7. NATURE OF RELEVANT, OPTIMAL DEMOCRACY

Do our politicians organize themselves and Congress to solve problems through relevant democracy? To talk of Congressional organization is to talk about the legislative process in selecting problems and solutions. Is the selection of problems and solutions (legislation) determined on a democratic basis? Is there truly one vote per person? Or, are the law proposals selected through a feudalistic hierarchy based on incumbency, seniority, and lobbying power, a process that ignores the productiveness of individual problem-solvers? A retiring Congressman provides the answer and confirms the use of feudalism as an apt descriptive term.

When you had 19 or 20 committee chairmen holding virtually all the power, you had small fiefdoms and a dictatorial system.

Another member of Congress expressed the same sentiment:

In Congress, a committee chairman has arbitrary powers to just sit on your piece of legislation if he believes it doesn't have merit, which is a very arbitrary and subjective judgement for one person to make.

Is this democracy?

One definition of democracy is the rule of one-man, one-vote. Burdened with incumbency and a feudalistic hierarchy, Congress does not have democracy. A politically encumbered Congress cannot expect to give America the benefits of democracy on any one of the 365 days in a year.

America actually has a democratic vote only at election time every two, four, or six years. This limited degree of democracy quickly disappears with the toleration of feudalistic habitual politicians. The negation of democracy comes from seniority and incumbency.

Demolection is NOT Democracy

Election-time democracy is not enough to guarantee the benefits of democracy. Relevant democracy at election time goes to waste if it disappears from the actual problem-solving process. Without democratic problem-solving there is no true democracy.

Democracy means divisions of people rule. Feudalistic politicians negate people ruling themselves. A better description of America's version of democracy than "divisions of people rule" is "divisions of people elect." The word for this stunted substitute for democracy is demolection.

The Benefit of Democracy is Freedom from Problems

An ill wind blows when the power to solve problems is not in the hands of the problem sufferers. Not only do many problems go unsolved, but even worse, problems go undiagnosed.

What are the odds that a problem will be solved if the power and responsibility for solving it lie outside the problem's area of influence? Absentee problem solvers cannot truly know the problems. Efficient and effective solutions will be a wishful dream rather than part of the American Dream. Opposing absentee problem-solving is relevant democracy.

Relevant democracy exists when the power and responsibility to solve a problem lie with the people affected by it. Appropriately divided or constituted, people can rule their problems out of their lives. Relevant democracy provides the most problem-free existence. The source of the problems has the power and responsibility to end the problems. Any degree of absentee problem-solving inadequately defines problems. Poorly defined problems remain unsolved problems.

Demolections--Benevolent or Malevolent Despotism

With demolections, the ruling power and responsibility for a division of people do not remain within the divisions between elections. They are in the hands of someone apart from the people. Problem-solving suffers when people lack organized divisions to rule all the time, not just at election times. Either chaos (anarchy) or over-centralization (despotism) occurs.

Over-centralization of problem-solving power results in either benevolent or malevolent despotism, depending upon the nature of the person or persons holding the power. A former President exhibited poor problem-solving resulting from benevolent despotism when defending his administration:

And I tried to acquaint myself with all the factors. And that's what I meant by governing as a strong leader. I didn't try to put the responsibility off on anyone else. When a mistake was made I tried to take the blame."

In so speaking, Jimmy Carter summed up the consequences of undemocratic rule. Mistakes increase when anyone takes on too much responsibility. Mistakes are less if one organizes people more readily familiar with the problems to respond to the problems. Carter was like many politicians. He believed his "on the job" training would acquaint him with the nation's problems sufficiently to respond productively. Impossible.

In solving problems, a person with excessive power and responsibility is a despot. Whether he is benevolent or malevolent, the effect is the same. With despotism, fewer problems are solved than there would be under a democratic organization of the people. In some sense, benevolent despotism is more dangerous than malevolent policy-making, because the underlying weakness found in any despotic system remains better hidden. Of people's confusions, one can say

ignorance is bliss ... only for a while.

Demolection--people ruling only on election days--means absentee problem-solving. Power and responsibility are not where they belong: in the hands of those with the problems. On the continuum of problem-solving processes, true democracy falls between despotism and anarchy.

Power Equals Responsibility

When a populace gives power to elected officials, it is giving the officials the responsibility to respond to the problems of the populace. The more power one has, the greater the responsibility. Power should be limited. A person can only respond efficiently to a limited number of problems. Problems take time to diagnose and digest. Regardless of a person's attitude or ability, any power and responsibility beyond the limit of that person's efficiency means unsolved problems.

The most well-meaning person in the world could become the devil if empowered like a god to solve the world's problems. A series of U.S. Presidents support this contention. Jerry was a nice guy, Jimmy even nicer, and Ronnie nicest. Niceness does not solve problems.

Relevant divisioning of the people to rule themselves is the only way. Beware of purported leaders that espouse a "give me more power" mentality.

"Trust me," he said, when criticism rose during recent Democratic caucuses; "If I'm to be your leader, I [Tip O'Neal, Speaker of the House] must be free to lead."

Leaders have freedom when they have productive ideas that free people from the problems of life. Power ultimately belongs to the problem solvers. The powerful who do not solve problems are playing with matches atop a powder keg.

The American people and the national problem-solving process suffer from demolection. Whether demolections empower both good guys and bad guys is a secondary problem. A more primary culprit is the fact that both the good guys and the bad guys have too much power and responsibility. Consequently, America does not reap the benefits of democracy.

Manageable Divisions of People Demolish Problems

When people suffer from inflation, unemployment, taxation, and violence then relevant democracy is not present in the problem-solving process. People experience problems when they confuse the mere name of democracy with actual democracy. Ironically, the habitual American politicians like to poke fun at foreign countries that claim to be democratic. The irony is that they themselves are not democratic in the relevant sense.

To have relevant democracy the people must be relevantly "divided to rule themselves." Anarchy is an excessive, dysfunctional splintering of the people. Despotism is an insufficient or nominal division of power. Both types of power distribution are unmanageable, involving as they do masses of people lacking the functional organization needed to solve their problems.

Relevant Democracy Requires Levels

If people are to have the benefits of democracy, they must always maintain the relevancy of "rule by divisions." Relevancy considers population size and problem occurrence. If the population grows, the partitioning must adapt. The people must reapportion themselves into manageable divisions. Otherwise, they cannot manage their problems and rule them out of their lives.

Political reapportionment, if it involves merely changing geographical boundaries in response to larger populations, often promotes more irrelevant democracy. Such gerrymandering merely changes geographical rather than demographic boundaries. If people tolerate "geocracy," they should not expect the benefits of democracy. If the reorganization does not mature as the population grows, the benefits of relevant democracy will not be present.

Since the writing of the U.S. Constitution in 1787, the manner in which the populace is divided in order to rule itself has not changed. In 1787, the population of the U.S. was about 3 million people. Individually, the first men elected to the House of Representatives had to represent ("present again") the concerns and consensus of only about 30,000 voters.

Today, the population has grown, and suffrage has increased. A Representative presents again the concerns and consensus of about 300,000 voters (or 500,000 people altogether). Can this be done productively? The results of expecting one person to represent the problems of 500,000 people are inflation, unemployment and taxation. Reductio ad absurdum, the two California Senators represent the well-being of 30 million people!

America suffers from an improper and counterproductive division of "we, the people." Problem-solving power and responsibility need productive apportionment. King George III was unable to understand and represent the problems of 3 million people in 1776. Can the American people really expect anyone to represent the problems of 30 million people, or even 500,000?

The longer America has an absurd, insufficient partitionment of the people, the more costly will be its problems. The overwhelming number of people within each division accounts for the fact that politicians take a reactive rather than an anticipatory or preventive approach to problems. Because there is so little power and responsibility at the lower levels, the problems within a division simply grow until all its politicians can do is careen back and forth between them.

Where or when did America go wrong in maintaining a relevant degree of democracy? The Constitution of 1787 embodied principles with which to amend it periodically. In retrospect, one principle was "democratic levels." After the American Revolution, some people thought we should have an American Kingship. Objections to a kingship were simple. Historically, kings fail to represent the citizens' well-being. The opposite of a kingship was equally unattractive, namely, anarchy. So, they made a productive compromise. A newly elected kingly figure would preside for a regular period of time. This presider or president would represent the people as a whole.

To prevent the despotic excesses from a single power, the founding fathers constituted an additional level to represent the parts of the whole. The second level of representation was not a mere collection of elected people without power. It was a representative body with power and responsibility. Thus, America's problem-solving process became a two-pronged division of the people into the executive and legislative branches. The Supreme Court represented still another approach to solving problems, taking place within a different time frame than that of the presider or the representatives.

Because of the size of the American population during the early years, the original political organization of the populace worked well. However, this time is past. America needs the incorporation of another level of checks and balances. This process will use modern telecomputation. It will democratically elect and elevate a problem-solver for the duration needed to solve a particular problem. Other people will ratify the individual and his solution using telecomputation.

The reader may argue that individuals could not be in touch with the issues enough to pass good judgement. In response to such arguments, it must be noted that habitual politicians are less and less in touch with the issues. Their small staffs tell them what to know and say, as evidenced in a 1981 article entitled "The Hidden Powers Who Really Run Congress."

Quite disturbingly, "ghost voters" exist in the House of Representatives. Certain politicians, a thousand miles away, cast votes in Washington. Some politicians violate the House rules by letting others vote with their plastic Congressional cards. Who elected these other people?

On a less negative note, consider who will participate in the new problem-solving process. Martians? Venusians? Or, concerned productive Americans?

Democracy Requires Relevant "Democratic Cycle Times"

When the U.S. Constitution was written in 1787, the terms of office for the elected people were as follows:

The degree of communication available at that time, on the national level, was an important factor in deciding the length of these terms. The rationale behind representative government was the inability of the general populace to communicate or present its own interests for public action.

Communication has vastly improved since 1787. Unfortunately and unproductively, it has not been used to

collect, filter, percolate, and hone

the intelligence of individuals with relevant information to solve the problems nearly as frequently as is necessary. Rather, habitual politicians misuse modern communication for personal glorification. Or, they distract the people from the growing mass of problems. In addition, one-issue groups increasingly dominate the news, far beyond the import of the problem behind their issue--anarchy. One person caught the flavor of America's policy-making process when he wrote the following to an editor:

I am convinced that we are no longer a democracy but a "pressureocracy." Single-issue groups are made up of "pressurecrats." Their shrill voices demanding their special interests or else is not our finest political hour.

Anarchy reigns when the loudest voice or fattest bribe decides the issues. Analyzing the terms of elected national offices (President, Senate and House) shows where telecommunication could improve problem-solving.

As America's kingly executive, the President does not have lifetime tenure. Too recent were the Colonists' experiences with English nepotism. A four-year term was chosen as an apt compromise between a term too long or too short ... for the times of 1787. To provide continuity beyond the length of the presidential term, the Senate's terms were a lengthier six years. In addition, the election of the Senate members was to occur in thirds every two years. To reflect changes in the people and their problems, the House members have two-year terms. Fresh faces and fresh ideas would refresh a moribund problem-solving process.

Political incumbency and cloning subvert limited terms for new problem-solving information and individuals. Congress recognized this in the top level of U.S. government when it passed the law limiting the President to two terms. After World War II, the Republican Congress used the four terms of FDR as grounds for the Presidential limitation. Why weren't they democratic toward themselves by limiting the length of their Congressional tenure? Did they improve their own democratic cycle? No. Some have had incumbencies for more than three decades! One Congressman held office for almost 50 years!

Throughout history, people have sought better problem-solving processes for their common problems. Historically, governmental improvements complement the problem solver with power and responsibility only for so long as the problem solver remains a solver. A generator of problems should have neither power nor responsibility, yet the same faces encumber each Congress despite greater national problems. Political incumbency and cloning negate the historical trend of limiting power and responsibility to better problem solvers.

Optimal Democracy

The Constitution of 1787 was the state of the art for democracy at that point in history. It had an optimal "democratic cycle time" for the problems of 200 years ago.

Since 1787, the size of the population and the problems have increased. The pace of the world has also increased. Do we need longer or shorter cycles of democracy in electing new problem solvers? The democratic cycle time for the problems of two centuries ago is not short enough for today. This is especially true considering the state of modern telecommunication. New information can be collected, filtered, percolated, and honed rapidly to solve problems. To have relevant democracy, we need manageable divisions of people and levels of policy-makers with optimal cycle times. We need an improved democycle as much now as in 1776, when the Colonists eliminated George III from their problem-solving process.

Longer terms are not the answer when Americans suffer immensely from a lack of fresh, relevant information in the Congress of the United States. Longer terms are not the answer when the length of service increases an incumbent's political IOU's. A political IOU injects irrelevant factors into the national problem-solving process. Longer terms by law are not the answer when we are suffering the effects of long terms already, i.e., self-benefiting incumbent politicians.

The answer is not turning the clock backward. The answer is not extending office tenure in hopes that congressional corruption and incompetence will go away. Quite to the contrary: the answer is no more incumbency of elected officials. The problem solving summation of the few effective incumbent does not pragmatically justify the greater drain from most incompentent incumbent. A good problem-solver will find other vehicles of public awareness to effect positive change.

Will eliminating incumbency disenfranchise good problem solvers? Is it better to lose a few good problem solvers by barring incumbency or to have a problem-solving process burdened by incumbent failures? Besides, a good problem solver is not going to go home and pout. A good problem solver will actively educate the problem-suffering people and his replacement. If he has relevant, productive solutions, people will read or listen.

The habitual politicians reveal their problem-solving philosophy when they say they need incumbency to achieve results. The national problem-solving process suffers from the Peter Principle. People rise to and remain at their level of incompetence and corruption. The American problem-solving process is a de facto Confederacy of Dunces.

Election-Year Jerks*

One advantage of democracy over dictatorships or kingships is the smooth transition of power. Historical and contemporary accounts reveal that economic and social turmoil accompany the shifting of problem-solving power with either a dictatorship or kingship. In part, the problem rests with the lower levels of the problem-solving process. They do not know who will be the new power. Consequently, the lower bureaucracy grinds to a halt in a process plagued with an over-concentration of power and responsibility. Sound familiar? With each major American election, especially landslides, the economic costs increase from rough transition periods, from the election-year jerks.

Many examples show why America does not have the benefits of relevant democracy, the benefits of problem-solving sine qua non. "Election-year jerks" are but another. The consequence is a reduced level of problem-solving activity, not only at the elected levels but at the lower nonelected levels as well. Election 1980 not only showed this but showed how it grew worse than the previous election.

Because of the way in which politicians have divided the American people, the following problem-solving handicaps appeared in the 1980 election.

Scenting capture of the White House for their party, Republicans in the Senate are bottling up in committee more than 120 presidential appointments that need confirmation.

In 1980, the Republicans did gain control of the Senate. As to solving national problems, it can be said,

Don't expect anything to run smoothly in the Senate for a while. Of the 53 Republican senators now in control, not one has ever chaired a committee before. They'll have to learn how the game is played. Democrats won't help.

The Democrats did not help the Republicans; they wanted the Republicans to make fools of themselves before the mid-term 1982 election. Furthermore, the high-ranking Democrats scrambled to join committees that would not have a high-ranking Republican to negate their influence. Ted Kennedy left the Judiciary Committee.

Who pays for this jerky disruption of the national problem-solving process? The people who suffer the problems from rising inflation, unemployment, taxation, and violence. Who's responsible for the jerks?

Civil servants supposedly regulate problems according to the existing laws. However, because of the massive Reagan landslide, many governmental units simply marked time pending clear signals from the new administration.

Huge hunks of the federal establishment had stopped work in the usual hush of quadrennial anticipation. Meetings did not get held and letters did not get sent.

The activity of solving or preventing problems had gone on vacation. A new face in the White House means new faces in the top 3000 to 5000 problem-solving positions in the Executive Branch. Are the replacements chosen on the basis of solving national or campaign problems?

Why did six of Ronald Reagan's eight latest cabinet-level appointees turn out to have political backgrounds after he vowed to rely heavily on successful outsiders?

On the basis of "yes-manism?"

Reagan's appointees are being told in no uncertain terms that one essential qualification is the ability to keep their mouths shut once they have taken office.

The effects of election-year jerks? Less problem-solving at the lower levels of the national problem-solving process. Who pays? We the people. Who's responsible? The habitual politicians!

Not only was public problem-solving disrupted by election-year jerks, but so was private problem-solving as the following capsule describes: "Business executives say they no sooner get attuned to one administration's economic policies than another comes in with an entirely different philosophy.

Before the election, the incumbents massively abused their elected office with election-year pork.

How Your Tax Money Helps Send Incumbents Back to Congress

Carter the Incumbent Excels at Using Office as a Campaign Asset

Before every primary in 1980, Jimmy Carter lubricated his campaign with election-year economics. Before the Wisconsin primary, he supported higher milk prices which he had previously been against. Who pays the inflated cost of supporting milk?

The White House occupant is not the only politician to abuse public office and public trust. Election-year congressional appropriations contain political compromises designed to reelect the incumbent rather than solve America's problems. Election-year economics borrow against the future economy. Who pays? It won't be the retired habitual politicians on their fat pensions.

There has to be something wrong with a system whereby Congress sets its own salary, gives its own raises and sets its own retirement after five years of federal service and has the unmitigated gall to ask all of us to tighten our belts.

Election-year jerks are not only domestic but international in their disruption of the world.

In conclusion, "While Washington is marking time until the new administration takes over, inflation's fever isn't." Election-year jerks compound the nature of unsolved inflationary problems.

America faces its greatest domestic and foreign problems. Does it not seem absurd that our national problem-solving process grinds to a halt every four years?

Election-year jerks don't have to be. America needs an extension of the principles behind the overlapping terms of the Senate. Part of the Senate is elected at different times to provide continuity rather than the transition jerks ... in principle.

Staggered Elections: Continuous Ratio Democracy Versus Jerky Politicians

Automobile transmissions have improved over the years. Initially, cars had no transmissions or a two-speed box. For smooth acceleration, a two-speed transmission is jerky compared to a four- or five-speed transmission. However, the latter transmission is not as smooth as a "continuous ratio" transmission; there are no jerks at all. If civilization is to accelerate away from problems, it needs fewer jerks in the human problem-solving process.

The whole rationale behind the overlapping terms of Senators was to provide smooth continuity in the national problem-solving process. Over the years, this rationale suffered demise at the hands of the mutually monopolizing major political parties. Think of it: the whole problem-solving hierarchy in the Senate ceased when the Republicans gained control in 1980. This is not the letter nor the spirit of the 1787 U.S. Constitution.

For smoother transitions in the Senate, electing one or two Senators each month would give "continuous ratio" democracy. Thus, in 72 months or six years, the 100 Senators would appear and disappear on a continuous, smooth basis. An end to the massive problems of election-year jerks and economics would quickly come. The cost would be less.

The House needs a similar election process. The 435 Congressional Representatives serve two-year or twenty-four month stints. Election-year landslides wipe out the national problem-solving process. If we elected a few representatives each month, more benefits of democracy would appear. More specifically, electing Representatives each month would provide smooth democracy rather than politicized election-year jerks (21 x 24 = 501)

Staggered elections would provide a smoother transition of national policy-making power, and would eliminate the feudal seniority that compromises the national well-being for the incumbents' special interests.

A benefit of staggered election is that more scrutiny can be exacted on candidates. The gangbang nature of all elections at the same time makes it hard to discern the individual players. A lot of corruption gets hidden just by the sheer mass of election activities.

Campaign Problem-solving: Democracy?

The politicians in Congress are experts at solving one type of problem: campaign reelection. The best national problem solvers do not get elected to Congress, due to the nature of the campaign laws. To survive the contemporary, contemptible campaigns, personal and professional compromises are necessary. Such compromises are the problems of campaigning in politicized America. Many good people avoid the cesspool of politics because they don't want to come out a stinker.

Campaign problems distill, shape and reward a certain kind of personality: those least concerned with national problem-solving. How else could one explain the continual effort to get reelected? To get elected, one needs merely to be a good campaign problem solver and to hell with the rest of the problems. The habitual political campaigner knows how to have different speeches for different audiences to gloss over his overall performance. Problem-solving integrity in politics? It doesn't exist.

Parallels exist between the decline of Rome and of Pax Americanus. During both downfalls, the people selected policy-makers on the basis of campaign problem-solving. Neither had a process for selecting true statesmen. In Rome, the campaigns were military; in America, the campaigns have been political in nature.

Separating Legislation and Legitimization

A national problem-solving process needs to separate law-proposing from law-making. Legislators should not also be the legitimizers of the laws that they propose, for as the habitual politicians in Congress show, the resultant laws tend to reflect short-term interests and thinking. Woe unto a people who allow the same policy-makers to both determine the concerns and vote the consensus, for they make themselves vulnerable to the woes of inflation, unemployment, and unfair taxation.

The Constitution's framers sought checks and balances via separate branches of government. However, three branches of government are not enough if all three branches are bulging with people having the same narrow, limited special interests. Ten branches would not be enough if they colluded not to rock their personal boats.

The collusion of corruption and incompetence appears in political compromises. Politicians portray compromises as a middle course for the common national good. Such is far from the truth. Most compromises collect individual special laws into a general appropriations bill. Compromises are packages of privileges. The statesmanship of Congress is "If you don't vote against my little bad bill, I won't vote against yours." The Reagan "Economic Recovery Act" contained attachments in which the sponsor bought votes with inflationary privileges.

Decades of little bad bills add up. Most legal laws, rather than being compromises for the nation, actually compromise the nation. Inflation, unemployment, overtaxation, and violence index a nation compromised by incompetence and corruption. A "compromise for" and a "compromise of" are not the same. The power to both legislate and legitimize permits a disastrous confusion of the two kinds of compromises.

Separation of power is another principle of democracy. Separation of power reduces over-centralization of responsibility to solve problems. Without separation of power, the tyrannies of despotism arise. If the legislators are also the legitimizers, the separation of powers is insufficient. Problems will go unprioritized and unsolved. Government needs an additional separation of legislation from legitimization.

Democracy is NOT Failing, Habitual Politicians Are

Unsolved problems do not indicate a failure of democracy. Rather, the massive problems of inflation, unemployment, taxation, and violence index the degree to which our national problem solvers are undemocratic. Democracy is problem-solving sine qua non. Problem-solving does not fail when democracy lives and breathes.

If the reader has been under the impression that democracy is failing, he is not alone. Many people hold and disperse this belief. For instance, the influential Trilateral Commission in 1975 released a report called the "Crisis of Democracy." It disparaged democracy as the means of solving human problems. This aristocratic group concluded that a few good men could do a better job than the people themselves. However, their description of democracy failing is not a description of democracy. It is an account of demolections, despotism, and anarchy.

Attacks on democracy are prevalent in the media, some obvious and some subtle. One newspaper columnist blamed the reason for poor presidential timber on the national political conventions, saying they are "plagued mainly by democracy." In the same vein, at another time, he defended smoke-filled back rooms as the best way to select policy-makers. An editor for the same newspaper company demonstrated the same misperception of democracy by erroneously stating that in not coping with world problems, "the West is reaffirming that democracy remains a disorderly process". Democracy is not failing America anymore than a furnace is responsible for a cold house in which no furnace is actually present.

Warning: Anyone found stealing lifehours will be forever banned from participation in and rewards of Better Democracy and Capitalism.

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