Quotiing me
>> I could outline this in some detail, but i doubt it would be of interest...
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> Please continue, democracy is endangered in the USA.
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OK - but bear in mind that the usefulness of this is limited. As someone (I believe you) pointed out, part of our problem is that there are limitations on how complete democracy can be in capitalism. Capitalist class domiance means any form of government, no matter how formally democratic will tend to reflect the interests of capitalism.
It does not have to be quite this extreme though - there are reforms possible short of revolution, and I guess a radical proposal that cannot be implemented under capitalism may be useful in that in may be diluted into proposal that might be one even within a capitalist system.
Also, just be clear - while the U.S. is at the extreme end of un-libertarian systems within capitalist democracy, conventional capitqalist democracy is being undermined everywhere - in short this is not just a U.S. problem.
The U.S. doess have special problems of course. Some due simply to us having a stonnger capitalist class and weaker working class than most capitalist democracies - reflected for example in the more complete dominance of the mddia by the right here than elsewhere.
It also has constitutional problems - the U.S. Sentate where every state gets two Senators regardless of population, the U.S. presdiency delected by an undemocratic electoral vote system, the U.S. Supreme court - appointed for life by the Undemocractic Senate and the Undemocratic Presdident.
But this problem is not a U S one alone. Spain managted to act against the wishes of 90% of it's population to support the U.s. invasion of Iraq. Australia with Instant run-off in one house and proportional representation in another managed to defy a pretty good sixed majority.
In capitalist democracies elected officials are hypotheically public servants - empolyed by the people to govern on their behalf and according to their wishes. This is true only in some platonic never-never land where ideal men sit on ideal chairs and we are all just shadows on the wall. In the real world it doesn't work that way. The obvious and overwhelming reason is the existence and dominace of capitalist class interests. But there are secondary reasons - means by which such dominace are implemented.
Look at the difference between a capitalist employing a worker, and the public employing a legislator. A worker is pretty much employed at the will of the employer. Even if employement is not under an 'at-will' contract, not doing the job or disobeying a direct order gives the right to fire a worker. In contrast, an elected official is office for a fixed period of time (or in parlimentary system a time determinable by the prime minister or a majority voate of the legislature). Once in office an official can ingore any promises made, and pretty much do as she chooses until that term is up. Marx poined out long ago that recallability is a neccesary (though not sufficient) requirement for democracy.
OK - but recallability is actually quite difficult to implement in a normal parlimentary system. If you are using a simple first past the post system, then basically you need a special election to recall something. It won't be used in most legitamate cass - (especially in a capitalist system where money dominates) but will be used by the rich and powerful when a result does not suit their interests. (The current recall effort against Davis in California is a case in point.)
Now a point that Marx did not bring up is the need for some kind proportional representation in a democracy. Proportional representtation is not only required for minoirty representation. It is require for majority rule. Nine of the last ten times Republcians controlled the U.S. Congress occurred with more votes cast for Democrats than Republicans. Because in a first past the post system, you can win the most votes and lose the election because of unfavorable geographical distribution of those votes. Note btw that conventional means of proportional represnentation are incompatible with allowing recalls. Mathemtically yiou cannot guaranetee majorfity rule without some form of PR.
OK - now theer is one form of Proportional Representation that is compatible with recalls. That is the use of proxies such as are allowed in elections for corporate boards of directors, on stockholder proposals. You don't have to vote directly in such elections; you can can send proxies to someone who will attend such a meeting. Similarly a legislature could be formally a direct demcoracy, but allow proxies rather requiring attendence. In practice most people would send proxies. (I strongly suspect this would be true even if electronic attendence was allowed.) But if someone you gave your proxy to voted differently that you would like, you could withdraw it , and delegate to someone else. So you would have the control of a direct democray without having to actually participate in the meetings. You choose who represents you, and can "recall" you votes at anytime, and transfer to someone else, or cast it yourself.
This has it's own problem though. It might be democractic, but it would not be deliberative. The huge number of people participating in such a legislature would (at best) make like a giant calififornia initiative process. Well organized groups would put forth proposals to be voted up or down. There would be no real debatge, let alone the kind of back and forth discussion, and amendment process that can produce deceent law.
So as a final step, I would suggest that mixture of direct and delegatory democracy be only the lower house of a two house legislature. The upper house would be elected by a more conventional form of propoportional representation. This upper house would not pass laws, but would propose laws, draft them, and debate them. It would set the agenda in the largest sense of thw word. Because it would not accept or reject laws, but only propose them, laws could be put forward by a signifcant minority. So you would normall end up with two or three or even four or five choices on each issue. These choices would then be sent to the lower house to be voted on in some sor of choice ballot. (Probably an instant run-off or instance round-robin system.) The lower house in turn would have the optiohn of dissolving the upper house and calling a new upper house election at any time if it felt the issues were not being framed properly, that the agenda was improperly set.
This gives you democratic checks and balances to ensure the legislature truly were public servant, responding to the will of the people, while still allowing the kind of debate and deliberation that cannot take place in groups of thousandds or millions.
Now I don't know what practical use this kind of proposal is. We are not going to set up a govenrment along these lines in the near future. It would be useful I suppose to a large enough left organization. Maybe even smaller left organiztions could use simplified versions. And it could certainly be added as a reform proposal for a state legislature.