Minimize the Role of Representatives

When the great philosophers of our past imagined what would be the ideal national administration, they used the language of 'equal rights to all' and 'rule of intellect.' As a solution to various conditional constraints, most democracies have developed and adopted a form of representative rule. This form of rule entails that the citizens elect decision-makers, a ticket of people mostly unknown to them. The citizens employ politicians, but then, due to the organization of representative rule, the employee assumes control of the nation - the citizens as a collective. Citizen's access to political decisions is not denied on the grounds of her individual lack of political competence, but because she belongs to that class of people who can be labeled as mere 'citizen,' thus dismissed.

The organization of representative rule enables politicians to monopolize decision-making power - an institutionalized categorical inequality that reinforces the distinction between politicians and citizens - and results in a rule that is more vulnerable to corruption or inappropriate relations with financial investors. Moreover, with representatives, the citizens do not rule at all, and should therefore not be defined as 'democratic.'

For example, in January 2005, a survey revealed that 84% of Icelanders never wanted to support the war in Iraq and demanded to be withdrawn from the coalition. The public was never asked for an opinion, the prime minister at the time, David Oddsson, spoke down to the people and said that the citizens were incompetent to make that decision.

With the idea of 'equal rights to all' out the window, one would think that we could at least aim for the 'rule of intellect,' which would exhibit a concentration of smart people, of each society's most brilliant intellects, in the field of politics. Is this so? No. However, a transformation to participatory rule would make citizens the primary source of political power and enable a nation to tap into society's most brilliant intellects.

If politicians question the citizens ability to make decisions, then how can they justify the citizen's ability to vote on a ticket of people to make those very same political decision?

A multi-party system, which prevails in Iceland, can avoid demagoguery if the process calls for rhetorical approval of all parties before questioning the citizens. It's a fact that most people are driven by their passions and not their light of reason. Therefore, in order to tame our passions, let reason structure the framework of rules and laws. Make it so that passion and majoritarianism are unable to carry the nation into a huge deficit or disorder. As examplified by Switzerland, one of the means employed to prevent the administration from plummeting into majoritarianism, or mob rule, is the 'double majority' requirement -- it ensures the legitimacy of any citizen-made law. A double majority is the name given to a vote which requires a majority of votes according to two separate criteria.