ATD 200705-04 - Shaking False Democracy to the Core #01

[lpc1998 <lpc1998(at)lpc1998.com>]

Dear Mirek,

I hope you are right and that your proposal would help transform WDDM into a true democratic organisation that many of us here wish it to be.

Your email raises many points and to clarify matters, I have listed below my understanding of the relevant, major issues into 2 categories, points of agreement and disagreement.

On Points of Agreement

1  We do not know exactly how many members WDDM currently has. This is why in my illustration of a false majority in decision-making in my previous email,  the figure 100 was used instead of 55 which the current member list suggests. Yes, some on the list may be dead and some are lost.

2  WDDM is not a country

3  Participating members need not wait for anyone including non-participating members to discuss matters or make decisions for themselves.

4  Non-participating members, like new members, could participate in any matter they wish. Their contributions, if any, to the discussions do not depend on when they participate, but on the intrinsic values of their contributions.

5  WDDM at present comprises of various groups with similar and different democracy interests concurrently and all are free to pursue their interests in the way they know best so that we could achieve unity in diversity.

6  To ascertain a true majority, WDDM has to know its total number of members and to do so, it has to update its membership list periodically.

On Points of Disagreement

1 Your Proposal does not simply "count among our real members only those who show that they are alive by sending a note at least from time to time, participate in discussions and/or vote. And any majority can be calculated only with respect to the people who participate in this way. ..."

This is because:

(A)  Your proposal is about effective disenfranchising members who do not wish to vote on issues. The exact wordings are as follows:

"...If a member chooses not to participate in a vote, it will be deemed that (s)he abstained in this particular vote. By abstaining in a vote either explicitly or implicitly (by not participating at all), this member states that (s)he leaves the decision in this matters to others who are participating in the vote, ..."

Do note that, on these wordings, even those who participate in the discussion, but who could not, in good conscience, vote because of the wordings of the issues are disenfranchised. Although this procedure is widely used by false democracy, it is particularly bad for any organisation or community that aspires to be a true democracy. This is a mechanism that enables a small minority who are in control of the voting processes to go through the motion of open and public discussion and then put up all the vote choices that could have consequences not acceptable to some or even many of the participants in the discussion. Only the votes of those who vote are counted.

(B)  It would generally create and perpetuate an untruth that a non-participating member "...states that (s)he leaves the decision in this matters to others who are participating in the vote, ..."

(C)  It would be an implicit rejection of I&R by prohibiting objection to any decision made, namely: ".. and that when a decision is made,  (s)he will accept the decision made by others and not object to its implementation." I&R in a true democracy enables a member to begin a process to amend even any decision he/she previously supported, let alone decisions made by others that he/she does not support. This is one of the fundamental differences between a true democracy and a false one. 

(D)  Although its stated aim is that "this would be the best incentive for everybody to participate if they have any opinion on the matter", experience in the real world has shown that it is more likely to have the opposite effects for the following reasons:

(a)  When people have decisions made by others for them, they tend to become more complacent, lazy and ignorant. Therefore, it would discourage participation more than it would encourage it.

(b)  It does not address the root causes of why people do not participate in WDDM organisational matters. Generally, people tends to particiapte in discussions if they find them open, honest, useful, interesting, informative, civil and so on. Time and energy are always scarcities. If WDDM wants people to give preference for participation in its organisational matters over what they are currently doing, it must give them good reasons to do so.

(c)  It would further alienate those who choose non-participation for some reasons. I know this because I am one of those who has been driven from participation to non-participation.

2  Your Proposal seeks to enshrine in the Chapter the powers for the participating group to make irrevocable decisions for WDDM as a whole including for those in other groups even when the participating group is only a tiny minority. This is relying on false majority decision-making for WDDM as a whole unless the approving members constitute a true majority. This true majority can only happen when the participating group has grown to a sufficient majority. Yes, to ascertain a true majority, WDDM has to know its total number of members and to do so, it has to update its membership list periodically. However, this updating may not be necessary at the present time and for quite some time to come as the participating group constitutes a clear minority. So an alternative to an immediate updating of the WDDM membership list is for the participating group to maintain its own Register of Voters so that it could ascertain the total number of its voters for the purpose of ascertaining a true majority for its decision-making.

The participating group's Register of Voters could be easily established by inviting all the members on the current WDDM membership list to register as voters. If, for instance, only 15 members come forward to register out of current membership list of 55, it is a sobering truth for all of us indeed. The correct and proper thing to do is for the 15 to raise the standard of their public discourse to a level that could inspire and pursuade more WDDM members to join the participating group until a sufficient majority emerges when it is meanful to call for an update of the WDDM membership list so as to be able to ascertain true majority decision-making for WDDM as a whole. It will be wrong for the 15 to make rules to legitimize their decision-making over the majority who have chosen non-participation in the WDDM organisational matters.

3  Your justifications for false majority where 60 million voters out of 100 million do not vote are typical arguments thrown forward by the ruling elites in a false democracy to justify their rule over people and to confuse them. Whether there is a true majority support of a particular condidate or issue is a question of fact: if a candidate receives 30 million votes cast out of a 100 million eligible votes in the country, he has, in fact, received 30 million votes out of 100 million, and 30 million out 100 million does not constitute a true majority because a true majority in this case is at least 50 million votes + 1 and nothing less. Now, do you disagree with this statement of fact? If so, would you explain why the statement is factually wrong?

Even the elites in a false democracy do not attempt to claim that they got a true majority in the circumstances in the above example. What they do claim is that they got a constitutional or legal right to rule the people on the the ground that they have won the election in accordance with the constitution or laws of the country. What they do not tell the people is that their election victory is a legal fiction based on a false majority sanctioned by a constitution or laws effectively written by them. And your Proposal would be doing essentially the same thing to WDDM.

Incidentally, in my above example of 40 million voting voters out of 100 eligible voters, the mainstream media in the country would scream a landslide victory of 75% for the candidate who has garnered 30 million votes. It is indeed a tremendous achievement in a false democracy.

So the actual reasons for not voting by the 60 million voters are irrelevant to the question of what constitute a false majority. The fact remains that they have not voted and therefore there is no way in the circumstances to acheive a true majority of 50 million votes + 1 by the winning candidate.

You said that "... Only if the voting system is such that had those 60 millions participated, and no matter how they voted, the result would always be the same, undesirable, they were right in boycotting the elections, and you can call this a case of false majority."

Yes, this is what frequently happened in a false democracy and is among the underlying reasons why most of the 60 million voters choose not vote. No matter how they vote, it is always the same, undesirable government by the ruling elites. The voting system ensures either the ruling elites are from party A or party B, and whether from part A or B, the elites belong to the same ruling class in the country. And the elites from both parties are unacceptable choices to most of the 60 million voters and also to many of the voters who have voted for some very specific reasons.  If this is not so, then we in WDDM advocating direct or true democracy as a replacement for the unacceptable "representative democracy" are a tiny fringe minority spousting nonsense irrevelant to the lives of the ordinary people whom through their incurable laziness would render direct or true democracy equally unworkable.

Eric Lim (lpc1998)

"M. Kolar" <wddm(at)mkolar.org> wrote:

Dear Eric,
   after reading  you reply, I am even more convinced that my proposal is very appropriate for WDDM. (But it is only my personal proposal, to be discussed and approved/disapproved by all).
   Even before your reply I was worrying that I have not expressed myself properly, and whether my previous post would be correctly understood in the light of my promotion of the need of consensus.
   I think we are mixing here two different things together - the real-life geographical community (village, city, country) where one always knows how many members (voters) it has, and which it is not easy to leave, and an Internet group like WDDM where we have right now no precise definition what a member is, and which was created with the aim to gather together like-minded people who would like to try to do something tangible for the advancement or at least promotion of the idea of direct democracy (in our case). The fact that we have 55 members listed on the site only means that those 55 individuals at some point in the past signed up. From some of them we have never heard since then. For a few of them we have no current working e-mail address. So for all practical purposes, we can count among our real members only those who show that they are alive by sending a note at least from time to time, participate in discussions and/or vote. And any majority can be calculated only with respect to the people who participate in this way. My proposal simply was to state this fact more formally.  What practical counterproposal can you offer? Introduction of some strict member criteria, periodic compulsory member reporting?
    I think that if somebody doesn't open any e-mails from WDDM for a year, he/she effectively resigns from WDDM membership. When they then resume membership after such a self-imposed absence, is it reasonable, democratic to require from the rest that everything that has been achieved in their absence should be abandoned? How we should have known that we should wait for them, that they will ever return?  How many more reminders were we supposed to send out. What is the point to send out more reminders if somebody does not open and read them anyway?
    Again we never wanted to be a model of the society at large, where we would lose time chatting for example about whether some sort of society of un-equal citizens, or class-based society, or enlightened dictatorship is better than democracy. I thought that we were trying to attract here only the people who already came by their own rational analysis of the present situation to the conclusion that the introduction of real (direct) democracy would be beneficial to all. I do not see anything religious in this.
    Again why not to have WDDM as a federation of various groups -  active group who wants to do something tangible, e.g. at least experiment with Internet-based democratic procedures, a discussion club,  a group of sympathizers who just want to express one-time support, and maybe get some news from time to time???
    Even in a real-life community (country) I would not hurry with the accusation of the false-majority in every case when voter turn-out is small. It depends on the details of the voting system. Why did those 60 millions of voters of your example not participated? If the voting system is such that had they participated and were able to cast vote against those who won without their participation, and such a vote would result in a different government, and they knew about this, then either one has to blame at least partially the laziness of those 60 millions for the undesirable result, or they were not lazy, and were happy with whatever the result will be, or they wanted the result received and knew that it would arrive even without their participation. In any case they got what they wanted or what they deserved for their laziness to participate to show interest in public matters. I believe that on average people in all countries have the government that they deserve or are even more or less satisfied with. Only if the voting system is such that had those 60 millions participated, and no matter how they voted, the result would always be the same, undesirable, they were right in boycotting the elections, and you can call this a case of false majority.

  Mirek

lpc1998 wrote:

Dear PVR, Mark, Filia, Annette & Albano, Mirek & Nicolas,

No Mirek, I do not make any claim "that only 6 members participated in the deliberation and approval of the present Charter. ...  " The relevant text of my email is reproduced below for easy reference. It begins with "For example, if ..." meaning that it is not a statement of fact or claim. It is only an illustration of, in this case, what I understand by a "true majority" in decision-making. I do not know how many members actually participated in the deliberation and approval of the present Charter. After the twists and turns of last year's attempt at writing the WDDM Current Oprating Rules, I have decided then to join the non-participating majority. Except for a couple or two which were open out of curiosity, most emails on the WDDM organisational matters were transferred to a folder unread. I do not wish to re-visit the circumstances surrounding last year's events.

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Eric:

"For example, if we have a membership of 54, and only 6 members participate in the deliberation process and even if all 6 approve and endorse the Charter, it is only the Charter of the said 6, because for it to be a current majority decision of the WDDM, it needs to be approved by a simple true majority of 28 members out of 54 (i.e at least, 50%+1, the simple and honest meaning of a true majority)."

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The figures 54 and 6 in this quote were picked up from an email I read out of convenience and what I thought to be closer to reality, but unfortunately it has caused confusion and for this I apologise.

For avoidance of confusion, I wish to amend the figures in the relevant text from 54 to 100 and 6 to 10 respectively. The substance and logic of my illustration remain unchanged. Thus, the amended version of the relevent text is as follows:

"For example, if we have a membership of 100, and only 10 members participate in the deliberation process and even if all 10 approve and endorse the Charter, it is only the Charter of the said 10, because for it to be a current majority decision of the WDDM, it needs to be approved by a simple true majority of 51 members out of 100 (i.e at least, 50%+1, the simple and honest meaning of a true majority)."

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The issue of false majority is a critical one in the battle against false democracy. False majority is the core pillar of false democracy. This is because the ruling elites of a country seldom obtain a true majority in a ballot. So they invented a legal fiction majority. As an illustration, let us say there are 100 million voters in the country. Voters turnout is only 40%; i.e 40 million voters voted in the election. In order to declare a victor among the competing elites, they have written into the country's constitution that the condidate who polls the greatest number of "valid" votes wins. The "valid" votes in the illustration invariably would be less than 40 million after deducting the "disqualified" votes which includes the spoilt, blank and protest votes.

So in a false democracy:

1  The ruling elites survives on legal fictions contrary to the actual facts or truths;

2  They seldom have a true majority of 50%+1 of the total eligible votes and consequently they do not have the moral authority to govern the country. Their rule is often characterised by the extensive use of the coercive powers of the state;

3  Since they do not have the true majority of 50%+1 from the people, their claim of having won the mandate from the people is often not only false, but also an outright lie, a cheat and blatantly dishonest since such claims are made knowingly.

4  They conveniently disregard the voters who have rejected participation in their balloting processes and yet they shamelessly claim the right to govern these disregarded voters with their consent (the consent of these disregarded voters).

5  They conveniently justify the effective disenfranchisement of a very substantial number of voters, sometimes even a clear majority, on a so-called phenomenon of "voters' apathy" when, in fact, most voters who do not participate in the ballot or referemdum, do so intentionally because they have lost their confidence in the balloting system or processes. A fair and honest interpretation when a voter does not turn up to vote, is that he is, in fact, voting against all the prescribed condidates or issues and/or against the ballot system or processes.

6  The deeming of what the voter has, in fact, not done as having done by him through a dishonest legal process is a cynical and blatant violation of the individual's freedom of conscience or choice. The voter is effectively being robbed of his vote by a most undemocratic means.

7  The ruling elites sitting on a pedestal everywhere would most likely react vehemently against the insistence for a true majority in decision-making precisely because true majority exposes their deceit and lack of legitimacy and renders most, if not all, of their institutions and organisations unworkable.

In view of the above and of WDDM's mission to achieve true democracy for itself and for the people of the world, WDDM should reject false majority in its internal governance. Inspired WDDM members have to work hard and with preseverence to achieve true majority (50%+1) decision-making. Any candidate or issue that does not have 50%+1 of the total eligible votes does not have majority support. It is as straightforward as that. Any candidate or issue that receives 10 votes out of a total 100 eligible votes receives just that: 10 votes out of 100. Any legal fiction that converts these 10 votes into majority support is just fiction.

With such an achievement together with the resolute rejection of the use of false majority, WDDM would be leading people everywhere in shaking false democracy to the core.

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Mirek's Proposal:

"When a decision is to be made, every member must get all the information about an issue, and be informed that a vote will be held well in advance. Everybody can freely participate in all the deliberations and in the vote. If a member chooses not to participate in a vote, it will be deemed that (s)he abstained in this particular vote. By abstaining in a vote either explicitly or implicitly (by not participating at all), this member states that (s)he leaves the decision in this matters to others who are participating in the vote, and that when a decision is made,  (s)he will accept the decision made by others and not object to its implementation.
this would be the best incentive for everybody to participate if they have any opinion on the matter."

This proposal when adopted by WDDM would enshine in its Charter false majority for decison-making and would make it a false democracy too. And more importantly, WDDM would have surrendered the moral right to challenge or to lead others to challenge this core pillar of false democracy.

It also proposes to adopt the legal fiction of deeming non-participation of members as authorising others by such members to decide on their behalf. This is false and contrary to fact or truth, and a denial of a member's freedom of choice or conscience for non-participation. Also it is a bad precedence for deeming what the members or voters have not voted for as having voted for by them.

It also proposes to deny a member's right to object or to disregard decisions that do not have true majority support, a position any democracy believer is obliged to take.

In connection with the last point, it is also an implicit rejection of I&R. I&R is the mechanism for any member who objects, challenges or disputes any rule or decision of WDDM to have it amended or changed in a manner he/she believes to be necessary provided he/she could convince a true majority of the members to support the amendment or change he proposes even if such a rule or decision was made or supported by the current true majority or by a previous true majority that included him/her.

I&R ensures that no rule or decision of a democracy is cast in stone and put above the members or the people. It allows even a single member or voter, the minority of minorities, to begin a process that could bring about the necessary changes and makes progress possible.

Mirek, in view of the above, would you like to reconsider your proposal?

================================================

Nicolas:

"I am a very strong supporter of the blank vote. I think that it needs to be added to every poll and election, and be treated as another candidate or option, meaning that if more people vote blank than for a candidate or an option, things must be re-shuffled."

Yes, Nicolas, you are right. The people must have the option to vote officially against all the prescribed candidates or issues they do not support. I would advocate one step further: to be able to vote against the system or the ballot processes in which they have no confidence. It is duty of the officials concerned to build a ballot system the people can support. They should not be allowed to sweep their incompetence or treachery under the carpet of "voters' apathy".

As it is, apart from blank vote, there is a stronger alternative known as "protest vote". It is to draw a straight line diagonally across the ballot paper to leave no doubt that the voter is not endorsing any of the prescribed candidates and/or that the voter is voting against the ballot system or processes. It also demonstrates that the voter can think out of the boxes prescribed by false democracy and to deny false democracy the pretty little crosses in these boxes that false democracy would love so much to see.

Eric Lim (lpc1998)