(PLEASE NOTE: The below excerpts are copied directly from the Voter Directed Democracy book.)
The Corrupt Republics
Voter Directed Democracy is specifically designed to prevent two types of corruption that plague modern democratic republics and are perpetuated through party driven politics. Most of the world’s Full Democracies and all of the Flawed Democracies are overwhelmed with Financial Corruption of the political system as well as Agenda Corruption. Broadly speaking, financial corruption occurs when money, goods, services, or some other benefit is given to an elected official from individuals, corporations, or other political organizations in exchange for a desired political decision, action, or inaction. Financial corruption of democratic republics can be legal or illegal. There are a few well-documented instances of political bribery and other types of illegal financial corruption that make national headlines every year in the United States. Unfortunately, however, the majority of the financial corruption that occurs in any Flawed Democracy is legal financial corruption. In other words, there are currently many ways that our democratic republics become financially corrupted and majority of this corruption rarely makes headlines and is never prosecuted because it is currently legal.
Financial corruption is destructive to our democratic republics and, in turn, societies for many reasons. Most notably a financially corrupt political system essentially puts a price tag on political freedom and action. If the individuals or organizations are able to pay the requested price then the political decision or action they desire will happen. This is not democracy. This is not elected officials making decisions that are representative of the Will of the People. This is “pay-to-play” politics and this type of corruption often directly leads to most of the systemic social, political, and economic problems we have today. Sadly, this type of corruption is actually legal in many democratic countries. For example, in the United States of America lobbying and the use of Super PACs are types of legal financial corruption. It is also important to note that even when the money, goods, and other benefits are exchanged in order to secure a political decision or action that is clearly desired by the voters, this process is still financially corrupt. In an honest and transparent democracy, money or any type of personal or financial benefit should NEVER influence any elected official’s political decision, action, or inaction. Giving money or benefits to an elected official has nothing to do with voters coming together, discussing problems, determining what they want for their community, and having it implemented. The democratic process can and should always occur without the influence of money or any other benefit. Yes, again, there have been examples of money helping ensure that the Will of the People becomes the Public Agenda, but this is still corruption and perpetuates a system where money and not voters hold true political power.
Similarly, agenda corruption is also terrible for our democracies. Agenda corruption occurs when elected officials, for whatever reason, ignore the Will of the People and implement a Public Agenda that is not supported by a democratically derived consensus. Agenda corruption can be purposeful or accidental. Financial corruption often leads directly to purposeful agenda corruption but this is not always the case. Sometimes elected officials purposefully ignore the Will of the People for reasons that have nothing to do with receiving money, goods, services, or any other benefit. Sometimes purposeful agenda corruption happens because someone within the elected official’s inner circle- a close friend, business associate, or relative- will stand to benefit from their particular political decision or the elected official believes that they know better than what the voters have determined to be the Will of the People. Other times, however, the agenda corruption is accidental and simply the result of the elected official not having the modern tools they need to efficiently, effectively, and transparently determine the Will of the People for their constituency. In either case, creating and implementing a Voter Directed Democracy at all levels of government and using Voter Directed Network to objectively and transparently determine the Will of the People will go a long way to free our political systems from financial and agenda corruption. Also, to eradicate the most corruption from our republics, we must address the organizations that perpetuate these authoritarian cycles of financial and agenda political corruption… political parties.
Political Parties Perpetuate Corruption
Almost all political parties help perpetuate political corruption and are virtually useless to the modern voter. Political parties were, arguably, at one point in history a useful tool that helped voters communicate with each other and determine the Will of the People; however, given the extraordinary rate of modern communication and our incredible access to this technology, modern humans have evolved beyond needing political parties. There are quite simply many methods of technology-driven communication that are infinitely better for helping individual voters come together, discuss current issues, and articulate their ideas than having voters align themselves with a singular political organization. Our specific idea for what kind of online platform and technology democracies and voters need to be able to share information, discuss current challenges, develop consensus, and identify the Will of the People by voting every day at all levels of government is called Voter Directed Network. The specific details of this online platform are discussed in Part Two of this book. Given our ubiquitous access to these ever-improving methods of online communication, it is clear that political parties have outlived their usefulness and should be dissolved.
Furthermore, most political parties have three inherent authoritarian flaws that negatively impact democracy and perpetuate financial and agenda corruption. These three flaws are inescapable and can be applied universally to virtually all modern political parties:
1. Political parties are inherently limiting and thus not representative of the diverse opinions of their constituents or the Will of the People in general. All political parties have their agenda. They often plant their flags where their donors allow them to across the political spectrums on various social, political, and economic issues. It is then quite difficult for individual elected officials within a political party to deviate from the established boundaries set by their respective party. For example, we often see headlines like “Representative touting popular policy is facing resistance from more moderate members of the party.” This type of intra-party agenda corruption happens regularly to elected officials in both major parties in the United States. This notion that elected officials must follow the boundaries set forth by the party donors and/or oligarchs and/or party “leaders” is severely limiting, terribly antidemocratic, and undeniably authoritarian. Honest democracy and true representation should obviously allow elected officials to always act in accordance with their constituents’ demands and preferences at all times. This party driven system also forces voters to align themselves with an institution that they may agree with on a handful of issues but then disagree with on other issues. There is no political party that can represent all of an individual voter’s unique constellation of opinions. Therefore, in our current flawed party driven political systems the vast majority of voters are forced to vote against their best interests and values to some extent. A more representative and flexible system that allows voters to articulate their unique opinions to their elected officials about every issue that arises would be a much more democratic and helpful system. In a true democracy, there should be no party driven limits on any elected official’s ability to implement the Will of the People.
2. Political parties are easily corruptible. This is because individuals who wield a disproportionately large amount of political power operate political parties and, historically, disproportionately powerful individuals in any type of government have been easy targets for political corruption. In other words, it does not take a lot of influence and/or corruptive resources to bring financial and agenda corruption to a political party. Hypothetically, an aspiring oligarch or other agent of authoritarian corruption only has to financially corrupt or influence a few high-ranking and disproportionately powerful members of a political party in order to get their agenda implemented as part of the political party’s platform. We see this repeatedly at all levels of government in Flawed Democracies. Those who desire to have a disproportionately higher amount of political power in our societies focus their influence on a few members of major political parties in order to find success. As long as a relationship between political parties and financial resources exists this antidemocratic, destructive, and corruptive authoritarian dynamic will continue. Thus, to protect the Public Agenda from corruption we should step away from the idea of political parties and create a modern, honest, and transparent political system that truly values all voters equally in relation to all political decisions.
3. Political parties centralize and consolidate political power. This is their base function. This is literally what political parties exist to do and what they promise voters they will do. Political parties promise voters that if enough of their elected official candidates are empowered they will implement the party’s articulated agenda. By centralizing and consolidating political power in this way the two major political parties in the US and other corrupt party driven democracies effectively have complete authoritarian control over the Public Agenda. As a result, political parties become obvious targets for and perpetrators of political corruption. Also, by centralizing and consolidating political power within two equally corrupt political organizations many popular and well-supported political decisions never become the Public Agenda and many unpopular political decisions are made instead.
Furthermore, if the dominant political parties in any democracy agree on something (perpetually tabling comprehensive campaign finance reform even though it is an incredibly popular idea, for example) it will happen. This dynamic is also the manifestation of the Illusion of Choice that occurs in a two-party, three-party, four-party, or any party driven political system. For example, for any particular social, political, or economic issue that arises within a two-party based system, voters are often presented with only two options; however, in reality there are often hundreds of potential choices and solutions that we- as creative, rational, compassionate, and intelligent human beings living collectively in a democratic civil society- can pursue to solve our many social, political, and economic problems. Humanity has all the knowledge we collectively need to make better political decisions and reduce human suffering. We just need a new, improved, advanced, and modernized political system that gives voters real access to all of these potential choices and allows us to implement all of our knowledge and compassionate instincts. We can do better than corrupt and flawed party driven democracy. We can build better democratic republics that create better systems for all voters that are truly representative of the Will of the People and reflective of our collective knowledge and values. We can do this with Voter Directed Democratic Republics on Voter Directed Network.
Voter Directed Democracy and the Redistribution of Political Power
As we have discussed previously, Voter Directed Democracy empowers all eligible voters equally to make all political decisions at all levels of government. By empowering voters in this unprecedented way Voter Directed Democracy is effectively disempowering political parties where, as we explained in the previous section, so much of the political corruption occurs and an incredible amount of political power is dangerously centralized and consolidated. By centralizing and consolidating political power political parties also create a dangerously effective pathway for our democracies to fall to tyranny and become oppressive authoritarian regimes. This type of democratic failure has happened over and over again around the world. Most notably in recent history, this is exactly what happened in Germany with the Nazi Party beginning in 1932. The Nazi Party was democratically elected to significant political power in 1932 for the first time but was able to rapidly dismantle the established democratic state because the Nazi Party was able to centralize and consolidate so much political power through their network of elected officials that followed the Nazi Party agenda often without question or hesitation. In fact, by 1934 Adolf Hitler was able to -among his many horrific, inhumane, and anti-democratic political decisions- abolish the Office of President and declare himself Fuhrer or a dictator, which meant his decisions were no longer bound by the laws of the state and that there were no legal or constitutional limits to his authority. In two short years Germany went from established democracy to authoritarian dictatorship. As long as political parties exist in this current capacity to centralize and consolidate political power via a network of elected officials that are expected to follow and implement the party’s agenda, it is absolute foolishness and willfully ignorant to believe that a similar fall of democracy cannot occur within any established party driven democratic nation. Political parties in any government structure that have the ability to centralize and consolidate political power will ALWAYS be a threat to democracy and create a dangerous potential pathway to an authoritarian state.
To be perfectly clear, this strong, and hopefully convincing, argument against political parties is NOT an argument against like-minded individuals gathering to organize for any particular desired social or economic outcome. This type of activity can never, in any practical way, be prevented and the right to assemble in such a fashion is constitutionally protected in many democracies, including the United States. If, for example, your community is tired of the local tax code and wants to bring together a group of people to change these economic dynamics, such a gathering is perfectly acceptable and is in no way a threat to democracy. This gathering could be considered the formation of a “political party” but is the essence of democracy. Conversely, political parties in a democracy should not be organizing and assembling to centralize and consolidate political power by attempting to establish control over the political power that is constitutionally given to each individual elected official. In other words, organizing support for and assembling around a single desired political outcome is a safe, helpful, and democratically just gathering; however, organizing and creating a political party around getting a particular set of elected officials empowered that have identified themselves as members of the same party in order to implement a particular agenda manifested by supporting multiple outcomes does not support democracy, promote political freedom, or protect our democratic liberties. This type of centralizing and consolidating of political power has historically led directly to the fall of democracies into authoritarian regimes.
To fight back against such dangerous centralization and consolidation of political power, Voter Directed Democracy is constantly redistributing power away from political parties and elected officials in favor of empowering voters to make all political decisions at every level of government. In a Voter Directed Democracy there are no mechanisms for individuals or organizations to gain disproportionate amounts of political power and influence. Every political decision of importance in a functional Voter Directed Democracy is made by voters empowering their elected officials to implement the discussed, voted on, and established Will of the People. After the elected official acts to create the Public Agenda to support the Will of the People for a singular, identified outcome the political power is immediately transferred back to the voters until the next political decision is made by the voters. Therefore, by constantly redistributing political power back to the voters and preventing the centralization and consolidation of political power, Voter Directed Democracy is effectively our best protection against tyranny and democracies falling to authoritarian dynamics.