balls, randomly down the kleroterion’s funnel. The Athenians were clearly determined to bastard-proof their system. In my view, their paranoia was justified, and represented nothing more than healthy respect for the criminal (or oligarchic) mind’ — she wrote
“But there’s not much point in creating such a fool-proof sortition system if the overarching politics doesn’t change as well” — she continues. “As we all know, in Athens the process of sortition didn’t run in parallel to a sophisticated and expensive electoral system; it ran in parallel to the Assembly. Whatever else one may want to say about Assembly, it was the national focal point for the issues of the day. Assembly attendance was also somewhat random (if self-selecting) in that it generally depended on who showed up of their own volition. A rhetor never looked out on the exact same Assembly twice, and while the ‘professional’, often affluent, rhetors certainly wielded a great deal of influence, they never did know when some unknown citizen would pop out of the woodwork and carry the day against them. Power was possible; power consolidation more of a challenge.”
“Elected politicians are invested with significant executive power and therefore just have too much to lose. As much as they like to talk about ‘participation’ and ‘freedom’ and whatnot, the unspoken word is often ‘controlled’. Local issues, cultural issues, social issues — those are the kind of thing where some participation might be welcome by a vested elite that learned the secrets of winning and retaining their power long ago ( through gerrymandering and campaign finance for instance). It’s in their nature to try to mitigate the effects of any sort of mass or random participation”
It is widely believed that the electoral techniques employed by representative governments today had their origins in medieval elections, both those of “Assemblies of Estates” and those practiced by the church” and had anything to do with popular pressure, as Manin and Pitkin, in their seminal work on ‘Political Representation’ argue that election was preferred by monarchs for purely ascriptive purposes: “you elected these representatives so you must abide by their decisions”.
Sortition would have the added effect of doing away with political parties that is the mainstay of electoral systems other than eliminating unnecessary public expenditure and waste.
Over the years, I have observed election produce undesirable results and people forced to live with them. Sortition may also produce such undesirable results perhaps but there is no way that they can be worse. In both microcosmic democracies such as Mauritius and extremely large ones like India, the result is the same. Yet, the debate around Sortition, as alternative to current electoral system, is never brought to the fore.
Is Sortition a dangerous idea that existing political class is unwilling to entertain?
In his book “Democracy: A life”, Paul Cartledge — a Cambridge professor explains how historians and statesmen conspired to paint Greek democracy as a horrible mistake, the unworkable aspirations of dreamers, destined to fail and end in chaos. Centuries of propaganda and conditioning have relegated the idea of ‘equality’ as a myth and the notion of ‘collective people holding power’ to be shunned. “The truth was that democracy itself was a dangerous idea — to the kings, emperors, and high clergy who controlled information in the centuries after it ceased to be a living form of government. While these autocrats held sway throughout the Middle Ages, the very idea of democracy was “on life-support.” And while things may have improved since, modern democracy is, not in much better shape — off the machine perhaps, but still staggering around the hospital ward, clutching at bits of furniture, and trying to remember what had happened to bring it there in the first place” as Peter Stone — author of “The Luck of the Draw: The Role of Lotteries in Decision Making” wrote in review of Certeledge’s work.
There is a hope that enlightened politicians ( of which there are unfortunately few) in some remote future would consider small application of Sortition perhaps at Municipal Elections — drawing a lottery from interested eligible candidates to rule. Citizens could thereafter demand that the ‘Sortitioned’ government rules under advise of a Senate that it may later nominate with popular vote. Such exercise would be able to incorporate both ‘randomness’’ and ‘considered will’ in the end.
Apathy and widespread public disinterest, as politicians themselves claim is ruining the spirit of democracy. The gap between the rulers and the ruled is widening by the day. Politics is risky and difficult and nepotism prevails. By allowing some form of ‘Election by Lot’ — such concerns could be addressed. Unless these are disingenuous claims, of course — hidden behind an agenda to continue to manipulate politics and keep power under their permanent control.
As a society, we have progressed. Yet our rulers have remained the same — their instruments of power — medieval at best — their behaviours mirroring ancient autocrats. In that sense clearly we have fallen behind; unable to adopt and innovate and revive the most civilised form of government that Greek city states enjoyed — three thousand years back.
