Pulling the Strings

I am intrigued by power - particularly its misuse in the name of liberty or religious freedom. How does the impulse to coerce others occur in an otherwise sophisticated society? Is our ability to converse and reach some kind of consensus really that limited? Why do we hail those that use power in this manner as leaders? Could it be an inherent part of being human that we treat others so? What circumstances lead to its genesis? Why do we submit so casually to the abuse of power on some occasions, yet resist it with all our might at other times? These are all questions that have bothered me since I first climbed out of my pram.

Over the centuries, the power to govern and influence the actions of others has been seized by a variety of individuals in different constituencies. Tribal chiefs, high priests, monarchs, heads of state, and tyrants have all tasted the elixir of raw power – authority derived from some form of assumed legitimacy, whether by “divine right” or nomination, where edicts are enforced through the rule of law, war or thuggery.

The power to catalyse different behaviours and change how people think, on the other hand, rests more with philosophers, poets, and scientists. Like King Arthur’s wise mentor Merlin, they are often an unseen source of inspiration and advice moving in the shadows.

Neither should we discount the link between invention and liberation, as a source of power. Inventors from Gutenberg to Zuckerberg via Oppenheimer have used their imagination and skills to craft technologies that put new capabilities in our hands – including of course the military and governments. As a result, they let loose massive power - through revolutions, international trade, politically-motivated movements, urbanisation, and peer-to-peer transactions, for example.

I venture to suggest, then, that power as we commonly experience it results from a mix of (a) deeply-held convictions, (b) situationally-applied technologies, and (c) an ignition point or motive for using power that happens to align with prevailing conditions. When these three are present the potential fusion for wielding power on a massive scale presents itself.

Each of these three dimensions exists on a design continuum. Convictions can be ethical or immoral – or in a grey space between these two. Technologies are used for good or criminal activities. Motives will either play to our inherent beliefs by remaining ethical (such as the use of inclusive dialogue) or not (enforced oppression and slavery for example).

The masterful mix of tactical manoeuvres by generals like Eisenhower in the field of battle, the vast supply of American armaments able to be deployed, together with other inventions such as the Enigma code-breaking machine, the motive supplied by Hitler’s ambitions, and Churchill’s virtuosic talent at claiming the moral high ground, eventually sapped the morale of the German military during the second world war and led to victory. This is hard power in its purest and most compelling guise.

As violence and conflict declined over the past half century soft power naturally began to receive greater attention - both from the media and the public. The soft power we take for granted, indeed tolerate virtually unopposed, most obviously exists (i) within the spheres of international negotiations, and (ii) governance of the nation-state. In the former setting, a desire for peace or trade are common motives; arbitrated contracts the most widely-used technology; while universally applied guidelines, expressing the doctrine that globalisation is good for all, is the unchallenged conviction. In the case of the nation-state, law and order, as well as social cohesion, provide motives; the use of representative voting, debate and legislation the technologies; and the conception of the sovereign nation - with its distinctive identity, borders, values and symbols - the deeply ingrained conviction.

As the term implies, soft power is considerably more difficult to employ if a particular result is desired, given that it is open to numerous diverse inputs that hard power declines. This is now the case with democracy. I know of nowhere in the world where democracy is working as it was intended. Inertia within democratic societies is an issue, principally because of the sheer numbers of citizens eligible to vote these days, and the complexity of relationships and interactions. This inertia opens up opportunities for exploitation by groups brandishing other kinds of conventional power – like lobbyists, trade unions, and peak industry bodies, for example. More serious however is the warping of democratic architectures and principles in order to manipulate, rather than liberate, the will of the people.

In theory, democratic systems, as agents of soft power, still comprise the three elements I noted previously. But today their essential quiescence has been usurped. Indeed, I would go as far as to contend that democracy as practised has been captured by a professional political class and developed into a tool for social control and consent. This is ironic given that the West’s most incessant criticism of one-party states like China revolves around that very issue.

In most so-called democracies, the mechanisms that are installed to ensure integrity, such as the separation of executive, legislative and judicial arms of government, as well as other checks and balances, too often represent moneyed interests. As a result, they have been tainted by the ideology of predatory capitalism, held to ransom by major corporations, and browbeaten by the industrial-military-surveillance complex. Consequently, we the people have been silenced, excluded from, and marginalised by, a system intended to do the very opposite: to listen to us and to enact our will. At the same time we suffer from the delusion that democracy is working. Tolerating a system where we can vote every few years for a narrow, exceedingly short-sighted, range of options, means we are now docile and lacking true agency.

This is not democracy. Indeed, based purely on current trends democracy is no longer the natural nor inevitable endgame of global development. Each year since 2006 the world has become less democratic. Everywhere we look democracy is in retreat. It is too easy to blame the obvious culprits – dictators, despots, and phoney democrats like Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines, Prayut Chan-o-cha in Thailand, and Viktor Orban is Hungary, for example, who cloak themselves in the façade of egalitarianism to gain political legitimacy – and foreign aid.

But we in the West are also complicit actors in this global recession of democratic ideals. We have snuggled up to openly offensive and authoritarian regimes – placing short-term expediency before wisdom; sponsored recalcitrant dictators as key strategic allies; routinely turned a blind eye to human rights abuses, including those in our own countries; and actively helped topple democratic governments when they chose not to play by our rules.

States like the US, Britain, Canada, and Australia have set unspeakably low standards for what constitutes democracy in a relentless charade to appear democratic. But can they be taken seriously when they laud democracy to the exclusion of all other possibilities, do secret arms deals with despots and criminals, call elections “free and fair” when they clearly are not, and deny the fundamentals of democracy, even to their own citizens?

Ironically such a low barrier to what is ordinarily thought to be democratic, probably ensures that government leaders in the developing world have absolutely no incentive to ever install a truly democratic society. This is especially the case when alternatives, like Singapore’s unicameral model, or China’s Congress system, appear to be so effective. Notwithstanding the vein of corruption and the tendency to use the iron fist of hard power to crush dissent, China actually has an enviable record of continuous internal reforms, the election of government officials based on merit and real administrative experience, speedy decision-making, high levels of internal security, the collective ability to understand and deal with the complexity in today’s world, and the consistent communication of a national purpose that most citizens admire and trust. The fact that both these systems have delivered extraordinary prosperity in a relatively short time is an acknowledgement that, despite lacking some key elements found in democracies, they actually work for the majority of people.

So what is missing that leads to disengagement by so many citizens? How can we overcome and reverse the crisis of confidence in the concept of democracy? One thing is certain: the current system is so completely disabled that it needs to be redesigned from first principles. Tweaking around at the edges, or casually offering a digital replica of the current system, will only make matters worse.

The concerns compelling myself and many others to plead for whole-system renewal are hardly a surprise. Nor are solutions difficult to come by. Redesigning democracy so that it actually delivers what it is intended to deliver should not be insurmountable. There are at least seven issues that must be taken into account when redesigning such a system:

1. Choice

The choices offered to the electorate every so often are a cruel illusion - one eagerly perpetuated by the media and incumbent politicians alike, for it gives the distinct impression that democracy is working just fine and that it would be a folly to tinker with it. In fact, each time we vote, we are voting for the continuation of a failed system. It is Hobson’s choice.

Nevertheless, it leads to a complacency within society and an entrenched belief that change is unwarranted. After all politicians are constantly visible on our screens arguing a case for this or for that. But does that give us confidence they are really doing their jobs? I think not.

This ingrained inertia works against change of any kind. Even the smallest reforms are resisted in such cautious contexts. Thus, a compliant electorate waits patiently for several years to cast a meaningless vote that determines which of two, or at best three, obsolete ideologies will dominate policy-making for that period. After a general election the public is enthusiastically excluded from any further involvement.

Indeed, the prolonged aftermath between elections is little more than a spectacle put on to entertain a gullible audience and to maintain the illusion that suffrage is the only matter with which the voting public can be trusted to have an opinion.

2. Information

It is clear that voters need to have clarity regarding the consequences of voting a particular way. Ignoring for a moment the fact that most of the voting public are not swinging voters, but loyal to ideological credos that are more and more irrelevant in today’s world, the inability to know what to vote for is a serious flaw in the current system.

The problem is not with the voter. People are not apathetic if given the opportunity to vote based on information that is unbiased, up-to-date, and accurate. Unfortunately, that is uncommon. We are bombarded with so much data and propaganda that discernment becomes opaque. As a consequence we tend to go along with what others think and rarely do our own analysis. Most of us would not even be conscious of the prejudices we use to shape our opinions and attitudes. Visceral reaction is more commonplace.

Typically, we are fed two kinds of information. One, filtered by political parties, trade unions, religious organisations, industry bodies, and formidable media barons like Rupert Murdoch, deliberately restrict their advice to a narrow range of partisan interests which they repeatedly bellow at anyone within range. Expressed as a deeply-held code of belief, their most cunning weapon, other than banal persuasion, is an oft-promoted insinuation that people would be stupid to vote in any way that contradicts their fiercely-held beliefs.

The other, equally deceptive, is served up via social media, such as Facebook and Twitter. Here, opinions, feelings, conspiracy theories, and wildly emotive claims and counterclaims, become a spurious substitute for verifiable facts, destabilising what is known.

Both channels of dissemination are threats to democracy in that they dumb down reality and act as echo chambers for a set of core beliefs - rejecting all other perspectives.

3. Integrity

Representative democracy is struggling to retain its integrity in an era of such incredible socio-political and economic upheaval. There are several reasons for this.

Over the past century at least, representative democracy has encouraged a discrete political class to emerge. Familial succession has even led to the evolution of dynasties who understand little else but winning an election, often by telling the most outrageous lies, or making promises that cannot possibly be kept, and hurling streams of abuse at each other once in the parliament.

This professional elite, emboldened to believe they are entitled to govern by virtue of their wealth or standing in the community, have had their views reinforced by many political scientists who routinely trot out the old axiom that representative democracy allows the cream of society to rise to the top. If that was ever true, it is certainly not the case today. Hubris is also a factor. Indeed in a perfect world any candidate who self-nominates for election should probably be ruled out of contention automatically.

The game of the political class is unambiguous. The rules demand one thing. To stay in power at any cost. Whether that benefits society in the long-term is immaterial and exceedingly tough to assess. Behavioural codes, where they exist, are routinely flouted. Duplicity is rife. Political game-playing a much-needed talent. Mismanagement and financial waste are accepted conventions. There are no measures in place by which to evaluate the beneficial impact or effectiveness of elected representatives - other than by the ballot box. Once in power they are virtually unaccountable until the next election. When they eventually leave, many of them accept positions in the corporate world where their insider knowledge is of immense value.

4. Complexity

If it is impossible to fully comprehend a policy issue within its context it is equally impossible to draft effective legislation. Each policy question in today’s world is embedded in an intricate ecosystem of tensions and wildly conflicting dynamics. The tools needed to forensically study such complexity, so as to generate even a modicum of strategic intelligence, are beyond even the most enlightened politicians.

New dialogical methods that go deeper and beyond mere parliamentary debate, sophisticated visualisation tools, smart algorithms for revealing patterns in vast amounts of unstructured data, blockchain-enabled platforms for security and transparency, and even the use of artificial intelligence for finding pertinent acupuncture points for policy intervention and development, out of a myriad such options, are all missing from the current repertoire of tools used by our governments.

5. Trust

Elected representatives behaving badly in public, including televised sessions of parliament, sow seeds of doubt as to the efficacy of the parliamentary process, as well as the perceived competency of individual politicians to adequately represent society. Fraud, egocentric posturing, and puerile behaviour can so easily erode our trust in politicians - trust they are smart enough collectively to deal with the intricacies of policy development in a bipartisan, or at least cooperative manner; trust that they do no harm, and have the majority will in mind, as they pursue safe, secure and financially advantageous futures for the community; and trust they are not in the game of politics purely to feather their own nests. Unfortunately, the current batch of politicians in many so-called democracies fail all three tests with ease. I do not doubt the sincerity of those entering politics. But their naivety and subsequent lowering of standards that so often occur when they try to buck the system is disheartening to say the least.

One might reasonably expect most policies emerging from national governments to be bold and substantial steps for securing the health, prosperity and wellbeing of the population. Today that expectation is a futile proposition. Most governments spend the majority of their time patching up the present and running away from the future.

Many policies are unnecessarily interventionist – though increasingly commonplace in heavily-policed, modern surveillance societies. Others follow a stringently ideological path while deliberately ignoring the desires of the community as a whole. Still others attempt to wind back the programs of previous administrations. A few, particularly in "nanny state" environments, where legislation is used to control every possible aspect of contemporary life, should probably be left for individuals to determine. Spending time determining what women should wear, for example, is intrusive and unnecessary. Let us hope that the task of routine policy development will soon be taken on by artificially-intelligent agents. They cannot possibly do a more mediocre job than the humans currently in charge.

When it comes to addressing the great moral imperatives of our time courageous, cooperative leadership is demanded. This too has become extinct. As a consequence, our civilisation is hurtling towards a climate catastrophe, while the structural economic foundations of world trade, anchored to the delusion that aid works, deliberately allows poverty and hunger to persist. Having reached a cognitive impasse, it seems we are now happy to pass on these wicked problems, caused to a great extent by the excesses of the 20th century, to our children. The excuse I repeatedly hear from politicians concerning their failure to address such emergencies is that it is “not in the national interest” to do so. It is actually an abdication of responsibility.

For the common theme in these areas is a seeming inability to design legislation that is relevant, benign and enduring; provides an elegant policy solution to the inherent dynamic complexity of the ecosystem; and has the appreciation and support of most citizens.

While a distinct lack of imagination is apparent in governments today, there is no excuse for failing to ignite hope within the hearts of the next generation. The crafting of future narratives is one of the most important roles of governments. When those stories are non-viable and fail to inspire - because of their foundations in scarcity, competition, and the deficiencies of neoliberal economics; when fear is a substitute for hope; and when contempt replaces respect; people should rise up against the ineptness, or insist that new structures replace the old.

6. Technology

Democracy has been around for a while. Several hundred years in fact. During that time, everything in our personal and public lives has changed because of advances in science and technology. But little has changed in the actual workings of democracy. On the contrary, if they were alive today, most 19th century politicians would find the workings of government very familiar.

Women now have the vote of course. The media play a major, some would say calculating, role in advocacy and forecasting. Pollsters are capable of making accurate predictions of election results. And some countries, including my own, have taken the non-democratic step of making voting compulsory. But, by and large, most other facets of the system remain the same. Ideological party structures, election schedules, selection of candidates, the concept of the ballot box, and the tally room, for example, are all venerable, well established practises. So, too, are political donations, horse trading, bullying and corruption.

Indeed, when listing them in this manner it all seems so archaic. If the main objectives of any democratic system are (i) to educate citizens about policy alternatives in a manner that is both informative and unprejudiced; (ii) enable every citizen to have their voice heard, and then (iii) find the best ways to enact the will of the majority on every matter of significance, then surely we can use our ingenuity, and the latest digital technologies, to create a system less corrupt, more engaging, and more relevant?

I will always remember feeling thrilled when my friend Adam Jacoby who, soon after, would take up the role of Chief Steward for Centre for the Future’s first venture within the theatre of Power & Governance, a project aimed at redesigning democracy from first principles, posed a crucial question from an entrepreneurial business perspective: If Steve Jobs at Apple was still alive and leading this project, how would he tackle the challenge in order to design a product of innate beauty with a compelling user experience?

Given the incredible tools available to us today – including the Internet, blockchain-enabled platforms, smart phone apps, intelligent algorithms, and the like - it should not be impossible to create something utterly convincing. The only trap would be to assume a digital makeover of the current system might suffice. With even a modicum of wisdom and foresight it is clear that would be a lazy and negligent approach, particularly as it would reify many of the flaws in the current system.

7. Society

If the current trajectory, whereby civic society disengages from the political process through either apathy or exasperation, continues then democracy itself could be a casualty. There is no doubt that an uncoupling of the public from those seeking to govern puts the integrity of any global democratic architecture at risk. In a bizarre kind of way that could also hasten the embedding of the political elite, much as in the one-party systems many of us in Western democracies are so fond of disparaging.

But the greatest threat to democracy is not just public indifference and its extrapolation to a future planetary ruling class. That notion is still relatively implausible. Nor is it necessarily the inertia that results in such avid resistance to change by incumbent and aspiring participants alike. There are two additional forces that must be understood and examined, even to know whether democracy in its most idealised form is still useful today.

(i) Globalism

In an authentically globalised world, democracy itself (as practised) could become the cause of its own demise. Indeed, it is arguable that the most optimistic endgame for the range of democratic experiments we have tried over the past few centuries would be the genesis of a genuine planetary coalition emerging from the death and resurrection of democratic ideals.

The predisposition we humans have developed for partition, with each circumscribed division colonised by self-defined groups, who consider their own welfare and security as paramount, is possibly our most fundamental design accident.

Although reasonable from a purely cultural viewpoint, the obsession with national identity and security has resulted in an excessively combatant mindset; endless, mindless, quarrels between each group; and an inability to cooperate on matters that concern us all.

Inadvertently perhaps, we have created conditions where each group happily derides others, merely in order to enforce and reinforce their own sense of superiority, prides and prejudices. Recently we have also witnessed this kind of fracturing within national borders, typically along religious fault lines. In any case this unhealthy obsession with compartmentalisation has also led to a situation where the threats of extinction are put on the back burner or passed to the next generation for solution.

In that context democracy has aided and abetted the cognitive threshold that now prevents us envisioning and enacting fundamental change on a universal scale. The solution is for the whole world to cooperate in solving the existential issues we ourselves have created. Possibly the next iteration of democracy can help us do that. But the current system is not geared up to face that challenge. Hopefully sooner rather than later, we will awake to that reality.

(ii) Patriarchy

In spite of recent attempts to remedy the gender imbalance in governments – most famously by Justin Trudeau in Canada, for example, who went to great pains to ensure that 50 per cent of his cabinet were women - we must face the fact that most parliaments are not democratic in the sense of representing the rich diversity of talent and cultural values within our societies.

Without exception, no contemporary democratic government reflects the wide variety of ages, sexual preferences, ethnicities, religious and cultural beliefs, physical disabilities, occupations, skills, educational backgrounds, and genders existing in the communities they purport to represent.

Statistically, governments are dominated by middle-aged men, many from affluent, middle-class backgrounds, whose primary knowledge base was formed in business, management or the law.

This is certainly a problem, for it depletes the creative thinking that can arise from diversity. But it is also a downstream consequence of an ingrained upstream model. For despite the efforts over the past century or more from suffragettes, feminists, equal wage lobbyists, and social activists, we still live in a patriarchy. Male-dominated power structures frame and inform a majority of arrangements and transactions in today’s world - most obviously reflected in men’s control over property, moral authority, social privilege – and the systems of political governance.

When we are told our personal needs are being taken seriously, that our voice is heard and valued by those who we elected to govern us, and that our views are amply and accurately represented in the parliament, it is only natural that we look for assurances that this is indeed the case. But when we then look around, concerned that nobody is actually asking for our opinions, see nobody who is really in touch with our own fears, joys and experience of life, and find out that - despite assurances to the contrary, most representatives do not actually want to know what we think as it might challenge their deepest assumptions - it is then that the reality hits.

Once elected, or so it seems, very few people actually care to do the job for which they were elected. Distracted and overwhelmed, they seem far more concerned to follow their own prescriptions and abide by the ideology of their party than to understand and enact the will of the people.

We cannot simply assume that because this is how things are, this is how they should be. Until we find ways to remedy the issue of gender, and other similar disparities, it is highly probable that current levels of public disengagement will worsen.

New Models

After comprehensive analyses like this it is too easy to believe we should throw out the failing system and begin again. That is as irrational as assuming the only thing we need to do is to bring democracy into the 21st century, technologically speaking, by digitising the concept of the ballot box, although that might be a good start - particularly in terms of reducing the cost of voting.

That new thinking and new models are needed is self-evident. Ideally these models must be able to address the complexities of the human condition by meeting discrete societal needs, while also responding in a cooperative manner to the emergencies facing us as a species. It is always possible that some form of hybrid, such as that which exists in Singapore, for example, albeit with certain modifications, might offer a possible way forward. Cases from the World Social Forum might point to better ways of engaging with the global community while transcending the hegemony of nations. Citizen juries, too, offer benefits, especially at the local level. Even the various prizes on offer from organisations like Singularity University and the Global Challenges Foundation might spring a few surprises regarding what is possible. Unfortunately none of these, by themselves, are likely to fulfil what we might envisage as an elegantly flawless design.

Reframing democracy is also worth trying. Even so it still might not work in every situation and we should probably stop the pretence that it is a non-negotiable panacea for the entire world. Even if we can get a reinvented democratic system to work effectively and as efficiently as possible, we might still need to accept the unpalatable truth that it is now too slow and cumbersome for our needs.

There are plenty of people around the world playing with new ideas. Some rudimentary, others well-formed and in the process of being prototyped. One such model is MiVote – an original Australian model incubated by Centre for the Future and now going global.

The MiVote model is not simply about voting. It is an attempt to redesign the entire system of how we practise collective decision-making, become well-informed about critical matters, and in ways that are sufficient for us to comprehend the consequences of our decisions, and to be free to vote accordingly.

During the early development of MiVote, and certainly during its extended prototyping, we tried to identify every possible point at which the current system was vulnerable to exploitation or corruption by vested interests – a distortion of intentions that has, at times and in certain places, resulted in some quasi-democratic systems coming closer to being a platform for social engineering and compliance, rather than a liberating force for airing the collective will of the majority.

With MiVote those early intentions have remained consistent. We intend ridding the system of corporate donors, for we see how this allows the legislative process to be contaminated by money and undue influence. We want to shake the current system to its very foundations by separating governance from the inequities of political game playing and horse trading. We want to free the system from career politicians, to ensure fresh blood and ideas continuously flow between a society and its government. We also believe it necessary to upgrade the speed and integrity of the governance system, opening it up to digital technologies, so that citizens can vote instantly on the most pressing policy issues of the day.

We want to ensure that people are fully informed regarding the consequences of voting a particular way - less swayed by the media, and unconstrained by the ideological certainties consistently demonstrated by the mainstream political parties. To that end, we moved away from the polarities of dualism, instituting four possible destinational frames for each issue, to reflect both the intricacy and the nuances embedded within most contemporary issues.

We contract with elected MiVote politicians on the basis of full transparency and a non-negotiable constitution. If they claim to represent their constituencies then they must do so by canvassing their community on every policy issue and legislating purely according to the majority view.

Above all we made sure that the new system we designed was generative and could do all that we needed it to do in the most benign and inclusive, yet least disruptive, manner.

One key aspect of MiVote is the enabling of an autopoietic capacity that the current system cannot match - least of all corrupt. Using a distributed engagement and decision-making platform, that incorporates blockchain-enabled processes to ensure transparency and the security of digital ballots, we expect MiVote will revolutionise the way in which democracy works - making it speedier, cheaper and ultimately far more engaging.

Ultimately my personal wish is that the MiVote initiative shines a light on new possibilities and alternative pathways that will restore trust in the democratic process. I honestly do not have a clue as to whether it will be adequate. I have lingering doubts about whether we can ever design a system that deals with all the flaws and threats I have identified here.

Ultimately, we need for the people to be pulling the strings rather than a permanent political class – assuming we actually want democracy to be rescued. Again I have doubts. I am unsure whether democracy, even if we can get it working to perfection, will be sufficient. I am not confident that we will use it to re-engage the community - to establish less dystopian narratives, for example. I am not convinced that the crowd is invariably wiser than a small group of committed, intelligent and benevolent activists. I am not sold on the two-party logic and dialogue. I worry about the use of psychographic data to manipulate outcomes. I certainly do not believe the future can be secured based only on the consensus of a majority. Indeed it would be complacent of us to ignore the role visionaries have and might continue to play in steeling the collective resolve needed to trigger and execute transformative change.

Hopefully time will tell if there is wisdom in our collective madness. Meanwhile we continue to evolve. There are no other options.

This personal chronicle of the philosophical underpinnings of Centre for the Future’s Democracy by MiVote, a project aimed at reinventing democracy and returning it to the global community as a gift for future generations, is dedicated to every member of the extraordinary team, including the many volunteers, staff, Council members and supporters, who helped create, shape, fund, manage, and prototype this, the first step, in a one hundred year mindful uprising.