Evolving democracy and the new world
Evolving democracy and the new world
Many democratic institutions are remnants of the past.
Often most people studying political economies quote Athenian democracy as a successful model, without much thought about its reasons. The Athenian model achieves its desired outcomes because it:
— had a tiny population, and
— was limited in area to only a city-state.
The population today is going through the roof and has forced democracies to evolve into a representative model. Countries chose parliamentary legislation and succeeded in the past because costs, time and (lack of) technology favoured it. The logistics of letting everybody with suffrage vote on every piece of legislation was expensive and time-consuming, and technically a nightmare. The elected representative model allowed everybody to vote for their leaders, and then trust them to choose the best things on our behalf.
Is that the case now? I do not think leaders are choosing the best things any more, which is why the current democratic model is losing sheen. With so many individuals and a more significant social divide, it is also not feasible to accommodate everyone, hence amplifying and accelerating the fall of the current model, and forcing it to evolve into a plutocracy as in the United States.
Also, the core rationale of a massive population voting on every piece of legislation being a nightmare is no longer a problem. Technology has caught up in three decades. Anybody using a mobile phone, a secure communication network, and some unique identifier can vote on every legislation. After the poll closes, the results can be tallied within seconds. Transparency, and it promotes trust — a rare thing in politics nowadays.
Similarly, the media existed as a consolidated voice of the people; checking the three arms of government. The press, in a world where literacy was for the affluent few, was a proxy for articulating the voices of the masses. Today we live in a world where many people can read and write, and have access to information.
So, is the fundamental idea of the press being the consolidated voice of the people still valid? I somehow cannot agree. Most media houses are now politically divided with journalists into a game of proving and scoring points. Often using emotive conjugation, the reportage nowadays is no longer the news as is. So I think, like decision making where citizens can vote directly, the press will see decentralization rapidly in the next decade.
Citizen journalism, if it can be called so.
