

### Some Reader Comments

These comments were not written by family members, friends, other authors as favors, or paid reviewers but by people I didn't know who were inspired and motivated to write to me after reading this book. I welcome your thoughts about the government design presented in _Beyond Plutocracy_. I will reply to e-mails as long as I am able.

Roger Rothenberger

E-mail: roger.rothenberger@gmail.com

*****... you seem to have hammered the bright point of a world-spanning, evolved consciousness down into the gross material world, where it is needed to shine. A truly impressive achievement.

* I am consistently amazed at the cerebral altitude you have obtained, which envelopes so many important details and manages them so well!

*... truly original and very thought provoking... extraordinary work...

* Brilliant! A breakthrough!

* I've started reading your book for a second time, and I've come to believe that it is one of the most profound works I've read in my life.

What kind of a political book and government design could possibly earn such comments?

### In Brief

Capitalism, the market economy, is our best form of economic relationship. But capitalism has a very deep flaw. It tends toward monopoly. It concentrates excessive power, wealth, and advantage into the hands of all too often ruthless, greedy elites who exploit the rest of the populace, corrupt our government, and override the common good.

Capitalism is redeemable. A sound, balanced, equitable market economy can be achieved by the wise management of an honest government. But we don't have an honest government that truly includes and represents the entire electorate.

Our government's principal dishonesty is its electoral system. Elections are left to a marketplace, mass media, two political parties, and state electoral district systems that are mostly owned, operated, and dominated by the wealthy. Elections, offices, and the favors of our government are bought and sold just like any other commodity. The result is that wealthy and wealth-serving elites hold a permanent hegemony of seats, offices, and power in our government and we get stuck with the best government that money can buy.

Direct democracy—in which the electorate votes directly on issues—is the correct way to overcome the tyranny of plutocracy. But as the phrases "the tyranny of democracy" and "the rule of the mob" suggest, democracy also has some profound problems and can become a tyranny in its own way.

It is by adding to our government (or to any government) _just the right kind and amount of direct democracy_ that its representative branches are rendered truly representative of the entire electorate; the tyranny of plutocracy is overcome; the democracy itself does not become a tyranny; and the responsible personal freedom of the individual is maximized in a just, equitable society.

Our government will never become OUR government, the government of "we the people," all of the people, until we add to it an _honest_ electoral system and _true_ democracy. That is exactly what is achieved in this book. The result is the honest government, equitable market economy, and good society we all seek.

### Dedication

To the great souls throughout  
history that sacrificed, suffered  
and fought the good fight for  
the advancement of just,  
equitable inclusion and freedom  
for everyone in our world.

### Beyond Plutocracy

### True Democracy for America

### Roger D. Rothenberger

Copyright 2012 Roger D. Rothenberger

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords License Statement

The manuscript for _Beyond Plutocracy_ is registered at the U. S. Copyright Office. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please go to www.smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

All Table of Contents and Figures entries are hyperlinks. All chapter numbers throughout the book are hyperlinks that return here.

Introduction

1: Dominance and Plutocracy

2: Dominance and Plutocracy the American Way

3: The Writing and Ratification of the American Constitution

4: The Modern "-isms": Communism, Socialism, and Capitalism

5: Reorganizing the Powers of the American Government

6: True Democracy: The Demos, the Fourth Branch of Government

7: The Demos System: Convenience, Simplicity, and Security

8: Membership in the Demos, Privilege Verses Obligation

9: Consensus Democracy

10: Consensus Government, Consensus Capitalism, and Consensus Society

11: The Demos Issues

12: Federal Tax Rate

13: Tax Burden Division

14: Corporate Tax Scale

15: Income Tax Scale

16: Inheritance Tax Scale

17: Tax Revenue Allocation

18: Amount of Debt or Savings

19: Standard Workweek

20: Minimum Wage

21: The Demos Electoral System

22: The Extremes and the Rate of Change of the Demos Consensus on Issues

23: Congressional Legislative Reform

24: Democracy 101

25: Government, Business, and the Definition of Labor

26: How to Bring True Democracy to America

27: The Effect of the Demos on American Society

28: Social Efficiency and the Quality of Life

29: Us versus Them

30: Beyond Plutocracy

Appendix 1: Demos Computer Calculations

Appendix 2: Revenue, Income, and Inheritance Tax Calculation

Appendix 3: Simplifying the Tax Code

Band of Webmasters

About Me and the Writing of Beyond Plutocracy

Endnotes  
Click endnote numbers, always in brackets [1] within text, to go to and return from endnotes.

### Demos Issues List

Chapter 11, Demos Issues: A list of the twelve issues included in the demos

Figures

Chapter 5, Figure 1: The effect of the distribution of political power on personal freedom

Appendix 1, Figure 1: The nine economic demos issues and their voting methods

Appendix 1, Figure 2: Conversion of the three color values to a single resultant value

Appendix 1, Figure 3: The relationship of the demos issues

The figures in this ebook to which the above links lead may not be viewable on tiny devices with small screens. If your device is not up to the task, use a larger device such as a desktop, notebook, or tablet computer with an Internet browser. Copy the desired link below to the address line of your larger device's Internet browser.

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Introduction []

Plutocracy is governance by the wealthy. Most of America's many political, economic, and social ills are caused or aggravated by its most fundamental problem: America is not really a democracy but a plutocracy overwhelmingly dominated and operated by a wealthy few. Our government was created by, is populated by, and first and best serves wealthy elites that hold a perpetual hegemony of power and wealth through the generations, much to the detriment of the rest of the populace.

Elections are left to a marketplace, mass media, and political parties that are mostly owned and operated by the wealthy. Elections, offices, and the favors of government are bought just like any other commodity. Most of the populace is effectively disenfranchised and rendered powerless while individual freedom and economic security are increasingly crushed by the twin assaults of ever growing governmental and corporate power.

The existence of two major political parties and a few minor ones at times gives the illusion and feeds the myth that America is a democracy and we have real choices during elections. But the principal electoral choices have already been made by the wealthy and by the preliminary electoral process long before the electoral process ever reaches the vast majority of the electorate. The government remains perpetually populated by the wealthy and wealth-serving who mostly haggle over how to best manage their plutocracy. The economic bottom half and its needs are effectively excluded from government and its decisions. A political cartoon comes to mind that illustrates our true situation: A giant wealthy fat cat complete with a top hat, a big cigar, and a cynical smile is standing legs apart and arms spread outward above the many tiny people below, the electorate. He laughingly exclaims, "You may take my Right hand or my Left hand, but you always get me!"

Applying superficial band-aids to our government such as reforming campaign financing, creating term limits, cleaning up scandals, kicking the current "bums" out of office, or struggling with third parties or independent candidates will never fix the problem. The problem is not about people; it is not about who currently occupies political office, "our" party or candidates verses others.

The real problem is the political _system_ itself, the fundamental design and structure of our government. While creating a constitution and government in the name of all of the people and claiming to favor no particular faction, the founders—fifty-five powerful wealthy men—in fact wrote a constitution and created a government that overwhelmingly favored themselves and similar others. It continues to favor similar others—powerful wealthy elites, the plutocrats—through the generations to this day.

Until the fundamental imbalance of political power that overwhelmingly favors the wealthy is corrected, all attempts at repairing our nation's many ills are doomed to very limited success or outright failure. Correcting this imbalance of power requires a partial redesign of our government.

Most political correctives offered today fail both at overcoming plutocracy and at adequately achieving and securing the freedom of the individual. This book offers for your consideration a partial redesign of the American government that really fixes in just the right way what is really wrong with it.

The government design presented here strikes a judicious balance of political power that, unlike the design of the founders, _really_ does not unduly favor any particular group. It achieves a truly democratic process and the consensus of the entire electorate on our nation's most important issues. It results in the honest representation of all members of the electorate in the representative branches of government. It mitigates the worst and brings out the best that our market economy has to offer. It achieves and secures the fullest freedom of the individual and liberty in the nation. And it nurtures responsibility and excellence in each of us.

Also, of crucial importance for the existence and success of any truly democratic process involving a busy electorate whose members have varying capability, the democratic process presented here is very convenient. It requires surprisingly little time and effort. And it is simple enough for those who are not politically sophisticated and sophisticated enough for those who are politically astute.

### ~~~~~~~

The distribution of power is the most fundamental of all political issues. Good government and a good society require the correct distribution of power as their foundation. Excessive power cannot be held by an elite few, the simple majority, or any other faction of the populace.

Joining direct democracy and representative democracy together in just the right way achieves a correct distribution of power resulting in a government that overcomes the shortcomings of both. Direct democracy is people directly voting on issues. Representative democracy— _truly representative democracy!_ —is people voting in _truly free_ elections for representatives that _honestly_ represent the _entire_ electorate and populace in government.

Most people mistakenly believe that America already practices representative democracy. But it does not. This can be readily seen when our current so-called representative democracy with its extreme concentrations of power and wealth and widespread social injustice is compared by you, dear reader, with the truly representative democracy proposed in this book. Understand that _it is by the inclusion of just the right kind and amount of direct democracy that the representative branches of our government (or any government) are rendered truly representative_.

By itself, so-called "representative" democracy only results in the tyranny of plutocracy, exploitive governance by the wealthy. But the usually proposed alternative, unlimited majority-rule direct democracy, were it ever tried, would only result in "the tyranny of democracy," the political, economic, religious, and behavioral tyranny of the simple majority over the rest of the populace. And, examined more closely, this "majority" would really only be a highly organized, doggedly active, radical political minority.

However, _limited_ direct democracy and _limited_ representative democracy joined together and judiciously balanced as described in this book results in a wise amount and just distribution of governmental powers that does not unduly favor any particular group.

The limited direct democracy proposed here would be added to our government as a new fourth branch called _the demos_ , pronounced as in _demo_ cratic. Adding a new definition to those that already exist for the word, a _demos_ is a direct democracy branch of a government consisting of a nationwide electronic network in which an electorate consisting of all of-age, able citizens practice consensus democracy by deliberating, voting, and achieving consensus on a fixed set of a nation's key economic and electoral issues, setting economic values the government and the nation must use as they function and electing to the representative branches of the government bodies of officeholders that demographically resemble the entire electorate and truly represent the entire body of citizens.

Less precisely but more simply stated, a _demos_ is a branch of government in which all of-age citizens directly vote and achieve consensus on a fixed set of a nation's key economic issues and elect officeholders to the representative branches of the government.

This book is focused principally on a particular demos to be added to the American federal government. But the problem of plutocracy plagues all governments. Adapted to the specific needs of other locales, a demos could and should be added to every government in the world and to every level of government.

### ~~~~~~~

In the demos, practicing a new kind of democracy called _consensus democracy_ that will be described briefly in this introduction and discussed at length within the chapters of this book, the electorate directly deliberates, votes, and achieves consensus on a fixed set of twelve issues—three electoral issues and nine economic issues.

In the three electoral issues, in an entirely new electoral system from that which we have today, the electorate directly elects the president, all senators, and all representatives:

***** Election of the president

***** Election of senators

***** Election of representatives

And the electorate directly deliberates, votes, and achieves consensus that becomes law on the following nine economic issues:

***** Overall federal tax rate (which, over time, determines the size of the federal government)

* Division of the tax burden among three tax revenue sources: corporations and businesses, personal incomes, and inheritances

***** Corporate and business tax scale

***** Personal income tax scale

***** Inheritance tax scale

***** Hours in the workweek

***** Minimum wage

***** Amount of federal debt or savings

***** Portion of federal tax revenue for the military, healthcare, other entitlements, and all other government functions

This may be a moment of doubt for you. While repairing our electoral system may seem reasonable, given our current mess, it may seem impractical and even shocking to you that the entire electorate would be directly involved in making such important economic decisions. How could millions of people participate in deliberations? How could the entire electorate possibly discuss and set something as complex as a tax scale? Even if effective deliberation and consensus could somehow happen, shouldn't experts, not average people, handle such important economic issues? And what kind of democracy is this, when the electorate only votes on a fixed set of twelve issues, as opposed to an open stream of referendums over time about many different social issues?

All I can ask of you at this point, dear reader, is to set aside your doubts for now, keep an open mind, and keep reading. There are compelling reasons for the kind and amount of direct democracy included in the partial redesign of the American government presented here. Please remain receptive to an understanding and appreciation of both the necessity and the desirability of placing the above electoral and economic powers directly into the hands of the electorate. And tools and methods will be presented to you that not only make it possible but surprisingly simple and convenient for members of the electorate to effectively deliberate, vote, and achieve consensus.

### ~~~~~~~

Unlike the winner-take-all, majority-rule democracy of old in which the simple majority vote wins and all others lose, the _consensus democracy_ described here and practiced by the electorate in the demos has no winners and losers but _results in the consensus of the entire electorate, a moderate "golden mean" that avoids all extremes_.

As discussed in Appendix 1, this consensus of the entire electorate is possible because the vote tallies for the nine economic issues included in the demos are processed by computers resulting in mathematical values that are equally influenced by every person's vote. Thus, each member of the electorate equally affects economic values our government and nation must use as they function. And the electoral system included in the demos automatically results in a demographic resemblance to and the honest representation of the entire electorate in the representative branches, which may also be considered to be the consensus of the electorate.

The electorate's consensus in the demos on the economic and electoral issues creates in a third way what may be considered to be a consensus of the entire electorate. Functioning using the economic values set by the entire electorate; demographically resembling the entire electorate in body, mind, interests, and pocketbook; and truly representing the entire electorate, the now truly representative branches of government will write laws and rules for government, corporations, business, labor, mass media, environmental protection, etc. that wisely serve the entire electorate and the nation as a whole.

Unlike today's periodic elections, voting in the demos is ongoing. Each member of the electorate has a vote permanently "riding" on each issue included in the demos that, with one exception discussed later, he or she may change at any time. Demos computers continuously recalculate vote tallies to maintain the current consensus of the electorate which serves as our "social contract."

The demos has been designed to function as an integrated homeostatic system. Heartbeat, respiration and temperature regulation within our bodies are homeostatic systems. The tendency of a homeostatic system is to avoid the extremes and to hover around a moderate norm. Each of the economic issues included in the demos functions like a homeostatic system, ever hovering about a moderate economic norm. And the carefully chosen issues form an interrelated whole. Taken collectively, they function like the interactive, self-orchestrating systems in a living organism. The electorate uses the demos as a tool to achieve a moderate consensus on a few values that our government and nation must use as they function, keeping our society functioning smoothly and evolving peacefully as demographics, conditions, and our decisions change.

### ~~~~~~~

The three demos electoral issues involve the direct election of the president, senators, and representatives in an entirely new electoral system.

Our current electoral system is a set of loaded dice that overwhelmingly favors the powerful, wealthy few in two principal ways.

First, elections are left to a marketplace, mass media, and two political parties that are mostly owned and operated by the wealthy rather than being within and supported by government where they belong, equally accessible to all of us. Most of us are resigned to rapidly selecting what we guess might be "the lesser of evils" from among a few poorly known, fork-tongued candidates _financed and, therefore, pre-selected by the wealthy_. Few run for and win office that do not have the blessings and support of and now owe Big Money big-time.

Second, if throwing huge amounts of money at the electoral process were not enough of an advantage for the wealthy, dividing states into electoral districts and electing only one senator or representative within each of them virtually guarantees that wealthy or wealth-serving candidates will win the lion's share of electoral offices and that the wealthy will hold a permanent hegemony of power within government while the poor and minorities go vastly under-represented. When only one candidate can be elected in a district, a candidate with lots of money to throw around will usually successfully buy the electoral office or seat being contested. While the wealthy inevitably manage to buy the first seat in a district, others—the lower middle class, the working poor, and minorities—could elect their champions to second, third, etc. seats in the district. Oops! There's only one seat in the district.

The demos electoral system completely eliminates these and other problems making the electoral process honest and fair.

In the demos electoral system the Electoral College (which currently elects the president) and all state electoral district systems are entirely scrapped. The president and all senators are elected by direct popular vote from the nation at-large, and each state's quota of representatives is elected from the state at-large.

All periodic elections, including all primary elections, are scrapped and replaced by a simple "ongoing" electoral system. In a manner similar to the nine demos economic issues in which each member of the electorate keeps a vote riding on each issue, each member keeps a vote riding on one candidate for president, one for senator, and one for representative.

The demos electoral system has a single national Presidential Candidates list and a single national Senatorial Candidates list. Each state has its own single Representative Candidates list. Any number of people may run for office. The person currently receiving the most votes in the Presidential Candidates list, the top 100 people in the Senatorial Candidates list, and each state's quota of representatives from its Representative Candidates list are currently seated in office. Discussed in detail later, a person gains or loses office when he or she gains or loses a sufficient number of votes relative to other candidates in the office's Candidates list.

Candidates (who need not be wealthy or wealth supported) may take any amount of time to run for office for free within the demos and build a following. Members of the electorate may take any amount of time to study and deliberate about candidates and to reach out to each other across states or the entire nation to directly elect their champions, truly representative officeholders that resemble them in body, mind, interests, and pocketbook.

It is the electing of senators from within the nation _at-large_ and a state's quota of representatives from within the state _at-large_ that overcomes the wealth-dominated, one-elective-office-per-district problem and empowers each member of the electorate to join with others to select their champions. While others vote for their good candidates (who I may consider to be bad) from within these large pools—from the entire nation or an entire state—I and others like me vote for our good candidates from within the same large pools (who others may consider to be bad).

Thus, no member of the electorate is stuck selecting a "lesser evil" from a small group preselected by the wealthy as is done today. All voters support their goods, their champions, those who resemble and truly represent them. The resulting senate and house _automatically_ demographically resemble and serve the true and balanced interests of the _entire_ electorate. No quota systems, political parties, or complex electoral schemes are required. People just get to directly vote for whom they _really_ want.

The ongoing nature of the demos electoral process and its at-large method of voting have immense virtues. Any number of candidates may run for office, and all candidates, rich and poor alike, have a free place—an Internet-like "web" site containing one or more pages within a nationwide electronic demos network—and unlimited time to run for office, present themselves and their positions and proposals, and earn a following. By the time candidates receive enough votes to gain office in this ongoing electoral process, they, their proposals, and their entire political and voting history in previous offices will have been long studied and deliberated. The candidates will be well known and trusted by those who support them. A candidate and his or her supporters will be able to extend their political views and efforts outside the demos in ways that best serve their needs. Just as today, the wealthy may buy any media and other electoral advantages they may find. But _unlike today, the free, ongoing, at-large demos electoral process also gives non-wealthy people the means and unlimited time to reach out to each other across their states or the entire nation in support of candidates that serve their needs and interests, even as they also go out into their neighborhoods and communities, organize, and educate friends, neighbors, co-workers, and others as to their true interests_.

### ~~~~~~~

Two proposals in this book are designed to make the senate and the house more democratic by breaking up their current "old-boys' clubs" with their excessive concentrations of power and self-serving legislative rules and processes: 1) All current systems of seniority and appointment in the senate and the house are scrapped, all committee and other chairs and positions being filled by the secret voting of their entire memberships. 2) All rules regarding parliamentary and legislative processes within the senate and the house are determined by the secret voting of their entire memberships. The debate and the voting on legislation being proposed and considered remain public.

### ~~~~~~~

The demos practices _consensus democracy_ to achieve _economic consensus_ and _electoral consensus_ on some of our nation's most important issues. Now demographically resembling and honestly serving the entire electorate, congress creates laws and policies that may be taken to be the _legislative consensus_ of the entire electorate. Founded upon the principle of including and achieving the consensus of the entire electorate, I have named this form of government _consensus government_. It gives real meaning at long last to the phrase _government by the consent of the governed_.

Summarizing this government design and function in a paragraph: All of our nation's political, economic, and social activity takes place within or under consensus government's largest framework of just the right kind and amount of direct democracy judiciously balanced with what has now become truly representative democracy. The consensus democracy practiced by the electorate within the demos achieves economic and electoral consensus on twelve included issues and a deliberative process that informs the representative branches and, indeed, the entire nation as to the true mind and will of the electorate on the many other issues it discusses. The demos directly sets nine fundamental economic values that the government and nation must use as they function. This always moderate, ever current consensus of the electorate changes slowly over time as demographics, conditions, and our decisions change. The demos electoral process empowers the members of the electorate to come together within states and across the entire nation to elect to the representative branches their true champions, those who resemble them in body, mind, interests, and pocketbook. The resulting representative bodies, (which, recall, have been made to function more democratically), automatically demographically resemble and truly represent the entire electorate and all of its interests. Using (by constitutional law) the economic values set by the electorate in the demos and informed by its deliberations, members of the representative bodies deliberate, compromise, enact, and enforce legislation and rules that truly serve the entire electorate. This just, inclusive, consensus-building design that does not unduly favor any part of the populace achieves a stable, long-lasting government and society that functions sensibly, always tends toward moderation, and evolves peacefully over time. The results are a strong moral compass, a steady sense of direction, and the good government and society that we all seek.

### ~~~~~~~

Oh, but as a potential member of a future demos all of this possibly makes you nervous or even fearful, if not for yourself then about certain others who couldn't chew gum and turn a door knob at the same time? "The responsibility! The difficulty! The time! I'm so busy! I'm not sure I'm capable! Economic issues? What do I know about economics? I'm not really a political person! And those idiots down the street, they couldn't make a wise or even a sane choice to save their lives!"

Let's take a look at what would be involved, at what your involvement might be. (You get a wide choice as to how involved you want to be in the demos.)

What about your capability on some of the economic questions included in the demos? As you answer these questions, just use your own good sense. What do you think would be in your self-interest? What do you think would be good for our nation? Okay, here we go: 1) Do you think our national government should be larger, smaller, or stay at its current size? 2) Do you think the amount of our national debt should be increased, decreased, or left at the current amount? 3) Let's say that the current minimum wage is $5.75 per hour. Do you think the minimum wage should be increased, decreased, or left at the current amount?

You see? This is not rocket science. You won't be running the economy or the country. But those who are running the country will be people selected by you and the rest of the electorate—people you _really_ want in office!—and, by constitutional law, they will have to run the country using economic values that are set by you. You and the rest of the electorate will also decide how the tax burden that we have set upon ourselves is distributed among us. There is no reason to fear this because a way has been figured out that makes it _really easy_ for you to make the right choices for yourself. Even the idiots down the street will be able to do it. And yet, as easy as these questions are to answer, you will be answering some of our nation's most important questions.

What makes it possible for an electorate of busy people possessing widely varying capability to vote on such important issues? When just the right issues are selected, only a few issues need to be included, and with these issues it is easy to understand one's true self-interest. A surprisingly simple method of voting on economic issues is used based on the traffic signal colors green, yellow, and red. (It is described in Appendix 1. Other colors and voting methods would be available for those who need them.) The voter never comes in contact with any mathematical calculations but only makes a few simple choices.

Your votes continuously "ride" on the issues. Your economic situation and interests have significantly changed? You changed your mind about who you want to serve as a senator? Or you have come to believe that our nation should move in a different direction? When your situation in life changes or you change your mind about this or that issue, you can conveniently change one or more of your votes at any time from almost anywhere including from your own home. Whether kept as is or changed, each vote must be "refreshed" at least once a year.

While voting on the nine economic and three electoral issues included in the demos is a civic obligation, participation in demos deliberations is optional. If you know your mind, as most of us will, voting can take as little as five or ten minutes per year.

"But," you might ask, "shouldn't economic matters be left to the experts? And, other than picking a famous name on a ballot, I wouldn't know who to vote for."

Do not confuse the expertise that politicians and corporations have mastered at swindling you with scientific and economic expertise. Millions have been swindled out of their private pensions, investments, and life savings; many millions have never had healthcare while millions more have joined them in recent years; and taxes are routinely dumped by the wealthy onto the middle class. Both parents working today struggle harder to finance a family than one breadwinner did decades ago. Hundreds of thousands of low-paid foreign technical workers have been imported into America on special visas and millions of others have been allowed to sneak across our borders to replace our more expensive workers, suppressing the wages of most Americans, (except, of course, those of the wealthy elite). Millions of good jobs have been exported to cheap abused labor in countries that do not protect the environment. One trade agreement after another help multinational corporations while destroying increasing numbers of American workers. Our nation is now several trillion dollars in debt and the middle class is awash in a sea of debt while the super wealthy hold _many_ trillions of dollars of accumulation. In the last three decades trillions of dollars have been taken from the middle class by the wealthiest Americans. America has become divided into a relatively small super wealthy class while the vast majority has found itself in economic decline. And everywhere government-favored, super-sized multinational corporations reign supreme. The corporate elite and the members of _both_ political parties work together against your interests.

Exactly which experts do you think are on your side and are going to make better decisions for you than you? On certain important matters elected officials never honestly represent you. You must represent yourself.

And you may feel a bit lost at first having the freedom to choose anyone you want to represent you in Washington. But all kinds of smart and good people in the middle and bottom of the American economic heap, _people who will work hard for_ _you_ , are going to step up to the plate and be recognized by other smart and good people. The demos, your circle of family, friends, and co-workers, your neighborhood, and your community will be abuzz with wise opinions. By the time you are empowered to make such choices, you will feel adequate to make them.

### ~~~~~~~

At this point the more politically astute and capable reader may feel that to accommodate the less capable voters the demos has been made so simple that it cannot handle the more sophisticated or subtle aspects of political thought. Not so!

Each of the twelve demos issues' voting pages will link to pages hosting deliberations of the issue. Those who opt to participate in deliberations may make their own arguments on issues, bringing any ideas into the debates. And they may vote on favored arguments of others causing the best and most relevant expressions of arguments to rise to greater visibility within the demos. (Only voting by the entire electorate on the twelve demos issues results in economic law and the election of officeholders. Voting on arguments by those engaged in deliberations only raises the arguments to greater visibility within the demos, nothing more.) While the deliberations on the nine economic issues will focus on the issues themselves, in the three electoral issues, when discussing the pros and cons of particular candidates for office who express various political, economic, and social positions and proposals, the electorate will discuss a host of significant issues and views.

There should also be a special area of the demos where the Constitution is discussed and debated. The members of the electorate could debate, for example: Would a single legislature be wiser than our current bicameral legislature, i.e., our current house and senate? Should there be a new way to amend the Constitution? What new issues should and what current issues should not be included in the demos?

All demos deliberations would be accessible to everyone including those working in the mass media and people serving in official capacities in the other branches of government. Even those who are too young to be demos members and the citizens of other nations could explore the demos as non-voting, "read-only" visitors. This would teach and create demand for true democracy in other nations as well. In this way members of the demos could express opinions and exert influence well beyond the strict limits of their voting.

With everyone 1) studying both high and low politics and the theory and practice of true democracy (including actual "guest" participation in the demos) for four years at the high school level, as is proposed here, 2) possessing equal voice and vote in the demos on truly important issues, 3) having a meaningful role to play in government, and 4) enjoying the ability to have a real effect on the nation in which they live; political interest, thought, and expression would flower throughout the land. An electorate that for generations has been deliberately misled and rendered politically confused, apathetic, and impotent would, in time, become astute, politically streetwise, and perfectly capable of looking after its true self-interests.

### ~~~~~~~

The question was asked earlier, how could millions of people participate in demos deliberations? This will be discussed briefly here and at length later in the book.

The demos is a nationwide electronic network with one central site that all members of the electorate visit to deliberate and vote. We are already familiar with large numbers of dispersed people coming together on Internet web sites to converse and debate. But many millions deliberating and voting at one demos site? Yes, given the overall design of the demos system and a rightly designed site, it is possible.

Recall that while voting on the twelve demos issues is a civic obligation that all members of the electorate must fulfill participating in demos deliberations is not. The vast majority of voters will already know their minds and only visit the demos a few minutes per year to refresh their votes, the minimal civic requirement. Their views and choices will be formed within the milieu of their daily lives by family, friends, co-workers, neighborhood and community groups, mass media, etc.

Of those that venture beyond basic voting and into demos deliberations, most people will merely read and be guided by what others write. Still, we can safely assume a very large number of people will actively participate in demos deliberations, and many more views and arguments will be expressed than any one member could ever handle in a lifetime.

Thus, we encounter the concept of what I call "visibility" within the demos. Demos members may vote on favored views and arguments of others causing the best and most relevant arguments to rise to greater visibility.

As described in the chapter entitled _Consensus Democracy_ , to prevent the most favored views and arguments from remaining always visible while all others remain forever unseen, member voting on views and arguments works together with a computerized mathematical "round robin" method of presenting views in a timeshare process. More votes translates into greater visibility for a longer time. But views and arguments earning fewer votes also get their durations of greater visibility and the chance to earn more votes and even greater visibility. Thus, demos members encounter new views, arguments, and ideas and have the opportunity to give them increased presence and effect in deliberations.

The demos would serve as the principal place in the nation for most members of the electorate to participate directly in the political process. Because it is their views and arguments that would usually be voted into greatest visibility, the demos deliberations would attract our finest thinkers from all economic levels and walks of life. But this would be just the focal point of a much larger deliberative process. Demos deliberations would spill over into, affect, and add focus to our national debate in the mass media, schools, workplaces, homes, public places and events, and the representative areas of our government. Thus, even that vast portion of the electorate that would likely not participate directly in demos deliberations would be influenced and guided by them. In this way our national political debate both inside and outside of the demos, a debate not owned or dominated by the wealthy or any other political faction, would become focused on our most important issues and our best thinking about them, including the best of our new ideas.

The debate would not be dominated by the wealthy? Keep in mind that under consensus government with the electorate in the demos directly setting some fundamental economic values and electing members to representative bodies that truly serve the entire electorate, the wealthy would likely not be so excessively wealthy nor the poor as poor as today and the use of mass media for political purposes would likely be regulated much more fairly than today.

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What is the point of government if it is not to secure the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness _of the individual_? And yet, the most endangered constituent of the large, modern state is the individual. The freedom of the individual is constrained and crushed by all things big: big government, big business, big labor, and even big religion. The two greatest enemies of freedom are those who insist "You must serve me!" and those who insist "You must be like me!" Serve and conform. The first condition predominates under unopposed or insufficiently opposed plutocracy, e.g., the political-economic oppression and exploitation created by so-called "representative" democracy left to the marketplace. The second condition would exist under unopposed or insufficiently opposed and incorrectly designed direct democracy, were it ever tried, the oppression of minority views and ways by the simple-majority.

But government is necessary, in one form or another. Plutocracy or democracy or... By balancing these two great enemies of freedom—the powerful few and the powerful many—against each other and by including only a limited measure of each within a limited government, the freedom of the individual is increased and preserved. This is not irresponsible freedom. The consensus government presented here nurtures the personal responsibility and good citizenship of each individual.

Some argue that we increase personal freedom simply by limiting the size of the federal government. Such thinking really misses the point. What liberty is gained by weakening government and strengthening private power if that private power resides principally in the hands of unchecked, ruthless, carnivorous corporate elites? Whether ruled by the political mighty or the corporate mighty, the populace still remains with a bent back and on bent knees. The problem is not merely one of the public sector verses the private sector. It is not about the size of government as such. And it is not about government verses liberty. Government is essential to liberty! The question is, or should be, what changes to our government will correct its current shortcomings, effectively mitigate the dysfunctions and bring out the best of our market economy, and maximize the personal liberty of everyone and the nation as a whole? It is correct governance that maximizes freedom both in relation to government and outside of government.

The greatest measures of liberty and responsible personal freedom for everyone are not created by maximizing direct democracy and minimizing representative democracy to the fullest extent possible but by adding to our government just the right kind and amount of direct democracy. They are created by achieving the correct distribution and balance of powers within government (ultimately at all levels) and by focusing the electorate and government most centrally on just the right body of economic and electoral issues of greatest importance to our society.

Even the more truly representative officeholders that would be elected within the demos electoral system could not be entirely trusted, particularly with certain critical economic issues that profoundly affect everyone's life and welfare. The nine economic issues included in the demos give the electorate direct control over economic powers that the wealthy few currently use to wage economic warfare against the rest of the populace.

This partial redesign of the American government does not make the mistake of overreacting to current imbalance and injustice by assigning too much power to the demos. Limiting the demos to deliberating, voting, and achieving consensus resulting in law on only nine economic issues and deliberating and voting on only three electoral issues permanently specifies and limits its powers. The powers assigned to the demos, including the sole power to tax, are permanently denied the representative branches of government, thus limiting their powers as well and the power of government as a whole.

Also, as discussed in the chapter entitled _Reorganizing the Powers of the American Government_ , limiting demos lawmaking to a fixed set of easily understood issues avoids the serious mistake of including a large number or an open-ended stream of complex, subjective issues that are best handled by other areas of government and in other parts of society. Creating law on difficult, subtle social issues by popular referendum is a huge mistake. Simplistic, ill-designed, self-serving referendums are usually proposed and supported by moneyed, organized, radical corporations and interest groups that deviously manipulate unsuspecting others to win their way. Even proposals made by well intentioned but perhaps naive ordinary people may be unscrupulously supported or fought by radical interests for selfish purposes.

Laws regarding complex social issues are best created by legislative bodies whose members are selected in demos-style elections. The bodies demographically resemble and serve the entire electorate, and their members can gain or lose the support of the electorate. As a result of demos deliberations legislators are informed as to the true thoughts of the members of the electorate on issues. Thus, all competing interests and ideas are wisely considered, balanced, and coherently fitted to other new and existing legislation and law.

This design places our greatest trust where it really belongs, on a true consensus achieved among all of us. Along with our better qualities, everyone from the political and economic mighty to average citizens and groups of them harbor bias, prejudice, hard-headed injustice, unreasonableness, selfishness, and shortsightedness. Our trust is best placed not in the elite few, the simple majority, or in any other faction of the populace but in the deliberations of and a consensus achieved directly by the electorate as a whole in the demos and in the deliberations and compromises among representatives who are _fairly_ elected by and who _fairly_ represent the entire electorate.

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In addition to setting right our government's current mal-distribution of power, the government design presented here also repairs our divisive political process. Rather than pulling us apart into angry, polarized, gridlocked fragments as our political process does today, _it brings us together in a single political body designed to achieve our consensus_ on our most important issues and honest representation in the other branches of government. In doing this, it makes possible the correction or mitigation of most of our nation's other political, economic, and social ills.

Any government worth its salt must be robust enough to function in the real world with people as they currently behave. It cannot idealistically depend upon people being high-minded or behaving rationally. It must function well within our current world, but it should also help us move toward a better world. The consensus government presented here is very robust. It is designed to begin with people as they are today and then to facilitate our evolution toward ever better citizens in an ever better society.

The government designed by the founders is very extreme and undemocratic. It places an overwhelming amount of power and wealth into the hands of an elite few while excluding most of the populace from meaningful participation and representation within government. While correctly avoiding the extremes of Left and Right, most political moderates today offer incorrect solutions that do not address the real problem. There is a school of thought in the middle of the political spectrum called _radical centrism_. In an attempt to transcended that which simply doesn't work, radical centrists propose various "truly new" ideas at the political center. But even their ideas do not adequately address the fundamental problem of the incorrect distribution of power within our government.

The partial redesign of the American government presented here is centrist in that it avoids the extremes and screams of both the Left and the Right. It lies squarely in the moderate center of the political spectrum. It is only radical in that, unlike all that has come before, it modifies the fundamental structure of our government sufficiently and in just the right way to get the job done. It corrects the problem of plutocracy by adding to our government just the right kind and amount of direct democracy. It reduces excessive corporate and governmental power. It achieves the consensus and honest representation of the entire electorate within government. It produces the moderate golden mean of centered, balanced, peacefully evolving government and society. And it achieves and secures the freedom of the individual.

Note carefully as you read _Beyond Plutocracy_ that while it contains criticism of the current distribution of wealth in America or, more precisely, the huge _inequity_ in the current distribution—10% of the populace holds 90% of our nation's wealth—not one penny of wealth is redistributed by the government design proposed here. Also, this book includes no guaranteed minimum annual income or hint of a "welfare state." (The electorate may, if it wishes, set a minimum wage of zero and allow no government entitlements at all.)

This book is not about _what_ choices should be made about certain issues of central importance to our nation but about _who_ should make them. The entire electorate is empowered to directly make a few choices of central importance that are currently made by a powerful few.

Using the demos as its tool, by the taxes that it levies, by the other economic values that it sets, and by the people it elects to office, the electorate is empowered to directly create some and indirectly affect other laws and policies that ultimately control, among other things, that most important of all things: the overall distribution of wealth in America. By the political, economic, and other decisions that it currently makes, a powerful few already controls America's distribution of wealth and many other things. The only new thing here is that some of these important decisions would instead be made by the electorate.

At this point, let's examine a question—a fear!—some readers might have. By the choices it makes on the demos economic and electoral issues, could the electorate impose upon us a complete economic leveling and some form of communism or socialism? No! Perish the thought! This could happen only if 1) over half of the electorate were communists or socialists, a laughable notion, and 2) the demos practiced majority-rule democracy, democracy as commonly understood today where as little as 50% of the vote plus one wins. A communistic or socialistic simple majority could outvote all others and impose its will upon everyone else.

But the demos does not practice majority-rule democracy. It practices consensus democracy, something new under the sun that produces a very different result than the majority-rule democracy of old.

Consensus democracy produces a consensus of the _entire_ electorate on the demos issues. There are no winners and losers. There is no one group that overrules another. Every vote always counts, continuously and equally affecting the current consensus. This slowly evolving consensus directly and indirectly affects our nation's entire economic system including ultimately its overall distribution of wealth. The votes of many members of the electorate on the demos issues—on tax levies, on the representatives they select, etc.—tend to increase the inequality in the distribution of wealth while the votes of others tend to decrease the inequality. The result over time is a slowly varying, moderate, just (i.e., unequal but equitable) distribution of wealth.

The electorate would likely choose less inequality in the distribution of wealth than is chosen by the elite few today, but there would still be a reasonable and functional inequality in the distribution. Inequality in the distribution of wealth is desirable _and necessary_ to maintain a robust level of entrepreneurial incentive and activity and a healthy work ethic. And we all know this! We are a nation of true believers in capitalism, the market economy. We well understand that it is the engine of our nation's prosperity. And we would vote accordingly.

But we also believe in fair play. Most of us do not believe that unlimited accumulations of wealth should exist alongside wracking poverty. We understand the elite now take too much, more than they are worth and more than is morally justifiable. We see that many who are working sufficiently hard to earn a decent living in a just society are denied it in our current one.

And, just as we do not want elites taking too much or a free ride on our backs, we also do not want to be forced by government to give a free ride to malingerers who are capable of working but are unwilling. That is why in the demos the electorate is given direct control over the overall amount the government spends on entitlements. We are a generous people, but we want tax revenue used wisely.

The consensus government proposed here empowers the electorate and our nation to achieve an unequal but equitable and functional distribution of wealth and honest reward for honest work.

It should be clearly understood that in removing control of our nation's overall distribution of wealth from the hands of the few and placing it into the hands of the entire electorate, we do not gain control over the amount of any particular person's wealth. How much wealth any particular person possessed within the overall distribution would depend, just as today, on accident of birth and the person's talents, ambitions, study, hard work, and luck.

I do not possess and did not in this book strive for some particular distribution of wealth that I consider to be the most moral or functional. This lies beyond my wisdom and, I believe, beyond the wisdom and capability of a powerful few, the simple majority, or any other faction or person. The necessary wisdom can come only from all of us making this and certain other decisions together, as in the demos.

While the actual distribution of wealth that resulted from the choices made by the electorate in the demos would be an important moral issue (and likely a subject of hot debate within the demos), _the fact that it is the entire electorate making the choices and not just a powerful few_ is of vastly greater moral importance. In my view it is the only truly moral way to make such choices. By whatever name and in whatever exact form, achieving a demos and consensus democracy is a profoundly important step in and signifier of our progress from beasts to high-minded beings. It is a necessary step for our moving beyond our current state of purgatory and even for our very survival.

### ~~~~~~~

Repairing the federal government is task enough for this book, and we will not stray far from that task. But the problem of plutocracy exists at all levels of government, and, as the right cure, every governing jurisdiction at each level—federal, state, county, and local—could and should have a demos. The electorate dwelling within each governing jurisdiction would participate in its demos, deliberating, voting, and achieving consensus on the most important dozen or so _economic and electoral issues_ appropriate to the jurisdiction.

A given governing jurisdiction, whether a national, state, county, or city government, should never be subdivided into electoral districts in which one person is elected from each district for the purpose of electing members for its governing bodies. All officeholders—governors, state legislators, judges, school board members, city council members, etc.—must be elected _at-large_ within the area encompassed by the governing jurisdiction. Each voter would cast a single vote for a candidate for each governing body within the governing jurisdiction the membership of which is selected by popular elections, choosing his or her champions from the same large pool or area, the pool depending on the jurisdiction of the government of which the demos is a part. Thus, all governing bodies at every level of government in every governing jurisdiction would automatically demographically resemble their electorates in body, mind, interests, and pocketbook and serve their entire electorates.

The included issues and voter participation in every demos would be very similar to and have the same look and feel as those at the federal level. The voter would need to learn only one simple method of demos participation and would electronically participate in the demos of each level of government from any convenient location in the nation including from his or her own home. If you moved from a city in one part of the country to a city on the other side of the country, the names of local candidates would be new to you and possibly an economic issue or two, but you'd already know how to participate and vote in the demoses of the levels of government under which you now live.

Thus, the various electorates—not just the most powerful few, as is done today—would set the fundamental economic values that all levels of government and the nation as a whole must use as they function and elect to the other branches of government at each level bodies of officeholders that resemble and truly represent and serve the entire electorates.

The proceedings of all governing bodies such as legislatures and councils should be democratized in a manner similar to that discussed above for the senate and the house of the federal government. All subcommittees, etc. of a governing body should be filled not by seniority or appointment but by the secret vote of all members of the body. And all rules and procedures applying to the legislative _process_ of a governing body should be determined by the secret vote of all members of the body. The debate of and voting on _legislation_ being proposed and considered should remain public.

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Capitalism, the market economy, is our best form of economic relationship. It motivates personal and local decision making, creativity, improvement, entrepreneurship, and productivity; and it creates much wealth. But an unbridled capitalism that reigns supreme concentrates excessive power and wealth into the hands of ruthless, greedy elites within and among nations who then create, populate, and use self-serving governments to exploit the rest of the populace and override the common good. Unbridled capitalism plays nations and people against each other in a most underhanded way in search of its Holy Grail: maximum growth and profit and minimum responsibility no matter what the environmental and human costs. Creating constitutions, governments, laws, rules, and economic entities that cause the fruit of the labor of millions to be taken from them and handed to the sly, cunning, manipulative few is economic rape, and it becomes, at its worst, economic terrorism.

Everywhere today, American elites who exploit our own populace conduct business with elites of other nations who exploit their populaces. One method used among others, political and economic elites agitate and manipulate religious and moral conservatives and others to achieve their self-serving ends. And the politically and economically excluded and exploited use whatever means that are available to them, including religion, to fight back or fight for inclusion. Thus, once or at least potentially peaceful religions become radical, polarized instruments of political-economic and ultimately physical warfare.

Fanatic religious and other extremist and terrorist groups spring up like mushrooms and are empowered worldwide because we drive people to them. Insurrection and revolution within nations and now international terrorism are the result of fundamental injustice. Hatred and rage come from long experience of violence done against one in one form or another including economic violence.

Attempting to harden and protect an unjust state and its populace against insurrection and terrorism that can come from any direction at any time is enormously costly, inefficient, and destructive to personal freedom and the social fabric. When it ultimately fails and a nuclear bomb, poison gas, or infectious organism is successfully let loose on the nation and it retaliates by vaporizing... well, you choose your worst escalating nightmare. To think one can take everything from everyone else and take one's way in everything and then live in peace with them or militarily hold them at bay forever is pure folly.

The notion that the West in general and America in particular are fostering democracy and individual freedom within themselves and around the world is also pure folly. Not being true democracies themselves but only plutocracies, the most powerful, wealthy nations are really only attempting to push a worldwide plutocratic empire unto a reluctant world. They are trying to create a worldwide plutocracy in which they reign supreme by sufficiently and permanently politically, economically, and militarily rendering everyone else everywhere else subservient to them.

Even as they engage in this immorality it must be said, wealthy nations are not inherently more evil than are others. All current nations, great and small, are authoritarian plutocracies that practice some good and much evil, each in its own way and as it sees its own interests. While great powers are capable of and all too often engage in great evil, some of the world's worst atrocities are conducted by some of its poorest nations. And everywhere religious and other groups immorally attempt to shove their values and systems down the throats of others by brute force.

The best way to fight terrorism is to not create the terrorist, the insurrectionist, or the revolutionary in the first place. The best way to do that is to create just, inclusive governments, societies, and relationships within and among nations that do not drive individuals and nations to anger, rage, desperation, and violence. Political-economic inclusion and justness attracts people toward the current state, taking the wind out of the sails of radicals. The world's current 'democracies' would find it considerably easier to attract other nations and peoples to democratic principles and governance if they themselves were true democracies in the first place, demonstrating by example the immense benefits of just, inclusive, equitable political-economic systems.

There will always be some level of competition and disagreement among us. That is only natural and even healthy. But we now exist at an extreme and in an extreme state of illness. We currently function at the level of three year olds fighting over the toys while our world spins increasingly out of control. It is time for us to grow up.

Historically, government design has long been improving. Continuing to improve it should not be considered radical or unwise. We Americans have now had over two hundred years to see and we must finally admit that while the founders got much right what they got wrong is terribly wrong. It is time and over time to improve yet again and improve very fundamentally the design of our government. This is so for all of the world's governments.

The government design offered here creates a new kind of relationship within and among nations that takes us well beyond our current dominance, authoritarianism, and plutocracy. It facilitates peaceful, equitable, humane relationships among just nations, each possessing a demos practicing consensus democracy as part of its governing structure. Simply because people participating within a demos in each nation will not permit such conditions to exist, it makes possible a worldwide free trade that does not exploit local conditions of tyranny and misery to unduly fatten the lives of distant others. Everyone will _fairly_ benefit from the trade.

Notice that no mention is made here of a sovereign world government, a decidedly dangerous entity. We have merely the association of and agreements among free, sovereign nations, each possessing a demos and a just political-economic system.

This government design takes us into a new national and world order that is worthy of the word _new_. Almost miraculously, all of this is gained simply by including within our current governments a modest measure of just the right kind of _true_ democracy.

Chapter 1

Dominance and Plutocracy

Here we are, you and I, in this world guessing as to the source, nature, and purpose of our being. Given the limits of our seeing and understanding, we gather with surprising certainty into various camps and proceed to feud and war over our differences. As if authoritatively declaring the nature of the turf weren't enough to bring us to arms, we are also up in arms over the turf itself. We grab and hang on for dear life to as much as we can hold. As we emerge from the bloodiest century of our long, bloody history, we shake our weary heads and wonder, isn't there a better way to work these things out?

How should or might we arrange our varying ways of being that we may live peacefully together and intelligently husband our world? When we form governments, what should be the relationship among us all? What should be the relationship between the individual and the state? What makes a government legitimate? What is and what kind of government best produces "the good society"?

When studying the social or political relationships among the members of a nation, one encounters the phrase _the few and the many_. _The few_ refers to a wealthy, powerful elite that dominates and rules. _The many_ means everyone else, the greater part of the populace. [] (Note: Footnote numbers are hyperlinks that go to and return from footnotes.) What is the cause of this phenomenon, the division of every nation's populace into the few and the many? What should be the relationship between the few who dominate and rule and the larger society? Should there even be a few and a many, that is, should there even be a dominant, ruling class?

What is reality? What are we? What should be our relationship? What is a good society? What kind of government will best produce it? What makes a government legitimate? These are some of our oldest and most profound questions. Each of us holds dear an assortment of guesses, beliefs, and opinions about these and many other of our most fundamental questions. We have no shortage of religious, philosophical, theoretical, economic, and political systems and paradigms. For every thesis we find its antithesis. For every belief we find a dozen variants. Our opinions vary widely, and our disagreements multiply. We find ourselves at war both within ourselves and with each other.

Each of us is born into a world already in progress. Of necessity, even with our many questions and uncertainties, we must make decisions and choices, and we must act. We must go about our lives and find or create our various niches. And, whatever our opinions and ideals, we must pragmatically hammer out some kind of working relationship with each other and with the world in which we live.

We are not equally interested in fundamental or idealistic questions and answers or concerned with the thoughts or needs of others. While some contemplate and debate our questions, others go out and conquer the world.

Despite our idealistically declaring ourselves to be equals under the law or in some other sense, within nature we are decidedly not equal. Although we share much of our human condition in common, there are wide physical, emotional, intellectual, and behavioral variations among us. Each person has unique circumstances, experiences, dreams, goals, and capability. For any given trait or characteristic, a few suffer the lean end of things, most of us muddle along in the mediocre middle, and a few are blessed or gifted and excel.

We witness among ourselves what has been called "nature's aristocracy." Although we may opine variously in particular cases, it is obvious to all that there are those among us who are the most beautiful, healthy, strong, intelligent, wise, gifted, talented, or capable. Among we billions, genius and excellence are a rarity, and we find few saints.

Aristocracies of an entirely different sort exist within our societies. The most aggressive, competitive, domineering, greedy, and ruthless people among us claw their way to the top of the political-economic heap. They gain, hold, and wield a hegemony of power. They take, hoard, and squander most of our wealth. They define themselves to be an aristocracy or create laws and rules that make themselves into one in result if not in name. It is an aristocracy of power and affluence. By brutal and legalistic means this aristocracy perpetuates itself generation after generation no matter how incompetent, insane, corrupt, or base become its members and no matter what the consequences are for everyone else. It is a sickness within our race and a burden to us all.

We find at the top of every society an ironic mixture of those who are there by merit and capability and those who merely grab, hoard, and wield power and wealth. The excellent mingle uneasily with beasts that claim their virtues.

Every nation has its many, the general populace, and its few, the elite who dominate, rule, and favor themselves with wealth and privilege. It is and always has been the way of the world.

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It is not difficult to understand why this is so, why every society and nation forms itself into the many and the dominant few. We need only examine our biological roots. Brute strength, aggression, and dominance are widespread in nature. Among many others, they are important survival strategies.

Although they are also a part of our biological heritage, we need not dig down to our elemental or cellular roots. We need not examine frogs and fish. We are primates. We need look no further than our primate roots to understand one of the most central and important aspects of human behavior.

In _The Lemurs' Legacy_ [] Robert Jay Russell writes, "...human social organization has been inherited with only slight modifications from that of our ape ancestors.... Our societies echo strongly the troops of ancient apes. Social dominance of males has been characteristic of human evolution, and is characteristic of virtually every human culture."

Our closest, living, primate cousins are the chimpanzees which function very similarly to us. Although it is not the case for all primates, for both chimpanzees and humans what is called by primatologists a "male dominance hierarchy" serves as the principal social organizing mechanism. It forms, so to speak, the social backbone of chimpanzee troops and of human societies.

Chimpanzee troops and human societies are organized into male dominance/submission hierarchies from the most powerful, dominant males in the group on down to the weakest, most submissive males. By means of a mixture of posturing, threat, physical aggression, conspiracy, and cooperation, both chimpanzee and human dominant males form a relatively small but powerful coalition or oligarchy that rules the larger group by political power.

In a chimpanzee troop, females achieve their status by association with the males, and offspring receive their status from the females. Today, in many human societies females increasingly participate directly within what was heretofore an exclusively male dominance hierarchy. While male and female roles may be changing, the dominance hierarchy itself remains at the center of human social organization.

Perhaps you disagree with the notion that humans and chimpanzees have a common ancestor and are closely related to each other? Perhaps you are soured by the notion of evolution and embrace a divine creation of the world and humankind? Setting aside this claimed evolutionary connection and heritage and examining human behavior in and of itself, the conclusion to which we are drawn remains essentially the same. All of history, including the history contained within the Christian Bible and other religious works, and the political organization and function of all of the nations of the world today stand as overwhelming testimony to the fact that dominance (whatever its source) has been and still is the central principle of human social organization.

In this work the notions of our evolutionary connection with and heritage from preceding species and of our primate male dominance hierarchy are embraced. But anyone who does not embrace these notions should have no difficulty appreciating and embracing the notion of dominance as the central organizing principle within human societies.

From earliest human history to the present and everywhere on the planet, one of humankind's most consistent themes has been that of a small, organized, powerful group of people dominating, oppressing, and exploiting a larger, disorganized, weaker group. The dominant few inevitably takes and hoards the group's accumulated wealth and establishes itself as a privileged class. Although varying in their superficial appearance and cultural artifacts, all groups, societies, states, and civilizations, whether nomadic bands, theocracies, monarchies, dictatorships, or today's so-called democracies, have at their hearts an authoritarian form of social organization based upon a primate dominance hierarchy.

Authoritarian government is the cultural expression of our underlying biological dominance. A strong few dominates and rules the rest of the populace. In that the powerful few takes as much wealth unto itself as it can manage, the authoritarian form of government is also in its essence plutocracy. _Plutocracy is governance by the wealthy_. Whatever their superficial appearances or claims, all of the governments in the world today are authoritarian plutocracies.

Unfailingly, even in so-called "enlightened" or "democratic" societies, domination by the few rests principally upon physical, political, and economic enslavement and exploitation. The cry and fight against tyranny are as ancient as civilization itself. Humankind has suffered uprising after uprising of the many against the few, often with the idealistic call for a new, more just society. And yet, for all of that, we find ourselves today with essentially the same few, the same many, the same dominance, the same exploitation and tyranny, and the same bloody revolutions.

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In some ways our track record is not too shabby. We have accomplished much. In evolutionary measures of time, we have moved from caves to skyscrapers in a flash. We explore the ocean depths and fly through the air with the greatest of ease. We have walked on the moon, live in space, and explore the solar system and beyond. We communicate instantaneously anywhere on the planet and create a continuous stream of intricate tools and methodologies. We probe ever deeper into the realms of the very large, the very small, and the very complex. We have even unraveled much of the mystery of our own bodies and of life itself. We have donned clothing, embraced the institution of marriage, and progressed well beyond the basic necessities of survival. We have created great religions, philosophies, sciences, nations, and civilizations. We have produced magnificent art and architecture. Through cultural creativity and accumulation we have leaped beyond our biological roots in a host of ways.

But we have failed in many ways too, and we have myriad problems. For all of our technology and wealth, we remain firmly rooted in primitive behaviors and unjust relationships with each other.

At any given moment we are at war with each other in several different places on the planet. We suffer genocide after genocide. Terrorism has become a way of life.

Our avalanche of ever more powerful technology is a double-edged sword. We have used it to create every comfort and amusement, but we have also used it to bring every kind of destruction and horror onto ourselves and the world.

We have created great economies that generate fabulous amounts of wealth. And yet a relative few hoards most of this wealth while billions of people dwell in poverty, hunger, disease, and misery. Millions die of starvation and curable diseases every year.

Mighty multinational corporations envelop the world playing one nation and person against another in search of the Holy Grail, maximum profit and minimum responsibility no matter what are the environmental and the human costs. Greed, taking, hoarding, and inhumanity are without limit. Political oppression and economic exploitation are the way of the world.

We are caught within a spider web of dictatorial corporations and omnipresent governments that favor the few and conspire against the larger populace. Most people find themselves running at a faster and faster pace just to stand in place. We face more and more laws, rules, and demands that increasingly circumscribe personal freedom, happiness, and justice. Awash in a sea of technological toys, we rush about exhausted, fearful, angry, jaded, and lacking.

Ironically, one of our wildest successes is also our greatest failure. Genetically we have prospered and now number in the billions. Most of us agree that we are too many. We are destroying the environment and eroding our quality of life. We have learned how to read the geological and archeological records. We see great extinctions that have wiped out much of life including many once great species. The suspicion is growing that we may already have entered into the next great extinction and that we are the cause of it, that we are irrevocably altering and fouling the world that produced and sustains us. So far we have been ineffectual in reducing our numbers and correcting our ways.

We skirt precariously along the brink of disaster. On the one hand we may miraculously undergo some as yet unseen transformation and transcend our current dilemma. On the other hand we may slide or explode into a great decline in which most if not all of our race joins the economic bottom half in its current misery, leading perhaps even into Armageddon and extinction itself.

Or perhaps we may not transcend our current ways and miseries and yet somehow not self-destruct entirely. We may muddle along within our self-created purgatory with a slight taste of a more divine way of being amidst the many horrors we perpetrate against each other and against our world.

### ~~~~~~~

If we cannot find the wisdom and self-mastery to control our numbers, restrain our excesses, conduct ourselves intelligently, and live in peace, then nature will reduce us in its own tooth-and-claw way. In fact, it already does. All that really remains to be seen is this: Will the more comfortable half squander its opportunity to save us from ourselves, or will it rise to the occasion and find a new way that we may live sanely and peacefully together and intelligently husband our world?

So far, we are failing at this most important of all human tasks. As we leapfrog ever faster through technological change and develop ever greater capability for war and self-destruction, our relationship with each other has remained in its essence frozen and unchanged. The fundamental relationship that we have with each other, dominance, has remained basically the same throughout human history. And failing this task, we may well fall from our mighty heights and crash onto the rocks below.

The principle of social organization by dominance may have been a successful evolutionary strategy for the survival of chimpanzees, certain other primates, and early human groups, but today, with our huge, complex societies and war capabilities, it has become a liability and our single greatest source of self-created pain and misery. It may very possibly be the seed of our destruction.

Why are we caught up ad nauseam in this eternal reoccurrence of war after war and horror after horror? What mighty force holds us fast in our perpetual purgatory? Why have we managed to leap beyond our biological roots in so many ways and yet remain incapable of rising above our dominance? What could free us, at last, from our current way of being?

### ~~~~~~~

We must transcend dominance, authoritarianism, and plutocracy for the human race to survive, move beyond its ongoing purgatory, and secure true justice, freedom, and happiness for _everyone_. The principal purposes of this work are to examine our current state and to offer for your consideration a way for us to move beyond that state.

Existing at the very heart of our social structure, dominance affects every important cultural institution that we create and every aspect of our private and public lives. It affects our families and friendships, our places of employment, our communities, and our religious, social, and political institutions. In this work we will focus our attention almost entirely on our relationship with each other in the largest sense as societies and nations.

We will pick apart some of our modern forms of government. From the wreckage that results, we will recover those elements that are most serviceable and combine them together in a new way along with other entirely new elements resulting in a new form of government that transcends the principal ills of all current governments. This new form of government is designed to produce a new kind of relationship among us and to facilitate our taking at least the first step toward a truly new world order... beyond plutocracy.

### ~~~~~~~

Since it is the culture and society in which I live and, therefore, know best, this work is focused principally on America. But ultimately, it applies to and is directed at every nation on the planet.

To any and all enemies and detractors of America: Do not take comfort from the criticisms of America made in this work. What is wrong here is wrong everywhere. The problem of domination is far worse in most of the world than in America. For all of its faults there are few if any places in the world that are better places to live than in America. While some governments and nations seem a horror to us, America has moved far enough along in some ways that one may harbor at least a guarded measure of hope that it may someday transcend its current state.

This work is not an examination of America's many wonders, beauties, and blessings but of its (our) difficulties and shortcomings. It focuses on the most central and fundamental of our hierarchy of problems and offers for your examination a way for all of us to come together and to rise above our current state into a new and better way of being.

Chapter 2

Dominance and Plutocracy the American Way

America is not a democracy but a plutocracy that is dominated and ruled by a wealthy minority.

America's current form of government is based on a constitution written a little over 200 years ago by a small group of men that many today affectionately, some even worshipfully, call "our Forefathers." In this work, a more distant or neutral term, the founders, is used.

While claiming to have created a government that did not unduly favor any particular faction of people, the founders, a small group of privileged white men, aristocrats of their time, created a government that in fact, both by its inclusions and its exclusions, favored themselves, others of their class, their heirs, and similar others through the generations. The constitution that they wrote protects private property, private contract, and other interests that were of particular concern to the American aristocracy while ignoring or minimizing the interests of principal concern to everyone else. For good measure, this privileged few made it nearly impossible to alter its constitution and then only by the privileged elites that overwhelmingly populate the seats of government holding an unending hegemony of power.

It is not that there is anything wrong with the protection of private property and private contract. Indeed, they should be protected. However, the Constitution was not written in a vacuum but in the midst of a society already in existence. At the time of the writing of the Constitution the distribution of power and wealth in America was already profoundly unjust and inequitable, and the founders were already among the beneficiaries of that injustice. It was rather duplicitous of them to protect that which they and others of their class already held in undue measure while excluding protections of primary interest to others. The founders even deliberately excluded a bill of rights from the Constitution. That which the founders protected benefited mostly those who least needed protection, the powerful and wealthy, while offering minimal protection to those who most needed protection, the weak and the poor.

### ~~~~~~~

Among the interests excluded from the Constitution that concerned non-wealthy people were that they be fairly included politically and economically. Most importantly, the founders' Constitution did not include an electoral system and democratic process that results in the honest representation of the entire populace within the government. _The lack of an honest electoral system and true democracy plagues our nation to this day_.

To avoid our slipping into monarchy, the founders wisely created three branches of government—the legislative, the judicial, and the executive—with divided, counterchecking powers. But our dishonest electoral process, which is dominated by and overwhelmingly favors the wealthy, has always resulted in all three branches being populated by self-serving, wealth-serving elites that hold an unending hegemony of power.

Our supposedly democratic, two-party political system is entirely a farce. While haggling endlessly about how to best manage it, both parties ultimately serve the same plutocracy. A political cartoon comes to mind that illustrates our true situation: A giant wealthy fat cat complete with a top hat, a big cigar, and a cynical smile is standing legs apart and arms spread outward above the many tiny people below, the electorate. He laughingly exclaims, "You may take my Right hand or my Left hand, but you always get me!"

Our elections are and always have been merely a show, a slight of hand, the exercise of form without any real power for the vast majority of the electorate to elect truly representative officeholders. To the extent that our government feigns democracy, it is intended to be just something to placate the majority, the common people, while the elite avoid the sharing of any real power.

Superficial political and social issues may be somewhat affected by the electorate, but the fundamental essence and structure created by the founders—the plutocratic form, governance by the wealthy—always remains in place. As a result the electorate is always powerless to affect any fundamental result or real change.

The result is an unjust society in which, despite the whining and moaning of the economic upper half to the contrary, the lives of the economic upper half are permanently subsidized by the lives of the bottom half. The upper half uses the bottom half as a beast of burden.

### ~~~~~~~

Almost all governments, including the most authoritarian, pretend toward democracy, often even possessing constitutions that provide for elections. The former Soviet Union and its several eastern European satellite countries often held elections in which 90% or more of their electorates voted. The Catch-22 was that all of the candidates were preselected by the officials of the state. And in the authoritarian state, who are the officials of the state that preselect the candidates? They are the powerful and the wealthy.

In America and in all of today's so-called democracies the process is the same: In those parts of the government where the general electorate is even allowed to vote for officeholders, a powerful, wealthy few preselects and finances the short list of candidates for whom the electorate will later vote. Theoretically, any person who constitutionally qualifies for an office may enter the race. But few ever do that do not possess sufficient wealth or know beforehand that they have the blessings and financial support of the powerful and wealthy. Few who try without the blessing of Big Money manage to win elections. And all who win office owe Big Money big time. Thus, the wealthy always maintain an overwhelming hegemony of power, and our nation always gets stuck with the best government that money can buy.

### ~~~~~~~

The few who end up in elective office theoretically serve all of us. The sorry truth is that our government is effectively owned and populated by wealthy and wealth-serving elites that serve themselves first and best. The result of our 'representative' [] form of government, our 'republic,' is a perpetual plutocracy in which wealth and power become ever more concentrated in the hands of the few while the needs of the many and the nation as a whole go unmet.

By our actions toward each other and through the institutions we create, we may make our world a more humane, loving, and beautiful place or magnify life's difficulties manyfold. While producing a significant measure of material comfort for the wealthy, plutocracy also creates abject poverty and magnifies many of life's inherent difficulties creating an unmanageable avalanche of problems.

America has a host of social ills: poverty; crime and violence; overcrowded prisons; millions lacking healthcare; unemployment and homelessness; a stressed-out, overworked populace; fragmented, dysfunctional families with a high rate of failure and divorce; a host of addictions; alienation and loneliness; corruption in government and business; and the loss of its moral compass.

As profound as some of our many ills may seem, almost all of them are merely symptoms of our deepest ill. These symptoms cannot be cured until this deepest ill is cured. To continue the medical analogy, our nation suffers from a life-threatening congenital birth defect. Treating superficial cuts and bruises is merely a waste of time, effort, and resources. Such actions distract from and delay the only treatment that can save the patient's life and make that life worth living.

Our deepest ill is, of course, that America is not a democracy but a plutocracy owned and governed by the wealthy. The cure, the only possible cure, is to reorganize the powers of our government by sufficiently and correctly altering the constitution that the aristocratic founders created.

### ~~~~~~~

The _status quo_ is the existing state or conditions of a society, that is, the current political-economic relationship among the members of the society, the current distributions of power and wealth, the current way of conducting government and business, and the current laws, rules, and actions that produce the current state. Any attempt to critically examine the status quo or to alter it in a way perceived to be not in the interests of those who most benefit from it is crushed by any means, however ruthless, illegal, or immoral.

The principal political strategy of America's dominant class is to perpetually maintain the status quo by avoiding any fundamental alteration of the system that so abundantly benefits it. The principal political failure of everyone else is in their not organizing themselves into a focused power sufficient to the task of fundamentally altering the system.

### ~~~~~~~

Is there anyone among us who has not thought of a solution to this or that problem? Campaign finance reform, term limits, more oversight, more prisons, alms for the poor...? Such measures are only band-aids for scratches.

In this work, we do not apply band-aids to scratches. We go right to the heart of the matter, and we repair the heart. We pay no attention whatever to the "horse races," which political party is winning or won this or that race over the last few years or decades and why. Political parties are scarcely mentioned because they scarcely matter. Given the true nature of our most fundamental problem, election politics is totally irrelevant, a circus for the masses. What is wrong is not merely which people currently happen to populate our government but the _structure_ of our government, the distribution of its powers.

### ~~~~~~~

In a Las Vegas gambling house, the house prospers simply by setting the gambling odds slightly in its own favor, just slightly over fifty percent. Given these odds in its favor, in the long run the house wins more than half of the time and prospers.

Using the mechanisms of business and government, America's wealthy elites set odds in their own favor much higher than just slightly over fifty percent. They do not win all of the time. They are not and need not be an absolute power. (In fact, it is best for them not to have absolute power, which would dissolve the illusion of freedom and democracy behind which they now hide.) The wealthy need only hold a hegemony of power to win enough of the time generation after generation to amass in their hands a fabulous mountain of our nation's wealth, the fruit of everyone else's labor.

The American constitution and the resulting political-economic system are in intent and result one giant scam perpetrated and perpetuated against the many by the few.

The constitution, the supporting body of law, the resulting public and private social, political, and economic institutions, and the current elite class (the American aristocracy) all work together to keep the current system in place. Rather than correcting the real cause of America's many social ills by moving America away from plutocracy, the elite class and our elected 'representatives' actively sustain the status quo while appearing to attempt repair by eternally applying deliberately insufficient and ineffective patches to our unjust social system.

They then cynically point accusing fingers at those who seriously attempt reform calling them liberals, leftists, socialists, communists, radicals, and activists (as if the many actions taken by the elite and those that serve them to maintain the status quo and their positions of privilege were not an activist position). Any loaded, inflammatory, or discrediting terms will do. The goal is not truth or real change but only and always to win.

We tend to associate tyranny with a government ruled by one person as in a dictatorship. And we associate freedom with a government ruled by many people as in a republic or, even better, as in a democracy. While something can be said for this line of argument, the principal sources of tyranny are the _intent_ of those that rule and the systems and methods they use to achieve their ends. With wrong intent, systems, and methods even the most high-sounding and well-argued system of governance may be used by the few to physically and economically imprison and exploit the rest of the populace.

### ~~~~~~~

We have had no shortage of technological change. America is a technological marvel. But one should not allow technological change to mask the fact that we have the same unjust political structure and relationship with each other that existed at the time of the founders.

Whatever we may think about the founders as a group or as individuals or think about their methods of achieving their goals, the founders got a good deal right. America has a long list of blessings resulting from their effort. But what the founders got wrong they got profoundly wrong. What they got wrong holds us firmly in the choke hold of our biological past and bars the way to our transcendence into a more functional and beautiful society and a more perfect union.

Our political system and the economic system that it manages are a set of loaded dice that permanently concentrate the lion's share of our nation's power and wealth in the hands of an elite minority creating in effect an enduring untitled, heritable aristocracy, _just as the founders intended_. Informed and motivated by new, honest, democratic intentions we must change the system by correctly and sufficiently altering the founders' constitution.

Chapter 3

The Writing and Ratification of the American Constitution []

The Constitution of the United States begins with the words, "We the people of the United States...". The Constitution was written in the name of the people, all of the people. But the fifty-five, white, male aristocrats (the founders) who participated in the Constitutional Convention in 1787 were, as a body, very unrepresentative of the great body of American people who were mainly craftspeople and farmers.

As members of the aristocratic class, the education, beliefs, ideals, and goals of the founders were very similar, and their views were very unrepresentative of the people as a whole. While our modern politicians publicly blush or fume and privately wink at the notion of _class_ , a social stratum sharing basic economic, political, or cultural characteristics, and having the same social position, the founders did not. They believed in class. They believed that the main purpose of government was to resolve the opposing interests of different classes of people. They believed that the differing economic and social classes were the natural order of things or the result of God's will. They believed that their being in their aristocratic stations in life was a natural or God ordained right. They considered themselves to be superior to and the betters of the great sea of common folk around them. Many of them loathed and feared the masses. Some among the aristocrats even believed the masses were placed there for their use like cows and chickens.

Those among the aristocrats who were the most strongly motivated, who pushed the hardest for a convention, who came to the Convention the most prepared, who participated most actively at the Convention, who got the most of what they wanted written into their constitution, and who worked the hardest to get the Convention's resulting constitution ratified were the most extreme in their views _against_ the rising tide of democracy at the state level resulting from ideas learned and embraced by the great body of people during the Revolutionary War.

Although the founders debated long and hard over the details of the government they were designing—which branch should hold what powers, what should be the balance of power between state governments and the federal government, etc.—they were in tune with each other as to their ultimate goals for their government in the making.

Some of their goals would as a matter of course benefit all of the people. As the British made their exit at the end of the Revolutionary War, we needed a government to fill the vacuum, and quickly, else there would be anarchy. The first government that was created, The Articles of Confederation, was too weak and rigid to achieve its necessary ends. A stronger central power was needed to regulate trade among the states and with foreign nations, to make treaties with foreign nations, and to manage the expansion into western lands.

But none of these needs were more pressing and central in the minds of the founders than one other danger: the increasing expression of democratic ideals among the common people and their increasing power within the state legislatures.

Economic depression had followed in the wake of the Revolutionary War. There was little money to pay bills. Banks were foreclosing on the mortgages of large numbers of poor farmers and others. Debtors were being imprisoned.

Increasingly populated by non-aristocratic members, the state legislatures responded with legislative relief in the form of printed paper money with which to pay debts and by permitting delayed repayment of debt. These actions were directly opposed to the economic interests of the aristocratic class. And other state legislative actions defended the people and attacked the aristocracy even more directly.

Minor uprisings of the populace had even occurred here and there. The final straw that struck terror in the hearts of the aristocracy was an uprising in Massachusetts called Shays's Rebellion. It was put down soon and easily enough, but it possibly did more to harden and unify the will of the aristocracy and to get the Constitutional Convention started than any other event.

The aristocrats in general and the founders in particular spoke frequently among themselves about our need to prepare for our common defense against foreign threats and, almost always in the same breath, to put down internal insurrection and rebellion. While reading about these times, one finds oneself wondering the obvious: With the thought of internal rebellion looming so large and frequently in their minds, why were the founders and other aristocrats not led to question the fairness, justice, and morality of the social, political, and legal conditions that the aristocracy had imposed on the common people? But they did not. They knew themselves to be right and their order to be correct. The people, stirred up by new, democratic ideas spread during the war, simply needed to be put back into their proper place.

Along with preparing for our common defense, regulating commerce, and managing our westward expansion, the principal ends of the Convention were to crush the increasing power of the people, to permanently suppress democracy, and to ensure the continuance of a political and economic order favorable to the aristocratic class. While they genuinely worked hard to create a new constitution for a nation, the founders never lost sight of their second principal goal: to take care of number one, the aristocratic class. They wanted a democracy of elites so-to-speak within government, but they wanted that democracy to extend no further.

They 'foresaw' that in time relatively few people would own almost everything while most people would be landless and poor, and they wanted to protect the "rights" of the wealthy few against the many poor. They saw this inevitable result as stemming from their own talent, merit, and superiority. They failed to recognize or admit, at least publicly, that their traditional body of unjust law and their unjust public and private institutions might have anything to do with such extremely unbalanced distributions of wealth. They did not recognize or admit that what they called foresight might merely be the fruit of their own actions and that other actions and different institutions might bring a different result. The founders worked hard to protect the aristocrats against those from whom they had taken and to whom they had done injury. This was their idea of a "balanced" government and society. They spoke and wrote lofty words, but this was their bottom line.

Although speaking frankly among themselves, the founders and other aristocrats worked hard before, during, and after the Convention to carefully craft their words and documents and to guard their true intent from the common people. And when promoting their completed constitution they employed every kind of distortion, lie, and manipulation. After all, by hook or by crook they had to somehow get ratified a document that worked against the common people's best interests.

### ~~~~~~~

The goals were clear, but the way to achieve these goals was less clear. Although not equally wealthy, the members of the Convention were all aristocrats in their thinking and of like mind as to the ends of their endeavor, but they were less united as to the means.

One group among the founders, the nationalists, wanted to take sovereignty away from the unruly state governments and to take power away from the people by creating a new, powerful, sovereign, national government. There was much apprehension among some other members of the Convention, the federalists, about creating a powerful, sovereign, national government after our having so recently escaped the clutches of the overly authoritarian British government. They wanted what we already had in the Articles of Confederation: a federal government, that is, an association of sovereign states. But they wanted to strengthen it.

There was also the matter of the Convention's mandate from the Confederate congress, which was to suggest to congress _amendments to The Articles of Confederation_ that would render _the Confederation_ more sufficient to its task. They had no mandate at all to bypass the Confederation entirely and create a whole new government. But this was _never_ the intent of the nationalists at the Convention.

The nationalists won their way and the members of the Convention proceeded to step all over their mandate. As we shall see later, this is not the only legality, not to mention morality, that the members of the Convention tossed aside in their will to achieve their secret goals behind locked doors. "The people" were deliberately kept ignorant about the true nature and purpose of the constitution and government that was being created in their name.

### ~~~~~~~

Perhaps the greatest blessings for America and its people as a whole resulting from the Constitution is the internal structure of the government. The founders created a government with powers divided and balanced among three branches: the legislative, the judicial, and the executive. Each branch stood independently of the others, and each branch was assigned enumerated, i.e., listed, powers (as opposed to general, sweeping powers), some of which served as checks on the powers of the other branches.

Some among the founders believed that there were only three fundamental types of government—monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy (which most of them held in disdain)—and that a balance of these three types should be included within the government they were creating. In the founders' minds the executive branch represented the monarchal aspect and within the legislative branch the senate represented the aristocratic aspect and the house of representatives represented the democratic aspect.

While that which is good about the internal structure of the government that these men created had something to do with their ideals, philosophies, and interpretations of history, as much if not most of that good resulted from their distrust of each other's motives and words and from their interest in looking after themselves and their home regions.

The members of the Convention were divided against each other in several ways such as those for a sovereign national government versus those for sovereign state governments, North versus South, those for versus those against slavery, commercial and trade interests versus plantation interests, large states versus small states, those states that had claims to much western land versus those states that did not, and those whose wealth was mainly in the form of land versus those whose wealth was mainly in other forms. (We may, however, safely rule out rich versus poor. The poor were not present at the Convention. The Convention was a huddle of wealthy and wealth-favoring men.)

There was much haggling and horse trading over issues such as these: Should there be one or two legislative bodies? Should representation in the house and senate be as equal states versus representation by population, wealth, or land ownership? Which branch of the government should hold the power of the purse? How extensive and powerful should be the judicial? Should there be a single executive or two? Should the executive have a council? What should be the qualifications for and terms of the various offices? Who may have the power of the veto over what? And should powers be enumerated versus being granted in a general, sweeping form? As mentioned earlier, there was much disagreement over a sovereign national government versus a federal government of sovereign states and over the division of powers between the national and the state governments.

When the dust settled, representation in the house would be by population as counted by a periodic census. Representation in the senate would be as equal states, and its members would be selected by the state legislatures. There would be a single executive whom the electorate would not elect and whom they might have to suffer a second term. The executive could veto legislation but be overruled by a 2/3 vote of both the house and the senate. The house would hold the purse, but the senate could pilfer it. Judges were to be selected by the president and approved by the senate. So long as they behaved themselves judges could sit until their last gasping breath and dead neuron. The powers of each branch were enumerated, and some limits of their powers were enumerated as well. Enumerated limits were also slapped on the states; they were chopped off at the knees but still allowed to hobble around on the stumps. In a census, a slave would be counted as 3/5 of a person. It would be nearly impossible to amend the Constitution and then only by those who populate the seats of government, which is to say, only by the wealthy. There was no bill of rights.

### ~~~~~~~

The participation in government allowed to the general populace was minimal. The president was elected by the voting of "electors" selected by the state legislatures. Senators were chosen by the state legislatures. Judges were and still are appointed to the Supreme Court by the president. Only the elite few participated directly in any of these processes.

The general populace was only allowed to vote for representatives for the house of representatives. The times, places, and manner of electing representatives were left up to the state legislatures. Generally, the states limited the franchise, the right to vote, to the participation of that minority of the population called "free men" which for all practical purposes meant white men. Women and slaves were excluded. But even all white men weren't considered good enough by various elements in the political processes of the states. Greater insurance of a correct result was thought to be needed. The possession of various amounts of land or wealth was usually required, and being a member of a particular religion was sometimes required.

(Throughout our history roadblocks such as poll taxes, literacy tests, registration at distant places and awkward times, just plain bullying and beatings, and vote tampering have been used to prevent the "wrong" persons from voting or their votes from being counted. The "wrong" persons of course meant people of color, poor people, or people with a different view than "ours." Only educated, wealthy, white men could manage to jump through all the hoops. And, let us not forget, even they mostly just selected a name from a preselected, short list handed to them from on high.)

Over a long period of time the franchise (and the right to actually have one's vote counted) was reluctantly granted to poor white men, women, and racial and ethnic minorities that then over the years participated in exercises in futility as they tried to get their elected 'representatives' to really represent them and government to include their will. It has always been the case that the elected 'representatives' represent themselves and their wealthy clients first and the electorate and the nation as a whole last. As the franchise was expanded, power, true power, was shifted away from anything of significance that the electorate could hope to affect and behind an ever-increasing labyrinth of complexity and secrecy within government or shifted entirely out of government into the ever more powerful private corporations and the ever-present American aristocracy.

### ~~~~~~~

One issue debated at the Convention was the granting to government of broad, "sweeping" powers versus the granting only of enumerated powers and limits on power. Mostly enumerated powers were granted, but three very important sweeping powers found their way into the completed constitution.

One such phrase is "necessary and proper." It occurs in the context of an enumerated power giving congress the power to make all laws necessary and proper to exercise all of its other powers enumerated in the Constitution. Another such phrase is "general welfare." In the taxation clause congress is given the power to collect taxes to, among other things, provide for the general welfare. Another phrase, the "supreme law" phrase, made the Constitution the supreme law of the land.

The exact meaning of these phrases has been debated by Americans at the Convention, during the ratifying conventions, and ever since. Some say they merely grant the power to permit the execution of the enumerated powers. Others say that they are new, sweeping powers that stand in their own right. Whatever the arguments, through perpetual congressional reinterpretation of the meaning of these phrases and judicial reinterpretation of the meaning of the entire Constitution, the federal government has used them to ever increase its power until today its power is greatly expanded from its early days. These processes have also made it possible for the Constitution to still work in a nation that is radically different from and infinitely more complex than it was at the time that the Constitution was written.

### ~~~~~~~

Turning to the issue of the Constitution's lack of a bill of rights, the nationalists argued adamantly that the Constitution inherently protected the rights of the people, and a bill of enumerated rights was not needed. This is interesting in view of the fact that the Constitution specifically enumerates several protections and includes other measures that, while they applied to everyone, were of particular advantage or intense personal interest to the founders and other aristocrats.

Their constitution protected the right to private property of which they and their class held a great deal. And they expected their future aristocratic generations to hold a great deal more. It prevented interference by government in the obligation of private contracts, that, at least when dealing with the poor, were almost always obscenely favorable to the rich. It forbade states from issuing paper money insuring that the large and many sums owed to the wealthy would be paid in sound money. It forbade states from passing bills of attainder, which declare someone guilty of an offense without a trial and which was at times used against the wealthy for their unjust and ruthless practices. It forbade ex post facto laws, which makes something illegal and also provides punishment for those who did it before it was made illegal, something that was at times used within state legislatures against the more ruthless among the wealthy when their past evil actions came to light. The new government would pay the state and federal war and other debts that by this time had been mostly bought from the poor war veterans and others for pennies on the dollar by wealthy speculators including some of the members of the Convention. The inclusion of the payment of the public debt would also entice the many holders of the debt into ratifying the Constitution.

One may agree with all of these protections and measures. But we should not overlook that these protections and measures and others of central interest and benefit to the founders and other aristocrats found their way into the constitution while others of equal or greater importance like the freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, the right to a speedy and fair trial, and the right to a trial by jury of one's peers were strongly opposed and in the end excluded from their constitution.

Some of the legislation passed by the state legislatures against the interests of the aristocratic class was unsound and even foolish. But there was much other foolish legislation that happened to be of no particular interest to the aristocrats for which they saw no need to include protections against in the constitution that they wrote.

Fearing too much opposition and the possible failure to get their constitution ratified, the nationalists yielded somewhat and promised to add a bill of rights after the Constitution was ratified. (After ratification of the Constitution, to ward off an increasing call for even stronger measures, the congress of the new national government passed a watered down version of a bill of rights containing deliberately vague terminology and omitting certain key phrases.)

### ~~~~~~~

The founders had a profound dilemma. How does one create a constitution for a new government that illegally annihilates the existing government, favors the wealthy class, and suppresses the budding democracy of a people, and then get that government and those people to ratify it?

And, besides exceeding the Convention's mandate, there was another nasty legal matter to sidestep. Changes to the Articles of Confederation required the unanimous approval of all thirteen states in the Confederation congress. The founders believed that their constitution would never survive such a demanding requirement as ratification by congress. No problem; they simply wrote their own requirements for ratification of the constitution right into the constitution. Their constitution would be ratified and their new government born if only nine of the thirteen states ratified it, and, to bypass both congress and the state legislatures, which the founders felt certain would not ratify the constitution, ratification would be done within special state conventions.

By years of unceasing labor and sheer force of will, a small group of aristocrats, the nationalists, had managed to win a convention against much resistance, set the agenda for that convention, and gain most of their way throughout the convention. Now it was time to present their constitution to congress. Rather than trying to get congress to ratify the constitution, the convention resolved to simply lay their constitution before congress imploring that it be sent to the states for ratification. What would congress do with their new constitution? Would their good fortune continue?

Conveniently, several of the writers of the constitution were also members of the Confederation congress. Thus, several of those who wrote the constitution also sat in the congress that was to pass judgment on it. Further, like the writers of the constitution, the other members of congress were of the aristocratic class. This group of like-minded men may and did have their differences of opinion as to the means, but in large measure they agreed upon their ends.

Even with much commonality of interest, the supporters of the new constitution could not achieve sufficient unanimity to present a united front to the states. There were those in congress who still irritatingly clung to such issues as legality, federalism, and a bill of rights. Rather than reveal the degree of division among themselves, the congress handed the constitution to the states without comment.

The proponents of the constitution, in particular the nationalists, had much going for them. They had been debating and pressing their views for years. They knew their arguments well. Their leaders were at the Constitutional Convention, and they were members of congress. They could present a much more united front than the opposition. The conventions were populated by people selected by the state legislatures. These people were not unlike the founders themselves and shared many if not all of the same views. These were the economic and political movers and shakers of their times. They were well versed in the ways of political intrigue and manipulation. The conventions took place in the better areas of eastern, coastal cities far away from the poor, rural, and western people (which is to say the vast majority of the American population) that mostly opposed the constitution. They also owned most of the then existing newspapers.

As if this wasn't sufficient advantage, the proponents of the constitution had a bag of dirty tricks that would have been the envy of our modern politicians. They moved swiftly, pressing for ratification before the opposition had time to raise an adequate opposition and before most of the population had time to even read the constitution. What newspapers they didn't own they pressured into not printing opposing views. They even managed to get some postmasters to stall the delivery of the opposition's mail.

Throughout the years preceding the occurrence of the state ratifying conventions those who favored a strong, sovereign national government were called by the name _nationalists_. Those who favored a federal government and sovereign state governments were popularly known by the name _federalists_ , whom the general population most favored. Before the Constitutional Convention had even concluded, the nationalists published a newspaper article calling themselves the federalists and the opposition by the name anti-federalists whom the nationalists-turned-federalists painted as British-loving enemies of liberty.

The now-federalists used every kind of distortion and lie to portray their constitution as a benign document that made limited, insignificant changes. They tried to claim that the constitution created a federal government, not national at all. One made the claim that the constitution was "purely democratical." At times they got physical. In Pennsylvania the federalists were in the majority but lacked the necessary quorum, so they got a mob to drag enough anti-federalists to the convention to conduct a vote.

It has been estimated that in several states the majority of the people, sometimes the vast majority, was against ratification of the constitution. But these people did not have access to and, therefore, could not participate in the conventions. The tiny portion of the whole American population that qualified to vote for delegates to the conventions and who voted for anti-ratification delegates were often betrayed by their delegates when the delegates voted _for_ ratification. Remember, even the supposedly anti-federalist and anti-ratification leaders of the day were usually from among the wealthier people of their various locales. Foreshadowing the actions of representatives that would come to populate the new government in the making, when push came to shove they had more loyalty to their pocketbooks than to their constituents.

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These are the circumstances under which and the methods by which the aristocrats convened and conducted their Constitutional Convention. And these are the circumstances under which and the methods by which the aristocratic minority shoved its constitution down the throats of the American people.

Chapter 4

The Modern "-isms": Communism, Socialism, and Capitalism

Greed and inhumanity know no bounds. The elites in every society, not even knowing their own true or fullest self-interest, let alone the interests of the many or the nation as a whole, invariably oppress and exploit the many until a breaking point is reached and the people rise up against them. History is punctuated by one bloody uprising or revolution after another with nauseating repetition.

The difficulty with revolutions is that they all create leaders who ride at their heads, and these leaders, once ensconced firmly in the seats of power, prove to be even more ruthless than, just as bad as, or little better than the tyrants that they replaced. The result is simply a continuance (in slightly different political and economic garb) of authoritarian plutocracy and the underlying biological male dominance hierarchy.

Often intellectual visionaries attempt to lead "the peasants," "the masses," or "the proletariat" into a new age and new social order only to find that the new order has fewer believers and followers than it takes to fully implement and sustain it. They then attempt to force the unseeing many, not to mention the recently dethroned elite, into the new way hoping that in time, once the new way is understood and takes root, the force may be removed and a new age will have dawned. Many dictatorships and totalitarian states have been born in this way. The many remain unseeing, and the new elite degenerates into just another authoritarian corruption.

America and other plutocratic nations of the West have long used such misguided revolutionary efforts and social forms as communism and socialism both as distractions, e.g., "the red scare," from their own deep flaws and as the means to paint their own governments in a better light then they really possess. But it should be remembered that it was the gross injustices and abuses inherent in the current plutocracies (monarchy, aristocracy, and capitalism) that caused so much of the world to see hope in communism and socialism in the first place. Few foresaw that the flight from one horror would lead to an even greater horror, the totalitarian state. Older but wiser, we now know that our lesser misery is far better than that much greater misery. Whatever appeal communism and socialism may have had intellectually or idealistically to the oppressed, that appeal was crushed by the rise and actions of the totalitarian state.

Although such political systems were misguided and deserved to fail, the fundamental injustice that drove people to them remains with us today. Until this fundamental injustice is corrected, the outcry from below will never cease, and nations will inherently be less just, free, happy, and stable than they could and should be.

The vast panorama of unspeakable horrors of the last century has driven the economic underclass into a state of disarray and impotence. Most people have little stomach for it and forbear much abuse before physically fighting against oppression. There are proper times to rise up against oppressors and to draw blood. But if another way can be found to throw off oppression and redress injustice without drawing blood, then let it be tried first.

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As for the modern "-isms," communism fails because it is not possible or desirable to reduce the entire human race to one level economic sea. While communism's central premise that one works according to one's ability and receives according to one's need is high-minded and altruistic enough, it would require a world of saints. And we are definitely not saints. Any viable social relationship requires first of all that it works in the real world with people as they really are.

The argument of this work is not that there should not be a few and a many. It is not that everyone should be reduced to one economic level. Nature itself produces an inequality of strength, beauty, intelligence, talent, and capability, and, therefore, "the few." The argument is against the current political-economic relationship between the few and the many and for a new kind of relationship.

The argument is also about the nature of the few who rise to the top in authoritarian, plutocratic states. It is not nature's few of excellence but merely a human-created aristocracy of birth, wealth, and power. This few merely oppresses and exploits everyone else and grabs and hoards everything. The question is can we ever find a way to dethrone this base and greedy few and select nature's nobility of intelligence, wisdom, generosity, and humanity for the seats of power?

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Socialism fails because private ownership of property functions better than collective ownership of property. With collective ownership decision making is taken away from the individual and installed within a centralized political body far removed from the myriad local and personal effects of the decisions. The individual becomes insignificant in the face of a monolithic power. This reduces the individual to a state of powerlessness, forces him or her to conform to standards set down from on high, and inhibits creative activity and spontaneous, enthusiastic improvement of one's environ.

Private property is also the natural sibling of something else that best fits our current human behavior: a market economy. It may be the case that in some future time we transcend the need for private property and a market economy, but that time is not now. In our current plutocracy, it is the case that some people own entirely too much wealth and property while millions of others have little or none. But this is a problem of adjusting the distribution of power and wealth, not a question of private versus collective ownership of property.

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The mercantile economy and the budding government of the founders' time have evolved into the huge capitalistic market economy and the powerful federal government of our time. The principal flaw of both early and current capitalism is also the direct cause of the principal flaw of the government that the founders set in motion and of all of today's so-called democracies.

Gambling, as practiced within honest Las Vegas gambling houses under known rules of chance, is based upon the principle of a few winners and many losers. That a few gamblers may win large sums, many other gamblers must lose. The house sets the gambling odds in its favor, but the odds are not set so high as to turn away the gamblers or to lose them to other gambling houses. There is something of a win-win situation here in that the gambling house, better still a cluster of them, serves as a mecca attracting many gamblers and much money, thus providing the potential for much larger winnings. The mecca also gives rise to many other businesses.

Laissez-faire capitalism functions in a similar way. It is a win-win situation in that centers of commerce and industry serve as meccas attracting many people seeking their fortunes who create many businesses, products, and services and much wealth. Everyone, even the less fortunate, benefits from the many amenities not available to them were they alone in the wilds.

However, as with gambling, that a few people may profit fabulously under capitalism, many others must lose. And, unlike the strict honesty and known rules of chance obeyed by honest gambling houses, laissez-faire capitalism is a game played in an often extremely underhanded way. Anything goes and anyone may make any rules as they go along. Those who have advantage take advantage. Those who have the most take even more, all that they can manage to take, without limit. The wealthiest, most powerful few takes all of the fruit of its own labor plus a significant portion of the fruit from the labor of others. At the other extreme, there are many who labor for only a tiny portion of the total value of the products and services that they create and provide. And, of course, one can at any time be cast out into the mean streets of the city broke, homeless, hungry, and ill.

While laissez-faire capitalism can create enormous amounts of wealth, it does not produce a very attractive social model and often produces devastating environmental and personal results. Capitalism depends on the creation of many economic losers and, in and of itself, cannot correct this failing. Even if they wanted to, which they don't, the fierce competition among capitalists for the lowest possible cost of production and price of product or service does not permit the luxury of protecting or tidying up the environment or of repairing broken, impoverished lives. Capitalists seek the immediate lowest possible cost _to oneself_ at a much higher long-term cost that is foisted upon the common weal and the weakest in society. The supposed efficiencies of capitalism cannot bear the light of day when the total environmental and human costs are fairly examined. To the limited extent that the environment and the rights of the powerless are protected, they are protected by government, not by capitalism. The capitalists moan and groan and drag their feet every inch of the way.

Champions of capitalism and free enterprise never tire of holding a few of the Horatio Algers among us before our admiring and desiring eyes as examples of what one can accomplish within our economic system if only one studies, works hard, and is enterprising. This is akin to a Las Vegas gambling house's ringing of bells and sounding of sirens whenever a gambler wins big time. It motivates all of the losers to keep pulling the handles on the slot machines, rolling the dice, and plunking chips down on the card tables. And Horatio Algers paraded in the limelight motivate all of the "little people" under capitalism to keep putting one foot in front of the other, to continue working "for the man," and to continue striving for or at least dreaming about that big break. We all know that capitalism produces some big winners, but less obvious and not advertised is that it _must, of necessity_ , produce many losers to keep the wheels of the system turning. Oh, as pointed out before, everybody wins a little bit compared to living in the wilds. But laissez-faire capitalism is a system that definitely has a seedy underbelly to play down and hide. We can, we should, and some day we will do better.

As discussed earlier, the ideals of communism and socialism were born of the horrendous conditions created by unrestrained plutocracy and capitalism. But, as we all know, these systems produce even worse results. The ruthless few reign as an over-class in an all-powerful state that imprisons and oppresses everyone. Freedom and the motivation to create and produce become destroyed. In the end, communist and socialist nations remain poor compared to the great wealth created under capitalism.

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Capitalist purists argue against any mitigation of the means or the results of capitalism. To them not only are communism and socialism horrors, but so is any interference of capitalism by government, particularly government redistribution of wealth via taxation and spending.

The purists' arguments are dishonest in two ways. First, by its laws and rules and by the presence and use of its military and police forces, government creates and protects the means by which wealth is accumulated and protects the accumulations themselves. Such accumulations are not "natural." They are not merely the result of the intelligence, talent, education, entrepreneurship, or even the sheer brute strength of wealthy individuals. They are not a product of nature but the result of the artificial means—government, laws, military, police, etc.—that we create to produce the result. At one time, the wealthiest person in the world possessed 100 billion dollars. Can you envision one monkey sitting upon a pile of 100 billion bananas trying to protect them from the other monkeys? What do you think all of the other monkeys would do? But this unnatural set of conditions created by our artificial means is exactly the view embraced by capitalist purists. While government may work for the wealthy and make possible the accumulation of wealth in the first place, it may not help labor or the poor.

Second, capitalists conveniently overlook the fact that any redistribution of wealth by government is really only a secondary, corrective redistribution. The first redistribution of wealth takes place within capitalism itself when business owners, managers, etc. take onto themselves an undue portion of the fruit of everyone else's labor. Capitalists always sing the praises of capitalism in its creation of wealth but always play down its unjust redistribution of that wealth. Those who most benefit from the much larger but less visible redistribution under capitalism point to the much smaller but more visible redistribution by government and scream bloody murder.

The capitalist purists lament about the injustice of government redistribution. They cry, "Government takes our hard earned money and hands it out to the lazy poor." While one can argue about how wisely the government uses our taxes, the argument as to the justice or injustice of government redistribution cannot be appropriately examined from so narrow a view. The justice or injustice of the actions of government can only be legitimately considered from a much larger view that includes its facilitating and protecting by its laws, rules, military, and police the means by which wealth is accumulated, the accumulations themselves, and the redistribution of wealth in the private sector under capitalism. The issues of the accumulations and the redistributions of wealth can only logically and justly be considered as a whole.

In the final analysis, the overall distribution of wealth is the result of the actions of a government that has been created by and that is owned and populated by the principal benefactors of that distribution. The "invisible hand" of the market is a slight of hand that deals a crooked hand. This crooked hand is the creation of those who also created the crooked government that protects it.

In a sense, the redistribution of wealth in the private sector can be looked upon as a tax on work levied by the owners of the tools, the means of production. While the wealthy moan about the injustice of the government tax burden, we find the tax burden and redistribution levied against everyone else by the wealthy, powerful few in the private sector to be grossly unjust.

To be sure, the investment of capital in enterprise is risky, and entrepreneurship is hard work. That risk and work should be re-warded. But, after subtracting all of the costs of an enterprise, what should be the amount of the reward or profit for the risk taken and the work done by the entrepreneur? One percent? One hundred percent? One thousand percent? Clearly, it is not a matter of a particular percentage. There can be honest disagreement about that. But it is all too clear from the result, the current distribution of wealth, that the current distribution and the tax burden levied against everyone else by the owners of the means of production is unjustly, immorally, obscenely high. This fundamental failing and excess of capitalism must be corrected so that our capitalism and, indeed, our whole system of government and society may be rendered more humane, serviceable, and secure.

Another argument of the capitalist purists is that handing money to the poor only removes their incentive to better their lot which keeps them lazy and poor. This may be true if money is unwisely handed out with no strings or the wrong strings attached, and no effective program of self-improvement is in place. But it is also true that in sucking all of the blood out of workers—low pay and no benefits for the lower level employees but high pay and profits for the managers and owners—the incentive to work is also removed: "Why bother working hard? No matter who you work for you still get screwed." By taking an undue measure of our nation's wealth unto themselves, the wealthy create both the poor and the lack of incentive to work.

Further, seeing the capitalists and the politicians they own lie, steal, and do anything to anyone to always win, the rest of the populace becomes demoralized both spiritually and in their actions. Millions of young people and adults lie, cheat, and steal because they see all the politicians and CEOs doing it. They use the immorality of "the successful" as justification for their own immorality. "It is the way of the world. It is the only way to survive. Anyone who does not do it is a naive chump." The entire society becomes demoralized, corroded, and corrupt.

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Closely related to the ideas held dear by capitalist purists are the notions of what have been called "supply-side economics" and "the trickle-down theory." The argument is that by decreasing or eliminating the capital gains tax and by other measures such as deregulation, the even greater amount of wealth that would accumulate in the hands of the wealthy would be more freely invested creating even more wealth. This effect of lifting the boats of the wealthy would eventually "trickle down" to others, raising their boats as well, thus benefitting everyone.

This argument fails in several ways. First, it not only does not correct the failings and shortcomings of capitalism but exacerbates and increases them. Second, the deregulation or decrease in regulation in recent decades of major industries such as airlines, power generation, telecommunications, and the financial sector has proven disastrous. Third, as the apologists of capitalism proudly point out, millions of people own stocks and bonds. And we have no shortage of creative financial instruments to provide for every financial need. Personal wealth no longer needs to be concentrated in the hands of the few to raise the sums necessary for venture capital and large, corporate investment. Currently existing and newly forming companies and business ventures can offer their stocks, bonds, and other financial instruments as easily to hundreds, thousands, or millions of investors as to an over-moneyed few. Millions of such transactions are conducted daily by people over the Internet. Fourth, studies have shown that it is not the wealthiest few who do the most investing, take the most risk, and create the most jobs; it is the great body of Americans in the economic middle who do so.

There is another important necessity of capitalism that is ignored by "supply-side economics" and "the trickle-down theory." The whole point of investment and enterprise is to profit by selling goods and services to the populace. If, as is the case in America, the lion's share of a nation's wealth is hoarded by the few, then who is left to buy those products and services? With the poor turning out empty pockets and the credit of the great middle class tapped out, who is left to create the market? During the downturns of the business cycle, this house of cards tumbles down with a painful crash and recovers only slowly.

Feeding the same problem, in recent decades the always-greedy multinational corporations have roamed the world ever seeking the Holy Grail, the dollar-an-hour worker. But in having moved their factories and millions of America's good paying jobs abroad, corporations have shot themselves in the foot. The resulting gutting of the middle class destroyed the market for the goods and services that the corporations produce. Now corporations face declining profits, and all but the wealthiest Americans face declining lifestyles.

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The ills of unrestrained capitalism are horrendous, indeed. Aside from the capitalist purists, almost everyone agrees something must be done to mitigate capitalism's ills, to smooth down its raw, bleeding, dysfunctional edges. For this mitigation we turn to government. It is expected of government to keep the rules of the capitalist game reasonable and honest, to regulate the conditions under which enterprise and labor take place, to wisely husband and keep the common weal in good order, and to create a milieu conducive to a flourishing market economy and a healthy, happy populace.

Well and good... were government an honest broker. But, of course, it is not; it never is. Invariably, the heights of government are populated by the same types of unscrupulous, carnivorous people that populate the heights of business and industry. In the end, government laws, actions, and favors are bought and sold just like any other commodity. That which could potentially redeem capitalism ends up being corrupted and owned by it.

This is the sad truth not only after the government is created and is functioning, but it is what dictates the form and structure of the government during the very process of its creation. Under laissez-faire capitalism one ends up with a laissez-faire government that is of deliberately little use in mitigating the many ills of the capitalism.

Capitalism is an amoral economic system that creates wealth and power, which is good, but then concentrates that wealth and power without limit into the hands of the few no matter what the consequences are to the populace or to our world. And those consequences are draconian.

Thus we roll up our sleeves and try again to create a decent relationship among ourselves and with this planet. Not wanting to return to some primitive state and not wanting an all-powerful communistic or socialistic state crushing us, we are pragmatically driven to turn up the light and reexamine our current capitalism and republican form of government to see if we can find ways to correct their shortcomings.

A market economy is the most practical and efficient way to address the myriad lesser decisions of our economic activity and relationship. But unbridled capitalism always tends toward monopoly, placing too much power and wealth into too few hands. Using their hegemony of power, an all too often immoral, ruthless, carnivorous few first create and then use a dishonest, corrupt government to further their selfish ends. An immoral few operate America's economic system and government at a deeply imbalanced, self-favoring extreme. We must create a moral government that honestly includes and serves the entire electorate and firmly and humanely manages the parameters within which our market economy must function.

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Over the decades people have attempted to fight "the system" or "the establishment" to correct some of its ills. Organizing people, gaining some power, and making some changes has done a lot of good, and such efforts should continue. And humanitarians of every stripe should keep up their efforts. The world is a better place and we are a more humane race for their being in them. But plutocracy and the biological male dominance hierarchy still reign supreme and have never been transcended by such efforts. A completely new kind of understanding, vision, and effort are needed.

Liberalism forever applies patches to and reforms _within_ the existing system. It never changes the system itself or its most central and fundamental problems. For their never fixing the real causes of our many problems, liberals will always remain employed at their never-ending task.

Labor unions were born and continue to exist in response to the excesses and evils of unchecked and insufficiently managed capitalism. They have done and continue to do much good for their memberships. In that their effect reaches beyond unionized workplaces, lifting standards a bit in the larger work community, unions do much good in the larger community and society as well. However, unions arise and exist as symptoms of a problem to which they can apply band-aids but never fundamentally repair.

Further, in bettering the lot of strongly unionized workers, unions in effect create elite workers who, like the wealthy, are ultimately subsidized by the labor and lives of others. It is also the case that some labor unions have become plutocracies in their own right with corrupt leaders who steal from the workers and grease their own palms.

Unions have their place. As long as we suffer under our current or any future unjust system, we should give them our support. This endorsement does not include license for featherbedding (i.e., the practice by some unions of requiring an employer to hire more employees than are necessary or to limit production according to unnecessary union rules), promoting laziness, or adding unneeded costs to the providing of services or the production of products.

While unions serve in their way, it is the political system itself that needs to be fixed. It is far more logical and efficient to eliminate the fundamental problem that creates the need for unions in the first place.

A note on philanthropy: As Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "Philanthropy is commendable, but it must not cause the philanthropist to overlook the circumstances of economic injustice which make philanthropy necessary." Philanthropy eternally gives back a portion of what shouldn't have been taken in the first place. And philanthropists who have their names carved above the door or their images cast in bronze get immortalization as a perk, not to mention juicy tax breaks, placing their very 'generosity' into question.

We should also favor pragmatism over idealism. Many isolated, idealistic societies based on a set of ideals or surrounding some charismatic personality have been tried in the past. While some of them may have brought some measure of comfort to their participants, such communities are generally extremely limited, rigid, and isolated. What we must be about is a robust, just, peacefully-evolving "social contract" and resulting laws and institutions sufficient for our nation and for humanity as a whole. Cute, idealistic hideaways cannot suffice.

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At least insofar as the position taken by the Libertarian political party is concerned, the libertarian position is inherently dishonest. The Libertarian party is populated by laissez-faire capitalists who are materially successful and by misguided others who are thoroughly fed up with government but have simplistic and misguided beliefs as to what, at bottom, is really wrong with our government. This is a deficiency suffered by the faithful who read too much Ayn Rand and not enough else.

Most of us would like to see a small, efficient, honest, non-meddling government that fosters a flowering of personal freedom and liberty. But the way that the libertarians would go about reducing the size of government is to hack and chop away at anything that they personally didn't like, leaving in place that which favored their own interests. They want absolute freedom to take the fruit of other people's labor, to accumulate wealth, and to be facilitated and protected by government in their taking and accumulating, but no one else should be helped by government. To the extent that these government institutions protect their interests and views, the Libertarian party prefers strong military, police, and financial establishments. Beyond that, capitalism's god, free enterprise, will magically solve all problems.

Some argue that we increase personal freedom simply by limiting the size of the federal government. Such thinking really misses the point. What liberty is gained by weakening government and strengthening private power if that private power resides principally in the hands of unchecked, ruthless, carnivorous corporate elites? Whether ruled by the political mighty or the corporate mighty, the populace still remains with a bent back and on bent knees. The problem is not merely one of the public sector verses the private sector. It is not about the size of government as such. And it is not about government verses liberty. Government is essential to liberty! The question is, or should be, what changes to our government will correct its current shortcomings, effectively mitigate the dysfunctions and bring out the best of our market economy, and maximize the personal liberty of everyone and the nation as a whole? It is correct governance that maximizes freedom both in relation to government and outside of government.

The position taken in this work concerning the reduction in the size of government and in the improvement of its function is to determine the fundamental causes of its many malfunctions and to correct those problems. In correcting those problems, the size of government will be greatly reduced and its function improved, and personal power and liberty will be increased.

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There are those among the wealthy who smugly look down on those who seek an improved government and society and sneer, "Sour grapes!" Avoiding the truth that lies even within themselves, they claim that "the failures" among us are merely envious and jealous of their wealth and wish to take it from them. There are, indeed, those who are as shallow as the "sour grapes" people who merely lust after possessions. But neither the snide claims of the wealthy nor the wannabee's who covet their possessions can obscure the bright fires that burn in the hearts and minds of many who simply want a just government and society in which the fruit of their labor is not taken from them and in which their lives and labors are not wasted subsidizing the lives of the wealthy with an endless supply of trinkets while the true needs of many and the greater good go unmet. Those who possess this fire and light do not seek a large, faceless, monolithic state or any horrible "-ism" from the past, but only a government—a small, efficient one will do—that includes their will as well and does not serve only the few.

Chapter 5

Reorganizing the Powers of the American Government

Many principles and ideals have been put forth over the centuries as to what is required to create a good government and society, principles and ideals such as these: The power of a government must be derived from the people who live under it. Government must be by the consent of the governed. Government must be a body of law; no one can be above the law; and every person must be treated equally under the law. The individual is the independent owner and ruler of his or her person and life. As much as possible, government must allow people to live by their own personal beliefs. The people are not the servants of government; government is the servant of the people. Government must secure everyone's life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. Government cannot take away liberties and rights without just cause. Personal liberty must be limited only by other people's rights. Government must justly balance opposing interests. Government must honestly represent and serve all of the people. Government must rule with fairness, equity, impartiality, and integrity. Government should be moderate in size and action; that government which governs least governs best.

Such principles and ideals can serve as guiding lights that point toward and become the achieved results and indicators of a correctly designed government. However, they do not inform us as to exactly what government design, what kind of structure and function, will translate them into actual practice within a good government and society.

One thing is certain; we're not there yet, far from it. To this day, principles such as these receive little more than lip service in political speeches and haunt our wishful minds. The main reason our dreamed and proclaimed ideals are so little realized is that _no government has ever been created with the true intent of actually practicing these principles_. Throughout history and everywhere today, governments have always been created and populated by powerful, wealthy elites who then use them to serve themselves first and best.

This includes our current American government. While creating a constitution and government in the name of all of the people that does not favor any particular faction, the founders designed a government that, along with economic and social institutions and practices in the larger society, places an overwhelming amount of power and wealth into the hands of an elite few and their generations, creating in effect an untitled heritable aristocracy, while excluding most of the populace from meaningful participation and honest representation.

The founders understood very well the principle of creating divided and balanced powers within government. The problem lies in what they considered to be the proper division and balance of power. They believed in class. They believed the aristocratic class to be selected by God or nature to paternalistically rule over the childish, incapable common people. The government they constructed was shaped by these believes. Most of the founders abhorred democracy as the rule of the mob. They excluded it from their government in the making to the extent politically possible at the time. Their notion of a properly balanced government was one whose divided powers were all held by themselves, the aristocrats, with minimal participation of the common people.

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America and several other nations claim to be republics. The republican form of government embraced by the founders is sometimes called the representative form or representative democracy. A _republic_ is a state in which the supreme power rests in the body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by representatives chosen directly or indirectly by them. Historically, the "body of citizens entitled to vote" has been defined as anything from the vast majority of adults to only a select few.

The principal weakness and failure of the republican form of government lies in the word _representatives_. The republican form can only work to the extent that the chosen representatives do in fact truly and equally represent all members of the citizen body. To the extent that they do not, supreme power does not in fact lie with the whole body of citizens. Some portion, almost always the majority portion, of the body of citizens is rendered unrepresented or under represented, ineffectual, and powerless.

It has been historically demonstrated ad nauseam that the representatives in republics always deviate from the representation of the whole body of citizens and degenerate into pursuing their own self-interests and the interests of some minority faction of the of citizens, usually the wealthy few. In fact, in a republic the vast majority of representatives _are_ members of the wealthy faction of the populace. Thus a republic always degenerates into a plutocracy governed by the wealthy. The republican form is therefore deeply flawed, and, even with the most treasured argument favoring the republican form of government, the election of "representatives" by the body of citizens, it cannot serve in its pure form as a legitimate form of government.

Strictly speaking, this argument is not entirely correct. In order for a republic to degenerate into a plutocracy, it must at first not have been one. But no government that claims to be a republic really is one for none of them have ever been truly representative of the entire electorate or populace at any time during their creation or existence. If true representation has never existed, then, by definition, a state is not and never has been a republic but only a plutocracy.

_Democracy_ is a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system. We see that there are two forms of democracy defined here. The people may exercise their power _directly_ (direct democracy) or through their _elected agents_ (representative democracy). We will examine direct democracy in due time. Of note here is that a democracy involving elected agents, i.e., representatives, is, in fact, a republic, hence the term representative democracy. We've already examined the fatal flaw and failure of this form—America's current form—which, in truth, is always only a plutocracy that is decidedly unrepresentative of the entire populace.

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In addition to the problem of representatives never representing the whole body of citizens eligible to vote, let alone the whole populace, there is the matter of elections taking place "under a free electoral system." While the wealthier nations of the world run around the planet playing watchdog for the elections of many other countries, their own elections (and political offices and favors of government) are bought by the wealthy just like any commodity. No electoral system that bows to money can be said to be "free."

_The single greatest scam and failure of our nation's current political system is its electoral system._ It lies at the root of most of our failures as a society including our inability to achieve honest representation of the entire populace in government. More than anything else, it keeps powerful, wealthy elites in the seats of power and in a position to perpetrate many other scams against the rest of the populace including, for example, a wealth-serving tax system. Our electoral system is a set of loaded dice that overwhelmingly favors the wealthy in two principal ways.

First, elections are left to a marketplace, mass media, and two political parties that are mostly owned and operated by the wealthy rather than being within and supported by government where they belong, equally accessible to all of us. Most of us are resigned to rapidly selecting what we guess might be "the lesser of evils" from among a few poorly known, fork-tongued candidates _financed and, therefore, pre-selected by the wealthy_. Few run for and win office that do not have the blessings and support of and now owe Big Money big-time.

Second, if throwing huge amounts of money at the electoral process were not enough of an advantage for the wealthy, dividing states into electoral districts and electing only one senator or representative within each of them virtually guarantees that wealthy or wealth-serving candidates will win the lion's share of electoral offices and that the wealthy will hold a permanent hegemony of power within government while the poor and minorities go vastly under-represented. When only one candidate can be elected in a district, a candidate with lots of money to throw around will usually successfully buy the electoral office or seat being contested. While the wealthy inevitably manage to buy the first seat in a district, others—the lower middle class, the working poor, and minorities—could elect their champions to other seats in the district. Oops! There's only one seat in the district.

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The principal result of bought elections is that America has the best government that money can buy. We have all come to see that the elites that dominate our government and nation are not nearly as wise, altruistic, or honest as they deem themselves to be. They are more often motivated by greed and self-interest than by wisdom. They do not manage our economy or our nation's affairs in a way that honestly serves the common good. Do not confuse intelligence and cunning with wisdom or an adequate moral sense. Those who occupy the seats of power are capable of and often willing to do anything to anyone. The minority of wise and moral people that do manage to become seated in our government who might in better circumstances be capable of adequate vision, statesmanship, and helmsmanship are effectively overwhelmed by the majority who are blind, greedy, self-serving, and wealth-serving and by the wealth-serving government that the founders put in place. Our government must become a moral one that money can't buy and that neutralizes and minimizes the potential for and effects of selfish and evil intent.

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T _here is only one central political issue: the distribution of power._ All other issues are secondary. They should never be allowed to distract one from first correctly resolving the issue of power.

Good government and a good society require the correct distribution of power as their foundation. The most fundamental structures and functions of a government must contain a correct distribution and balance of power, or the government will fail. It will fail in one of two ways. Either the government will completely fall, or it will result in an ongoing state of political, economic, and social purgatory or outright hell. Even with an incorrectly designed government a nation may still be a world class power or player. But most of its populace will exist in misery, a beast of burden ridden by a privileged class. With an incorrect distribution and balance of power, save for correctly and adequately altering its political system, no individuals or actions can fix a nation's many resulting ills.

In all nations, power is excessively concentrated in the hands of an organized few. Even our so-called modern "democracies" are at their hearts authoritarian plutocracies essentially owned and operated by powerful, wealthy elites that serve themselves first and best by oppressing, manipulating, and exploiting the rest of the populace.

The solution—no surprise to anyone—is to shift power away from the few and toward the many. Saying it another way, the distribution of power must be made less concentrated and authoritarian and more widely distributed and egalitarian.

The only form of government that is truly egalitarian is democracy, _true_ democracy, not what passes for democracy today. Our salvation from authoritarian plutocracy, from the wealth-dominated republican form of government with its lack of honest representation of the entire electorate and populace and its lack of true democracy lies in the second definition of the word _democracy_ , that _the people exercise their supreme power by voting_ _directly_ _on issues_.

Legitimate government requires that its power is derived directly from the people who live under it. This is not a figurative or symbolic but a literal requirement. All of-age, mentally competent members of a nation's citizen body must be members of its electorate and have a civic duty to hold and exercise _real_ political power by participating directly within its government. Disenfranchisement of any citizen by any means for any reason is immoral, directly opposed to true democracy, and must be made unconstitutional. Legitimate government also requires that its process is honest and its result just.

Voting people into office who have been preselected by the wealthy within a wealth-dominated electoral system and then hoping that the people will actually represent you is not real power. _Real power_ is and can only be the ability to affect something either by one's taking direct action or by casting a vote the result of which directly affects that something. This direct action and result is lacking in our current so-called representative democracy. This is the principal difference between what in this work is called true democracy and the sham that passes for democracy today in America and elsewhere in the world.

_True democracy_ is the entire electorate directly voting on issues of greatest importance in the society resulting in action taken on the issues in compliance with the true intent and will of the electorate.

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Long ago a Greek city practiced for a short while a very limited direct 'democracy' among elites. The vast majority of the populace was excluded. Modern 'democracies' practice so-called representative democracy, which, in truth, is merely plutocracy wrapped in pseudo-democratic clothing. The vast majority of the populace is still effectively excluded from holding real power and from being able to fundamentally alter the political-economic system and the society in which it lives. Some governments allow limited referendum-style voting on superficial measures. This should not be mistaken for full democracy. It is just a little game that masks and protects the larger plutocracy that remains permanently in place beneath the game. Real power remains securely in the hands of wealthy elites.

A true, full democracy is capable of fundamentally altering or even dismantling the plutocracy itself, if the electorate so chooses. Remember, democracy is a form of government in which the _supreme_ power is vested in the people.

Full, unopposed, majority-rule democracy involving all of-age, able members of a society directly creating law by voting referendum-style on a continuous stream of a nation's most important issues and the majority vote on each issue wins is not a form of government that has ever been tried in its pure form. By "unopposed" and "pure form" I mean that there are no other branches of government or sources of power that create law and could stand in opposition to the democracy.

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Nor—surprise!—should this form of democracy ever be tried! It has major shortcomings and pitfalls! (One's wanting this form of democracy brings to mind the admonition, "Beware of what you wish for!")

Its principal shortcoming is suggested by the phrases "the tyranny of democracy" and "the rule of the mob." Most people hold a rather nebulous, romanticized notion that equates majority-rule democracy that reigns supreme with justice, freedom, and government by "we the people." The majority _should_ win all issues put to a vote! That's fair, right?

But it would bring anything but justice, freedom, and government by "we the people," _all_ of the people. What people, including myself at first, fail to understand is that unlimited majority-rule democracy, were it ever really tried, would only result in the political, economic, religious, and behavioral tyranny of the simple majority over the rest of the populace. It would reduce the populace to mediocre conformity, crushing all variation, color, uniqueness, and excellence. And, examined more closely, this 'majority' would really only be a highly organized, doggedly active, radical political minority. Thus, ironically, although of a differing form than plutocracy, wrongly designed, unopposed democracy also degenerates into tyranny, a tyranny of the simple majority.

The following figure shows what most people will find to be a surprising relationship between the distribution of power and personal freedom:

Figure 1: The effect of the distribution of political power on personal freedom

Placing excessive political power into the hands of a single individual, just a few individuals (such as a powerful, wealthy elite), _or the simple majority as in majority-rule direct democracy_ all result in overly authoritarian government and a sharp decline in personal freedom. While power in our current authoritarian plutocracy must be shifted from the powerful, wealthy few that now hold and wield it toward a more egalitarian democratic distribution, our goal cannot be simply to achieve the maximum amount of democracy that is humanly possible.

Surrounded on every side and circumscribed by big government, big corporations, big labor, big media, big religion, and a tendency toward mass conformity and intolerance of differences, it is the freedom and uniqueness of the individual that are most vulnerable and endangered in the large modern state. What is the point of government if it is not to secure the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness _of the individual_? Our goal must be to maximize the responsible personal power, freedom, and pursuit of happiness of _everyone_ within a just, open, pluralistic society. In a sentence, we must overcome the tyranny of plutocracy and maximize the responsible freedom of the individual while avoiding the tyranny that an incorrectly designed democracy can become.

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Direct democracy is indeed the answer to the problem of plutocracy. But given its pitfalls and limitations, we must design it carefully and choose very wisely what to include in it. Understand that _it is by the inclusion in our government (or in any government) of just the right kind and amount of direct democracy that its representative branches are rendered truly representative, the tyranny of plutocracy is overcome, the democracy itself does not become a tyranny, and the responsible personal freedom of the individual is maximized_.

At the heart of a correctly designed democracy lies a balanced distribution of limited powers that does not unduly favor anyone. No person or body may hold excessive power: not a single individual, not an organized few, not the wealthy, not the simple majority, and not the government as a whole.

As it turned out, discovering a government design that actually achieved this proved considerably more difficult than I had ever imagined when I first started pondering and working the problem decades ago. But I did manage to discover exactly that. This book is the result. Surprisingly, once discovered, once I finally saw the light, the solution proved elegantly simple. It involves a new branch for our government, a new kind of voting system, a new kind of democracy, a new honest electoral system, and giving the electorate direct control over a limited set of just the right powers.

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In a moment I will continue my discussion of the shortcomings and pitfalls of majority-rule democracy, but I pause here briefly to ask a question. In a previous paragraph I used the phrase the responsible freedom of the individual. What do I mean by _responsible_ freedom? This question is important because its answer involves yet another force that negatively affects freedom.

Freedom is not an absolute. When we live together in communities and nations one's freedom is always limited by the rights of others. Most importantly, the individual's freedom to accumulate power and wealth cannot be unlimited because unrestricted personal accumulation does not lead to the greatest measures of freedom for everyone and liberty in the nation. Those who hold advantage usually take even more advantage without limit reducing the rest of the populace to a state of disadvantaged servitude. It leads to the political and economic enslavement and exploitation of the many by the few.

This is where a lot of people stumble, particularly libertarians. Most of the libertarian view attracts: individual liberty and responsibility, a liberal free market economy, a small, efficient, less obtrusive government that does not become a welfare state, and some other good ideas. They then proceed to shoot themselves in the foot by insisting on the unlimited personal accumulation of wealth (which also translates into unlimited personal accumulation of power).

Unlimited accumulation is in direct conflict with the _maximization_ of freedom and liberty _for everyone_ , the greatest measure of freedom and liberty that can be achieved by a society as a whole. Freedom is not a singular entity but a limited constellation of freedoms, of tradeoffs. When one freedom is made into an absolute, other freedoms are necessarily diminished. While unlimited accumulation brightens one star in that constellation, it so diminishes several other stars that the overall brilliance of the constellation is degraded and liberty is lessened. Freedom and liberty are maximized by achieving just the right constellation of tradeoffs.

A society and government that arbitrarily and unnecessarily limits one's dreams, aspirations, and achievements could hardly be considered to secure one's liberty and pursuit of happiness or to be good or legitimate. A society and its government should create, secure, and nurture an environment or milieu that does not hamper but facilitates every person's ability to blossom into his or her unique and fullest self-expression and excellence. Uniqueness, genius, and excellence must have their freedom. Anything less is suffocation.

But do not confuse "fullest self-expression and excellence" with unrestricted greed and unlimited accumulation of power and wealth. Do not confuse grabbing the most with being one's best. _Responsible_ personal freedom means each of us living within some limits we set upon ourselves in such a way as to maximize the freedom and liberty of everyone and of society as a whole. Responsible personal freedom also requires that each citizen exercise certain civic duties by participating directly within the government, something that will be discussed in due time.

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In addition to becoming a tyranny in its own way, the tyranny of the simple majority of the electorate over the rest of the populace, majority-rule democracy involving the electorate's voting on an unending stream of issues, if it were ever tried, would be found to be quite unable to overcome plutocracy. There are two fundamental reasons for this.

First, full, i.e., unlimited, democracy is not really possible. In the power-freedom relationship figure, Figure 1 on a previous page, both extremes in the distribution of power, absolute authoritarianism (all power held by one person) and all power held by the simple majority in an unlimited, unopposed majority-rule democracy are not possible in real life. Even the most powerful dictator cannot be directly involved in the myriad details and decisions that must be made in a complex modern state. The dictator needs many, often secretly opposing, henchmen to manipulate the strings of the state. A similar situation hampers the democracy end of power distribution. In a complex modern state, the entire electorate simply cannot be directly involved in the myriad details and decisions that must be made. The best that can be achieved is a limited direct democracy in which the electorate deliberates and votes on a limited number of issues. They can be the nation's most important issues, but there can only be a limited number of them.

Of necessity, we must depend on specialists, on elected and appointed officials, to handle the many details of governance. Government cannot only be a direct democracy but must include representative branches. This means it is not likely that we can entirely eliminate the problem of the elected few placing their self-interests and the interests of the wealthy few above the interests of the rest of the populace and the needs of the common weal. The best that we can do is to 1) reserve for the electorate direct decisions on the most critical issues of all that simply cannot be entrusted to representatives, 2) create an honest electoral process that results in representative bodies that demographically resemble and represent the entire electorate, 3) minimize the ability of officeholders to abuse their offices, and 4) minimize the extent to which wealthy corporations and individuals can use their wealth to overly influence and purchase the favors of government.

Achieving these things is not as impossible as past experience would seem to indicate. The partial redesign of the American government presented in this book effectively achieves these goals making our government immensely more honest and just than it is today.

Second, even with the stream of issues on which the electorate deliberates and votes majority-rule, referendum-style being necessarily limited, _there are huge problems with the very fact that it is an unending stream, an endless series, of issues_ , problems that deeply interfere with this form of democracy's ability to overcome plutocracy. Millions of voters would have no hope of understanding and voting their true self-interests in a complex, never-ending, exhausting political process manipulated by deceitful people with hidden agendas. Sly and cunning individuals and groups could _and would_ bring to the table issues deviously written to hide their true intent. Manipulators could even introduce a blizzard of trivial, emotionally charged, "hot button" issues to distract the electorate from much more important issues. Like our political process today, only the most intelligent, sly, cunning, and unscrupulous could win what would be a complex, never-ending political war.

In an unrealistic, idealized scenario, which is decidedly not the case in real life, even if various individuals and groups thought themselves to be high-minded and to be honestly trying to promote the greater good as they understood it, an unending stream of referendums on issues would strongly favor the desires and actions of the most doggedly politically active among us, those for whom political ideas and actions are all-consuming. Such people are often the most radical among us. Thus, the radical is favored over the moderate view, the divisive and polarizing over the consensus building. And referendums in a situation such as today where the entire electorate is not _required_ to vote can be passed by a relative minority of the electorate, usually a radical minority.

We face these problems in the political arena today both in the area of the raising and giving of funds for political purposes and in the creation, presentation, and passage of referendums. When investigated using often difficult detective work, groups with the most innocent and idealistic names and professed intentions are usually found to have devious, self-serving intent.

In addition to the mind-boggling complexity of an unending stream of politically manipulated issues, there is the simple matter of time, effort, and will. Most of us lead busy personal and work lives. As important as it is to be conscientious citizens, most of us are simply not interested in making politics a centerpiece of our lives. Most members of the electorate would not be willing to spend the many hours or make the large effort that would be required to adequately study, deliberate, and vote on an unending stream of issues.

Clearly, the correct repair for our current plutocracy in which the few dominate, mislead, and exploit the many is not a majority-rule, referendum-style direct democracy with an endless stream of issues. It would only result in the dual tyranny of a misguided, oppressive simple majority or radical minority that is continuously manipulated and outmaneuvered by those who serve and are first and best served by a tenacious, underlying plutocracy. We would end up with the worst of democracy coupled with the worst of plutocracy.

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So! What is a correct and adequate solution to this constellation of problems that, in various forms, plagues all of the world's governments and every level of government? More generally, what is a correct and adequate solution to the problem of governance? How can political power be shifted away from the few and toward the many without creating an even bigger mess than we have today but creating instead vastly improved governance?

If communism, socialism, fascism, totalitarianism, petty dictatorship, monarchy, aristocracy, theocracy, parliamentarianism, republicanism, what passes for democracy today, and even majority-rule, referendum-style direct democracy, were it ever really tried, are merely various forms of tyrannical authoritarian plutocracy based upon an underlying biological dominance of the many by a strong, organized few, then, if we really want to transcend this elemental condition and create a new, just relationship and way of being, our only course is to invent and try something new. That "something new" is what this book is about, a government design that takes our nation and humankind beyond dominance, authoritarianism, and plutocracy and toward a truly democratic political process that produces a just relationship among us, maximum personal freedom, and good governance.

I use a pragmatic approach for this government design: 1) Rather than discussing government design in the abstract, I focus mainly on the design and repair of that government I know best, the American government. Adapted to the needs of other locals, this design and repair is directly applicable to all the world's governments and to every level of government. 2) Rather than constructing an entirely new government that may appear too alien to people, I only partially redesign our current government, fixing what is most fundamentally wrong with it. 3) I do not attempt to mend all of our nation's many political, economic, and social ills. I only repair what is most wrong with our government. This repair then makes it possible for us to repair—it even facilitates our repair of—our many other problems. 4) My design does not rest upon some idealistic philosophy or imagined otherworldly reality but upon our actual human condition here and now. 5) Rather than hoping for and depending on high-minded, altruistic behavior or suffocating conformity, I create a robust government structure and function that, short of insurrection or coup, can function well even with our current personal defects, shortcomings, and differences.

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We begin the repair of our government by examining what the founders did. The founders wisely created a government containing three branches, divided powers, and checks and balances. They abhorred direct democracy as the rule of the mob and excluded it from their government in the making. Instead they embraced the republican form with its election of "representatives." But, given an electoral system that is a set of loaded dice that overwhelmingly favors the wealthy (as described earlier), there exists no mechanism by which non-wealthy and minority members of the populace may select for office people who truly represent them. Thus, the wealthy and the wealth-serving hold a permanent hegemony of power within all three branches, and, doing what comes naturally, pursuing self-interest, they use the powers of government to serve themselves and their wealthy clients first and best. There exists within our government no political body within which the rest of the populace may come together as a political force that may effectively pursue its own self-interest and oppose, check the powers of, and counterbalance the hegemony of power held by the elite.

From this we can see that the first step in a correct repair of our government is to add to it a political body within which the rest of the populace may come together as a political force that may effectively pursue its self-interests and oppose, check the powers of, and counterbalance the hegemony of power held by the elite. From earlier discussion we know that this new body cannot practice majority-rule democracy, for that would only result in the tyranny of the simple majority over the rest of the populace.

After many years of examining the problem of achieving just governance and "the good society" and much mental trial and error, I have come to realize that while fixing our current mess we can do much better than merely bringing the many into government in a way that creates a state of permanent discord and polarization between the many and the elite. We can add to our government a new political body that achieves the consensus of the entire electorate, changing the very nature and function of the whole government, transforming it (or any government) from a plutocracy into a true democracy. This is where we really begin to look beyond current thinking and create something new under the sun.

Politically, the body that is most representative of the entire populace of a society is not the elite few and not the simple majority but an electorate constituted of every of-age, able member of the society. The supreme difficulty and the most important task of every nation on the planet is to take _some but not all_ political power away from the dominating few and to place that power firmly and permanently _not into the hands of the simple political majority_ but directly into the hands of the entire electorate.

Understand clearly; majority-rule direct democracy does not place power into the hands of the _entire_ electorate but only into the hands of the simple majority. It produces winners and losers, and only the winners truly hold the power. To place power into the hands of the entire electorate a new kind of direct democracy is required.

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But first we must get the electorate into our government. That political power may be placed directly into the hands of the entire electorate and it may function as a political whole, a new political body must be created within which the electorate may exist and function. In later chapters this political body containing the entire electorate will be formally defined and added to our government as a new fourth branch called the _demos_ (pronounced like _demo_ crat). For now we will just use the basic concept of a demos consisting of the entire electorate.

The political power exercised by the demos must in part be created anew and in part be extracted from the currently existing legislative and executive branches of our government and shifted over to the demos, thus lessening their powers from amounts held today. To wisely divide and limit powers— _and to limit the power of the government as a whole!_ —the power of the demos, the direct democracy branch of the government, must be limited and exercised in such a way as to not overpower but to counterbalance and compliment the powers of the other branches, the representative democracy branches, of the government, whose currently limited powers become even more limited under this partial redesign.

Given that the so-called representative democracies of today are really only plutocracies, one might harbor the thought that our emerging altered form of government could be said to consist of limited direct democracy judiciously balanced with limited plutocracy. However, it will be found in due time that adding just the right kind and amount of direct democracy to our government effectively tames and redeems the plutocratic beast, rendering the representative branches truly representative of the entire electorate. So our emerging altered form of government really is best described as limited direct democracy judiciously balanced with limited representative democracy.

Just the right kind and amount of direct democracy is added to our government and the demos is rendered usable by a busy electorate of varying capability in four fundamental ways: 1) The demos is permanently assigned only a small, fixed set of political-economic issues of central importance to our nation. 2) While of central importance to our nation, its issues are easy to present clearly and voters can readily understand their true self-interests. 3) The demos has an elegantly simple method of voting. 4) The electorate does not practice the majority-rule, "winner-take-all" democracy of today but _consensus democracy_ , a new kind of democracy of my own devising that will be defined and discussed later. It is sufficient for now to say that using consensus democracy the demos _automatically_ achieves within its limited sphere of power not merely the consensus of a simple majority but of _the entire electorate_ on its included issues.

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Since the demos can handle only a few issues, it is of supreme importance that the issues are chosen wisely. They must be those among our nation's most central, important, and fundamental issues 1) that are the most badly or unjustly handled by the current branches of government and 2) that lend themselves admirably to just resolution within the demos. To our good fortune, the handful of issues that best meet these criteria are the most important and fundamental issues of all. All other issues run a distant second at best.

For all of their lesser faults, our government and nation have two major areas of injustice and failure that most need to be corrected:

First, recall an earlier paragraph: _The single greatest scam and failure of our nation's current political system is its electoral system._ It lies at the root of most of our failures as a society including our inability to achieve honest representation of the entire populace in government. More than anything else, it keeps powerful, wealthy elites in the seats of power and in a position to perpetrate many other scams against the rest of the populace including, for example, a tax system that overwhelmingly favors the wealthy.

The demos must include an entirely new electoral system from that which we have today that empowers all members of the electorate to freely run for office and to elect to office people who resemble and truly represent them.

Second, while power may be and is exerted in many ways—physical, political, economic, social, psychological, etc.—the overall intent and result is primarily _economic_ warfare that the few wage against the rest of the populace. There are those among the elite who (at least publicly) cringe or boil at this characterization of their actions, and the whole business could be expressed more benignly, but the bottom line is that too much _economic_ power is held by too few people who then use that power to _economically_ manipulate and exploit the rest of the populace.

Therefore, certain economic powers of central importance must be removed from the existing 'representative' branches of government and placed permanently into the hands of the electorate within the demos.

Thus, it is _electoral_ and _economic_ powers that are placed directly into the hands of the electorate in the demos. Practicing its consensus democracy, the electorate directly deliberates, votes, and achieves consensus on a fixed set of twelve issues—three electoral issues and nine economic issues. These issues were listed and discussed briefly in the introduction and will be discussed at length later. I list them here to refresh your memory as I continue my discussion of this chapter's main topic, the reorganization of the powers of our government.

In the three electoral issues, in an entirely new electoral system from that which we have today, the electorate directly elects the president, all senators, and all representatives:

***** Election of the president

***** Election of senators

***** Election of representatives

And the electorate directly deliberates, votes, and achieves consensus that becomes law on the following nine economic issues:

***** Overall federal tax rate (which, over time, determines the size of the federal government)

***** Division of the tax burden among three tax revenue sources: corporations and businesses, personal incomes, and inheritances

***** Corporate and business tax scale

***** Personal income tax scale

***** Inheritance tax scale

***** Hours in the workweek

***** Minimum wage

***** Amount of federal debt or savings

***** Portion of federal tax revenue for the military, healthcare, other entitlements, and all other government functions

Adding a new fourth branch to our government consisting of a demos in which the entire electorate, rather than elected representatives in the other branches of government, directly handles the above electoral and economic issues moves us significantly toward a balance of government powers that does not unduly favor a powerful, wealthy few. But majority-rule democracy does not place power into the hands of the _entire_ electorate. It places power into the hands of a simple majority of the electorate. It produces winners and losers, and only the winners truly hold the power. To achieve the consensus of the entire electorate on the demos issues, we turn to _consensus democracy_.

I discussed consensus democracy briefly in the introduction, and I will discuss it in detail in later chapters. I will only touch upon enough here to continue my discussion of the reorganization of the powers of our government.

Most political questions are of a yes/no, majority-rule nature, e.g., should the nuclear plant be built, yes or no? The majority vote wins, and all other voters lose. But there is a class of questions of a _numerical_ nature that may be presented and processed in a way that results in a consensus of the entire electorate. To our good fortune some questions in this numerical class are of central importance to our society (or to any society).

Take for example a question the members of the electorate really would be handling in the demos: As a nation how much should we tax ourselves to finance the federal government? The question (or issue, as I call it) is actually presented in the form: Should we increase, keep as is, or decrease the overall amount we tax ourselves in support of the federal government?

At the heart of consensus democracy lies a surprisingly simple voting system based on the traffic signal colors green (increase), yellow (keep as is), and red (decrease). Even though all nine of the economic issues in the demos are numerical in nature, voters never come in contact with any mathematics. For each economic issue, each member simply selects green (increase), yellow (keep as is), or red (decrease). Demos computers tally our votes and convert the tallies into numeric values representing the consensus of the entire electorate, not just the simple majority. (See Appendix 1 for a detailed discussion of this process.)

Voting in the demos is not periodic as with today's elections but ongoing. And voting in the demos is not merely a right of each adult citizen but a civic duty. (Otherwise we could not achieve the consensus of the _entire_ electorate.) It is the duty of each member of the electorate to keep a vote continuously "riding" on each demos issue, which he or she may conveniently change at any time from almost anywhere.

In an endless cycle, every few seconds demos computers recount all votes and do mathematical calculations using the vote tallies. Every vote always counts. Every vote always has an equal and continuing effect on the ever current demos consensus. As demographics, conditions, and our decisions change, the consensus of the electorate on each demos issue slowly varies over time, avoiding the extremes and hovering around a moderate norm, like temperature regulation and heartbeat in our bodies. Taken collectively, the demos issues function like the interactive, self-orchestrating systems in a living organism. The electorate uses the demos as a tool to achieve a slowly changing consensus on a few values, a moderate "golden mean," that our government and nation must use as they function, keeping our society functioning smoothly and evolving peacefully over time.

The electorate has the sole power to tax at the federal level. It sets the overall size and distribution of the tax burden. And it sets the minimum wage, the length of the "standard workweek," and the amount of national debt or savings. The electorate also controls the portion of tax revenues that are allocated to four major areas of the government. The representative branches then further fine tune distributions and set budgets within these four areas. By its revenue allocations the electorate controls the overall size of the military over time. It would be ill advised and difficult for our elected leaders to venture into or attempt to continue a war that did not enjoy the support of the populace. The electorate also controls the portion of revenue allocated to entitlements. This gives the electorate direct control over how generous it wishes to be with its money.

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The demos includes an entirely new electoral system that is completely open, free, honest, and fair. Our current periodic elections (including primaries), the Electoral College (which currently elects the president), and all state electoral district systems are completely scrapped. The president and all senators are elected by direct popular vote from the nation at-large, and each state's quota of representatives is elected from the state at-large.

In a manner similar to the nine economic issues, voting on the three demos electoral issues is not periodic but ongoing. Each demos member keeps a vote riding on a candidate for president, a candidate for senator, and a candidate for representative, that, save for one limitation discussed in a later chapter, he or she may change at any time. The actual seating of candidates in office, the length of terms, etc. are also discussed later. Right now our focus is the reorganization of the powers of our government.

The free, ongoing, at-large demos electoral system empowers any number of candidates (who need not be wealthy or wealth supported) to take any amount of time to run for office for free and build a following. Members of the electorate may take any amount of time to study and deliberate about candidates and to reach out to each other across states or the entire nation to directly elect their champions, truly representative officeholders that resemble them in body, mind, interests, and pocketbook. No member of the electorate is stuck selecting a "lesser evil" from a small group preselected by the wealthy as is done today. All voters support their goods, their champions, those who resemble and truly represent them.

During the ongoing demos electoral process, candidates for office will be long scrutinized and well known by the demos members who support them before they finally gain office. Candidates are not dependent on campaign contributions, and elected officeholders need not be indebted to Big Money. And officeholders, including their voting records, will be watched most carefully. With one limitation discussed later, demos members can withdraw their support of a candidate or officeholder at any time.

The demos electoral system results in the honest representation of all members of the electorate in the representative branches of government. The senate and the house _automatically_ demographically resemble and truly serve the balanced interests of the _entire_ electorate. No quota systems, political parties, or complex electoral schemes are required. People just get to freely choose who they _really_ want to represent them.

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The combined use by the members of the electorate of their electoral and economic powers would profoundly affect the nature and function of the representative branches of the government. The now truly representative branches that result from the demos electoral process will in part dismantle and in part modify the current arsenal of laws and rules that the elite have created to serve themselves first and best. Using the economic values set directly by the demos and mindful of demos deliberations on a host of other issues, they will create new laws and rules governing corporations, business and labor practices, interest groups, campaign contributions, the use of the mass media, environmental policy, etc. that serve all of us.

Individuals and groups would still be able to petition the representative branches of government for favors and favored legislation. But very likely corporations will face imposed limits on political involvement and influence, the wealthy will be less wealthy and powerful, the 'poor' will be less poor and powerless, and now they all face elected bodies that demographically resemble and serve not just the wealthy but the entire electorate.

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Limiting demos lawmaking to a fixed set of _economic and electoral_ issues focuses the electorate's attention and capabilities on those issues that are the greatest sources of current injustice and inequity in our nation that lend themselves to just resolution in the demos. And it avoids the serious mistake of including a large number or an open-ended stream of complex, subjective issues that are best handled by other areas of government and in other parts of society. Creating law on difficult, subtle social issues by popular referendum is a huge mistake. Simplistic, ill-designed, self-serving referendums are usually proposed and supported by moneyed, organized, radical corporations and interest groups that deviously manipulate unsuspecting others to win their way. The result is really bad laws that serve personal gain at the expense of others, crush individuality, and foster excessive conformity.

Laws regarding complex social issues are best created by legislative bodies whose members are selected in demos-style elections. The bodies demographically resemble and serve the entire electorate, and their members can gain or lose the support of the electorate. As a result of demos deliberations legislators are informed as to the true thoughts of the members of the electorate on issues. Within the give and take of the legislative process, all competing interests and ideas are wisely considered, balanced, and coherently fitted to other new and existing legislation and law.

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Once the senate and house demographically resemble the entire electorate, it is important that they function in a sufficiently democratic manner to truly serve the entire electorate. Two proposals in this book are designed to make the senate and the house more democratic by breaking up their current "old-boys' clubs" with their excessive concentrations of power and self-serving legislative rules and processes: 1) All current systems of seniority and appointment in the senate and the house are scrapped, all committee and other chairs and positions being filled by the secret voting of their entire memberships. 2) All rules regarding parliamentary and legislative _processes_ within the senate and the house are determined by the secret voting of their entire memberships. The debate of and voting on _legislation_ being proposed and considered by congress remain public.

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Discussed in detail later, the selection of Supreme Court justices is placed entirely into the hands of congress, and the selection process is changed in a way that transforms the composition of the court into one that does not vacillate wildly between liberal and conservative as it does today but consistently demographically resembles the entire electorate and represents the full spectrum of the electorate's interests as it interprets the Constitution and law.

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Please clearly understand the difference between the redistribution of power within our government and the redistribution of wealth within our society. Not one penny of wealth is redistributed by the government design presented here. This book is not about _what_ choices should be made about certain issues of central importance to our nation but about _who_ should make them. The entire electorate is empowered to directly make a few choices of central importance that are currently made by a powerful few.

Under our current government, by the use of business, electoral, tax, legislative, regulatory, and other means, powerful elites permanently control the overall distribution of wealth in America. The foxes oversee the chicken coop. The result is some very fat foxes and a lot of very lean chickens.

Under the partial redesign presented here, by the economic and electoral choices that it makes, the electorate is empowered to profoundly influence our nation's overall distribution of wealth if it so chooses. Once empowered, I believe the electorate would choose less inequality in the distribution of wealth than the elite choose today. The electorate would not vote in a way that creates obscene concentrations of wealth in the face of abject poverty.

But remember, in the demos the electorate does not practice majority-rule democracy in which the simple majority could overwhelm and defeat the rest of the populace including the elite. Consensus democracy always results in the moderate consensus of the _entire_ electorate. The votes of many members of the electorate on the demos issues—on tax levies, etc.—would tend to increase the inequality in our nation's distribution of wealth while the votes of others would tend to decrease the inequality. Over time, the many opposing votes result in values that are held in a just moderate balance, a state of dynamic equilibrium.

There would still be significant inequality in the distribution of wealth. This is good. A market economy requires incentive for entrepreneurship and labor. Just as today, how much wealth each person possessed within the overall distribution would depend on accident of birth and on a person's talents, ambitions, study, hard work, and luck. Consensus government empowers the electorate and our nation to achieve an unequal but equitable and functional distribution of wealth and honest reward for honest work.

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In addition to setting right our government's current mal-distribution of power, the government design presented here also repairs our divisive political process. Rather than pulling us apart into angry, polarized, gridlocked fragments as our political process does today, _it brings us together in a single political body specifically designed to achieve our consensus_ on our most important issues and honest representation in the other branches of government. In doing this, it makes possible and even facilitates the correction or mitigation of most of our nation's other political, economic, and social ills.

This design places our greatest trust where it really belongs, on a true consensus achieved among all of us. Along with our better qualities, everyone from the political and economic mighty to average citizens and groups of them harbor greed, selfishness, bias, prejudice, hardheaded unjustness, unreasonableness, and shortsightedness. Our trust is best placed not in the supposed wisdom of a powerful wealthy few, the simple majority, or any other faction of the populace but in the direct deliberations of and a consensus achieved by the electorate as a whole in the demos and in the deliberations and compromises among representatives in the other branches of government who are _fairly_ elected by and who _fairly_ represent the entire electorate. Our working together within an honest government of judiciously balanced powers will produce our greatest wisdom in those matters that most concern all of us.

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There are more ramifications to this redistribution of government powers than first meet the eye. As consensus democracy, the demos, and its included issues are discussed at length in following chapters, the full measure of power placed into the hands of the electorate will come to be appreciated.

Chapter 6

True Democracy: The Demos, the Fourth Branch of Government

As discussed in the previous chapter, to place political power directly into the hands of the entire electorate so that it may function as a political whole, a new political body, the demos, is created and added to our government as a fourth branch. The four branches of our government would be, therefore, the judicial, the executive, the legislative, and the demos.

Our Constitution limits federal powers to only those specified by the Constitution. All unspecified powers remain with the states or with private individuals. In a similar manner, the demos would possess only those powers specified to it by one or more new amendments to the Constitution. All other federal powers would remain with the three current branches. The nature and limits of the powers specified for the demos would be such that it could not overpower and destroy the other three branches but would compliment and counterbalance them.

The word _demos_ is defined as a noun meaning 1) the common people of an ancient Greek state, and 2) the common people; populace.

I named the new branch of government _the demos_ since it is constituted of the entire electorate participating in a direct democratic process. Instead of the dictionary pronunciation dēmos with a long "e," here the word is pronounced as in the word dĕmocrat. The demos may be thought of as "we the people" [] because the electorate participating within it would be constituted of _all_ of-age, able members of the populace.

This book presents new definitions for the word _demos_. The principal new definition is as follows:

A _demos_ is a direct democracy branch of a government consisting of a nationwide electronic network in which an electorate consisting of all of age, able citizens practices consensus democracy by deliberating, voting, and achieving consensus on a fixed set of a nation's key economic and electoral issues, setting economic values the government and the nation must use as they function and electing to the representative branches of the government bodies of officeholders that demographically resemble the entire electorate and truly represent the entire body of citizens.

The term _consensus_ in the above definition has a very specific meaning. In the demos the electorate does not practice the winner-take-all, majority-rule democracy of old in which the simple majority vote wins and all others lose but a new kind of democracy I call _consensus democracy_ designed specifically to always achieve the consensus of the _entire_ electorate. How consensus democracy achieves the consensus of the entire electorate will be discussed in detail later.

A less precise but simpler definition of the word _demos_ for a tiny dictionary might read:

A _demos_ is a branch of government in which all of-age citizens directly vote and achieve consensus on a fixed set of a nation's key economic issues and elect office-holders to the representative branches of the government.

In this book the word _demos_ may refer to an entire branch of government as in "the judicial, the executive, the legislative, and the demos." In a more formal reference the word _demos_ may begin with an uppercase letter as in "the Judicial, the Executive, the Legislative, and the Demos." The word _demos_ may refer only to the electorate of the demos as in "the consensus of the demos." It may refer to the whole of the physical mechanisms and systems used by the electorate to conduct its consensus democracy as in "the construction of the demos has begun." The plural form _demoses_ is used as in "all of the world's demoses." The possessive form _demos'_ is used as in "the demos' procedures." The word _demos_ is also used as an adjective as in "the demos issues."

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In the principal definition of the word _demos_ , the phrase all of age, able citizens could be variously interpreted. _Of-age_ could be given various meanings by different cultures. An age somewhere within the second half of a person's teens seems most appropriate.

The word _able_ in the definition does not mean that a person would have to pass any kind of mental or other tests to be eligible for membership in the demos electorate, but only that the person is physically and mentally able to vote, e.g., the person is not comatose or a babbling idiot quite incapable of voting. Such determination is, of course, a legal decision that must be honestly made for medical not political or other reasons such as mere personal inconvenience.

The term _citizen_ can be variously interpreted, and some interpretations could be construed to mean a relatively minor portion of the population living within the area encompassed by the government. In the city of Athens in ancient Greece only citizens could vote, and a very minor portion of the population was defined to have citizenship.

In this book the term _citizens_ is defined in the very broadest sense to include as much of a nation's population as humanly and rationally possible. In America the term _citizen_ includes all American born and naturalized citizens including those who are currently traveling or residing outside the country and excludes all foreign visitors, students, and others. The body of citizens that participates in the demos may be referred to as the electorate, the members of the demos, or even simply the demos.

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The term _social contract_ means an agreement among individuals, hypothesized by certain philosophers, by which society becomes organized and invested with the right to secure mutual protection and welfare. The principal difficulty with this notion is that nobody within a society ever really reads or consciously enters into such a contract but is born into a society that is already in play and with a government already in place. In America today few people are even cognizant of the concept of a social contract, let alone have participated in "an agreement among individuals." In truth, the so-called agreement took place among a few privileged white men long ago.

Nevertheless, the concept of a social contract is a good one and could well serve as the centerpiece or heart of a demos. Correctly constructed, a proper social contract would contain the most central or fundamental questions and issues of a society dealing with the relationship among its members. Within the constraints of the limitations placed on it, the electorate of the demos would vote and achieve consensuses on a small group of our most central electoral and economic issues. (In this work the consensuses of the demos on the issues included in the demos will often be collectively referred to in the singular as simply the consensus of the demos.) This consensus would serve as society's social contract. Students in school would become well versed in the content and function of this social contract and, when of-age, would consciously enter into the contract and participate as full and equal members of the demos.

The demos consensus and, therefore, society's social contract would be dynamic, its current state slowly evolving over time. The existence of a peacefully evolving and responsive social contract consented to by the widest possible electorate voting within a demos would reduce the need for and likelihood of revolution.

The relationship of the demos to the other branches of government and to society as a whole would be this: Its current consensus would _be_ our current social contract which, within its limited sphere of power, would set some economic values that government, business and industry, and private individuals would have to use as they went about their daily business and lives. By amending the Constitution it could be made unconstitutional for government to violate the social contract. By the creation of appropriate laws it could be made illegal for business and individuals to violate the social contract.

Chapter 7

The Demos System: Convenience, Simplicity, and Security

Physically the demos would consist of a nationwide, electronic, always-on, real-time voting system. The design and function of the system should have three main characteristics: convenience, simplicity, and security.

The demos' nationwide voting system would function in a manner similar to today's Internet. Although the demos system is discussed in this book in terms of the Internet and web pages, it need not be the Internet that is used. If necessary, an entirely more robust and secure nationwide electronic network system could be built from the ground up that serves only the demos. Using the notion of today's Internet is merely a good way of presenting the concept of a nationwide demos with deliberations and voting. The Internet itself could not be used by the demos unless it underwent a security revolution sufficient to safeguard demos communication and data.

Voting terminals would be located virtually everywhere: in the home, at work, in public buildings and shopping centers, in your pocket, etc. Whether one was at home, at work, or about the city, one would find a voting terminal conveniently at the ready. Although a dedicated voting terminal, i.e., a specialized device used only for demos deliberations and voting, of simple design and usability would be widely available, any computer or other device with suitable capability could be used to access the demos system and vote. Any demos member could use any voting terminal or suitable device in the country or, for that matter, in the world at any time to connect with the demos.

In a manner similar to today's Internet web sites, the demos would be presented to the electorate as one large web site with a hierarchy of web pages that would be navigated by mouse-clicking buttons and hyperlinks. The demos' initial or Home page would contain a list of all of the demos issues. After signing in using a personal password, ID, etc., the voter would be able to enter the demos system. Clicking on an issue would lead to its own web page. Beneath each issue's web page would exist a hierarchy of other pages relating to the issue.

The demos' Home page as well as each issue's initial page and the next level or two in the hierarchy of pages below them would be extremely simple in appearance and function. Unlike most commercial web sites today, the demos pages would be elegant in their simplicity. The pages would be completely free of advertising, distractions, and unnecessary information. Most voters would seldom venture much beyond these levels of the demos. If one knows one's mind, as most of us will, it could take as little as five or ten minutes per year at any convenient time and place to vote. But those who did venture further into the demos would find increasingly rich and sophisticated discussion and debate about the issues in which they could participate.

Every effort should be made to maximize the convenience of the demos voting terminals by minimizing complexity, keystrokes, and mouse-clicking. Other input devices would be available for those who need or want them. Voting convenience should extend well beyond hardware and software design and include the whole conceptual and procedural design of the demos. In almost every aspect—hardware, software, mathematics, logistics, and security—the demos would be quite complex under the hood. But that would be a problem for the technicians. What the voter experienced both physically and mentally would be the essence of simplicity.

How to use the demos system and participate as a member of the demos electorate would be taught to every student in America's high schools. Although students' votes would not be tallied and their opinions would be indicated as those of students, they would use real voting terminals and actually participate in our nation's demos. Free lessons in the use of voting terminals would be given throughout America. In short order few people other than new voters would even need lessons.

More discussion of the demos web site and pages will follow in later chapters. How specific issues would be presented to the voter will be briefly discussed when the issues to be included in the demos are discussed. Appendix 1 contains a detailed discussion about the methods used to present and vote on the nine demos economic issues.

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The highest ideal of the demos technicians would be to achieve and maintain a perfect reflection of the electorate's will on the demos issues. This could only be done by creating, maintaining, and protecting mathematics, software, and hardware that functions correctly and produces honest vote tallies and calculations. Obviously, if one or more errors are accidentally or deliberately introduced, then the errors could produce calculated results that temporarily or permanently favor particular interests or factions of the populace causing potentially devastating political, economic, and social injury or loss to others. We are liars and cheaters all, each in our own ways. Therefore, every available means must be used to secure and maintain the integrity of what would be our nation's most priceless information and process.

In our early attempts at electronic voting in our current electoral systems, it seems that everything that can be is being done wrong. Hardware, software, and procedural integrity and security seem almost laughable. A Laurel and Hardy caricature of the many first attempts at airplane flight comes to mind. Some people now question even the _possibility_ of achieving secure electronic voting machines, let alone a secure nationwide electronic voting system. Does this not throw into question the possibility of an electronically connected nationwide demos constituted of the entire electorate?

While electronic information integrity and security is a daunting issue, the problems involved are not insurmountable. The game of leapfrog currently played between those who work to protect information and those who attempt to gain illegal access to it will not continue indefinitely as some people suppose. As the field of hardware, software, and data protection continues to advance, the cost of protection will go down while the cost of attempting to violate that protection will go up. Also, much protection would result from the very nature of the demos voting system proposed in this book, which is very unlike the systems we use today. Consensus democracy has very different security issues than our current 'democracy'.

The physical and electronic protection of the demos would involve three main areas: 1) the demos processing centers, computers, and information, 2) the voting terminals used by the members of the electorate, and 3) the communication between the demos computers and the voting terminals.

We already do an excellent job of physically protecting important stuff. The demos computing centers where votes are tallied and processed would be protected in a manner similar to our most secure intelligence agencies and military installations.

Several security measures would collectively secure the demos' data processing system and voting terminals: Voter ID cards, passwords, and other identification methods such as finger and voice prints. Data encryption. The demos would not have a single center but a distributed structure involving a good deal of redundancy and feedback. A voter's current votes in the demos would not be sent from his or her voting terminal to only one location but to several locations within the system. A _paper_ record for the voter at the end of each voting session. Parity checks, mail backs, call backs, and electronic "reality checks" of a random sample of voters would be made on an ongoing basis. Ongoing test voting by demos technicians from randomly selected voting terminals to see what votes are received by the demos system. A thorough, public system of oversight and quality control during the design, production, installation, and maintenance of all demos mathematics, software, integrated circuit chips, and hardware. Rigorous background checks of all personnel. Rotation of personnel in the most critical positions. Illegally altering one or more votes by any means should be tantamount to treason and punished as severely as the worst crimes in the nation.

There would be a built-in protection against illegally altering a single voter's votes in the demos in that it is hardly worth dealing with the complex encryption just to change one vote. The real danger would lie in the major computing centers of the demos system where votes are tallied and mathematical calculations are conducted. Most security would have to be focused on these areas.

One important thing in our favor is that the mathematics, software, and hardware used for vote tallies and calculations in the demos computing centers would be restricted to the same narrow set of electronic processes. Once the mathematics and software for these processes have been publically perfected and checked by many people in many ways, they would, as it were, be carved into stone. They would be etched into chips for use by the demos computers which would also be guarded and repeatedly checked through the years.

The millions of demos voting terminals would be constituted of a wide variety of software and hardware. One problem that the demos system would face is that a voter must be able to vote at any time from any one of millions of voting terminals.

The individual voter would not be able to pad the electronic ballot box with extra votes by repeatedly voting as often happens in current voting systems. A demos member could vote as often as he or she liked. The voter would only be repeatedly altering or reaffirming his or her own set of votes that are already continuously riding on the demos issues.

The science of establishing the identity of a particular individual is advancing rapidly. Using the several security measures listed above and others that may be developed, the demos system would, by _identifying with certainty_ a given voter at any voting location or time, protect against one individual voting in many different voters' names. Think of the difficulty the electronically capable, would-be criminal faces: To cast votes in another voter's name, the criminal must break or mimic a complete set of devilishly difficult encrypted identifiers of the voter such as ID number, password, fingerprints, voice print, iris scan, etc. This difficult task would have to be repeated for each voter in whose name the criminal wishes to vote. We would not need to achieve perfection here, just the ability to make it so difficult and costly for a criminal to cast unlawful votes that it is ridiculous to even attempt to do so.

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Also of great importance to maintaining the security and integrity of the demos: With the sole exceptions of demos personnel maintaining the integrity of the demos system and rooting out voting fraud, the data that identifies a specific voter for the demos system and the physical location of the voter when connected to the demos system, if known, must be protected _absolutely_ by the demos at all times, even from the rest of government _no matter why the individual may be of interest_. Even within the demos such information must be available on a strict need-to-know basis only to the specific personnel who maintain the integrity of the demos system and root out voting fraud. Government itself is often evil, and its participants often wear the black hats. That an activity or person within a society is government sanctioned or not cannot serve as the ultimate test of the morality of the activity or person. The demos system cannot be used as the judge or servant in such matters. The use of the personal information possessed by the demos system to track down "criminals and enemies" would destroy the demos. Discerning the true will of the entire electorate on the issues included within the demos must reign supreme as its highest moral good over all other considerations. Only absolute voter privacy would enable all members of the electorate to feel safe enough to vote and the tallied votes to accurately reflect the true will of the electorate.

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What if the demos system broke down and its members could not vote for a spell? Having nothing to do with security but simply during the course of its normal function, the demos computers would repeat their vote summation and calculations every few seconds. But the values representing the demos electorate's current consensus on the included issues would actually change only slightly and gradually over extended periods of time—weeks, even months. Save for voter inconvenience, the system could fail for days on end and come back online using the consensus that was current at the time of system failure with no ill effect.

What if there was a technical failure during a particular voting terminal and demos computer communication? When a voter used one device or another to vote, the demos system and that device would do electronic "handshakes." If the voter's vote did not get properly processed, the voter would be so informed.

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Whether the voter were using a dedicated voting terminal or some other device or computer to cast demos votes, the voter should be provided with a paper record of his or her current votes at the end of each voting session. The voter should immediately scan the votes on the record to verify its correctness and then keep it in a safe location that will be remembered later. This does not guarantee that the voting machine has actually sent to the demos the same votes that were printed on the paper record. It may be broken or deliberately set to send to the demos different information than is printed on the record. But it does provide a needed "reality check" when demos staff members conduct random or focused investigations of voting machine and system integrity. It should also be noted that presenting a printed "record" of one's claimed votes does not prove that that is actually how one voted. Such printed records could be forgeries presented by someone or an organized group of people, who, for whatever their reasons, wish to instill doubt in voters' minds about the reliability and integrity of the demos system. While voter honesty would usually be presumed, certain incidents or patterns would cause the level of a demos investigation to rise to a more complex, subtle level.

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Some people warn that our over-reliance on technology is dangerous. Our whole world economy is entrusted to software and hardware: the financial industry, trading exchanges, the operation of most transportation, and billions of other machines and processes. A world civilization that depends on technology is taking a huge risk. If our technology breaks down and civilization with it, world population, sustained in artificially high numbers by our use of technology, will dramatically die back. Such risks have been taken throughout human history but never on such a scale as today.

But technology and all that we create in the world about us is the reflection of our inner selves. It is good or evil only insofar as it is a physical manifestation of our own goodness or evilness. While technology may amplify our capability for self-destruction, it may also serve as a means to enhance the expression of our humanity and highest selves.

Setting aside the possibility of the collapse of civilization from unsustainable population growth or the collapse (or attack?) of the biosphere that sustains us, the greatest danger to the "technosphere" is ourselves as we engage in war and sabotage. The single greatest measure that the human race can take to protect its technosphere, including a future demos, against war and sabotage is to not create the desire for war and sabotage in the first place. The best way to protect against terrorism is to not create the terrorist, the insurrectionist or the revolutionary in the first place. Creating fair and just systems of governance and human relationship within and among nations that include the will of everyone and maximize individual freedom and happiness is the way to achieve harmony and peacefully evolving change. The system of governance presented in this book is such a system; it can achieve these ends. The most important element of protection for a nationwide electronic voting system, a demos, is the fact of its existence and the realization and feeling within each of us of fair inclusion and treatment and that we have achieved good governance and "the good society."

As to the intractable problems of our ever increasing numbers and our ill effect on the environment, if we are ever to gain control of our numbers and intelligently husband our world, it will come through our transcendence of avaricious plutocracy and the achievement of just, inclusive governance. People who feel that government and our relationship with each other is fair and reasonable will be much more inclined to cooperate in the measures needed for our self-mastery and good husbandry.

Achieving adequate security for a robust national electronic democracy, hopefully the demos described in this work, would be a challenge, but it is not impossible. It is an endeavor in which everybody wins and the nation flourishes, and, therefore, one we should pursue. We should not let today's admittedly laughable beginning at electronic voting sway us from embracing it.

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For those who have been reading or viewing too many science fiction works, it should be noted what the demos would not be. The demos would not be an incredibly complex, networked computer system that someday reaches a sort of critical mass and "wakes up," becoming conscious. It would not be or become some sort of "thinking" machine that would make our decisions for us. It would be always and only ourselves who make decisions as we used the demos system as a tool to come together as an electorate to deliberate and cast votes on the included issues. The demos computers would make the same cyclic computations day in and day out without ever venturing beyond their built-in tasks. The demos system would do extremely well the singular task that it was designed to do, but it would do nothing else. It would merely collect votes from the electorate, process the votes according to the rigid rules that were programmed into it, and present the results of our voting to us.

Chapter 8

Membership in the Demos, Privilege Verses Obligation

It would be a requirement that every of-age, able citizen must be an actively voting member of the demos. Being a member of the demos could not be a privilege but would have to be a civic obligation. Participation would bring a significant reward, and non-participation would bring a significant penalty.

This requirement would be absolutely necessary for the demos to function properly. It would only be by _every_ adult member of the society actively pursuing his or her self-interest in the demos that the demos could arrive at a true consensus of the _entire_ electorate on the demos issues. Only partial participation by the electorate would skew the consensus of the demos away from the interests of those in the electorate who did not participate.

The wide-ranging apathy and lack of voter turnouts in American elections today have several causes. Millions of people don't vote as a protest against the current system. Millions of people correctly believe that the game is a rigged scam anyway. No matter who gets elected they will go unheard, and the rich will just get richer. They have not dropped out as a protest. They have just thrown in the towel. Millions of people are simply working too hard and racing about too fast just to survive to muster up the time and will to vote. Many people find the process of traveling here and there at different times and standing in line for registration and later for voting to be difficult and tedious. Many people find cunningly-worded referendums too difficult to understand and find it difficult to vote for candidates they really don't know or want.

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In having taken most of our nation's wealth from the rest of the populace, the wealthy are actually a minority group. How does this minority group manage to win elections?

In a previous chapter we discussed how our current electoral system overwhelmingly favors the wealthy in two fundamental ways: Our electoral district system in which only one candidate is elected within each district strongly favors the wealthy. And our elections are left to a marketplace, mass media, and two political parties that are all owned and operated by the wealthy.

Using their vast resources—the mass media they own and corporate and government seats of power—as moneyed megaphones and bully pulpits, wealthy elites play the ignorance, fears, hatreds, angers, and divisions of the rest of the populace like a violin to further their own political purposes. They actively manipulate the minds of people to confuse them and get them to vote against their own self-interests. The elite strive to keep the populace politically asleep, distracted, and divided. The principal party of the wealthy promotes itself as a large tent, tossing bones to poor religious and other moral conservatives by cynically focusing on lesser "hot button" issues while avoiding public discussion of how much of our nation's wealth is hoarded by the few and their incessant class warfare against the rest of the populace.

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In addition to effectively disenfranchising the rest of the electorate by an electoral system that is a set of loaded dice that overwhelmingly favors the wealthy, our government imposes a huge amount of formal disenfranchisement.

An inherent part of a government's claim to legitimacy is that all native born and naturalized members of the populace living under it are defined as citizens and all of-age, able citizens are defined as members of its electorate with the inalienable right and the _civic duty_ to vote. To achieve the consensus of the _entire_ electorate and the honest representation of all of its members that true democracy requires, each member of the electorate _must_ hold and exercise _real_ political power by participating directly within the government.

America currently has millions of adult citizens that are not allowed to vote. This shameful immorality is part of our government's current mal-distribution of political power. No political system that practices disenfranchisement, i.e., taking away a citizen's right to vote, is truly a democracy. No government that practices disenfranchisement is legitimate. Disenfranchisement of any citizen by any means for any reason is immoral and must be made unconstitutional.

Imprisonment and disenfranchisement are often used to politically castrate and silence one's enemies and those with opposing views. The poor and innocents are often imprisoned and disenfranchised while the well-heeled, often guilty of far greater immorality and crimes against far more people, buy and enjoy a vastly better level of protection, representation, 'justice', freedom, and the continued right to vote.

Poverty, crime, and imprisonment are rampant in our current plutocracy. There is no shortage of people who see and lament the injustice of our current system. While some of the people in our prisons really belong there, too many people are in prisons that do not belong there. And too many people, particularly those who commit high-level, white-collar crimes, crimes committed by the wealthy, are not imprisoned who should be. Our prisons are overpopulated and clogged up with harmless people who have committed victimless 'crimes'. They have never harmed anyone but have only broken one law or another that should and would not have been written in the first place in a more honest and truly democratic society. In essence, such people are imprisoned for political rather than criminal reasons.

By constitutional law, a citizen's membership in the electorate and right and duty to vote should not be taken away for any reason, not even for imprisonment or for committing the vilest crimes or political offenses. Protecting the voting rights and duties of the worst among us protects all of us and makes true democracy possible.

Obviously, given the previous discussion, prisoners and people convicted of felonies would also be included in the electorate and participate in the demos.

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To these orchestrations and manipulations we also add the elite's most cynical and important tool of all: When it comes to the millions of people who do not vote, do nothing. Let sleeping dogs lie. Perhaps say a few empty words about voting to look good, mostly encouraging those people whom the wealthy want to vote, but never make voting an obligation for everyone, a civic duty. That would be an abomination, political suicide. The wealthy, powerful few well know that it is mostly the poor, the uneducated, the dispirited, and the disenfranchised who do not vote. And these are precisely the people who, if they ever did vote, would vote against the interests of the elite who own and populate our government. This is one Pandora's Box—the millions who do not vote—that throughout our nation's history the elite has definitely wanted to keep closed.

By these methods—by tossing obscene amounts of money at an inherently crooked electoral system, by the wealthy minority itself faithfully voting, by manipulating enough misguided poor people into voting for wealth-serving candidates and interests, by disenfranchisement, and by keeping voting a mere right rather than making it a civic duty—the powerful, wealthy minority manages to win elections.

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To those among the economically weak and downtrodden, to those among the dispirited middle class, and to all right-minded others who have abandoned the political arena, it is quite understandable, your turning your back on and walking away from a political-economic process the power of which is set so overwhelmingly against you. It is understandable, your withdrawing into your own cocoons and burying your heads into the sand saying, "I know the world is unjust and corrupt, but it's too large a problem for me to fix. I can, however, create my own little world, achieve at least some of my dreams, help in my own way, and create a little pocket of sanity." Well and good.

But in neglecting and avoiding the political arena you have abdicated your power and your responsibility as an American citizen and as a citizen of the world. As Edmond Burke wrote, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." It is time for you to pick up the ball again and to reenter the game. Please give this work serious consideration. It offers a new way and a new hope that have never existed before in your lifetime. While participation in the current system may seem meaningless and fruitless, the new system offered in this work brings to you new and real political and personal power. Learning and then teaching what is really wrong with America and working to bringing true democracy to America is worthy of your support and participation.

A newly implemented demos would die a quick death in the face of today's widespread apathy. It would degenerate into merely another plutocratic branch of government, just like the current three. Understanding which side their bread is buttered on and the importance of voting, the wealthy would vote while too many others would not, skewing the demos consensus in favor of the wealthy. It would take time for people to realize that the demos represented a whole new ball game, that within the demos their votes really counted and had a real effect on the social contract and the resulting society in which they live. They would soon learn not only to cherish their right to vote but also learn how easy it is to vote and express arguments and opinions about issues in the demos.

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Merely _saying_ that participation in the demos is an obligation would not be enough. There would have to be significant reward for participation and significant penalty for non-participation. There would have to be both a carrot and a stick. A reward, the carrot, could be that each member of the electorate in good standing received one hundred dollars each year. One hundred dollars might mean little to wealthy people, but mostly they are not the ones who need to be motivated. The penalty, the stick, would not have to be draconian. People would not have to be hung on dungeon walls by their thumbs. The penalty could be that no government entitlement or handout would be granted or license for this or that issued to a member of the demos whose votes were not current, i.e., one had not recast one's votes sometime during the last year. Since voting terminals would exist everywhere including in virtually every government office, a voter could quickly remedy his or her negligence right on the spot and receive the entitlement, license, etc. without delay.

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There are those who may object that making participation in the demos an obligation rather than a privilege is a decidedly pushy proposition for a work dedicated to maximizing personal freedom. There is a bit of truth to this argument, but this truth is less important than other considerations: 1) By placing this small requirement upon ourselves we, ironically, would gain a large measure of true democracy and personal freedom. 2) Put into perspective, voting in the demos would be an imposition the magnitude and character of which is in the realm of paying one's taxes or getting a driver's license, a fishing permit, or a building permit. 3) A free spirit such as a wild wanderer or a religious recluse would remain unburdened by simply shrugging off the small sum of money and unneeded licenses and permits. 4) Without voting being a civic duty a demos would degenerate into just another plutocratic branch of government.

How could such a tiny objection overrule such a wonderful result? It would no doubt be the elite, who are themselves the most reliable voters and who have the most to gain by others not voting, that shout the loudest for some supposed "right" to not vote.

In a very short period of time, the demos would come to be understood and cherished by all. People would become strongly self-motivated to vote. And a penalty for not voting would become a rarity.

Chapter 9

Consensus Democracy

Consensus government is created by adding to the existing branches of a government a new direct democracy branch, a demos, in which the entire electorate practices consensus democracy by deliberating, voting, and achieving consensus on a small, fixed set of economic and electoral issues of central importance to the nation. While how many and which specific issues to include in the demos within various governments is not carved in stone, I found a select set of nine economic issues and three electoral issues to achieve my ends for the American federal government. [] In this chapter I will explain how the demos voting system and deliberations work and how the consensus of the entire electorate is achieved on the demos issues. In the next chapter I will discuss how this demos consensus leads to a true consensus of the entire electorate within our whole government, economy, and society.

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Consensus democracy is a "specialty" democracy designed to accomplish specific tasks. If one strays too far from the design presented in this book, one quickly loses the ability to accomplish these tasks. It is designed to overcome the tyranny of plutocracy and maximize the freedom of the individual while avoiding the tyranny that a wrongly designed democracy can become. Under plutocracy the tyranny that is perpetrated against the rest of the populace by a powerful, wealthy minority is primarily economic. An excessive amount of economic power is held by this minority. This imbalance is corrected by removing the electoral system from the marketplace and creating a free, honest electoral system within government (in the demos) that is equally accessible to everyone and by moving certain fundamental economic powers from the other branches of the government into the demos to be handled directly by the entire electorate. Now, even a democracy may become a tyranny if excessive power is held by any group or by the government in general. A just, equitable distribution of power is achieved within the entire government and society by creating within the demos just the right kind and amount of direct democracy, not unlimited majority-rule democracy but a limited measure of consensus democracy.

First I will discuss how the consensus of the entire electorate is achieved in the demos on its nine economic issues. Later I will discuss how it is achieved on its three electoral issues.

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In majority-rule democracy, if over 50% of the members of a voting body voted "yes" on a given question, for example, _Should the nuclear power plant be built?_ , then they would win the vote on the issue and those who voted "no" would lose. In the demos the electorate would not practice this "winner-take-all" style of democracy in which the simple majority wins the vote on an issue and the minority vote loses. It would practice consensus democracy. _Consensus democracy_ does not produce winners and losers but _always results in the consensus of the entire electorate, a moderate "golden mean" that avoids all extremes_.

Unlike majority-rule democracy, which I think of as a "general purpose" democracy that can handle any yes/no or either/or style question put to it in a winner-take-all way—the majority vote wins and all others lose—consensus democracy can only handle a limited subset of all possible questions. Questions put to it must be of a numerical nature, that is, they must be expressible as simple numeric, percentage, or monetary values on which mathematical calculations may be performed. All either/or style questions and even, for reasons discussed in a previous chapter, numeric style questions of lesser importance must be handled in other parts of government and society. Fortunately, the issues that most need to be handled directly by the electorate are economic and, therefore, numerical in nature.

While it may not seem so at first glance, the inclusion of electoral powers within the demos is also a redistribution of economic power. Power is shifted from the wealthy in the private sector to the entire electorate in government. The removal of the electoral process from the marketplace and the clutches of wealth-dominated political parties and the creation of a free, honest electoral process within government that is equally accessible to all members of the electorate is, at bottom, a redistribution of economic power. The ability of powerful, wealthy elites to buy elections, offices, and the favors of government becomes dramatically reduced. And the ability of all members of the electorate to elect their champions to office and achieve honest representation in the representative branches of government becomes dramatically increased. While the demos electoral process does not achieve consensus in as straightforward a manner as do the economic issues, its achieving honest representation can also be taken to be the consensus of the entire electorate.

As discussed briefly in an earlier chapter and in detail in Appendix 1, the _economic consensus_ of the entire electorate on the nine economic issues included in the demos is possible because the vote tallies for the issues are processed by computers resulting in mathematical values that are equally influenced by every person's vote. Thus, each member of the electorate equally affects nine economic values that our government and nation must use as they function.

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In addition to consensus democracy's requirement that the issues on which the electorate votes are numeric in nature, other requirements must be met to produce a demos in which a busy electorate whose members have varying capability may successfully participate and achieve a true consensus that is effectively projected into the rest of government and society. They are: Voting is a civic duty; voting is not periodic but ongoing; a small, fixed set of easily understood _economic and electoral_ issues of central importance; a simple, convenient method of voting; and facilitated running for office, deliberations about candidates and issues, and joining together in support of candidates. Some of these have been adequately discussed in previous chapters and only receive brief mention here. Others are discussed in more detail.

The consensus of the entire electorate on the demos issues can only be achieved if all members of the electorate are members of the demos and actually vote on its issues. Therefore, voting on the nine economic and three electoral issues included in the demos is not merely a privilege or a right but a civic duty for all able, of-age members of the populace. There can be no disenfranchisement for any reason.

Unlike today's periodic elections, voting in the demos is ongoing. Each member of the electorate has a vote permanently "riding" on each issue included in the demos that, with one exception discussed later, he or she may change at any time. Demos computers continuously maintain the current consensus of the electorate by re-tallying votes and updating mathematical computations every few seconds.

The notion of "getting the vote out" would be very different from the periodic crises that political and other groups suffer today. It would not be a process of getting people to register to vote or of physically hauling people to voting booths. Demos voting terminals would be virtually everywhere. "Getting the vote out" would be an endless process of trying to persuade members of the demos to change or keep as is their already existing votes on one or more issues.

While one may change one's votes as frequently as one wishes, to insure that the consensus of the electorate always remains current, every voter must "refresh" his or her demos votes at least once a year, either affirming each vote as is or altering it as desired. (This refresh requirement also serves to weed out of the system people that have died or are no longer capable of voting. A "no refresh," a nonperformance of one's civic duty, invites a bureaucratic exploration of the reason.)

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The function of government has long been compared to the function of a biological, homeostatic system. Heartbeat, respiration and temperature regulation within our bodies are homeostatic systems. The tendency of a homeostatic system is to avoid the extremes and to hover around a moderate norm. Competing interests within government pulling in their various directions cancel each other out or achieve some sort of compromise resulting in movement away from the extremes and toward political moderation. With its divided, counter-balancing powers, the republican form of government in particular such as that used by America has been presented as a prime example of government functioning as a homeostatic system.

Historically, however, it has always been powerful elites that create and participate in governments to the exclusion of the many. This includes the republican form and our current American government. Therefore, the interests that compete within our government have always been _among self-serving elites_ while the interests of the many have gone largely suppressed or ignored. Although they do not use and may not even know the word _plutocracy_ , the argument among the elites that essentially own our society and populate our government has always been about how to best manage their plutocracy. Shall we have a more carnivorous plutocracy with more highly concentrated wealth or a kinder gentler plutocracy that allows a little more wealth to trickle down? The homeostatic tendency has always been away from the extremes of the elite and toward moderation among them that favors the elite as a whole, much to the detriment of the rest of the populace.

The demos is designed from the ground up to function as an integrated homeostatic system. Each of the economic issues included in the demos functions like a homeostatic system, ever hovering about a moderate economic norm. And, as shown in Appendix 1, Figure 3 and explained by its related discussion, the carefully chosen issues form an interrelated whole. Together, they function like the interactive, self-orchestrating systems in a living organism. The electorate uses the demos as a tool to achieve a moderate consensus on a few values that our government and nation must use as they function, keeping our society functioning smoothly and evolving peacefully over time as demographics, conditions, and our decisions change.

The demos balances competing interests and powers much more perfectly than does any governing body that exists today. Since the demos is constituted of an electorate consisting of the widest practicable inclusion of the entire populace, the competing interests include the interests of all of us. The resulting political moderation produced by the demos, the ever current consensus, tends away from all extremes including away from the extreme of our current republican form, which favors the few and excludes the many.

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Our current system produces fragmentation, polarization, wild swings among extremes, and political-economic dysfunction. An analogy for periodic, majority-rule, referendum-style voting—whether practiced by the entire electorate or within political bodies such as the senate and the house—might be a children's playground see-saw. The majority piles onto one end of the see-saw, which thumps to the ground and stays there leaving the minority suspended in the air in distress at the other end. And so matters rest until conditions become increasingly out of whack, a growing crisis ensues, and the matter is finally revisited. A new vote is called to mitigate in some way one aspect or another of the crisis. Once again a majority thumps one end of a see-saw to the ground. And so the nation limps along from thump to thump, from mess to mess. (Our whole two-party political system functions this way. One party holds a thirty year juggernaut on power destroying as completely as it can manage what the other party had set in place while rapidly implanting the extremes of its own ideology until things get so bad that the nation swings in wild desperation to the other party which rapidly pursues its destruction and extremes. Given that we are not really a democracy but a plutocracy, we swing wildly between a harsh, carnivorous plutocracy and a kinder, gentler plutocracy while the economic bottom half remains in permanent distress.)

In consensus democracy's ongoing style of voting, each member of the demos keeps an "increase," "keep as is," or "decrease" vote riding on the numeric value of each economic issue. Voting on an issue may be compared to a group of people pulling on a rope in a never ending tug of war. Some people—millions!—are pulling at one end of the rope (to increase the issue's numeric value, which they see as in their self-interest or best for our nation); others are pulling at the other end of the rope (to decrease the issue's numeric value); and still others are standing on the side not pulling on the rope at all (because they like the issue's numeric value right where it's at).

Now, if one wants to do so, one can pull at one end of the rope throughout one's voting life. Or one can at any time go to the other end of the rope and pull or stand aside. One can switch as often and as many times as one likes. As demographics and conditions change over time, perhaps in the nation as a whole or due to events in their own lives, some ever changing fraction of the voters become motivated to pull at the other end of the rope or to stop pulling. And so it goes, a few thousand of our many millions of votes on the demos issues are always changing over time this way and that. Demos computers re-tally the vote count every few seconds and adjust slightly the numeric values of the nine demos economic issues, which represent the ever current consensus of the electorate.

All along, within the demos and throughout the nation, the electorate engages in deliberations of the issues, each member trying to convince others to change (or retain) their current votes. Leaders in government and industry use their offices as bully pulpits to encourage the electorate to vote in desired ways on the issues. Pundits write. Every kind of truth, half-truth, outright lie, bias, prejudice, foolishness, and wisdom is out there. Both inside and outside of the demos, those of like mind join together in common effort. Some use tools within the demos itself to communicate and reach out. Some use the mass media. Others wear out shoe leather in their local communities. As with too low or too high a heartbeat or body temperature, movements in the electorate's consensus toward numeric extremes cause increasing problems. Moderation comes to be understood as the greater wisdom, e.g., a minimum wage that's not too low but also not too high. Thus, like heartbeat and body temperature, in a never ending tug of war the center of the rope—the current consensus of the entire electorate on the issue—avoids extremes and hovers slowly about a moderate norm over time.

Notice that the demos computers do not make any decisions for us. They only count votes, do simple programmed repetitive calculations, and display results to us. It is only our changing decisions and votes that alter the nine demos economic values. The always moderate, ever current consensus on the issues always rests directly in the hands of the _entire_ electorate, not an elite few or a simple majority. Under consensus democracy power really does reside with "we the people," _all_ of the people.

For the several reasons discussed at length earlier in the book, the demos is limited to a small, fixed set of easily understood _economic and electoral_ issues of central importance. This focuses the electorate on a manageable number of our most important issues; prevents intelligent but morally bankrupt sly and cunning individuals from outmaneuvering the rest of the electorate by overwhelming it with a bewildering avalanche of complex, deviously presented issues; limits the size and intrusiveness of government; prevents the simple majority or a powerful elite from using the demos to impose its religious or ideological will and ways upon the rest of the populace; and secures the maximum responsible freedom of the individual in a just, equitable, free, open, pluralistic society.

The demos voting system is made convenient and simple not only by enabling one to alter one's votes in mere minutes at any time from almost anywhere but also by the voting system itself. A surprisingly simple method of voting on economic issues is used based on the traffic signal colors green, yellow, and red. While each economic issue is expressed numerically (and pictorially), the voter never comes in contact with any mathematics but only makes one of three possible choices: increase a current numeric value, keep the value as is, or decrease the value. Each choice is associated with a color: "increase" with green, "keep as is" with yellow, and "decrease" with red. Other colors and voting methods would be available for those who need them. So the voter only makes a few simple choices by selecting the desired green, yellow, or red colors. On four economic issues the voter selects one of three colored buttons, on two the voter colors slices on a pie chart, and on three the voter colors desired portions of a line on a chart. While learning what is in one's best interest may take a little longer, this _method_ of voting is so simple and intuitive that a child could be taught to do it in minutes.

Each demos economic issue will later be discussed at length in its own chapter along with the method used to vote on it. Mainly of interest to mathematicians and computer programmers, Appendix 1 contains a detailed discussion of the voting, tallying, and computer calculation system used for the demos economic issues.

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Voting and achieving the consensus of the entire electorate on the three demos electoral issues—the election of the president, senators, and representatives—are done in a very different way than on the nine economic issues. To understand how it works, I first discuss the principal problems with our current electoral system and then an entirely new demos electoral system designed to correct these problems.

Our current electoral system is a set of loaded dice that overwhelmingly favors the powerful, wealthy few in two principal ways.

First, elections are left to a marketplace, mass media, and two political parties that are mostly owned and operated by the wealthy rather than being within and supported by government where they belong, equally accessible to all of us. Most of us are resigned to rapidly selecting what we guess might be "the lesser of evils" from among a few poorly known, fork-tongued candidates _financed and, therefore, pre-selected by the wealthy_. Few run for and win office that do not have the blessings and support of and now owe Big Money big-time.

Second, if throwing huge amounts of money at the electoral process were not enough of an advantage for the wealthy, dividing states into electoral districts and electing only one senator or representative within each of them virtually guarantees that wealthy or wealth-serving candidates will win the lion's share of electoral offices and that the wealthy will hold a permanent hegemony of power within government while the poor and minorities go vastly under-represented. When only one candidate can be elected in a district, a candidate with lots of money to throw around will usually successfully buy the electoral office or seat being contested. While the wealthy inevitably manage to buy the first seat in a district, others—the lower middle class, the working poor, and minorities—could elect their champions to second, third, etc. seats in the district. Oops! There's only one seat in the district.

The demos electoral system completely eliminates these and other problems making the electoral process honest and fair.

In the demos electoral system the Electoral College (which currently elects the president) and all state electoral district systems are entirely scrapped. The president and all senators are elected by direct popular vote from the nation at-large, and each state's quota of representatives is elected from the state at-large.

All periodic elections, including all primary elections, are scrapped and replaced by a simple "ongoing" electoral system. In a manner similar to the nine demos economic issues in which each member of the electorate keeps a vote riding on each issue, each member keeps a vote riding on one candidate for president, one for senator, and one for representative.

The demos electoral system has a single national Presidential Candidates list and a single national Senatorial candidates list. Each state has its own single Representative Candidates list. Any number of people may run for office. The person currently receiving the most votes in the Presidential Candidates list, the top 100 people in the Senatorial Candidates list, and each state's quota of representatives from its Representative Candidates list are currently seated in office. Discussed in detail in a later chapter, a person gains or loses office when he or she gains or loses a sufficient number of votes relative to other candidates in the office's Candidates list.

Candidates (who need not be wealthy or wealth supported) may take any amount of time to run for office for free within the demos and build a following. Members of the electorate may take any amount of time to study and deliberate about candidates and to reach out to each other across states or the entire nation to directly elect their champions, truly representative officeholders that resemble them in body, mind, interests, and pocketbook.

It is the electing of senators from within the nation _at-large_ and a state's quota of representatives from within the state _at-large_ that overcomes the wealth-dominated, one-elective-office-per-district problem and empowers each member of the electorate to join with others to select their champions. While others vote for their good candidates (who I may consider to be bad) from within these large pools—from the entire nation or an entire state—I and others like me vote for our good candidates from within the same large pools (who others may consider to be bad).

With at-large voting no member of the electorate is stuck selecting a "lesser evil" from a small group preselected by the wealthy as is done today. All voters support their goods, their champions, those who resemble and truly represent them. The resulting senate and house _automatically_ demographically resemble and serve the true and balanced interests of the _entire_ electorate. No quota systems, political parties, or complex electoral schemes are required. People just get to directly vote for whom they _really_ want.

This automatic demographic resemblance to and honest, balanced representation of the entire electorate in the senate and the house and the selection of a president that truly represents the broad interests of the entire electorate, as opposed to mainly the interests of the elite as is the case today, is taken to be the _electoral consensus_ of the electorate. Just as with the demos economic consensus, as demographics, conditions, and our decisions change, the electoral consensus of the electorate evolves slowly over time as a small, steady trickle of current members of the senate and the house lose their seats and new members are seated.

(Adding a demos and consensus democracy to any government in the world or to any level of government would produce the same result: a true electoral consensus that evolves slowly over time and honest, balanced representation of the entire electorate in the government's representative bodies.)

The demos' nationwide electronic voting system and its free, ongoing, at-large electoral process have several virtues. As a formal branch of government, the demos and its electoral process are entirely government supported. The nationwide electronic system makes it economically and logistically feasible for every member of the electorate that chooses to do so to run for office at any time for free, to freely deliberate with other members about candidates and issues, to reach out to others in support of candidates and issues and, of course, to vote. And in the ongoing voting process each member keeps a vote riding on candidates that, with one exception discussed in a later chapter, he or she may change at any time.

Any number of candidates, rich and poor, may run for office. All candidates have unlimited time and a free place—an Internet-like "web" site containing one or more pages—within which they may campaign for office and present themselves and their positions and proposals. By the time candidates earn enough votes to gain office in this ongoing electoral process, they, their proposals, and their entire political and voting history in previous offices will have been long studied and deliberated. Candidates will be well known and trusted by those who support them.

A candidate and his or her supporters will be able to extend their political views and efforts outside the demos in ways that best serve their needs. Just as today, the wealthy may buy any media and other electoral advantages they may find. But _unlike today, the free, at-large, ongoing demos electoral process also gives non-wealthy people (and minorities) the means and unlimited time to reach out to each other across their states or the entire nation in support of candidates that serve their needs and interests, even as they also go out into their neighborhoods and communities, organize, and educate friends, neighbors, co-workers, and others as to their true interests. Unlike today, the economic bottom half of our populace will achieve full presence and honest representation within our government_.

While deciding which candidates best serve one's interests would take study, discussion with others, and thought over time, voting for one's choice for president, a senator, and a representative is an easy task. On the appropriate demos electoral issue pages, the voter simply selects a name from an already existing national Presidential Candidates list, a name from a national Senatorial Candidates list, and a name from a Representative Candidates for his or her state or adds new names to the lists.

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At this point the more politically astute and capable reader may feel that to accommodate the less capable voters the demos has been made so simple—merely voting on nine economic and three electoral issues—that it cannot handle the more sophisticated or subtle aspects of political thought. Not so! We turn now to the next major function of the demos: deliberations among the members of the electorate.

Most voters would already know their minds and only visit the demos a few minutes per year to refresh their nine economic and three electoral votes, the minimal civic requirement. But many, possibly millions of people, would choose to read or actively participate in optional deliberations of these and many other issues. And some, possibly tens of thousands of people, would run for the presidency, the senate, or the house within the demos. (Of course, likely only a relative minority of candidates would possess sufficient qualities and make interesting enough proposals to have earned enough member interest and votes over time to rise to the heights of the Candidates lists and gain a realistic chance to win office.) Some people may opt to participate in the deliberations areas of the demos only a little, others almost as a way of life.

Exactly how demos deliberations should be organized and conducted is not carved in stone in my mind. What I describe here should be considered as suggestions that invite further thought by minds more experienced in electronic group processes than my own. I strive for fairness, simplicity, clarity, organization, search capability, communication, the facilitation of group processes, and strict formal demos formatting throughout. I favor substance and function over style. The demos must serve the entire electorate including the less gifted and electronic communications savvy. It could in no way resemble the frenetic, kaleidoscopic Internet web sites and pages and the bells-and-whistles-laden software programs of today.

I also favor the demos being what I call "text-centric". Text is machine searchable, vocalizable, and translatable for those who need these functions. While demos technicians may use simple graphic images and charts in the presentation of, for example, the demos economic issues, to the extent that still images, video clips, audio clips, variable fonts and colors, etc. are used by members, _if at all_ , they should play only a supportive role for candidacies and deliberations presented as text.

What I envision is that within the demos 1) each member of the electorate would have a private space within which the member may conduct a campaign for office if desired or simply express views and arguments, hereafter simply called arguments, and 2) there should be a public space subdivided into many smaller spaces, each containing a major issue under discussion. Issues under discussion should be logically ordered and searchable in a way similar to the Dewey Decimal system used by libraries to organize books. Taken together, all issues should form a single, logically organized "library of issues" or "deliberations tree" with major categories of issues and subcategories below them and yet more subcategories below those, etc.

Each of the nine demos economic issues' voting pages would link to pages hosting deliberations of the issue. Guided by demos librarians, members would be able to add other issues for deliberation at appropriate locations within the overall library of public deliberations. Members could also create links between arguments they've made in their personal spaces with arguments they've made on issues in the public space. Members should also be able to create links from their personal spaces to locations outside of the demos where they have complete expressive freedom. Using today's Internet terminology, such a location should open in a new window and always be clearly indicated as outside the demos. The demos would provide a wealth of economic and other data that members may access while deliberating or voting on issues.

Each of the three demos electoral issues' voting pages should link to its own public deliberations area within the demos' library of issues where members may raise and discuss electoral issues of a general nature. Each of the electoral issues pages would contain Candidates lists to which members may add names. Each candidate's name would link to the candidate's personal space where the candidate conducts his or her campaign for political office. All campaigns must follow the same demos designed organization, methods, and formatting. As part of this design, members may create links to campaigns of their own design that exist outside the demos. The demos would provide a standard set of information about each candidate including biographical, previous jobs and offices held, voting records, etc. This information would be linked both to the candidate's name in the Candidates list and to the candidate's personal campaign space. Members would be able to conduct pro and con arguments about each candidate. The pro and con discussion about a candidate should be linked both to the candidate's name in the Candidates list and to the candidate's personal campaign space.

Both within members' personal spaces and within public space, the demos would include tools that facilitate members' direct communication with each other and their coming together in groups in support of (or against) candidates and issues.

Appropriate to the focus of the specific issues under consideration, those who opt to participate in deliberations could express their own arguments, bringing any ideas into the debates. Members could also attach pro and con arguments to other members' arguments. And yet other arguments could be attached to those, etc., forming chains or trees of discussion, as is done, for example in Internet newsgroups today.

Obviously, no single member of the electorate could possibly intelligently participate in the likely many thousands of branches of the demos deliberations tree, the myriad issues of our complex modern society. Over time, each member would have his or her continuous or shifting areas of interest, expertise, and focus. To be honest, most arguments would likely be of an inferior quality, if not entirely useless. But there would be no shortage of precious gems and metals among them. Even poorly expressed arguments would have value in that they indicate what is on people's minds. Taken together, the arguments and deliberations of the electorate in the demos would give a clear indication of the true, and often divided, mind and will of the electorate.

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Still, we would want to focus on the arguments of the finest and wisest thinkers among us. We would want to somehow mine the precious gems and metals, or, to put it another way, separate the wheat from the chaff. But, as is said, one man's meat is another man's poison. So when it comes to matters of morality, validity, utility, value, and taste; when it comes to arguments within the demos, who is to decide which are wheat and which are chaff?

All members of the demos that are participating in deliberations should somehow be able to indicate which of their many arguments they find most agreeable. This could be accomplished by voting. Members would be able to vote on favored arguments of others causing the best and most relevant expressions of arguments to rise to greater visibility within the demos. I see each member as having one vote to optionally cast for a favored argument for each issue or branch within the demos library of deliberations that he or she may change at any time.

Only voting by the entire electorate on the twelve main demos issues, the nine economic and three electoral issues listed earlier, would result in economic law and the election of officeholders. Voting on arguments by those engaged in deliberations would only raise the arguments to greater visibility within the demos, nothing more.

Now, if member voting were the whole of the method used for the ordering and visibility of arguments, then the more popular arguments would become quickly and more or less permanently ordered at the top of the heap of arguments surrounding an issue, and all other arguments would remain permanently buried beneath them out of sight and out of mind. But less popular arguments should also have their moments before the eyes of the demos members. It is by our coming in contact with new ideas that our thinking evolves.

Therefore, the method used for the ordering of arguments should have an additional mechanism within it that works together with member voting, a mechanism something like the one described in the following paragraphs. (Not all readers may be able to fully understand what is described. Just understand that it is a computer managed process that insures that all members' arguments would enjoy a fair amount of visibility.)

Recall that demos deliberations in the public space would be organized as a large deliberations tree with many dividing smaller and smaller branches. Each branch would contain a major issue or a lesser subtopic, etc. and a possibly very long list of member arguments about the topic. Throughout the entire tree, demos computers would maintain a real-time, ever current tally of votes on the arguments within each list and perform calculations. For each list of arguments, the number of votes enjoyed by each argument at any given moment would be expressed as a percentage of the total number of votes cast for all arguments in the list. The argument in a list currently possessing the largest percentage of votes, say 23%, would not simply be displayed continuously in position one in the list of arguments until it finally got bumped by some other argument but would occupy position one 23% of the time. Out of every twenty-four hour period, which contains 86,400 seconds, this argument would occupy position one for 23% of 86,400 seconds which equals 19,872 seconds. But do not think in terms of the argument being displayed in position one for 19,872 continuous seconds. Throughout each twenty-four hour period, a demos computer would randomly assign 19,872 one-second intervals during which the argument occupied position one in the list. Say the second most popular argument in the list received 14% of the vote. It would occupy position one in the list of arguments for 12,096 randomly selected one-second intervals during each twenty-four hour period. Etc. As was done with position one, every other position on the list of arguments would receive a mathematical treatment such that each argument occupied each position in the list for the appropriate number of randomly selected one-second intervals.

Whenever a member entered the deliberations area of the demos the member could quickly search and navigate the logically ordered issue and topic names within the branches of the deliberations tree. The screen would show the member's current location within the tree along with as many member arguments as could be displayed in what could be a very long list of arguments at that location. Every location in the deliberations tree would have its list of arguments, and the list ordering process described below for this member's current location would function in the same way at each location in the tree when it is visited by a member.

Whatever argument the computer determines should occupy position one in the list of arguments at this location in the deliberations tree for the current one-second interval would be displayed in position one in the list of arguments on the member's screen. And all other arguments would be displayed in the list as ordered by the computer. The list of arguments would remain as ordered until the member elected to order the list in some other way. Meanwhile, even as this member's list of arguments remains fixed on his or her voting terminal screen until he or she reorders it, other members that navigate to the same location in the deliberations tree in the next second or the next, etc. receive arguments lists that are ordered by the computer in other ways during those seconds. And each of those members' arguments lists remain fixed on their screens until the members organize them in other ways.

As many members visited many locations in the deliberations tree over time and were presented computer ordered lists of arguments at each location, the overall effect would be that arguments with higher percentages of votes remained mostly but not always within the higher regions of their lists. Arguments with lower percentages of votes would remain mostly in the lower regions, but they would also enjoy their fleeting moments at and near the top of their lists.

This mathematical "round robin" method of presenting arguments should be used by default each time a member of the demos goes to a new location in the deliberations tree. There should be a built-in pause of, say, 20 seconds while the argument currently occupying position one is displayed. A countdown number from 20 seconds to zero could be displayed. The member would be able to immediately navigate to some other location in the tree. But if he or she elected to remain at the current location, the member would be unable to reorder the currently displayed list of computer ordered arguments until this period of time has elapsed.

This 20 second pause would be a very critical period for an argument. However long a member's argument may be, its creator would be wise to begin with a brief, effective, initial summary to be displayed during this duration. It is only by earning the interest and votes of demos members that an argument could enjoy more and more time before the eyes of voters. In fact, perhaps it should be a formal demos requirement that all arguments be preceded by or begin with an initial summary of 25 words or less.

Not only would member voting combined with the computerized round robin process and the 20 second pause give all arguments their fair share of time before the eyes of the electorate, but they also, likely without most members even realizing it, would involve all members of the electorate participating in demos deliberations in the mining process, as it were, the never ending search for precious gems and metals, excellent arguments that have not yet earned votes but should. What does anyone do with 20 seconds to kill in any situation? Grab a cup of coffee; twiddle one's fingers; or _read whatever is before one's eyes_. By the time the 20 seconds were up the member may be hooked by an attractive or interesting argument, may read it in its entirety, and may even vote for it. The member may even peruse the next few arguments in the computer generated list. Thus, all who participated in deliberations would be drafted a few seconds here and there into a never ending—and I must add, absolutely fair—mining operation that would significantly benefit the function of the demos and its members.

Obviously, an argument would have to gain a number of votes before the round robin process caused it to enjoy significant amounts of time before the eyes of voters. A few early votes may be earned from the extremely rare moments the demos computer presented the argument before the eyes of some voters as they visited the current location in the deliberations tree. Other votes may be earned as adventurous members go "treasure hunting" in their own way for new or novel arguments, perhaps aided by specialized demos tools. Arguments could also earn member attention and interest within demos facilitated communication activities and even outside of the demos by word of mouth, media promotion, rallies, door-to-door campaigns, etc. As an argument gained an increasing number of votes and visibility, it could more readily gain even more votes and visibility.

Once the round robin process has displayed its ordered argument list for 20 seconds to a demos member, the member would then be able to continue perusing the list as ordered for as long as desired or to order the list of arguments by other methods such as ranking by percent of vote, random selection, search terms, etc. The member would be able to create, peruse, search, tag, and vote for arguments and share them with others.

Whenever an argument was displayed, its percentage of the total vote at the current location in the deliberations tree would also be displayed. Each argument should also be assigned a reference number or ID by which it could be directly located. The number should also serve as a link target. Members of the demos could share interesting arguments with each other by sending the reference numbers of arguments or links to each other or including the numbers on printed flyers, in media ads, etc.

Within society at-large money would still "talk" and, therefore, have its indirect effect on the demos. However, within the demos only a formal and consistent structure, function, and format such as that just described should organize deliberations and arguments. No doubt large moneyed, political, and other "grassroots" organizations would strive to "get out the vote" for their favored arguments on various demos issues. The round robin scheme would allow other arguments to break through such efforts enough that if any among them have merit they have a sufficient chance to be seen by and gain the votes of demos members.

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While we may study and embrace the wisdom of our ancestors, government, including the demos, is for the living. There must be a formal methodology that keeps the demos deliberations tree a living tree, not a collection of dead branches. I think in terms of a demos archive that any member could visit at any time. As demos members died their entire personal spaces could be removed from the demos' active area and archived. Their arguments posted in public spaces could also be removed and archived.

There is the problem of what to do with any arguments of other members that may exist under and be dependent upon those being removed and archived. My solution became: So long as an ex-member's argument enjoys at least one vote cast by a currently living member or has attached to it the argument of a living member it may remain in the active area, perhaps with the text assigned a different color indicating—oh, what a terrible pun!—dead man talking. When all such support has died, the argument would then be removed from the active demos area and archived. It is possible that some of our ancestors' finest arguments on lasting social issues could enjoy unending support and become, in a sense, eternal within the demos deliberations tree, the wisdom of the ancients treasured by the living, even as the living grow and create anew.

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All demos deliberations would be accessible to everyone including those working in the mass media and people serving in official capacities in the other branches of government. Even those who are too young to be demos members and the citizens of other nations could explore the demos as non-voting, "read-only" visitors. This would teach and create demand for true democracy in other nations as well. In this way members of the demos could express opinions and exert influence well beyond the strict limits of their voting.

With everyone 1) studying both high and low politics and the theory and practice of true democracy including actual "guest" participation in the demos for four years at the high school level, as is proposed in a later chapter, 2) possessing equal voice and vote in the demos on truly important issues, 3) having a meaningful role to play in government, and 4) enjoying the ability to have a real effect on the nation in which they live; political interest, thought, and expression would flower throughout the land. An electorate that for generations has been deliberately misled and rendered politically confused, apathetic, and impotent would, in time, become astute, politically streetwise, and perfectly capable of looking after its true self-interests.

Because of demos deliberations, much would be learned by everyone, including those who work in the media and those in the other branches of government, about what views the American electorate truly embraces on a host of significant political, economic, and social issues. It would be difficult for a politician or a pundit to claim some minor view as that of the whole or a majority of the American people when the true views of all members of the electorate are there for all to see.

Because it is their views and arguments that would usually be voted into greatest visibility, the demos deliberations would attract our finest thinkers from all economic levels and walks of life. But this would be just the focal point of a much larger deliberative process. Demos deliberations would spill over into, affect, and add focus to our national debate in the mass media, schools, workplaces, homes, public places and events, and the representative areas of our government. Thus, even that vast portion of the electorate that would likely not participate directly in demos deliberations would be influenced and guided by them. In this way our national political debate both inside and outside of the demos, a debate not owned or dominated by the wealthy or any other political faction, would become focused on our most important issues and our best thinking about them, including the best of our new ideas.

The debate would not be dominated by the wealthy? Keep in mind that under consensus government with the electorate in the demos directly setting some fundamental economic values and electing members to representative bodies that truly serve the entire electorate, the wealthy would likely not be so excessively wealthy nor the 'poor' as poor as today and the use of mass media for political purposes would likely be regulated much more fairly than today.

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Borrowing some more of the Internet terminology I've been using all along, I now turn to the "look and feel" of the demos. It would consist of a nationwide electronic network much like today's Internet but much more secure. Although it would really exist at several very secure electronically interconnected physical sites with several layers of back up and redundancy, to visiting members the demos would appear as a single web site.

It would have an initial "Home" page with links leading to other pages that have links leading to yet more pages forming a large interlinked whole. Members of the electorate could conveniently visit the demos at any time from almost anywhere to study, vote on, and deliberate with each other about the economic and electoral issues included in the demos. They could deliberate on other issues of interest. And they could vote on favored arguments increasing their visibility in the demos as described earlier.

Connecting to the demos would begin with a secure "sign in" process that identifies the voter with certainty. Along with providing a "user ID" and a password, it may involve inserting a voting card, finger print, voice print, maybe someday even DNA.

The demos Home page should include a list of all twelve of the demos issues. Some issues would be simple enough to allow the voter to conveniently alter his or her votes right on the Home page. Some issues would need to be presented in a graphic form and would require that voting be done on their own pages. Each demos issue listed on the Home page would have a graphic or textual hyperlink to click that would take the voter directly to a demos page containing only that issue. Via links, a voter would be able to freely move among the pages as desired.

The Home page would contain a list of the demos issues, but it should not contain any discussion of issues. Each of the individual issue pages, however, should contain further information. For example, a page on which a particular value may be increased, kept at the current amount, or decreased would state what the current value is, ask the voter to make a selection, and contain a button for each selection. Depending on what information is most relevant to a given issue, its page may contain more buttons that when selected lead to more information about the issue. Such information may include charts and graphs, historical data concerning the issue, or discuss the relationship of this issue with other issues in the demos.

Each demos economic issue's page should also contain brief pro and con arguments about the issue. The issue itself and its voting buttons could be displayed vertically along the left half of the screen, and the pro and con arguments could be displayed on the right half of the screen. I think the "point-counterpoint" pro and con arrangement currently used in some states for the discussion of referendums would be best. On an issue's page, a pro argument could be followed by a con argument, each about 25 words or less and focused on the merits of their own positions. Then the pro position could make a separate 25 word rebuttal against the con position and the con position could make a rebuttal against the pro position. Each of these four brief arguments should be accompanied by a button. Selecting one of the buttons would lead to a page containing an elaboration of the point or points being made. Since these initial pro, con, and rebuttal arguments are the first to meet the voters' eyes (and maybe the only arguments ever seen by members that never opt to view or participate in demos deliberations), they are very critical. They must result from a formal process within the demos issue's deliberations area, perhaps simply using the initial summaries of those arguments most central to the demos issue that have earned the most votes from members participating in its deliberations.

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Listing as briefly as possible the twelve issues that would be included within the demos, they are: the length of the Standard Workweek, the amount of the minimum wage, the amount we tax ourselves in support of the federal government, the distribution of that tax burden on three sources of revenue (corporations and businesses, personal income, and inheritance), the amount of national debt or savings, tax revenue allocation to four major areas of government (the military, health care, other entitlements, and the remainder of the federal government), and the selection of candidates for president, senators, and representatives.

The first nine issues listed are among the most fundamental and important issues of our society. Some of the most profound philosophical and practical aspects of good governance and "the good society" would be deliberated: How large should the public sector, i.e., government, be with respect to the private sector? Should there even be a private sector or a public sector? What should be the distribution of the tax burden and, therefore, the distribution of wealth in America? Perhaps we should not have a national debt but a large national savings? How much of the total collected tax revenue should go to each major area of government? Should we limit via taxation the size of corporations? How much leisure should we grant ourselves? What are the minimum requirements or essentials for something of a living in America? It can readily be seen that the electorate would not be discussing minor issues in the demos but the most essential issues that form the very foundation of our relationship with each other.

Further, as demos members added a host of other issues to the deliberations tree and deliberated about them, as candidates ran for office within the demos and presented their views and proposals, and as members of the demos debated pro and con about candidates, virtually every important issue and aspect of our society would be examined and deliberated.

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The demos would come into being as a result of one or more amendments to the Constitution. Those amendments and all the rest of the document that forms the basis of the government of which the demos is a part would be legitimate objects of study by the members of the electorate. The demos should have a special area supporting a discussion about the content and meaning of the Constitution. This discussion should follow rules and procedures similar to those used to discuss other issues in the demos.

The members of the electorate could debate, for example: Would a single legislature be wiser than our current bicameral legislature, i.e., our current house and senate? Should there be a new way to amend the Constitution? What new issues should and what current issues should not be included in the demos?

During and ever since its creation, the Constitution has been the subject of critical examination, discussion, and deliberation... among certain circles, usually people with legal expertise. But it has never been the subject of critical examination among us all.

At some point in the educational process most people are taught in reverent tones _about_ the Constitution, that is, what it contains and what one should think and how one should feel about it. In Washington, millions of awed tourists parade past this holy document preserved within argon gas. But the vast majority of Americans are never invited to critically examine the content of the Constitution, to ask what its basic assumptions are and to question the legitimacy of those assumptions. In the entire history of the American school system, how many students have been asked to improve the Constitution or to write an entirely new one? Are students made to understand that it was a privileged few who wrote the Constitution and that today only a privileged wealthy or wealth-serving few seated in office may amend it?

Sometimes it's not what you see in the media but what you never see that is most obscene. We have seen technical discussions within the popular mass media about how the Constitution, the physical document, is preserved. We—or, at any rate, I—have never seen in the mass media a penetrating debate concerning the possible creation of a new, better constitution.

In the hands of only the elite, the Constitution and the government based upon it are merely tools for self-service. Only a constitution in the hearts, minds, and hands of all of us can be considered to be a document that truly lives for us all. The demos would serve as a place where _everyone_ is invited to engage in perpetual, penetrating debate and deliberation of the Constitution. The Constitution's very roots and foundation, its legitimacy, and its quality and utility should always be subject to expert and popular questions. We should not merely eternally reinterpret the current Constitution but actively seek ways to transcend it and move another evolutionary step as a society toward greater humanity and happiness.

Part of this area of the demos could serve as a permanent "constitutional convention," so to speak. The members of the demos could work together creating modifications to the current constitution, an entirely new constitution, or several possible constitutions. None of the ideas brought to light here would actually need to be incorporated into the current constitution. But the process that takes place here would enrich our thinking on the matter of good governance and "the good society."

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One of the tactics used by the few to overpower the many within our current political process is "divide and conquer," distracting with "hot button" issues and playing on the already existing fears, hatreds, and divisions of the many to keep it divided and weak. In a larger sense it is not just the many that is divided but our whole society, the struggle between the rich and poor being just one more division to add to our several others. With its strong interest in gaining and preserving its wealth and power, the few manage to overcome its divisions well enough and long enough to achieve its goals. The many only rarely rises up to this level of coordination and cooperation.

Within the demos, all of us, rich and poor alike, are brought together in one cooperative body designed to produce a sufficient center to overcome our divisions and the many forces that pull us apart. The demos enables us to peacefully achieve a national consensus on our most fundamental issues and to elect officeholders that honestly represent all of us.

Along with all else that they did, the founders created The Great Seal of the United States, which is the official symbol of the United States. On the seal's face is an American bald eagle. On the eagle's breast is a shield with thirteen vertical white and red stripes beneath a blue field that represents the thirteen states joined in one solid compact supporting a chief that unites the whole. In the eagle's beak is a scroll inscribed with the words, "E Pluribus Unum" which means "Out of many, one."

That we may one day achieve at last true democracy, justice, equity, freedom, and happiness, the entire American electorate as individuals must be brought directly together as a political whole. The demos, I believe, would serve most admirably as that whole. It is designed from the ground up to serve just that purpose. Out of many, one.

One thing that would allow the members of the electorate to function well together as a whole within the demos is that they would not face each other directly and personally as members of differing classes, races, genders, etc. but more abstractly and universally, each as a member of the same electorate. As issues were democratically deliberated, ideas and the ability to peacefully persuade would reign supreme over individual personalities.

It is not that we wouldn't continue to argue and haggle animatedly over issues both within and outside of the demos and the other branches of government. Our national debate and deliberation would increase tremendously as a result of the demos. It would be the electorate's _consensus_ within the demos, the social contract, that would tend toward stable norms and produce a smoothly functioning, peacefully evolving society, even as we haggled vociferously over the issues.

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Unlike majority-rule democracy in which there are winners and losers, in consensus democracy everyone is a winner in that it results in a more stable society and maximizes justice, equity, freedom, and happiness.

In his book "Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny" Robert Wright discusses a concept involving a _nonzero-sum_ game or relationship verses a _zero-sum_ game or relationship. An example of a nonzero-sum relationship would be between two players on the same team playing a tennis doubles match. As teammates, their relationship is not as winner and loser. By both of them cooperating and working hard together they may both be winners of the game. A zero-sum relationship exists between two players playing a tennis singles match. They are competitive opponents. One player wins the match while the other player loses.

Majority-rule democracy is a zero-sum game that produces winners and losers. Consensus democracy is a nonzero-sum game in which everyone, participating cooperatively as members of the demos electorate, wins the game.

Chapter 10

Consensus Government, Consensus Capitalism, and Consensus Society

In this chapter I will discuss how the practice of consensus democracy in the demos leads to consensus of the entire electorate within the rest of the government and even within the private sector market economy. The overall result is a just, balanced distribution of power, an unequal but equitable distribution of wealth, and a moderate, centered, peacefully evolving political-economic system and society. With consensus of the entire electorate achieved throughout government and the market economy, one could meaningfully use the term _consensus society_.

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As discussed in the chapter entitled _Reorganizing the Powers of the American Government_ , the combined effect of three major elements work together to achieve a correct distribution of political power within our (or any) government: 1) direct democracy judiciously balanced with representative democracy, 2) the use of consensus democracy in the direct democracy branch, the demos, rather than majority-rule democracy, and 3) limiting the direct democracy to "just the right" small, fixed set of easily understood _economic and electoral issues_ of central importance to society. I have named this government design _consensus government_. It is designed specifically to overcome the tyranny of plutocracy and maximize the freedom of the individual while avoiding the tyranny that an incorrectly designed democracy can become.

Consensus government empowers the electorate and achieves true democracy in two important ways. It empowers not just the elite few or the simple majority but the entire electorate to directly achieve consensus on and set some fundamental economic values that the government and the nation must use as they function. And the government-supported demos electoral system empowers all members of the electorate to run for office for free and to reach out to each other across states or the entire nation to select for office not the lesser of evils preselected by the wealthy as is done today but their champions, officeholders that resemble them in body, mind, interests, and pocketbook and truly represent them. The resulting representative bodies of government automatically demographically resemble and honestly serve the entire electorate.

Thus, under _consensus government_ the entire electorate achieves consensus in three ways: It achieves _economic consensus_ on its demos economic issues. The demos electoral system automatically results in representative bodies that demographically resemble the entire electorate in body, mind, interests, and pocketbook, which may be taken to be _electoral consensus_. And, since the now truly representative bodies create laws and rules that honestly serve the entire electorate, they achieve what I call the _legislative consensus_ of the electorate.

(Also, in a later chapter entitled _Congressional Legislative Reform_ I propose two changes for the senate and the house that overcome their "old-boys' clubs" and significantly democratize their function and a change in how justices are selected for the Supreme Court making the court more truly resemble and represent the entire electorate in its rulings.)

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The distribution of political power permanently built right into the structure and function of consensus government—the judicious balance of powers between its direct and representative democracy branches and the specific set of economic and electoral consensus-achieving powers included in the demos—does not unduly favor any group. The result is truly democratic government in which the entire electorate and its fairly elected representatives are empowered to create laws and rules for the market economy in the private sector that honestly include a wise balance of all of our interests. This produces a balanced market economy and an unequal but equitable overall distribution of wealth in the nation. Unequal but equitable distribution motivates and results in honest reward for honest creativity, entrepreneurship, and work.

Unlike plutocracy's obscene accumulations of private wealth in the face of abject poverty, under consensus government market forces operating within parameters set by a consensus of the entire electorate result in a moderately wealthy class, a large healthy middle class, and at least a modestly comfortable living for all who work. In a sense, it could be called a consensus economy, and one is almost gravitationally attracted to the already existing term _consensus capitalism_. But under consensus government the concept of consensus capitalism rises to a whole new level of honesty and meaning than exists today.

The term _consensus capitalism_ was originally used in 1995 by the Financial Secretary of Hong Kong Sir Hamish Macleod in the attempt to win broader support for the then current form of capitalism in Hong Kong. The consensus was supposedly continued support of free enterprise and competition while promoting equity and assistance for those who need them. (From the book _East Asian Welfare Regimes in Transition_ , edited by Alan Walker and Chackkie Wong.)

Of course, the form of capitalism in Hong Kong at the time was just another variant of history's long sorry string of plutocracies, and this "equity and assistance" just turned out to be empty words. Under plutocracy, the bottom economic half is held permanently in the position of begging hat in hand for equity and assistance from the upper economic half—really, the upper ten percent—which may or may not respond to the begging as political necessities and expedience dictate. Even if a few alms are tossed to the poor, charity begins at home. Those who have advantage take even more advantage and serve themselves first and best. Given this permanent begging-hat-in-hand situation in plutocracy, always met with an insufficient response and result, the term _consensus capitalism_ is essentially meaningless.

In _Time_ magazine, August 11, 2008, in an article entitled _How to Fix Capitalism_ , Bill Gates reminds us that capitalism has improved the lives of billions of people. But he also admits that it has left out billions more. He advocates using what he calls "creative capitalism" to bring enterprise to those parts of the world currently left behind in poverty. He advocates channeling market forces to compliment what governments and nonprofits do. Along with entrepreneurial ideas, Gates says companies should provide "the poor with heavily discounted access to products." And governments should create more financial incentives.

While creatively expanding the world's market economy to include everyone is an important part of a correct solution of poverty, Gates misses and his 'solution' does not fix the real problem. Rather, it produces, at best, a kinder gentler plutocracy in which the upper economic half perpetually paternalistically tosses an insufficient bit of equity and assistance to the lower economic half.

Poverty does not only exist in those parts of the world where successful market economies have not yet developed and created wealth. Throughout capitalism's history abject poverty has always existed _within_ capitalism. Like all forms of plutocracy, capitalism tends toward an extreme concentration of power and wealth and toward monopoly. In and of itself capitalism will not and cannot correct this problem. Handouts forever are not a real solution to poverty but only a palliative. A real solution to poverty is and can only be a correctly designed political-economic system that does not produce and perpetuate poverty within itself.

The real problem that Gates and others miss or turn blind eyes to is the fact that there are no nations in the world whose governments honestly mitigate the excesses of their economic systems. The weakness inherent in the market economy, the tendency toward monopoly, would be readily mitigated if the will to do so existed within government. But such will does not exist within any current governments because they do not honestly include and represent their entire electorates. Despite mythologies and wrist slapping affectations to the contrary, the fundamental design and central role of current governments are not to achieve political balance or economic equity but to facilitate and protect plutocracy and monopoly.

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Precisely because government lies at the heart of the problem it also lies at the heart of the solution. By correct design, it can be made into an honest broker. All current governments concentrate too much political-economic power in too few hands. If we alter governments in a way that make them honest brokers, then we, through our governments, can easily and permanently correct the profound imbalance inherent in capitalism.

The consensus government presented in this book is an honest broker. Under consensus government with its demos and consensus democracy the economic situation and result are very different then under today's governments, and the term _consensus capitalism_ has real meaning. Rather than a wealthy elite creating and perpetually populating a self-serving government, the entire electorate directly sets some fundamental economic parameters within which the market economy must function, and it populates the representative branches with people that honestly represent the entire electorate as they create other laws and rules governing the market economy. A true consensus is achieved among all adult members of a populace as to how their capitalism will function. No members of the electorate are left powerless and begging hat-in-hand for equity and assistance. Equity is built right into the political-economic system. In the demos, in the representative branches, and in the general economy, the upper economic half, which is no longer obscenely powerful and wealthy, is held in a just, dynamic balance with the lower economic half, which is no longer powerless and destitute. The result is balanced capitalism that really is an honest consensus of the populace.

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Several safeguards and sensible features are built into or are the results of consensus government. Moderation and consensus are favored over extremes and polarization. The practice of consensus democracy rather than majority-rule democracy results in a stable political-economic system that hovers about a slowly evolving moderate " _golden mean_ " over time. Because correct governance and results exist in the first place and everyone is and feels fairly included in the political-economic system, there is no need and therefore no motivation for remedial measures like welfare states, labor unions, strikes, etc., not to mention insurrection or coup in extreme situations. It is highly unlikely that the will could develop for a simple majority or an organized, zealous minority of the populace to rise up against the rest of the populace from the extreme Right or Left and reassert plutocracy or establish some kind of fascism or communism. Because one of the demos issues is how much we tax ourselves in support of the federal government, the electorate controls the overall size of the state and we need never fear the rise of a huge monolithic government or socialistic state crushing individual freedom. And because the electorate directly controls the overall amount of government saving or debt, military expenditure, and entitlements, we have significant control over government using our tax money responsibly. Everyone enjoys maximum responsible personal freedom within an open, pluralistic, equitable society under a lean, efficient government.

While, were they ever instituted, there would be some amount of learning and adjustment, consensus government and consensus capitalism would not feel radically alien and unfamiliar to today's citizens. No attempt is made to achieve some kind of idealized unrealistic high-minded altruistic behavior or governing process. Just as today, both the private economy and government would function by the messy processes of "horse trading" and "wheeling and dealing." The main difference between what could be called _consensus society_ and today's plutocracy is that not just the elite but all adult members of the society are honestly included and represented in the political-economic system producing a much more just, equitable, and happy result.

Chapter 11

The Demos Issues

The two greatest dishonesties of our current government are 1) a crooked electoral system that overwhelmingly favors the election of wealthy and wealth-serving people as president, senators, and representatives and 2) the use by these people of their offices to create self-serving, wealth-serving laws, rules, and practices, much to the detriment of the rest of the populace.

The creation of an honest electoral system in the demos corrects the first problem. The demos electoral system results in a president that has been elected by a broad, moderate cross section of the electorate and in a senate and a house that demographically resemble the entire electorate in body, mind, interests, and pocketbook.

One might think that would be enough, that this new, improved president and congress would much more honestly represent the entire electorate and create an inclusive, equitable society than they do within our current plutocratic government. But the members of any elite political body, however well selected, may be tempted toward self-interest and plutocracy. Therefore, they should not be entirely trusted with our most important issues, particularly since a body such as the demos with its consensus democracy makes it convenient and easy for the electorate to reserve these important decisions for itself.

That is why, along with the three electoral issues, as insurance that plutocracy is overcome with certainty and our nation cannot backslide into it, I removed nine crucial economic issues—including the sole power to tax at the federal level—from the representative branches of government and placed them directly into the hands of the entire electorate within the demos.

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Refreshing your memory once more, the twelve demos issues are:

* Election of the president

* Election of senators

* Election of representatives

* Overall federal tax rate (which, over time, determines the size of the federal government)

* Division of the tax burden among three tax revenue sources: corporations and businesses, personal incomes, and inheritances

* Corporate and business tax scale

* Personal income tax scale

* Inheritance tax scale

* Hours in the workweek

* Minimum wage

* Amount of federal debt or savings

* Portion of federal tax revenue for the military, healthcare, other entitlements, and all other government functions

Note the complete absence of all of our complex and subtle religious, philosophical, moral, ethical, and esthetic issues. They are left to other areas of our government and society. Note also that none of the demos issues target specific groups of people. The issues are blind, so to speak, with respect to race, ethnicity, gender, age, sexual orientation, religion, etc.

While campaigning for political office in the demos and while deliberating with each other about candidates' platforms and proposals, members of the electorate may discuss any issues, however complex. But, while this discussion makes all of us aware of the true (and often divided) mind and will of the electorate, none of it results in the creation of law. The demos only creates law when its members vote on its nine economic issues.

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As you will see from later discussion, there is one action the demos would be able to take that could treat businesses or individuals differentially. In distributing the burden of taxation the demos could scale tax rates in such a way that businesses with larger annual gross revenues, people earning larger annual incomes, or people inheriting larger estates would pay taxes at a higher rate than businesses with smaller revenues or people with less income or smaller inheritances. Although our current tax system is shot through with loopholes and evasions created by and for the unscrupulous few, our society has long embraced as a principle of fairness that the more one has benefited economically by living, working, and doing business in our nation the larger the tax burden one should bear even to the extent of bearing a higher tax rate. This is called a progressive tax rate.

However, there also exists contrary argument and the proposal of a "flat tax" wherein everyone pays at the same tax rate. The demos issues dealing with the distribution of the tax burden are constructed in such a way as to allow the demos by its consensus to set a more progressive tax rate or a flatter tax rate.

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Each of the nine economic issues included in the demos will now be discussed in its own chapter. These will be followed by a chapter discussing the three electoral issues.

Chapter 12

Federal Tax Rate: As a nation how much should we tax ourselves to finance the federal government?

"We the people" should have control of the size of the government under which we live. The size of the federal government depends on how much money we provide to it by taxing ourselves. If the demos became the sole agent of taxation in the federal government, and the federal government were required by constitutional law to restrain its spending to what the demos specified, then we would gain control over the size of government.

(Actually, as it currently functions, the federal government is quite incapable of controlling its spending or size. There are a few ways in which it functions that would have to be altered in order to make it capable of managing its size and staying within the spending limits dictated by the demos. These will be discussed later.)

As part of the partial redesign of our government presented in this book, the sole power to tax at the federal level would be moved from the other branches of the government into the demos and into the hands of the entire electorate. Our current federal system of taxation is incredibly complex, way too complex for the demos to handle. To make it possible for the electorate to directly set the size and distribution of the federal tax burden, the tax system would have to be greatly simplified. Therefore, the entire federal tax labyrinth would be eliminated and replaced by only three sources of tax revenue: a tax on corporate and business annual gross revenue, a personal income tax, and a personal inheritance tax. This done, the demos would then be in a position to control the size and distribution of the federal tax burden.

Our first demos issue would be to determine the size of the tax burden. As a nation how much should we tax ourselves to finance the federal government? In following issues the electorate will determine the distribution of the tax burden that we have set upon ourselves.

This first issue's demos page could display the dollar amount of money that we taxpayers provided to the federal government during its most recently completed fiscal year. But for most of us this amount would only be a curiosity. It would be a meaningless, mind-boggling figure. It would also not be very useful.

A percentage figure is much more comprehendible and serviceable. On this demos issue's page the amount we taxed ourselves to finance the federal government would be expressed as a percentage of all private sector income and revenue earned in the nation. Let us say that this current percentage figure is 22%. As we shall see in later chapters, this does not mean that every taxpayer would be taxed at this 22% rate, but that all of the taxes of private individuals, businesses, and corporations paying taxes at varying tax rates taken as a whole would average out to be 22%. This issue's page could also contain small line charts showing these dollar and percentage figures for preceding years so that voters would readily know if the federal tax burden has been growing or shrinking in size.

With these figures in mind along with many other personal thoughts and experiences, the voter would have some idea as to whether a larger or smaller federal government seemed desirable. In addition, in a manner described earlier, charts and graphs, pro and con arguments, and every manner of debate and discussion would be available in the issue's hierarchy of pages to the extent that the voter cared to delve into them. Also, the voter will have become much acquainted with the issue while in high school and likely will have been bombarded over time by every manner of argument outside the demos, including the president, representatives, and senators using their offices as bully pulpits.

Using the 22% figure as an example, the demos question itself might be formulated: By the taxes that we set upon ourselves, we currently pay on average 22% of all private sector income and revenue to support the federal government. Do you want this 22% tax rate to be increased, kept at the current amount, or decreased? Each of the issue's three options—"Increase," "Keep at the current amount," and "Decrease"—would be displayed within a selectable button on the issue's demos page. "Increase" would be displayed within a green upward-pointing arrow button. Below it "Keep at the current amount" would be displayed within a yellow rectangular or square button. And below that "Decrease" would be displayed within a red downward-pointing arrow button. The button containing the voter's current selection would be highlighted. This same three-button arrangement would be used for some other issues' demos pages as well. (Appendix 1 contains a detailed discussion of all of the demos voting methods.)

Since the federal government operates on an annual budget, this demos issue would have a trigger date. The demos members would haggle and change votes on the issue continuously over time, year in and year out. But it would be the demos consensus as of, say (just for the sake of this discussion), midnight on the last day of each year that would determine what percentage amount of our income and revenue is provided to the federal government for its next fiscal year.

In controlling the size of the federal government's annual budget, over time the demos would control the size of the federal government itself. If demoses with the sole power to tax were created at all levels of government, then the demos electorates would have control over the size of government at all levels. Ultimately, this would give the demos electorates control over the size of the public sector of our economy in relation to the private sector.

Always voting in his or her own self-interest, each member of the demos would vote in favor of more or less government. Those best served by more government should vote in favor of more taxes; those best served by less government should vote for lower taxes. In general, that sector of the economy, public or private, would increase that best serves the populace. Business and government could compete for and win the hearts of the electorate by doing the better job of including and caring for employees and consumers and by becoming more honest, efficient, and helpful.

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Note should be made here about the size of the federal government. Many people feel that the government is already too large. Would adding yet another branch, a demos, make it even larger? No. In fact, the size of government as a whole would shrink considerably.

First, most taxpayers would want to keep taxes low and the size of the federal government lean. Second, the current plutocracy creates a host of social ills to which it then applies a host of ineffectual band-aids multiplying the size of government (not to mention the amount of misery, paperwork, and effort demanded of businesses and individuals in the private sector). Also, much of the size of government has to do with the deliberate creation of complexity for the purpose of obfuscation, that is, to make things cloudy and unclear so that the wealthy may have a labyrinth within which to evade taxation and social responsibility and to engage in secretive deals and manipulations. In moving taxation into the hands of all of us within the demos and greatly simplifying the system, the increase in the size of government caused by the addition of the demos would be offset by a dramatic decrease in the size of the legislative and executive branches of government. Most or at least much of the physical infrastructure that would be required for a nationwide demos system is already developed.

A reliable and secure nationwide demos system could cost several billion dollars to construct, even tens of billions. This may at first glance seem like a lot of money. But it pales in comparison to the hundreds of billions of dollars we spend and waste annually attempting to repair the immense amount of social damage and misery resulting from our current plutocracy. The cost of a demos—whatever its cost!—would be one of the best bargains Americans ever purchased with their taxes.

Chapter 13

Tax Burden Division: Of the total tax burden, what percentage should be borne by corporations and businesses, by a personal income tax, and by a personal inheritance tax?

Once the demos has set the overall size of the federal tax burden in the previous issue, it must take the first step in setting the distribution of that burden among the three sources of tax revenue at the federal level: a tax on corporate and business annual gross revenue, a personal income tax, and a personal inheritance tax.

(Actually, in the demos these processes would not follow one after another in a step-like manner. Once the demos was created and set in motion its voting would be an _ongoing_ process; it would be a never ending activity. As some ever changing small portion of the millions of demos voters altered their votes over time, both the size and the distribution of the tax burden and all other demos issues would be simultaneously and continuously adjusted over time.)

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It can be and has been argued that we should not tax businesses, only private individuals. It is argued that in taxing businesses we are only taxing ourselves indirectly anyway since businesses merely add the extra cost to the price of goods and services. This is true. But there is good reason for such a tax. The wisdom of giving the demos the power to tax corporations and businesses will become apparent when the next demos issue is discussed.

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The wealth of private individuals has two faces, annual income and total accumulated wealth. [] The demos would gain adequate control over the distribution of the tax burden of individuals by taxing both of these sources. Annual income is taxed using a personal income tax. Total accumulated wealth is taxed at the time of an individual's death in the form of an inheritance tax paid by those inheriting all or parts of the deceased's estate. [] (Could these two taxes, income and inheritance, be scrapped and replaced by an annual "Wealth Tax," something like the annual property tax at lower levels of government but applied to one's total accumulated wealth? Would such a change be doable? Would it be desirable? At any rate, for the discussion in this work the personal income tax and the inheritance tax are used.)

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This issue's question would be formed exactly as written in the chapter's title: Of the total tax burden, what percentage should be borne by corporations and businesses, what percentage by a personal income tax, and what percentage by a personal inheritance tax?

This demos issue would require a different kind of display page and voter response than the previous issue. The total tax burden, 100%, would have to be divided somehow among three sources. The simplest way to present the issue would be in the form of a pie chart. A pie chart is a circle that is divided into wedge-shaped slices, in this case three slices representing "Corporate and business tax," "Personal income tax," and "Personal inheritance tax." Each of the three slices of the pie would represent a certain percentage of the whole; the three percentages would add up to 100%; and each pie slice would be proportionate in size to its percentage.

The demos member would indicate for a pie slice whether to increase, keep as is, or decrease the size of the slice (and, therefore, the percentage portion of the whole represented by the slice) by repeatedly mouse-clicking the slice. Each mouse-click would toggle the color of the slice to the next color: green for "increase," yellow for "keep it as is," red for "decrease," and back to green, etc. The member would repeat this toggling process for each slice, the size of which he or she wanted to change.

As with the previous demos issue's page and all demos issue pages to follow, this issue's page would have an appropriate display of pro and con arguments and buttons leading to further explanation and discussion of the issue.

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The demos electorate's ability to shift the tax burden among three sources of revenue—corporate, personal income, and personal inheritance—would give it a tool of sorts to affect the behavior of the three groups. If businesses were treating employees and consumers in a shabby way, then the electorate might be inclined to shift more of the tax burden onto business. If the wealthy seemed to be squandering rather than investing wealth, then the electorate might shift more of the tax burden onto inheritance. Thus, the electorate would have a rough carrot and stick to affect to some degree and in one more way the world in which it lives.

Chapter 14

Corporate Tax Scale: How should the burden of the corporate and business tax be distributed, that is, how should the tax rate be scaled?

The corporate and business tax should be levied against annual gross revenue, not net profit. Since gross revenue is a much larger figure than net profit, the tax rate would be much lower.

Taxing annual gross revenue would simplify and rationalize the tax on corporations and businesses. As things stand today, the government and businesses haggle about what are legitimate revenues, operating expenses, and taxable profits. The result is a labyrinth of complex tax code in which businesses, with the help of their servants in government, foist the cost of excessive luxuries such as expensive meals, travel, executive office appointments, and every kind of employee perk onto other taxpayers. The government needs tax revenue to operate. What one corporation or business evades by wasteful self-indulgences written off against profits during tax form preparation, the government must take from other taxpayers. In taxing gross revenue rather than net profit, insofar as taxes are concerned, government scrutiny could be removed from the operating cost and profit areas of businesses, and businesses would begin to make decisions concerning operating expenses and capital expenditures based entirely on sound business judgment rather than on how much they can get away with shoving unto other taxpayers.

Businesses and government would, however, continue to haggle over annual gross revenue. Getting less than honest businesses to report all of their revenue would likely be the central problem. While determining net profit in the current tax system is a tricky business, in the new system determining gross revenue would be a much simpler matter. Just as entrapment is used against those who commit drug and sex crimes, it could easily be used against a business that does not honestly present receipts to customers and record and report its revenue.

Government would probably have insufficient resources to adequately monitor all that it would like to monitor. In this matter government would have a friend if it cared to use it: the American people. Anyone could attempt to make an improperly conducted purchase from a business, that is, a purchase lacking the proper receipts, paperwork, etc. that would normally necessitate the business' entering of the transaction into its own records. If successful, said purchase could be reported to the appropriate government agency. Focusing a bit of its limited resources on the suspect business, the government agency could itself attempt to make such purchases from the company. If successfully entrapped and prosecuted, the person originally reporting the business to the agency could be rewarded handsomely, a certain percentage of the fines paid by the company. Some people might even make a career of it. Companies may attempt to entrap competitors. Disgruntled employees or ex-employees could blow the whistle on their cheating employers. Disgruntled customers could get even with a business if the business could be proved to be conducting illicit transactions. Businesses that keep their sales procedures and revenue records squeaky clean, i.e., honest businesses, would have nothing to fear. Evasion of the reporting of revenue could become rare and could come to be considered socially taboo.

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This demos issue would require yet another kind of display on its page and response from the voter. The issue would be presented as a line graph. A vertical line along the left edge of the graph, the vertical axis, would be labeled at intervals from bottom to top with percentage tax rates, i.e., 0%, 1%, 2%, 3%, etc. A horizontal line along the bottom edge of the graph, the horizontal axis, would be labeled from left to right with annual gross revenue amounts, i.e., $0, $1,000, $10,000, $100,000, $1,000,000, etc.

The single line currently displayed on the graph, the percentage tax rate line, would represent the current consensus of the demos electorate on the issue. A demos member would vote on the issue by selecting various parts of the tax rate line and coloring them green, yellow, and red to indicate which portions of the line and, therefore, the tax rate should be increased (green), kept at their current level (yellow), and decreased (red). Methods of voting are discussed in more detail in Appendix 1.

Depending on the consensus of the demos, the tax rate line could tend toward the horizontal, thus tending toward a "flat tax," the same tax rate for all corporations and businesses. A horizontal line at the 3% level would represent a flat 3% tax rate on all corporations and businesses. A horizontal line at 0% would mean that there would be no tax on businesses at all. Or the tax rate line could curve upward as the line extends toward the right edge of the graph. This would produce a progressive tax rate in which businesses with larger gross revenues would be subject to a higher tax rate than businesses with lesser revenues. The calculation of taxes is discussed in Appendix 2.

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This ability of the demos to set a flat tax rate at some level or a progressive tax rate would give it a very important control over corporations and businesses. Not only should "we the people" have control over the size of the government under which we live, but we should have control over the size of corporations and businesses that are allowed to exist.

We need not look to the heavens in fear of hostile aliens. In the form of the modern corporation, we have created an alien form of 'life,' a Frankenstein that, both within and without, consumes humans for profit and growth. Our world has become a "corporate world" in which giant multinational corporations push governments, employees, and consumers around everywhere on the planet, reducing almost everyone to insignificance and servitude. The largest corporations have reached the size where they are larger and more powerful than most governments. Even the American government struggles beneath their power.

Just as, among other reasons, the creation of a strong national government was the plutocratic founders' countermove against rising democracy at the state level of government, multinational corporations today can be seen as a plutocratic countermove against the democratization of governments around the world. Using multinational corporations to perform end runs around the world's governments, their principal owners, the elite's elite, now hold a global hegemony of power and wealth. With resources strategically stashed around the globe, the global elite now reside in a worldwide stratosphere of power and wealth high above the turmoil and inconveniences of lesser mortals and particular nations. In the form of the multinational corporation, the age-old dream of the few of the perfect management and exploitation of the many has become a reality.

No corporate or business entities can be allowed to become more powerful than the federal government, which is (or at least should be) the sacred embodiment of our most fundamental agreements and relationship as a people. No legal entity should be allowed to exist that places so much power into the hands of a single individual that the freedom of all other individuals becomes reduced. Corporations should not be allowed to literally take over the world and enslave us. Corporations are not structured in a manner similar to a democracy but in a manner similar to a feudal system complete with its aristocracy and serfs or in a manner similar to an authoritarian state complete with its dictatorship. In allowing corporations to become mightier than the government, even if the government is rendered more democratic the nation as a whole still moves toward increased authoritarianism.

Corporations should not be allowed to grow to a size and power beyond which we _as a people_ desire. The creation of a demos within the American government (and within all governments in the world) with the power to set the tax rate on the annual gross revenues of corporations and businesses would remove supreme power from the multinational corporations and return control of our world once again to "we the people" where it rightfully and morally belongs.

Also, the demos method of electing the president, senators, and representatives described in this book would place a new breed of people into government, people who would be more responsive to the will of the entire populace rather than to the mighty few. These people would examine and correct the rules under which corporations were allowed to exist, rendering them more serviceable to the needs of all of us.

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How does demos control over corporate and business annual gross revenue tax rates give it control over the _size_ of corporations and businesses? If the consensus of the demos results in a significantly progressive, i.e., steep, tax rate on larger gross revenues, then the tax burden would become unbearable were a business to receive revenue beyond certain amounts. It would become a sound business judgment to break the business into two or more independent businesses with lesser tax rates rather than incur the steep tax rate of the single large business. On the other hand, if the electorate wanted to allow businesses to grow to any size without any interference, all that it would have to do is to set a low or even a zero flat tax rate.

It should be the law of the land and of the entire world that one business or corporation may not own another business or corporation. Two or more businesses should be allowed to merge into one business entity, and one business entity should be allowed to split into two or more completely independent business entities. In every case each business entity should be taxed on its annual gross revenue as described in this chapter.

So long as one business is allowed to own another business or a collection or hierarchy of them, either 1) the ultimate parent business should be taxed at the rate of the sum of its own annual gross revenue plus the revenues of all of the businesses it owns, or 2) each of the businesses within the hierarchy should pay its own taxes on its own annual gross revenue, but all of the businesses should be taxed at the rate that the sum of their annual gross revenues would be taxed. However a corporation or business is legally defined and structured—as a single legal entity, as a simple collection of entities, or as a hierarchy of entities—it is still a monolithic power and should be taxed as such.

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Also, only individual persons, as individuals, should be able to make campaign and other political contributions, not corporations, businesses, or any other entities or groups. The argument that this would be a violation of free speech is nonsense. The First Amendment protects the free speech of _individuals_ ; it does not provide that the legal entities that we create such as corporations shall be our moneyed megaphones.

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To make it possible for the electorate to set the size and distribution of the federal tax burden in the demos, the tax code would have to be extremely simple. There could be no tax exemptions of any kind for corporations and businesses. This would be the case for the next two demos issues as well. There could be no personal income tax exemptions of any kind at any time for anyone, and there could be no inheritance tax exemptions of any kind.

Exemptions are in effect subsidies. It takes money to run the government. What it does not get from one person or group, it must take from another. Exemptions for some cause tax increases for others. The elimination of exemptions would produce the simplest, least costly tax system and the lowest possible tax rates for everyone.

There should also be no tax exemptions for so-called nonprofit organizations and donations to them. Such tax exemptions are only (a rather too invisible) way of dictating which charitable, religious, and other institutions, forms of art, civic projects, etc. all of us must support. People whose views do not qualify for tax exemptions must support their own views _and_ the views of those that do qualify, views that may directly oppose their own. We should be deciding what we want to support by donating our own resources and time _directly_ to those we want to support. When we are not given the opportunity to dump our 'support' unto the next person via tax exemptions and it takes our own real money, then we will learn who and what individuals truly support.

Although increasingly abused and muddied in recent years, among the most sacred principles of our system of governance are freedom of religion and the separation of church and state. On superficial glance, one might think that by eliminating tax exemptions for religious organizations and taxing them just like any other corporate body or organization, the intimate mixing of church and state is introduced. But exactly the opposite is true. It is when the state subsidizes tax code qualified, meaning selected, religions and religious organizations by granting special tax exempt status to them that church and state become intimately entwined. It is when all organizations, religious and otherwise, are treated exactly the same for the purposes of taxation that the state achieves absolute neutrality toward religion and the complete separation of church and state.

A wealthy person generously donating to the city orchestra, a pious person donating to the church, and a person handing ten dollars to a needy person on the street should all be treated in the same manner. The tax system should have nothing to do with their donations. Donations should be entirely a personal matter.

The no-exemptions tax system presented in this book produces the lowest possible tax rates for everyone: corporations, organizations, and individuals. In the demos the electorate directly sets the overall amount we tax ourselves in support of government, thus eliminating excessive taxation in the first place. All business and other organizations and individuals bear their fair share of the tax burden. And the resources of government, corporations, other organizations, and individuals are not consumed maintaining, submitting, and processing complex tax data. These savings empower individuals to donate more to favored organizations and causes than they otherwise could.

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Americans are overwhelmingly generous in many ways with their money, time, and effort. Many are not even personally against the federal government being generous with their tax dollars. But the tax system is an inappropriate _location and manner_ in which to provide lump subsidies for anything or to anyone. It adds complexity and paperwork and becomes, as is amply shown, a maze of tax evasion and scam.

All lump subsidies that government wishes to grant to businesses, organizations, and individuals should be moved to those areas of government that handle entitlements and handouts. Further, those areas of government should be consolidated into one entirely transparent entity, so transparent that it could be symbolically named _The Glass House_. All of its deliberations and actions should be completely visible to anyone in the nation who cares to investigate any of its dealings.

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There is one major kind of generosity and wisdom that the demos would be capable of bestowing: _By the appropriate scaling of each tax_ (corporate and business, personal income, and inheritance)—not by adding loopholes, exemptions, and other complexities—smaller annual revenues, incomes, and inheritances could be taxed only lightly or not at all.

One final word on generosity and subsidy: Under our current plutocracy they become crushed and smothered beneath an avalanche of endless need. If the changes to our government and society proposed in this work were put into practice and a more just and equitable society achieved, the need for so much help would not be created in the first place, and our generosity would not become so overwhelmed. We could easily and willingly meet all true need without the use of tax write-offs.

Chapter 15

Income Tax Scale: How should the burden of the personal income tax be distributed, that is, how should the tax rate be scaled?

This demos issue would require the same kind of display on its page and response from the voter as the previous issue, the corporate and business tax. The issue would be presented as a line graph. As with the line graph discussed in the previous chapter, the vertical axis would express percentage tax rates. The horizontal axis would express annual income amounts. As before, the voter would color various portions of the tax rate line green, yellow, and red to indicate where the tax rate should be increased, kept at the current amount, and decreased. The line could approach the horizontal forming nearly a flat tax or ascend more steeply forming a progressive tax.

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The demos' control over personal income tax rates would give it control over the _net size_ of personal incomes after taxes. This is similar to what we do today. The only difference is that instead of the rich, plutocratic few setting the tax rates for themselves and everyone else, "we the people" would set the tax rates on ourselves.

Which approach to governance is more legitimate in your mind? Power concentrated in the hands of the privileged few who have endlessly proven themselves to be immoral, corrupt, and greedy when setting the tax rates over themselves and over everyone else or the system described in this work in which the entire electorate is empowered to set its tax rates?

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Just as with the previous issue, the personal income tax could not allow any exemptions of any kind for anyone. People in need would need to knock on the door of The Glass House, the part of government that handles entitlements and handouts. It may be the case that the government would assist in certain situations. But it should be done with total visibility under the public eye.

There would be another immense benefit to handling personal and business entitlements outside of the tax system and within _The Glass House_. Government would focus its magnifying glass on only those seeking entitlements, not on everyone simply filing their tax forms. That would save enormous resources and free government to place its focus and resources where they are really needed.

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When the corporate and business, personal income, and inheritance tax times rolled around in their due order, it would be a much less painful experience for everyone. Because there would be no exemptions for anyone, the calculation of taxes due would be easy. A corporation or business would simply sum its gross revenue or an individual would sum all of his or her income for the year from every source or note the amount of an inheritance, look up that amount in a tax table—the rates of which would have been set by the demos—and pay the tax. (The method by which the amount of each taxpayer's tax liability would be calculated is discussed in Appendix 2.) Since the federal government would be smaller and more efficient, the tax burden would be significantly smaller than during pre-demos times.

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However, during the first year or two after instituting a demos within government, there would definitely be a tax sticker shock. Since most of the _many_ taxes that we now pay to the federal government are hidden in the prices of the products and services that we buy or are paid in a large number of tiny chunks, people do not now realize how large a percentage of their total revenue and income they now pay in taxes.

Just for the sake of this discussion we will say that when all of the visible and invisible taxes that the federal government levies are added together a certain taxpayer has been paying around 35% of his or her annual income. Now let's say that a demos has been created, all of the hidden taxes have been removed—except one because corporations and businesses would add the cost of their single tax to the price of their products and services—and we are now paying only a single tax. A taxpayer might exclaim, "Yikes, 15%! But under the pre-demos system my income tax was only 12% of my annual income!" No, the person's tax was 12% plus the many hidden and other taxes that were paid when purchasing private or public sector products and services and paying fees and levies. Under the demos system, the price of products and services will have decreased by the amount that they once included to pay the many hidden taxes. The taxpayer's current 15% tax rate (plus some small percentage amount still hidden in the price of products and services since corporations and businesses still have to pay a single tax) cannot be rightly compared with the previous 12% income tax rate alone. It must be compared with the 35% overall rate that the taxpayer was really paying under the pre-demos system.

Chapter 16

Inheritance Tax Scale: How should the burden of the inheritance tax be distributed, that is, how should the tax rate be scaled?

This demos issue would require the same kind of display on its page and response from the voter as the previous two issues, the corporate and business tax and the personal income tax. The issue would be presented as a line graph. As with the line graphs discussed in the previous chapters, the vertical axis would express percentage tax rates. The horizontal axis would express the value amounts of inherited estates. As before, the voter would color various portions of the tax rate line green, yellow, and red to indicate where the tax rate should be increased, kept at the current amount, and decreased. The line could approach the horizontal forming nearly a flat tax or ascend more steeply forming a progressive tax.

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In this area, the passing of wealth from one person to another and from one generation to the next, the wealthy have been especially creative in their endeavor to evade paying taxes. Rather than simple wills executed at the time of death, every kind of legal maneuver, trust fund, and other creative entities and methods of slipping wealth from one hand into another without paying inheritance taxes has been created. The changing of the guard of accumulated wealth often or usually does not take place in the singular moment of a death but has advanced into the entire overlapping life spans of the giver and of the receiver and even far into the years beyond the death of the giver. Another dimension of complexity is added to the situation by the common sense understanding that people have a right to feed, clothe, house, educate, and lavish gifts upon their beloved children and others. Where this process ends and where begins inheritance tax evasion by lifelong lavish gift giving, legal maneuvers, and other tricks is a gray area.

A solution to the many evasions in this area of taxation lies beyond the scope of this book. Very likely the government tax agencies involved in the transfer of wealth from generation to generation are already well versed in the many subtle nuances of family expenses occurred in the rearing of children, the giving of gifts involving taxation, and in outright inheritances. The beginning of a solution lies in the complete elimination of all of the creative legal means for the evasion of inheritance taxes by whatever names they may be called. It is not that wealth should not be transferred creatively to protect both the wealth and the receiver and to educate the receiver, but the wealth should not escape taxation during the transfer. Whatever the direct or indirect means for the transfer of wealth, the wealth should be subjected to the inheritance tax rates set by the demos. Given the honest demos electoral process presented in this book that would result in elective bodies that demographically resemble and honestly represent the entire electorate we could expect an honest review and updating of all laws and rules having to do with inheritance.

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Demos control over inheritance tax rates would give it control over the _net size_ of inherited estates after taxes. As discussed in the preceding chapter on the income tax, this is similar to what we do today. The only difference is that instead of the rich few setting the tax rates for themselves and for everyone else in the nation, all of us participating together in the demos would set the tax rate on ourselves. (With the current plutocrats in government claiming to know the American people's true hearts and minds on this matter, wouldn't it be interesting to see the manner in which a demos electorate _really_ voted given the chance.)

Given that the demos would have direct control over both the net size of personal income after taxes and of inherited estates after taxes, it would in effect have control over the distribution of personal wealth in America. This power over the distribution of wealth is not new. In America today the wealthy few already hold this power. What would be new is that for the first time in American history (and even in world history), "we the people" would hold this power together.

It should be clearly understood that in removing control of the distribution of wealth from the hands of the few and placing it into the hands of the entire electorate, we do not gain control over the amount of any particular person's wealth. The electorate's actions could result in a wider or narrower distribution of wealth in the nation than does the actions of the elite few today, but how much wealth any particular person possessed within that distribution would depend, just as today, on accident of birth and the person's talents, ambitions, hard work, and luck.

If the demos elected to treat both areas, personal income tax and estate inheritance tax, with a flat tax, then the demos would not affect the distribution of wealth. If the demos consensus resulted in progressive tax rates, then it would in effect be redistributing wealth. However, the demos is only one branch of the government. If the other branches of government handed the tax revenue back to the wealthy again via their expenditures and disbursements, they could partially or totally nullify the effect of the demos on the distribution of wealth. But remember, the demos would also hold the power to elect the president, senators, and representatives. The demos may or may not treat kindly those who undermine its will in the matter of the just distribution of wealth. Thus, we have an interesting new system of checks and balances of power among the branches of government.

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Just as with the previous two issues, no exemptions of any kind for anyone could be allowed in the inheritance tax. Again, people in need would need to knock on the door of _The Glass House_ , that part of government that would handle entitlements and handouts.

Chapter 17

Tax Revenue Allocation: What percentages of federal tax revenue should go to healthcare, to other entitlements, to the military, and to the remainder of the federal government?

The management of our complex society's myriad details would, of course, need to be conducted in the other branches and levels of government. Nevertheless, the demos could and should paint a broad stroke or two. This issue would give the demos direct control over the money provided for and, therefore, the size of selected areas of the federal government.

Exactly which federal government expenditure items or categories to include in this demos issue is not carved in stone. The particular items included here—the military, entitlements, health care, and the remainder of the federal government—were included merely to show that the demos could manage direct control over the size of the budgets of, perhaps, a half dozen major areas of the federal government of the greatest interest and effect.

Since it is we and our loved ones who serve in the military, giving something of our lives or giving up our very lives, and since it is our tax dollars supporting the military, we should all share direct control over the money provided for and, therefore, the size of the military. The demos' capability of shrinking or expanding the military budget would insure that any major military adventure set upon by America enjoyed the true will and support of the American people, not merely the will of a few elites or the 'will' of the people as supposedly indicated by some politician, pundit, or sham poll.

Since it is the American people's tax money being handed out as entitlements, we should have control over just how generous we wish to be. Although healthcare is a part of entitlements, it is such a huge can of worms that concerns all of us that I made it a separate item from other entitlements. (A brief discussion about how to handle the healthcare mess in America will follow in a later chapter.)

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Like one previous issue, this demos issue would require a pie chart style display page and voter response. Insofar as the demos is to affect the total tax revenue allocation, 100% would have to be divided among up to a half dozen or so major areas of the federal government. Within the parameters set by the demos, other branches of the federal government would further determine the federal budget in great detail. Unlike the pie chart in a previous issue which had three pie slices, this issue's pie chart could possibly have more slices. Whatever the number of slices the pie chart ended up having, each slice would represent a major area of the federal government's budget, i.e., the military, healthcare, other entitlements, etc. There would be one more slice labeled "Other" that would include all other federal expenditures not falling into any of the major areas specifically included in the pie chart. Each of the slices of the pie would represent a certain percentage of the whole; the percentages would add up to 100%; and the size of each pie slice would be proportionate in size to its percentage.

As with the previous issue using the pie chart voter input method, the demos member would indicate for each pie slice whether to increase, keep as is, or decrease the size of the slice (and, therefore, the percentage portion of the whole represented by the slice) by changing the color of each to green for "increase," yellow for "keep it as is," or red for "decrease."

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That the entire federal government may live within its means, that is, within the limits of the funds provided by the demos via taxation, all of its various branches, agencies, and activities would need to stay on budget. Branches and agencies would need to set priorities and not spend money they don't have. The dispersal of money both to and within various branches of government would have to function by a process similar to triage in which the highest priority is given to those areas and projects producing the greatest good. Government should not carry enormous debt but should always function with significant savings. The handling of emergency situations such as natural disasters should be funded from such savings. Entitlements should be handed out not only on the basis of need but also on the basis of how much money is available and how many people are going after it. Each applicant could end up with only a portion of the amount being sought.

Many agencies of government necessarily deal with uncertainties that make it difficult or impossible to formulate or work within exact budgets. Such agencies could borrow from the government savings discussed earlier. All surpluses and borrowing should be entirely visible to the public. Borrowing should be only of the most temporary nature, and borrowed funds should be paid back from the very next allocation of funds to the agency. By consistently operating slightly under budget an agency could also develop its own surplus fund to use as a buffer to stay on budget during difficult years. Rather than taking a reasonable operating surplus to mean that an agency could get by with less funding, it could be made a _requirement_ that all agencies operate with a surplus sufficient to buffer variations in the cost of their operations from year to year. Rather than the government possessing some centralized savings or surplus, such surplus could be distributed throughout its agencies to act as a constellation of buffers to be used to keep all operations within budget.

The central point here is that by a system of savings, surpluses, triage, and whatever other mechanisms it may develop, the government as a whole and in its myriad parts could and should stay within the money allocations set by the demos.

Chapter 18

Amount of Debt or Savings: Should the federal government increase the debt or savings it is carrying, keep it at the current amount, or reduce it?

Aside from its representing the sacrifice of the future for the present—including our children's future!—the main objection to government debt is that everyone's hard-earned tax money goes into the pockets of the rich both here and abroad in the form of interest paid on the debt rather than into useful actions.

This may very well be part of the reason why the national debt is never paid off. The wealthy own and populate government and serve themselves well by maintaining a perpetual national debt. What a scam! First they create a tax system so full of loopholes and evasions for themselves that what should and is claimed to be a progressive tax, taxing the rich at a higher rate than the middle class and the working poor, is turned instead into a regressive tax, effectively taxing the middle class and the poor at a higher rate than the rich. Then, when the government disburses and expends the collected tax revenue, the wealthy take a huge cut off the top in the form of enormous amounts of interest paid on the national debt. Further, by the time the wealthy fill their pockets with lucrative government contracts and all of the upper classes participating in government take home their pay and perks little real money reaches the truly poor. Therefore, the disbursements and expenditures of our tax dollars by government are also regressive in that they benefit the wealthy more than the poor. This is all, of course, to be expected of our American plutocracy.

The huge national debt that our nation has been accumulating ever more rapidly from the Reagan administration to this day increasingly diminishes our government's ability to accomplish anything with collected tax revenue and our ability to effectively compete in the world's economy. It even threatens our nation's very solvency.

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The rationale for including the national debt issue within the demos is to give all of us the opportunity to force congress to stop spending money it doesn't have and to stop handing the rich our tax money in the form of interest on the debt by eliminating the debt. Of course, the possibility exists that an undisciplined demos might _increase_ the national debt. But at least then we could point the finger at no one but ourselves.

It is simply foolish to carry debt. Yes, our screwy tax system can and does make debt a 'rational' choice for business and individuals, but 1) that tax system ought not exist, and 2) even with all of the tricks that one can play, debt is more often than not the road to economic imprisonment and financial ruin. That our leaders in government have long held our nation in a permanent state of debt and have almost overnight thrown it into the position of being the world's greatest debtor nation is sheer insanity. And now our government is at the brink of financial collapse. At the very least we can expect high inflation and declining living standards.

This demos issue is stated: Should the federal government increase the debt _or savings_ it is carrying, keep it at the current amount, or reduce it? If it were operated in a rational manner, government would not carry debt but an enormous amount of savings. The government embodies all of us, or at least it should. Its savings is our savings. We as a nation, via the federal government, should have enormous savings on hand that we lend out to earn interest. The interest should be used to fund part of the government's annual operating expenses. This would allow a decrease in the amount of money it would need to acquire each year via taxation. Government savings would also provide the resources for the budget buffers described in the previous chapter. And savings would provide the funds needed to help the nation through emergencies such as natural disasters.

At any rate, along with the word _debt_ the word _savings_ is included in this demos issue as a wishful thought.

This issue's demos page would be of the three button style with an up arrow for "Increase the debt or savings," below that a square or rectangle for "Keep at the current amount of debt or savings," and below that a downward-pointing arrow for "Decrease the debt or savings."

Chapter 19

Standard Workweek: Should the number of hours in the Standard Workweek be increased, kept at the current amount, or decreased?

The word _workweek_ means the total number of regular working hours or days in a week. _Regular_ working hours means those hours that are paid at a base rate of pay. If more hours are worked, usually a higher overtime rate of pay kicks in. While the actual length of many people's workweeks and the pay policies of employers differ widely, the current length of the workweek is customarily taken to be about 40 hours. In this book the word _workweek_ is given the more formal title _Standard Workweek_. Its length is set by the demos.

Should the number of hours in the Standard Workweek be increased, kept at the current amount, or decreased? This is actually the most fundamental issue to be included within the demos. How much to tax ourselves to provide for the federal government is the second most fundamental issue. How much we tax ourselves to support government depends on how much we earn in the first place. How much we earn depends on how much we work, how productive we are, and how much we are rewarded for our work.

If one measured, say, the height of every person who would be a member of the demos and graphed the results as a frequency distribution of heights along a horizontal axis, the result would be a bell-shaped curve with relatively few very short heights on the left, the great bulk of more average heights in the middle, and relatively few very tall heights on the right. Measuring and charting other characteristics such as the weights or waist sizes of the members of the electorate would produce similar bell-shaped curves. This bell-shaped curve would hold true even if you asked the members of the demos a question like How heavy is the statue of liberty? and charted their answers. It would also hold true if you asked the question How many hours long should be the Standard Workweek in America?

Each member of the demos would have a unique life situation, needs, desires, motivations, hopes, dreams, goals, etc. For whatever their reasons some people would want to work long and hard, purchase lots of consumer goods and luxuries, and accumulate a big bank account. Other people would prefer to work less, purchase fewer goods, and lead a simple life with much leisure time to enjoy family, friends, and other personal interests. In asking all of the demos members how long the Standard Workweek should be and taking the average of their responses to be their demos consensus, the resulting consensus would be a moderate figure that avoids all of the most extreme low and high answers. Most people would feel this to be a fair process for arriving at a comfortable and reasonable length for the Standard Workweek.

Well and good. But putting the question to the entire electorate is not how the length of the Standard Workweek is set in America. The length of the Standard Workweek, now about 40 hours, is not set by asking the members of the American electorate their opinions. It is handed down to them from on high by a few political and economic elites in government and industry. This small group is not randomly selected from and is very unrepresentative of the whole American population.

The interests of this small group do not coincide with the much broader interests of the American population as a whole. Constituted of a few plutocratic elites, this group has little interest in the leisure or private lives of American workers or their families. It has a great deal more interest in how long people can be made to work, how much they can be gotten to produce, and how much profit can be squeezed out of their labor. Therefore, the length of the Standard Workweek that they set would not be near the consensus of the electorate but would be near the extreme high end of opinion.

The problems are two. Not only is the length of the Standard Workweek set by the plutocratic few not representative of what the American people would set if given the chance, but there is no moral basis for the few to be making such a decision for the many in the first place. What government elites do not have the right to do, or, at any rate, should not have the right to do, is to paternalistically dictate how long everyone else in the land should have to work. This is precisely what is done when the federal government sets, say, 40 hours as the Standard Workweek. It's not that everybody in the land must then work 40 hours each week, but it affects what might be called "normal practice" throughout the land, the points at which overtime, perks, healthcare, etc. kick in, and the point at which the life of a worker and his or her family falls into economic distress or ruin if they fall below it. [] If government elites set the workweek at 50 hours, all of us would end up working more. If set at 30 hours, we would all tend to work less. In their setting the length of the Standard Workweek as high as they do, they are a central cause of our lives becoming the manic rat races that they are.

We are now the hardest and longest working people of any industrial country on the planet, topping even the slaving Japanese. The Japanese even have a word, _karoshi_ , for people dying while working too hard. _Karo_ means exhaustion and _shi_ is death, death from overwork or exhaustion. When one is more extreme than the extreme, it is time to do some soul searching. That soul searching and the values and choices we embrace are the business us all. The workload that we as a nation choose to bear is not an issue to be decided only by the "fast-track," "type A," slave-driving, avaricious plutocrats in Washington (and the private sector plutocrats who rub elbows with them) but by all of us voting on the issue.

The difficulties of American Labor's relationship with Capital (and with the government that Capital owns) run much deeper than this and will be addressed more extensively later. But the length of the Standard Workweek should be included as an issue within the demos.

This demos question would be, Should the number of hours in the Standard Workweek be increased, kept at the current amount, or decreased? This would be a three-button issue with the usual up arrow at the top for "Increase," a square in the middle for "Keep it at the current amount," and a down arrow at the bottom for "Decrease."

Chapter 20

Minimum Wage: Should the minimum wage be increased, kept at the current amount, or decreased?

The basic spirit, argument, and rationale that applied to the previous demos issue also applies to this one. The few should not dictate to the many what will be the wages of the humblest in the land. What is considered to be a humane and sufficient wage to achieve adequate subsistence, something of "a living" in America, cannot be the business only of the privileged few, but can only properly be the business of us all. As has been said by others, the best way to deal with poverty is to not create it in the first place. "We the people" would come up with a very different result than the privileged few in Washington if given the opportunity.

In a later chapter, _Government, Business, and the Definition of Labor_ , a new kind of wage scale is discussed in which each hour of work earns more wage than the previous hour. The first hour worked during a given Standard Workweek is called simply "the first work hour." Under this scheme the minimum wage set by the demos would represent the minimum wage that could be paid for the first hour worked during each Standard Workweek.

This is another three-button demos issue with the usual green up arrow (increase) at the top, a yellow square in the middle (keep as is), and a red down arrow at the bottom (decrease).

Chapter 21

The Demos Electoral System: An honest way to elect the president, senators, and representatives

As stated earlier, _the single greatest scam and failure of our nation's current political system is its electoral system_. It lies at the root of most of our failures as a society including our inability to achieve honest representation of the entire populace in government. The need for and basic design of a new, honest electoral system located within the demos has already been discussed in the chapters entitled _Reorganizing the Powers of the American Government_ and _Consensus Democracy_. In this chapter I will first briefly summarize what has been presented of the design so far and then discuss it in greater detail.

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In the demos electoral system today's Electoral College and all state electoral districts are entirely scrapped. The president and all senators are elected by direct popular vote from the nation at-large, and each state's quota of representatives is elected from the state at-large. All periodic elections, including all primary elections, are scrapped and replaced by a simple, ongoing electoral system. In a manner similar to the nine demos economic issues in which each member of the electorate keeps a vote riding on each issue, each member keeps a vote riding on one candidate for president, one for a senator, and one for a representative. With one exception discussed later in the chapter, one may change one's votes at any time.

The demos system has a single national Presidential Candidates list and a single national Senatorial Candidates list. Each state has its own single Representative Candidates list. Any member of the electorate that constitutionally qualifies, e.g., age and residency requirements, may run for office. And any number of people may run for office. The person currently receiving the most votes in the Presidential Candidates list, the top 100 people in the Senatorial Candidates list, and each state's quota of representatives from its Representative Candidates list are currently seated in office. A person gains or loses office when he or she gains or loses a sufficient number of votes relative to other candidates in the office's Candidates list.

Since the demos is a branch of the government, all of its functions including its nationwide electronic voting system and electoral process are government supported. Therefore, candidates that run for the presidency, the senate, or the house need not be wealthy or wealth supported. They may take any amount of time to run for office for free and build a following. Members of the electorate may take any amount of time to study and deliberate about candidates and to reach out to each other across states or the entire nation to directly elect their champions, truly representative officeholders that resemble them in body, mind, interests, and pocketbook.

It is the electing of senators from within the nation _at-large_ and a state's quota of representatives from within the state _at-large_ that overcomes the wealth-dominated, one-elective-office-per-district problem and empowers each member of the electorate to join with others to select their champions. While others vote for their good candidates (who I may consider to be bad) from within these large pools—from the entire nation or an entire state—I and others like me vote for our good candidates from within the same large pools (who others may consider to be bad).

With many voters selecting several people from the same large pool to populate a representative body in free, ongoing elections, no member of the electorate is stuck reluctantly picking a "lesser evil" from a small group preselected by the wealthy as is done today. All voters support their goods, their champions, those who resemble and truly represent them. The resulting senate and house _automatically_ demographically resemble and serve the true and balanced interests of the _entire_ electorate. No quota systems, political parties, or complex electoral schemes are required. People just get to directly vote for whom they really want. Unlike today's wealth-serving senate and house, the members of these diverse bodies entering into democratic deliberations would create laws that serve the greater good of the entire populace and the nation. Eliminating state electoral district systems would also end the cynical, embarrassing spectacle of political gerrymandering.

Simply because it empowers all members of the electorate in the same way, the free, at-large, ongoing demos electoral process gives non-wealthy people (and minorities) the means and unlimited time to reach out to each other across their states or the entire nation in support of candidates that serve their needs and interests, even as they also go out into their neighborhoods and communities to organize and educate friends, neighbors, co-workers, and others as to their true interests. Unlike today, the economic bottom half of our populace will achieve full presence and honest representation within our government.

Voting for one's choice for president, a senator, and a representative is an easy task. On the appropriate demos electoral issue pages, the voter simply selects a name from an already existing national Presidential Candidates list, a national Senatorial Candidates list, and a Representative Candidates list for his or her state or adds new names to the lists.

That summarizes most of what was presented in previous chapters about the basic demos electoral system. We now move on to further details and areas not yet discussed.

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Ideally, to fully achieve its end, a representative body that demographically resembles and honestly serves the entire electorate, the at-large electoral process requires that the area encompassed by the body is not divided into electoral districts but is one electoral whole; all able, of-age members of the populace living in the area are members of the electorate; all members of the electorate may run for a seat in the body; all of the body's _several_ seats are filled by direct, popular vote, each member of the electorate having the civic duty to cast one vote; and those earning the most votes in what could be a long list of candidates win seats in the body.

How well does the demos electoral process live up to this at-large electoral ideal in the election of a president, senators, and representatives? Given that the government design presented in this book was not created from scratch but is only a partial redesign of our current government, what concessions were made to existing political circumstances?

Currently two senators are elected within each state to serve in the senate. Some states are divided into two large electoral districts, one senator being elected from each district. In other states both senators are elected at-large within the state. In the two electoral district states, the seat for each district may be essentially dominated and bought while the poor and minorities go unrepresented. While the situation is a little better in at-large states, with only two senate seats to fill, it is only a little better. It is not difficult to dominate and buy both seats.

It is only when all of a representative body's _several_ seats are filled from the same large electoral pool that it becomes difficult to dominate and buy all seats in the body and the lower middle class, the working poor, and minorities are empowered to reach out to each other and elect their champions to office. That is why in the demos electoral system all 100 senators are elected from the nation at-large in free, ongoing elections. It was necessary to overcome the undue advantage that our two-senators-per-state system gives to the dominant and wealthy. The demos-style election of all 100 senators from the nation at-large fills perfectly all the criteria for the ideal at-large electoral process.

Currently each state's quota of representatives is elected by dividing the state into electoral districts in which one representative is elected within each district. Using the ideal at-large electoral model, all 435 or so representatives to the House of Representatives could be elected from the nation at-large as was done with the election of senators.

But I did not do this. Why? In part because it wasn't really necessary and in part because I thought it important to keep one of the branches of the legislature coupled to geographical area. If the members of both the senate and the house were elected from the nation at-large, then, really, aside from size what would be the difference between them? By leaving the election of representatives tied to states a significant difference is created between the senate and the house. While a few senators' constituencies may be mostly limited to a large urban area, the constituencies of most senators would extend beyond state borders and even nationwide. Each representative's constituency is restricted to a given state. Thus, as "horse trading" and "wheeling and dealing" take place within and between the senate and house during the legislative process, there is insured in the process a great mix of national and state interests.

I kept the election of representatives tied to states, but I eliminated all state electoral districts. All of a state's representatives are elected at-large within the state. This mostly overcomes the wealth-dominated, one-elective-office-per-district problem and empowers each member of the electorate to join with others to select their champions, but it does not do so perfectly. Some states only have two representatives. The at-large election within a state of only two representatives does not fare any better than does the at-large election of two senators. The election of both representatives may be dominated and bought.

But most states have three or more, often several, representatives, approaching and readily satisfying the at-large electoral ideal. Thus, while not perfect, the at-large election of representatives within states works well enough to empower the lower middle class, the working poor, and minorities to elect their champions to the house, all the while giving us the desired coupling to geographical area and the desired interplay of national and state interests during the legislative process.

Also, power is distributed in many different ways, preventing any particular group from gaining an undue measure.

With just one office to fill, electing the president by direct popular vote from the nation at-large falls well short of the at-large electoral ideal of electing several candidates to a body from the same large pool. But at least the candidates will not be only wealthy or wealth-serving.

To win office a candidate would likely have to appeal to a very broad spectrum of voters and have a long track record proving his or her service to the entire electorate and to the nation as a whole. And in the ongoing demos electoral system a candidate would likely remain within a small group in the upper regions of the Presidential Candidates list for a long while being well studied and deliberated by the electorate before gaining office.

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In the ongoing demos electoral process, all three Candidates lists would function in the same way. The names on each list would slowly change over time as the names of new candidates were added by demos members and other names were removed for various reasons, e.g., candidates died, no longer qualified for office, or withdrew. The names of the candidates who possessed the most votes at any given moment would be at the tops of their appropriate lists and would be actually seated in office. They would be followed in descending order on the lists by the names of others that possessed fewer and fewer votes.

The person whose name was at the top of the Presidential Candidates list would actively sit as president of the United States. Once in office, the president would remain in office for a minimum of three years no matter what his or her ranking became in the Presidential Candidates list during those years. Demos members who had a vote riding on a candidate at the time the candidate gained office or who voted to further support an already seated president during his or her initial three years could not change their votes until the three year period has ended. (This is the exception I mentioned earlier in the book to a voter's ability to change any of his or her demos votes at any time. The same rule holds for senators and representatives.) Beyond the initial three years the president would remain in office only so long as he or she retained enough votes to stay at the top of the Presidential Candidates list up to a maximum of eight years in office. However long his or her term lasted, the individual could never seek or hold the office again.

Candidates earning enough votes to hold one of the top 100 positions on the Senatorial list would actively sit as senators in the Senate. Once in office, a senator would remain in office for a minimum of three years no matter what his or her ranking became in the Senatorial Candidates list during those years. Demos members who had a vote riding on a candidate at the time the candidate gained office or who voted to further support an already seated senator during his or her initial three years could not change their votes until the three year period has ended. Beyond the initial three years a senator would remain in office only so long as he or she retained enough votes to stay somewhere within the top 100 positions on the Senatorial Candidates list up to a maximum of six years in office. Once bumped from office or having finished the maximum term, the now ex-senator could serve again if desired after a three year waiting period.

Each state's allotment of representatives would be elected at-large by the members of the demos living within the state. In accordance with the number of representatives allotted for the state, the people with the most votes in the state's Representative Candidates list would actively sit as representatives for the state in the House of Representatives. Once in office, a representative would remain in office for a minimum of two years no matter what his or her ranking became in his or her state's Representative Candidates list during those years. Demos members who had a vote riding on a candidate at the time the candidate gained office or who voted to further support an already seated representative during his or her initial two years could not change their votes until the two years have ended. Beyond the initial two years a representative would remain in office so long as he or she retained enough votes to stay within the allotted number of top positions of his or her state's Representative Candidates list up to a maximum of four years in office. Once bumped from office or having finished the maximum term, the now ex-representative could serve again if desired after a two year waiting period.

With waiting periods between terms of serving in the senate or the house, voters would be encouraged to explore other candidates for office. And yet good people, which, as we all know, can be hard to find, could be periodically reelected building experience and wisdom. Breaks between terms of service would periodically free those who serve from the narrow focus of Washington and keep them in touch with the larger reality of the lives and needs of everyday people. It would also give them time for personal affairs and family.

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Along with its Candidates list, each of the three demos issue pages pertaining to the election of the president, senators, and representatives would contain the tools necessary for voting for a candidate, for adding and removing names from the Candidates list, for organizing the list as desired, for browsing through the list, and for searching for names. Who the member currently perusing a Candidates list is currently voting for would also be indicated. Each electoral issue's voting page should also contain some basic electoral information such as a brief description of the constitutional qualifications, e.g., age and residency requirements, for the electoral seat or office. Each electoral issue's page would also contain links that lead to a hierarchy of other pages containing more general electoral information and possibly to an area for general discussion about the issue's electoral process and political office.

Along with each candidate's name, his or her rank in the Candidates list would be displayed, the number of votes the candidate currently has, and if the candidate is currently seated in office. And the name would be accompanied by a link to a standard set of demos information about the candidate and a link to pro and con member discussion about the candidate. Centered on the candidate's own views, a combination of member voting and a mathematical round robin (described in the chapter entitled _Consensus Democracy_ ) should be used to initially organize and present the pro and con member discussion, which a visiting member may then reorder as desired.

Selecting a name on the Candidates list would display the candidate's campaign for office in his or her personal demos space. Each candidate's campaign pages would follow a standard layout and format designed by demos officials. These pages would contain the candidate's campaign speech, discussion of and positions taken on issues of the day, campaign information, and links to the candidate's campaign efforts outside the demos, the same standard set of demos information about the candidate as can be directly linked to from his or her name in the Candidates list, and his or her actual voting record from current or previously held offices.

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The free, ongoing, at-large demos method of electing the president, senators, and representatives would open doors for candidates and voters and introduces fairness into the electoral process in several ways. Since any constitutionally qualifying individual's name could be placed into a Candidates list at no cost and reside within the list indefinitely, there would be no monetary or time constraints placed upon candidates who are trying to express their political messages and run for office. While money would still "talk" throughout our society and lend support to wealthier and wealth-serving candidates, a congress that resembles and represents the entire electorate would strike balanced laws and rules about the use of money and media in the electoral process. And within the demos all candidates would have opportunity to be heard and gain support. Even a poor candidate with excellent ideas could be heard and become elected. Poor members of the electorate could organize and work within and outside the demos in support of their champions. As a largely unknown candidate with a growing constituency moved significantly upward in a Candidates list, the always hungry media would likely pick up on "the news," "the phenomenon" and give the candidate even more free visibility. Voters could take however much time they wanted to become familiar with various candidates and to express their views to other members of the demos including folks living in their own communities. Slow-building, grass-roots movements could elevate candidates in the Candidates lists over a long period of time. In fact, grass-roots movements started elsewhere could be moved into the demos within the candidate's personal demos space.

The single most important result of all of this is that poor and minority voters would no longer be forced by the electoral system to be joined at the hip as they are today with wealthy and majority candidates who do not really champion their interests. The wealthy (and anyone else that could manage to scrape the money together) could still use the media for political ends, but now other powerful political forces are facilitated such as community and minority self-education and action, which are ineffectual in today's periodic, fast paced, money-driven electoral system. Poor and minority voters would be empowered by the free, ongoing, at-large demos electoral system to support their own champions and to take _as much time as needed_ to educate similar others as to which candidates truly serve their interests. And remember, voting on the demos' nine economic and three electoral issues would be a civic obligation. Millions of poor and less educated people and disenchanted dropouts who currently do not vote would be politically educated and motivated by their more astute peers and vote in the demos.

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Many kinds of alternate electoral schemes have been proposed or are in effect today around the world that attempt to create improved participation within and representation by government of the entire populace. Attempts are made to remedy or mitigate the ill effect that extreme amounts of money and other resources have on elections, the lesser of evil dilemma, the third candidate spoiler problem, and the lack of representation. Such schemes include electoral money management, term limits, ranked or ordered preference voting, proportional party representation, and others. Ranked or ordered preference voting takes into account each voter's second, third, etc. choices of a candidate for an office. With proportional party representation, political parties run several candidates who win office in proportion to the number of votes the parties have won. There are many variations of each scheme.

And yet, in every country in the world powerful, wealthy elites continue to hold hegemonies of power during elections and in their governments. The reason is that the many electoral schemes proposed and tried so far are really superficial patches that fall well short of correcting the problems they attempt to address. Further, the very complexity of most would-be electoral remedies biases the electoral system in favor of those who are the most sophisticated and cunning and against the many voters they attempt to help.

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Some people idealistically propose that those who populate the electoral seats of government should not be biased career politicians but ordinary citizens selected at random or objective scientists or supposed "experts" who work together to make high-minded laws and policies that benefit the entire populace and the nation as a whole. But in real life every person has particular world and political views, and there is no such thing as an unbiased or apolitical person.

Many people, if not most of us, lack sufficient wisdom, vision, and capability to occupy electoral office. Random selection of ordinary people is not a good idea. Many mediocre people would end up in office, and they would create many shortsighted and narrow-minded laws.

'Experts' and even scientists can often be as biased and subject to poor judgment and decisions as members of the general populace. Not to pick on scientists, but by way of example, anyone who has studied the historical and current feuds among scientists understands well the bias, prejudice, and political intrigue within the scientific community.

Try as we may to be objective, we are subjective, not objective, beings, particularly when it comes to economic fairness and moral and value judgments. The idealistic wish that governing entities be objective, apolitical, managerial bodies is a pipedream. The best that we can achieve are candidates that pass through a long process of scrutiny and democratic deliberation by members of the electorate and representative bodies that demographically resemble to the fullest extent possible the _entire_ electorate in body, mind, pocketbook, and interests. The demos method of electing the president, senators, and representatives to office would achieve these goals as much as is humanly possible and give us our greatest possibility of finding and electing visionary, high-minded, just, capable people to office.

Although objectivity and impartiality are elusive qualities that in reality do not exist when it comes to moral and value judgments, those who are not convinced of this and who want to elect to office someone they deem to be objective and impartial would, in the form of the demos electoral process, have in hand the tool to do this. Unlike the current electoral system, which for the most part insures the election of wealthy and wealth-serving people, the demos electoral system would empower the members of the electorate to elect to office _any_ people they want who constitutionally qualify.

The offices of the president, senators, and representatives are surrounded by expert career people whose function, among others, is to guide and aid new officeholders, including officeholders who are not career politicians. This support staff is what makes the election of new people possible. One job of the elected officeholder is, of course, to never fail to remember who is the help and who is the boss.

The demos electoral system does not unrealistically depend upon supposed idealism, high-mindedness, objectivity, or impartiality of candidates or voters. It is a robust system based upon each of us seeking our self-interests. But, unlike our current electoral system, which overwhelmingly favors the interests of the wealthy, the demos system achieves a just balance of all of our interests. The surprisingly simple, free, ongoing, at-large demos electoral system achieves fair participation and demographically proportional representation within our government's representative bodies without resorting to quota systems or to complex electoral schemes such as ranked list voting and proportional party representation.

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Along with the distribution of power, our _economic_ relationship with each other and our nation's overall distribution of wealth are profound _moral_ issues. In fact, they are the most important of all moral issues. Our nation's extreme economic imbalance more deeply and adversely affects our lives than any other of our many problems. And, whatever other problems one must bear, one's personal exclusion from effective participation in the political-economic system seriously worsens one's situation and life. The just inclusion and effective participation of each of us in the political-economic system would make possible our repair of most of our nation's currently intractable political, economic, and social problems.

One must first obtain political power before one can pursue any of one's interests and achieve any of one's goals in the political arena. The demos with its nine economic and three electoral issues and the attainment of honest representation in the other branches of government achieve a fair measure of power for all members of the electorate.

Holding real political power at long last, what should be a voter's most vital interest in the political arena?

While participating in the political process, each member of the electorate should hold uppermost in mind and action his or her _economic_ interests. All of one's other interests should be held secondary. Within the political arena, one should join together with like-minded others to first secure the means to feed, clothe, shelter, and achieve economic security for one's self and family before pursuing any other political or social dreams or goals.

The wealthy already know the truth of this. Cunning wealthy politicos and those they serve steadfastly pursue the gold while using secondary "hot-button" social issues to politically distract others and manipulate them into forking over their gold. Empowered by the demos to act in their own interests, all members of the electorate would need to learn what policies, rules, laws, and institutions are in their best economic interests and how to effectively pursue them in the political arena without being distracted by the secondary, hot-button social issues. The free, ongoing demos deliberative and connective processes and related national and community organization and action provide a place, a way, and unlimited time for this never ending educational process to take place.

Whatever other qualities one desired in a candidate, first and foremost one should be sure that a candidate truly represents one's _economic_ interests. If one's candidate gets elected to office, one should make sure the officeholder does not stray from representing one's economic interests. If the officeholder does stray, then one should vote for some other candidate instead.

While one's economic interests have several facets, let's simplify the discussion by saying that they are most simply determined by the amount of one's annual income and total accumulated wealth. One should vote for candidates who look after the interests of people with one's level of income and wealth. If each voter did, indeed, understand his or her true economic interests and voted accordingly, the house and senate would end up populated by people that represent economic interests in demographic proportion to the actual income and wealth levels of the general populace.

Now, a wise voter would unfailingly keep the matter of economic self-interest above all other considerations. But there would be many candidates running for office and a voter would have other interests that he or she could _and should_ consider. To a woman, it may and should be important that the number of women seated in office be in proportion to the number of women in the electorate, about 50%. Therefore, _from among the candidates that she believes would look after her economic interests_ a woman may and should select a woman. One could further refine or fine-tune one's selection considering race, moral views, etc. Electing senators from the nation at-large and representatives from states at-large would create large enough pools of candidates to strongly enable voters to reach out to each other in support of candidates who truly resemble and represent them. Each voter could at any time evaluate his or her votes to see if they are being used most wisely for self-interest and freely change them as desired.

With one's principal focus on one's economic interests, one may not always be able to as fully pursue one's secondary interests as one would like when selecting a candidate. No candidate would match one's views and interests entirely or vote exactly as one would like. Therefore, it would always be a matter of judgment as to how well a candidate satisfies one overall and as to whether some other candidate would be more satisfactory. While a voter could not perfectly juggle many criteria, one should usually be able to judge fairly well whether or not one's economic interests are represented adequately by a candidate or officeholder. Voters would have access to a wealth of demos supplied and other information and many different resources. There would almost certainly be many different organizations rating and judging candidates in many different ways using all kinds of criteria.

While some voters might feel most comfortable voting for candidates that resemble them in economic class, gender, race, ethnicity, etc., it would certainly not be necessary that one do so. It would be most crucial that one votes for people that truly serve one's interests as demonstrated by actions and voting records. A wise voter would understand that a candidate who demographically resembles one does not necessarily support one's interests and a candidate who demographically differs may well best champion one's interests. One does not need to resemble you to serve you well. There is no shortage of altruistic people among us who rise above their personal demographic characteristics in the service of others and the greater good.

If and when a demos and consensus democracy were added to our government and people were able to vote for anyone they wanted to represent them, it might take a great deal of reeducation before America's then current crop of politically clueless people stopped voting for multimillionaire rock stars or television evangelists. It might take an agonizingly long while before they became politically streetwise and voted intelligently in their self-interest. Long held clueless and ineffectual by the plutocracy, the then current generation may have to die and be replaced before the economic bottom half learns enough to participate intelligently in the political arena.

By being taught at the high school level—something that will be discussed later—and by long participation in the demos, each voter and each generation of voters would become increasingly politically street wise. Take heart, O you cynic! It may not matter much how the excluded vote in a plutocracy, but, facilitated by the true democracy that is proposed here, voters will in time learn their interests and how to effectively pursue them. And, to politically survive, officeholders will learn to serve honestly and effectively.

Whatever other attributes, characteristics, and political positions one sought in a candidate, the candidate should be able to participate effectively in the legislative and governing "wheeling and dealing" and "horse trading" processes. If a group of, say, religious fundamentalist voters or voters with a rigid, uncompromising ideology elected to the senate or house someone who simply harangued and blew hot air day after day in congress on a limited set of issues, neither giving nor taking, never willing to compromise or trade on anything, than the congressperson could not gain anything for his or her constituency other than, perhaps, the satisfaction of hearing the person rant. These voters will have thrown away their economic and other interests on a dysfunctional candidate. The demos would only make it _possible_ for each member of the electorate to seek his or her interests. It would not guarantee that voters understood their self-interests, chose wisely, and actually achieved their self-interests. All voters would need to understand that their own needs and views exist in a sea of other needs and views and that only those who give a little manage to receive anything from the political process. A voter must ask: While my candidate and I are of like mind, is the candidate that currently carries my vote actually achieving anything and serving my interests?

As discussed earlier, one's vote must remain with a selected candidate during the initial portion of his or her term in office. But at all other times one could change one's vote as often as one wished over time. If one saw that a candidate who does act in one's economic interest has many more votes including one's own than is really needed to win or stay in office, then one could switch one's vote to some other candidate who looks after one's interest and who needs more support.

Keeping in mind that the demos electoral process is not periodic but ongoing, the overall result of our freely changing our votes over time as wisdom and self-interest dictate would be that votes would flow like water, so to speak. There would be a ripple effect of some ever shifting portion of voters seeking and finding the right candidates and a senate and house with a slowly shifting membership that resembles in several general ways the demographic distribution of the entire electorate in body, mind, interests, and pocketbook and that truly represents the broad interests of the entire electorate. Most of the vote shifting would occur among candidates already seated in office during the second portion of their terms and among several candidates not currently in office but sporting a goodly number of votes, thus having the greatest potential to win office. As the distribution of wealth, the physical features of individuals, and the interests and moral and other values of the electorate shifted over the decades and centuries, the demographics of the house and the senate would automatically and peacefully follow those of the nation as a whole.

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How would the demos electoral system deal with the "lesser of evils" and the "third candidate spoiler" problems that plague our current system?

The lesser of evils problem only exists in America's current, two-party electoral system, which is essentially left to the marketplace. Virtually all candidates are wealthy or they are financed and, therefore, preselected by the wealthy and are wealth-serving. The non-wealthy usually find themselves reluctantly picking from among them what they guess may be lesser evils that don't really serve their interests.

In the demos electoral system, one would not be picking a stranger from a short list preselected by the wealthy. One would pick directly from or add to a long list of candidates the name of someone that one has long studied, knows well, and trusts to be a champion of one's interests. Thus, the lesser of evils problem simply wouldn't exist in the demos electoral system.

In today's third candidate spoiler problem, one dares not take one's vote away from one's lesser of evils between the Republican and Democratic candidates in favor of one's favorite third party or independent candidate (who likely will not win anyway) because that helps the greater of one's two major evils to win.

However, in the demos electoral system, particularly with one's choice for a senator and a representative, one's focus would not be toward "the evils" but toward one's favorite candidates. With senators elected from the nation at-large and representatives from states at-large and one only being able to vote for one candidate for senator with a hundred positions to be filled and one for representative with several positions to be filled, one couldn't prevent by voting what one perceives to be "the evils" from being elected. Of necessity, one must focus on voting wisely for one's own interests by voting for one's champions.

Although each demos member could only vote for one candidate for each office, during demos deliberations one could still participate in arguments for and against any number of other candidates, thus attempting to influence other people's votes. And one could "enlighten" one's family members, friends, co-workers, and others in the community as to which candidates best serve their interests.

What would happen to our current two principal political parties in the demos electoral system? The two major parties would almost certainly die the inglorious political death that they so richly deserve. Their wealth-serving hegemony of power would become fragmented and would be replaced by slowly shifting constellations of several parties, interest groups, and independent others that are vastly more representative of the entire electorate than the current parties ever have been.

Realistically, perfect representation of the entire populace is an ideal that can be approached but not fully achieved. Under the demos electoral system, the house and senate would evolve _toward_ a more just representation of the entire populous and yet likely not achieve it completely. Even so, like our use of BC and AD in our calculation of dates, the difference between our current plutocracy and beyond plutocracy under the true democracy of the consensus government described here would be transcendental, a continental divide in our nation's history and in human affairs. We would move to a whole new level of relationship with each other and a whole new way of being.

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In Joseph J. Ellis's marvelous book "Founding Brothers," Ellis discusses George Washington's _Farewell Address_ , printed in a Philadelphia newspaper near the end of his second term as president. Ellis writes of Washington's "plea for a politics of consensus serving as a warning against single-issue political movements, or against the separation of America into racial, ethnic, or gender-based constituencies." Others since the time of the founders have reiterated this plea.

And yet, there is a difficulty with this argument. During the time of our new, fragile national government, the argument may have had some merit. But our government is much stronger now and can readily tolerate such constituencies. Moreover, the centuries have demonstrated that such constituencies are a natural and necessary part of the political process.

The founders' creation of a government populated by a single constituency, the wealthy, to the exclusion of all others has proven disastrous for all other Americans. And it has not eliminated constituencies either, for, divided by interests and regions, the wealthy themselves fall into constituencies. There is no getting away from constituencies or interest groups. It is by the wheeling and dealing and horse trading among constituencies that laws are created and the business of government (and, indeed, the whole world) is conducted. By eliminating all other constituencies from government and allowing only the constituency of the wealthy to do the horse trading within itself, all that has been accomplished is to cut everyone else out of the deal, much to their detriment.

The partial redesign of the American government as proposed here would put all major constituencies into the political arena _inside government_ where they may effectively wheel and deal and horse trade with the wealthy constituency that is currently there. A demos would create a single body constituted of the entire electorate. Therefore, it would include every constituency, and, moreover, guarantee by the very nature of its structure and function their achieving consensus on the demos issues. This in itself is a politics of consensus. But it goes further in its building of consensus. Electing senators from the nation at-large and representatives from within states at-large would allow various groups of people to come together to elect, as it were, one of their own. To the constituency of the wealthy currently populating the senate and the house many more would be added, giving all of the major constituencies in America real horse trading power on a level playing field where they could achieve a much broader consensus then that achieved today.

If government by the wheeling and dealing and the horse trading among constituencies is seen as an evil, then it is a far greater evil that government includes only one constituency, the wealthy. If it is not the notion of constituencies per se but _single-issue_ constituencies that disturbs one, then one should consider that the most persistent and powerful single-issue constituency of all, the wealthy, has reigned supreme and alone throughout our nation's history, which only makes it more of the same in our long, sorry human history.

And yet, when the constituency of the wealthy is examined closely, one finds many shades of gray, though narrowly focused around a common interest. This would be the case as well for most of the other constituencies that earned a place within government. Each constituency would present something of a unified agenda even as it warred within itself. The argument against single-issue, racial, ethnic, gender-based, etc. constituencies simply doesn't hold water. They are and always have been an ever present political reality. But heretofore all have been barred from effective participation in the political-economic process by the dominant constituency of a powerful, wealthy minority.

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Unlike the nine demos economic issues, which do not involve officeholders, the three electoral issues would face the problem of officeholders or candidates for office dying or become unable to serve for one reason or another. Candidates lists would require continuous attention to keep them accurate and up to date. With the cooperation of demos members, it would be up to the officials and technicians who maintain the demos to verify three things for each name in the Candidates lists: 1) The name is that of a real, living person. 2) The person wants to be a candidate. 3) The person constitutionally qualifies for the office being sought. While the demos could, when necessary, engage in a simple, standard search procedure when contact with a candidate has been lost, the responsibility for maintaining some means of communication with the demos should be borne by the candidate.

When a current officeholder or any other person in a Candidates list died, was removed from a list for lack of qualification, simply could not be located after standard search means had been used and a standard length of time had passed, or the candidate removed his or her own name from a list, then every demos member currently voting for the person would be notified as follows: A trigger would be placed into the demos voting system. Whenever any demos member voting for the person used any voting terminal to connect to the demos system, which, recall, would be required at least once a year, the system would automatically notify the voter of his or her need to cast a new vote for president, senator, or representative. Also, a demos member could opt to receive email notification when one of his or her votes required updating. For the more prominent persons on Candidates lists, demos voters may well learn about their need to update a vote via other sources, e.g., the evening news, and know to recast a vote at that time.

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The consensus of the demos on its issues would serve as our "social contract" and set some values that government, businesses, and individuals must use as they conduct their business and live their lives. But what if elective office or seat holders of the representative branches of government attempted by their action or inaction to ignore or subvert the consensus of the demos, which, after all, represents the will of the people? Along with its empowering all members of the electorate to elect their champions to office in the first place, the demos electoral system would empower them to remove their support from officeholders during the second portion of their terms and support other candidates instead.

Given our current manner of conducting elections, the wrong people easily gain office and evade and contradict the will of the electorate. Given 1) the free, ongoing, at-large demos electoral system described here with candidates slowly gaining votes and marching up the Candidates lists over time; 2) the demos member's increased interest, knowledge, and ability to select not just someone put on a short list by the elite but anyone he or she thought truly worthy and capable; 3) all of the ready information, candidates' expressed views, actual voting records, and pro and con debate; and 4) the voter's ability to change a vote at any time; candidates and officeholders would as a matter of survival be less responsive to the money of the elite and more responsive to the will of "we the people," all of the people.

Chapter 22

The Extremes and the Rate of Change of the Demos Consensus on Issues

Fearing monarchy, the founders created a government with divided powers. Fearing the rule of the mob they also prevented democracy, opting instead for what in is effectively a plutocracy, that is, rule by them, the wealthy aristocracy. In creating a demos consisting of every able, of-age citizen in the nation and admitting this "mob" into government as a fourth branch, would we be creating an entity that is all action and no brain that may careen out of control to wild extremes? Could the demos cause change—and, moreover, very bad change—faster than we as a society could reasonably absorb or correct?

Using its limited power within consensus government's larger context of balanced powers, the demos would, indeed, be capable of effecting profound social change. Depending on the consensus of the demos on various issues, theoretically many radical forms of relationship among us would be possible.

If we voted to pay no taxes at all to support government, then we would have no government but anarchy. Or we could opt for a small, medium, or large size government. At its most extreme we could elect to tax ourselves 100% and, therefore, turn all of our resources over to government, have no private property, and become a socialist state. We could elect to have no personal income and inheritance taxes and tax only business to support government. This would in effect become a consumption tax, but instead of the consumption tax being in the form of a sales tax tacked on at the point of retail sale, it would be tacked on at points along the production and distribution process. We could set business and personal taxes in such a way as to effectively eliminate almost all variation in wealth, creating a great leveling and something near communism. We could set a business and personal flat tax that would allow any amount of accumulated business and personal wealth, a sort of laissez faire capitalism. A low flat tax would create a small government that interfered little in the affairs of the private sector including in the distribution of wealth, which would please libertarian thinkers.

In previous chapters I have so strongly and frequently criticized the current distribution of wealth in America—10% of our population hoards 90% of our nation's wealth—and have claimed such a strong correlation between power and wealth you may have concluded that the measures proposed in this book redistribute wealth. But this is not true. They do not redistribute even one penny of wealth. The measures proposed here—a demos, etc.—merely shift a modest amount of power away from the most powerful few and toward the entire American electorate. What the electorate actually did with its measure of new power is not a given. Keep in mind that the demos would not practice majority-rule but consensus democracy. While millions of people would vote on demos issues in such a way as to narrow the distribution of wealth, millions of others would vote in a way that widens the distribution. The resulting consensus would likely be a distribution more moderate than today but far from a complete leveling.

Thus, by its setting in the demos of the size and distribution of the tax burden and other economic issues, the electorate ultimately effects the overall distribution of wealth in America. Where one resides within this distribution depends upon luck in birth, talent, and work, just as it does today. And, being empowered to elect bodies of officeholders that proportionally resemble the entire populace in body, mind, interests, and pocketbook, business and labor laws and rules will be altered and created that justly serve the entire populace.

We do not seek and it would be very undesirable to achieve a flat distribution of wealth. That would destroy incentive. We seek a distribution that does not hand an undue measure of wealth to the few but provides everyone who works a reasonable living while retaining a sufficient distribution of wealth to motivate honest entrepreneurship and labor.

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As you can see, the demos would be free to create many different kinds of economic relationship among us, some of them quite extreme. If and when a large number of people read this work, no doubt every kind of chaos will be feared and predicted (or not really feared but predicted anyway to strike fear in other peoples' hearts for political reasons).

Having had a demos, all the rest of government, and the larger society running and evolving inside my head for some thirty years, as you may guess, I also have opinions and predictions: None of the extremes mentioned above would happen. Nor would we turn into chaos; the sky would not fall; and the world would not end. Instead, our ever-evolving demos consensus would hover within very modest limits and avoid all extremes. Most people would get much but not all of what they wanted. Most people would be very pleased with our new relationship. Our modified government with its much improved balance of power would operate more smoothly and efficiently than does our current government. And it would significantly increase our sense of justness, equity, freedom, and happiness. The government described in this work would both permit and facilitate our peaceful evolution to an ever higher state of being and a greater humanity.

The principal reason that the demos would steer away from all extremes is that it is a near certainty that one could not get all of the people to agree on any one extreme at any time. It's just the way that we cantankerous and quarrelsome beings are. All extreme views would cancel each other out, and a more reasonable and moderate consensus would prevail.

The founders created and our current batch of plutocrats now maintains a government and society existing very much at an extreme. The lion's share of America's power and wealth is concentrated in relatively few hands, resulting in our current plutocracy. Having eliminated all other views in the nation from government, these extremists have no one to act as an effective counterbalance to their own extreme views and actions. Our current system allows no source of moderation and reason except the infighting among the plutocrats themselves. They argue among themselves about how best to manage their plutocracy, but there is no one in the halls of government who argues against it. Everyone else having been cut out of the deal, a properly and happily balanced society remains permanently impossible. The demos, consensus democracy, and consensus government presented in this book are designed to avoid the founders' mistake by avoiding all extremes.

### ~~~~~~~

We turn now from the question of the wisdom of placing a measure of real power into the hands of the electorate to another question. How _fast_ could the demos shift its consensus on one or more of its nine economic issues? Even if a move is moderate and reasonable in the long run, if the change occurs too fast the social fabric could be torn asunder.

### ~~~~~~~

First, it should be noted that our currently existing government, coupled with our two-party political system, all too often jerks in one direction or another entirely too rapidly and is often painfully disruptive to our lives. As the democrats or the republicans win the house or the senate or both or when a republican administration is followed by a democratic one that is in turn followed by a republican one, each strives hard to dismantle or render ineffectual what the previous group has just finished constructing and then struggles hard and as quickly as possible to throw up something else instead before their own time and capability run out. All the while people's lives are being tossed about by the turmoil of these rapidly changing political-economic seas. It is enough that we must endure a rush of technological change. Government policy should change more smoothly, and its effects should be less disruptive.

The demos and all the rest of government would function much better than our current system. But care should be taken to wisely manage the rate of change that the demos may effect upon our society.

### ~~~~~~~

There would exist within the demos natural resistance to an increase or decrease in the current consensus on each issue. Most people would be convinced that they are already voting correctly on the demos issues. Others might not be adequately attending to some issues, at least in the eyes of their peers or of various political groups. Therefore, it would take some amount of "consciousness raising" (or arm twisting, if you will) _over a period of time_ to produce significant movement in the consensus on an issue.

This would be well and good. Since the issues that would be included within the demos are those most central and fundamental in our society, significant change in the demos consensus on a given issue could produce profound social effect. To prevent chaos and crisis, profound social change _should_ happen slowly over time. That we would have time to adjust our ways and lives to the results of our decisions, the changing demos consensus should be evolutionary, not revolutionary.

### ~~~~~~~

While this natural resistance to change possessed by the demos consensus is likely all that would be required to achieve political, economic, and social change at a wise pace, it is not difficult to build into the consensus an extra, more certain control over the rate of change.

As the demos exercised its franchise over time, under the hood the included issues would form a dynamic, homeostatic mathematical system that responds to our many millions of inputs and abstractly represents our ever current democratic consensus. The ability to slow down (or speed up) the rate of change of a demos issue's consensus, if and when it was deemed prudent or useful, could be built right into the mathematical equations that are used to process the demos electorate's votes on the issue. This could be done simply by decreasing or increasing the value of a mathematical term or variable at a critical location. Each demos issue would have its own such variable so that the rate of change of each issue could be controlled independently.

A method for mathematically slowing down or speeding up the current rate of change in the demos consensus on issues is shown in Appendix 1, Figure 2. This section of Appendix 1 discusses the initial mathematical steps that would be involved in the conversion of the demos vote tallies into usable data such as the few values that our government and nation would use as they function. It is at a particular step in this conversion process that the mathematical alteration of the current rate of change of each demos issue would take place. This mathematical process will not be discussed here but is discussed in detail in Appendix 1 in the text within and surrounding Figure 2.

That such mathematical manipulation of the rate of change of the demos consensus could be done does not mean that it should be done. Such manipulation should only be used to produce a more comfortable social adjustment to the movement of the demos consensus. The ongoing change in the demos consensus should never be reversed or stopped by mathematical means or even slowed down or speeded up more than necessary. In fact, as discussed in Appendix 1, the mathematical method of altering the rate of change does not even allow the rate to be completely stopped or the direction of the change to be reversed. Such contrary manipulations would be in violation of the spirit and purpose of the demos. Mathematical manipulation could prudently alter the rate at which the consensus on this or that demos issue may change, but over time the full movement of the consensus would have to be allowed. The demos would need to rule supreme within its proper sphere of power.

### ~~~~~~~

Who would determine the proper time and amount of mathematical alteration of the rates of change of the consensus of demos issues? Such adjustments would be physically made, of course, by the technicians and mathematicians running the demos. But who would _decide_ how much adjustment, if any, would be made when and where? It must, of course, be _elected_ officials who are responsible and responsive to "we the people."

The Senate would serve our purpose well enough. As would also be the case with the house, the demos electoral system would result in a senate that is less focused on the desires of the wealthy and more responsive to the needs of the entire electorate. But the senate has a more manageable number of members than the house. And the election of senators from the nation at-large rather than from within states at-large, as is done with the house, makes the senate more perfectly representative of the entire electorate than the house, as was discussed in the previous chapter. Thus, the senate, I believe, would be most fit to govern the rate of change in the demos consensus and the rate of that portion of change in society as a whole that is affected by the demos consensus on its nine economic issues.

The most dramatic movement of the demos consensus on issues would likely occur during the months and years immediately following the institution of the demos. At the time the demos was first instituted, the demos issues would be assigned their initial values. The initial values assigned to the demos issues should reflect as much as possible the values already existing in society and government at the time the demos begins operation, such values as the aggregate sum of all taxes and fees currently collected annually to support the federal government, the percentage of collected taxes paid by business, the current amount of the national debt, the current minimum wage, the current length of the Standard Workweek, etc.

Using the method described in Appendix 1, the senate should stand ready to speed up or slow down the rate of change of one or more demos consensus values if and when it is deemed necessary for the safety of the nation. Then the demos should be set free to function as the body that it was designed to be as described in this work.

It is not the intent of this design that the senate would continuously alter the rates of change of demos issues. The senate should apply only the occasional minimal amount of alteration to the demos consensus rates of change.

The historic and current rate of change votes of every senator on every demos issue should be a matter of conveniently accessible public record. Each senator's votes should also be a part of his or her demos data, linked both to the senator's name in the Senatorial Candidates list and to the Senator's campaign for office in his or her demos personal space.

We can readily see two situations in which the senate could legitimately alter the rates of change of demos issues in an appropriate manner: 1) During the initial months and years of a newly instituted demos, it might be found prudent to foster, nurture, and ease _somewhat_ what social transition there was. 2) After the demos had settled for the most part into less dramatic movement in its consensus, there could still be the isolated case where the demos has gotten caught up in too rapid a reaction to events and its consensus is changing too rapidly on some particular issue.

As protection against undue interference with the changing consensus of the demos, the senate would be limited as to how much it may alter each demos issues' maximum annual rate of change. As shown in Appendix 1, Figure 2(a), each demos issue is assigned a default rate of change of 10% per year. The senate may as much as halve this default rate to 5% per year or double it to 20% per year.

Whether it is at the default rate of change or is set to some other rate by the senate, the current rate of change setting must be understood as the current _maximum_ possible rate of change of the consensus, not as its actual rate of change. Using the default rate of change for this discussion, when the rate is at its default of 10%, to achieve the full plus or minus 10% rate of change in a demos issue's consensus, the entire demos electorate would have to vote green (increase) or red (decrease), both highly unlikely events. Rates of change in the realm of 1% to 4% per year would be more likely.

Again, the consensus of the demos should be allowed to change as rapidly as prudence permits. Over time and in a timely manner, the demos would always need to be allowed to settle into its true current consensus. The whole point of the demos is that "we the people" would achieve a true consensus on the demos issues.

### ~~~~~~~

We have here a system of checks and balances between the demos and the senate. A demos issue's consensus may be changing at a rate that makes the senate unhappy. The senate may then alter in some measure the rate at which it is changing. The members of a determined demos may vote in even greater numbers in support of the change, overruling in part the senate's action. The senate may redouble its effort to alter the rate of change. (Senators may not only vote to directly alter the rate of change but use their offices as bully pulpits to admonish the members of the demos to alter the way they are voting.)

If the members of the demos _really_ want the consensus change and come to feel that some members of the senate are not acting in good faith, that the nation would really not be endangered by an unfettered rate of change and the senators are acting for self-serving or shortsighted political reasons, to get their way the members of the demos may even elect new senators. Remember, within its limited sphere of power, the demos must reign supreme. The senate may slow down or speed up the rate of change in a demos consensus but ultimately not stop it.

Chapter 23

Congressional Legislative Reform

Much care has been taken in this book to make proposals that adequately correct the current imbalance of power within our government that unjustly favors the powerful, wealthy few:

***** A new fourth branch, the demos, would be added to our government that opposes, compliments, and balances the current branches of government. The result is that a new balance of power would be created in which no particular faction can hold an undue measure of power.

***** The demos would consist of the entire electorate practicing a new kind of democracy called _consensus democracy_ by directly deliberating, voting, and achieving consensus on nine of our nation's most fundamental economic issues, setting economic values that our government and nation must use as they function. Along with three other economic powers, the demos would be given the sole power to tax. The entire electorate, as opposed to the privileged few, would be empowered to determine the overall size and distribution of our federal tax burden.

***** The demos would also have an entirely new electoral system for the election of the president, senators, and representatives. Senators would be elected from the nation at-large and representatives from states at-large. From these large pools, members of the electorate of similar appearance, mind, interests, and pocketbook would be empowered to reach out to each other and elect their champions to office, senators and representatives who truly resemble and represent them. No one would be stuck voting for a "lesser evil" preselected by the wealthy as is done today. This system would break the stranglehold that the wealthy currently have on our nation's electoral process and result in a senate and a house that demographically resemble and honestly serve the entire electorate. Once in office, the length of the second portion of an officeholder's term in office would depend on the electorate's continued support. One could be reelected to the senate or the house only after a break from the previous term of service.

Yet, for all of this, an important power distribution problem remains. As the senate and the house currently function, those legislators who already have advantage take even more advantage, unjust advantage. For generations, those who have held and wielded the most power in the senate and the house have taken even more power whenever and however they could manage it. The results are 1) extremely complex and intricate rules and legislative processes designed to help established members concentrate and manipulate power and 2) offices and committees chaired and populated by an "old-boys' club" of repeatedly elected, self-favoring members. They hold and wield an undue hegemony of power within the senate and the house while minimizing the power of newly elected legislators. New members are made to toe party and political lines and do what is expected of them or face severe repercussions. Thus, a potentially democratic legislative and representational process becomes subverted and monopolized by the mightiest few, and, in yet another way, the populace becomes unequally represented within government.

### ~~~~~~~

Clearly, if the redesign and reform of our government is to be successful, it must be complete. It must extend _within_ the senate and the house. This reform need not deal directly with the minutia of the current legislative rules and processes. Any injustice, inappropriateness, or inefficiency contained within the many details will be corrected in due time by the congressional membership if the following changes are made to both the house and the senate:

***** All systems of seniority and appointment should be scrapped. No senator or representative should be able to occupy any senate or house office, seat, position, or committee as a right of seniority or by appointment. All such positions should be filled by the secret voting of the entire membership of the senate or the house.

***** All rules regarding the parliamentary, procedural, and legislative processes, including within secondary or specialized offices and committees, should be determined by the secret voting of the entire membership of the senate or the house.

While voting on these matters would be conducted in secret, any debates for or against particular members or rules would be public. The particular votes cast would remain secret, but the overall vote counts would be made public. A member might elect to remain silent during such debates and as to how he or she has voted or will vote.

### ~~~~~~~

Elections of members to committees and other bodies and positions should be conducted in a manner similar to the demos electoral process. For example, all fifteen seats of a given senate committee would be filled using a single Candidates list for the committee. Within the limits of further rules that would likely apply, e.g., how many chairs or other positions a senator may occupy, each member of the senate may add his or her own or another senator's name to the committee's Candidates list or vote for a senator whose name is already on the list. Every member of the senate would have a secret vote continuously riding on one candidate for the committee that he or she may change at any time. The fifteen senators in the Candidates list for the committee currently earning the most votes would actively sit on the committee. The senator currently earning the most votes would serve as the committee chair or head. Once elected to the committee a senator would remain on the committee for a given minimum length of time after which the senator would continue to serve only so long as his or her name remains in one of the top fifteen positions on the committee's Candidates list up to a maximum length of time, if any, that a senator may remain on the committee.

This demos style method of filling all fifteen seats on the committee by each senator only being able to vote for one candidate from the senate at-large would render the selection process democratic and insure that the widest possible spectrum of views is present on the committee, conservatives would back conservative members for the committee, liberals would back liberals, etc.

A similar demos style electoral process and Candidates list would exist for every committee and other body or position in the senate and the house. As a duty of office, every senator or representative would have one vote riding on a candidate in each Candidates list that exists in the senate or house. The suitable number of candidates at the top of each body's or position's Candidates list would be seated in the body or position. When a senator or representative lost his or her seat, the senator's or representative's votes in the Candidates lists would be "inherited" by the new, incoming senator or representative who may alter one or more votes at any time as desired.

Any currently existing legislative rule or procedure could at any suitable time be subjected to the same deliberative and secret voting process as any newly proposed rule or procedure. To prevent the excessive creation, modification, and rescinding of rules, all rule changes would require a two-thirds super-majority vote of the senate or the house membership. A two-thirds super-majority vote requirement would also protect against the creation of rules and procedures that somehow favor a very narrow simple majority led by ideological or other extremists. Requiring the achievement of a two-thirds majority would favor more moderate rules and procedures that serve the nation as a whole.

While I do not make it a formal proposal in this work, I would like to see the senate dump the filibuster overboard.

The intent of _secret_ voting while populating committees and designing parliamentary and procedural rules is to free all members, but in particular the newer and weaker members, of the senate and the house from the oversight and control of parties, power groups, and stronger members. This would significantly democratize these processes and, ultimately, the entire legislative process.

The debate of and voting on _legislation_ being proposed and considered should be entirely a matter of public record.

### ~~~~~~~

The consensus style democracy and voting method practiced by the demos when voting on its nine economic issues could also be admirably applied within the senate and the house where applicable.

Recall from earlier discussion that for an issue to be handled by the consensus democracy voting method in the demos it must be numerically expressible and lend itself to mathematical treatment by the demos computers. But most political questions, e.g., _Should the nuclear plant be built?_ , are of a yes/no nature and do not lend themselves to consensus democracy, require the majority-rule, winner-take-all voting method of old, and must be left to other areas of government and society. Further, the demos could only handle a very limited number of clear, easily presentable issues. Therefore, there would be no shortage of less important numerically expressible issues that would also have to be left to other areas of government and society along with the majority-rule issues, e.g., _What should be the size NASA's annual budget?_

Although most of the issues that are handled by the senate and the house are of the yes/no, majority-rule form, they handle many numerically expressible issues that could and should be handled by consensus style democracy. This would result in values for the issues that homeostatically hover about moderate norms over time like the demos economic issues, as opposed to the periodic, jerky, majority-rule, winner-take-all tug of war among officeholders that we have today.

Perhaps an issue that _could_ be handled in a consensus democracy manner by the senate or the house would only be handled so if two-thirds of the senate or the house members voted to make it so. Then it would become an ongoing issue with each member of the senate or the house having a vote—increase, keep as is, or decrease—permanently riding on the issue that he or she may change at any time. An incoming senator or representative would inherit the votes of the outgoing officeholder, votes that he or she may change at any time.

### ~~~~~~~

Today in America we are deeply divided over many issues. Both within the general populace and within congress, we are rapidly becoming increasingly polarized at extreme positions on the issues. Despite our differing views, a demos would automatically produce a moderate, peacefully evolving consensus on its nine economic issues. And the demos electoral process would automatically result in a senate and a house that demographically resemble the entire electorate in body, mind, interests, and pocketbook, which may also be taken to be the electorate's consensus. The moderate, reasonable consensus of the demos on issues would produce a political center toward which many minds would shift, strengthening the center, the common ground, and weakening the extremes.

Using consensus style democracy in the senate and the house (and in other areas of government) when and wherever it could be applied would have a similar effect on the operation of the legislature and the government as a whole. Both economically and politically, the legislature and the government as a whole would tend toward a moderate center and away from extremes.

Given this shifting toward common ground and a huge measure of peacefully evolving, moderate agreement within the electorate and its elected representatives, those issues on which people still remained extreme and intractable would be much less earthshaking and disruptive to our society.

A political-economic system is not neutral. It affects the mental state of everyone living under it, in a way molding everyone into its image. A system of extremes creates a populace of extremes. Change the system to one of inclusion, justness, and moderation and its citizens will move away from extreme polarization on most issues most of the time and toward peaceful common ground.

### ~~~~~~~

Unlike many people's proposals for correcting what ails our government, no attempt is made in this work to render the details of the legislative process or the resulting legislation more rational or high-minded. While such reforms are, indeed, needed, no reforms of legislative details will correct what is most fundamentally wrong with our government. Without first correcting the profoundly unbalanced distribution of power within our government by the creation of a demos and the other proposals made in this book, rendering the legislative process more efficient and rational would only create a more efficient injustice. Once the fundamental distribution of power problem is corrected and the senate and house are populated by a distribution of people that resembles the entire electorate in body, mind, interests, and pocketbook and truly represents the entire electorate, then the members of the now-more-democratic senate and house would be in the position to and should correct in a just manner what ails the legislative process and current legislation.

Human beings and their actions will never be entirely rational. It is irrational to expect them to devise an entirely rational legislative process. While significant reform of the current legislative process is possible, one should not expect the legislative process to rise very much above the level of "horse trading" and "wheeling and dealing." Under the partial redesign of government proposed in this book, at least the horse trading will be conducted by members of bodies that resemble and truly represent the entire populace and function more democratically.

With legislative bodies that resemble and represent the entire populace, there is every reason to harbor the hope that government will serve the greater good and we may at long last achieve "the good society."

### ~~~~~~~

This book contains no alterations _within_ the judicial branch of our government. The Supreme Court already functions as well as can be expected.

However, our current manner of selecting justices for the Court is deeply flawed. It can and does result in excessive liberal-conservative swings in the Court. Therefore, the manner in which justices would be selected for the Supreme Court is changed as follows:

The president would no longer select and the senate would no longer confirm candidates as is done today. People would be elected to the Court in a manner similar to the ongoing process of electing the president, senators, and representatives in the demos. That is, all nine of the Court's judicial positions would be filled by people elected from the nation at-large, with each voter keeping a vote continuously riding on only one candidate, that he or she may change at any time. However, in the case of Supreme Court justices, people would not campaign or run for office. And the electoral process would not take place in the demos or involve the entire electorate. It would take place in congress and involve all of its members jointly, (not the senate and house as separate bodies).

However many people received votes, the nine people in the Judicial Candidates list currently possessing the most votes (and who accepted office) would be seated as justices. Among them, the person currently holding the most votes of all would be seated as Chief Justice.

However, before a potential justice may be seated in the Court, he or she must appear before a formal joint congressional committee that publicly examines his or her constitutional qualifications, legal experience and competence, and political, social, and legal views. The committee would not vote on the candidate but only ask questions. Just as at any other time, during this proceeding any member of congress may alter his or her vote for a Supreme Court justice candidate. Thus, at this eleventh hour, a potential justice could still lose sufficient support to actually become a justice.

Having passed through this process and still retaining a sufficient number of votes, the candidate would become a seated member of the Court. Once elected to the Court, a justice would remain a member of the Court for a minimum of eight years and, beyond that, only so long as he or she retained a sufficient number of congressional votes to remain in one of the top nine positions in the Judicial Candidates list. Once a justice retires or loses sufficient support to stay on the Court, he or she may never be elected to the Court again.

No congressional hearing would be required but only the gaining of a sufficient number of votes for an already-seated Supreme Court justice to be elevated to the position of Chief Justice. Once elected Chief Justice, one would remain Chief Justice for a minimum of four years and beyond that only so long as he or she held the top position in the Judicial Candidates list. A person could lose the position of Chief Justice and still retain enough votes to remain a member of the Court. So long as the justice retains a sufficient number of votes to remain a member of the Court, he or she could lose and later regain enough votes to serve as Chief Justice repeatedly.

When a senator's or a representative's time in office ended for whatever reason, then his or her vote for a Supreme Court justice is inherited by the replacement officeholder. The new officeholder may than alter the vote at his or her pleasure.

Under our current government and under any kind of government in which people make the choices, the appointment of justices is and always will be politically motivated. Justices are not impartial in their interpretation of constitutional law, and they never will be. That is humanly impossible. To think or claim otherwise is laughable.

Disgruntled people often accuse supposedly activist Supreme Court justices of unjustly making law. But all political actions—including Court decisions, both those that change and those that preserve the status quo—are activist positions. To hang on to their undue advantage, those who most benefit from our current unjust Constitution champion a narrow interpretation that favors them. Those that the Constitution disfavors try to gain a bit of justness by interpreting the Constitution more loosely. We would do better to create a just Constitution and government in the first place, which, of course, is what this book is about.

Due to the manner in which justices are currently selected, over time the Supreme Court as a whole often swings too far toward liberal and conservative extremes. The system of electing justices proposed here would result in a Court that is both more stable and that sports a wider variety of views. Since a justice may be elected by more or less one-ninth of the congressional vote, we should expect one justice that is quite liberal and another that is quite conservative. We should expect a moderately liberal justice and a moderately conservative justice. But, like most members of the electorate and, therefore, most members of a demos-elected, truly representative congress, most members elected to the Court would be moderates. While including a wider variation in views than today, the Court as a whole would usually remain moderate in its interpretations of the Constitution.

### ~~~~~~~

So, as has been exampled in this chapter, adapted as needed the consensus democracy used by the demos for achieving consensus on its economic issues can be used wherever applicable within any government in the world and at any level of government to achieve the consensus of an electorate or the members of governing bodies on economic issues. And the free, ongoing, at-large demos style electoral system can be used by an electorate to elect officeholders to any kind of governing body at any level of government and within governing bodies to populate internal seats and positions such as committees, councils, etc. or other bodies such as courts. In every case such elections, if conducted correctly and honestly, are truly democratic and result in governing bodies, committees, etc, that demographically resemble and truly represent their entire electorates.

### ~~~~~~~

Is there anyone in the land that is not entirely frustrated by the twisted, tortured legislative process of congress as it currently functions and by the equally twisted, tortured legislation that results from the process?

Earlier I stated that the demos should have a special area for deliberation of the Constitution. Among the issues I suggested that the electorate might debate is the question: Would a single legislature be wiser than our current bicameral legislature, i.e., our current house and senate?

A few months ago I was struck by a new idea that has plagued my mind ever since. I believe my mind keeps returning to it because it is a really good idea. _I do not present this idea to you as a formal proposal in this work_ but only to lay it before you for consideration.

In the demos each member of the electorate keeps one vote riding on a candidate for senator and one vote for a representative to the house. Senators are elected at-large nationally and representatives are elected at-large within states.

Well, what if we elected to move from a bicameral to a single legislature by simply merging the house and the senate into a single body? We would end up with a legislative body with about 535 members, 100 of them elected at-large nationally for a given term of office and about 435 members elected at-large within states for a differing term.

To indicate who has been elected nationally and who has been elected within states, officeholders could even keep their current titles. But in every way—when proposing, deliberating, and voting on legislation or on changes to the legislative process itself, when voting to populate or when serving on committees, etc.—all members of the legislature would function in the same way; senators and representatives would not do specialized stuff in the legislature by virtue of their titles or the electoral paths that got them there.

The legislative process would be greatly simplified not only because today's bicameral mess got the boot (and the filibuster please!) but also because of the good effect of the two changes I described earlier in this chapter regarding a new way of populating committees, etc. and of creating and altering legislative procedures and rules. And no "old-boys' club" would dominate this simplified and more democratically functioning legislature.

What an interesting body! There would be an unending slow trickle over time of members entering and leaving the legislature, each on his or her own timeline, as terms were finished and as demos members altered their votes over time. Each member of the legislature would enjoy a widely distributed network of electoral support. Power within the legislature would be complexly distributed, no person or group possessing an excessive amount. The legislature as a whole would demographically resemble the entire electorate in body, mind, interests, and pocketbook and honestly serve the entire electorate as it created laws and rules for our market economy and the rest of our society.

Food for thought.

Chapter 24

Democracy 101

The partial redesign of the American government proposed in the preceding chapters would shoulder the lion's share of moving America beyond today's dominance and plutocracy, but two other pragmatic alterations to our government and society are proposed in this work to complete the task: the inclusion at the high school level in the American educational system of four years of classroom instruction and active participation in a true democratic process and certain changes in government laws and regulations relating to work and the compensation for work.

In this chapter I will discuss the inclusion of the study and practice of democracy within the American high school system. In the next chapter, _Government, Business, and the Definition of Labor_ , I will discuss proposed modifications in how work is defined and managed in America.

### ~~~~~~~

One principal goal (or at least one principal result) of the current American system of education, particularly that part of it directed at the common person, is not to create politically capable, questioning citizens but to create obedient, productive employees and soldiers. Our educational system conveys a childish "civic religion": worship of the forefathers, the Constitution, and "the American way." Our religion includes a mythology of freedom, democracy, equal opportunity and justice, and America's goodness and helpfulness in the world.

So thorough and effective is this 'education' that even though most people can see that a great deal is wrong with our nation few are left with the mental capacity to break through their learned religion and mythology and see what is most fundamentally true and wrong, let alone how to really fix our many ills. The notions of critical debate, evaluation, and fundamental political change are minimized or entirely ignored. God forbid that any student should question the foundation of our sacred government, the status quo, or the legitimacy of current ways. Effective political empowerment, participation, and responsibility are utterly lacking. The end result is a populace that is politically confused, apathetic, impotent, incapable, and excluded.

Inspired by William Penn's words "Let the people think they govern and they will be governed," I once wrote the somewhat clumsy but very true words, "Let the people think they have democracy and they will never seek it." Most people today have little or no understanding that America and all of the other so-called democracies in the world today are not truly democracies but plutocracies. When the founders wrote our Constitution they deliberately avoided democracy, creating instead a republic, a supposedly "representative" form of government that is really only a plutocracy wrapped in the democratic garb of voting and elections.

Voting and elections in and of themselves do not constitute democracy. Democracy is and can only be widely distributed _real_ power within the hands of the entire populace, the power to directly vote on issues of central importance to a nation and in free, honest elections for representatives that later honestly represent you. Real power means honest inclusion in and representation by government.

### ~~~~~~~

Having only experienced the meaningless, powerless 'elections' of today and never having participated in a true democracy, even of a limited sort, Americans have no idea that they are not participating in a true democracy or what even constitutes one. Americans will have to learn democracy from the ground up.

Democracy, true democracy as defined and described in this work, should be taught as the subject of a four-year course at the high school level. The differences between and the very different results of consensus democracy and majority-rule democracy should be made eminently clear. The study of democracy should be given the time, intensity, and sincerity that English, math, and science are given today. Democracy should be taught both as an academic subject and by students actually participating within the demos during their four years in high school.

Democracy and politics should be taught both in their highest ideal and in their lowest, foulest practices. Students should learn the many ways and forms in which half truths, distortions, lies of omission, and outright lies are told; how carefully crafted and laundered language is used; the abuse of 'science,' statistics, and polling; the most unscrupulous political manipulations; when character assassination is being used; the use of "hot button" issues to distract from the real, most important issues; and the many ways in which issues are avoided and the solutions to problems are delayed or evaded. Students should even learn how physical beauty and polished presentation affects people and are used to rake in votes. They should be taught to look past the superficial and see the real and the important and to recognize a pretty speech that contains nothing of substance. They should learn that the self-interests of famous people like movie and rock stars and television evangelists will usually be very different than their own self-interests and, therefore, would be the wrong people to vote for. They should be taught that everyone including—especially!—all politicians wears a public face and has private thoughts and intentions. They must learn to dig deeper than what is merely said to them, than what is claimed. Students should learn how to do research on people, issues, and events. They must learn to think critically, as in the development of skillful judgment as to truth and merit. They should engage in written and oral political expression and persuasion and learn how to engage others in issues and causes. Each student should learn what is in his or her own _true_ self-interest.

Students should study the issues included in the demos of the federal government and participate in active classroom and schoolwide debates about them. They should learn how to use demos voting terminals by actually using them to vote and participate in the real demos deliberations. (The demos debate offered by students should be clearly marked as that of students, and, of course, their votes would not yet count.)

By the time a student graduates from high school, he or she should be well versed in government and politics. The student should have a cynical and skeptical streak but healthy idealism as well. He or she should be well prepared to participate effectively as a member of the demos and as a citizen within our society.

Courses similar to the high school courses of varying depth and intensity should be available free to all age groups throughout the land. The American people have been deliberately excluded from sharing power in the American political process and have been allowed and even encouraged to sink into a state of ignorance and apathy. Paul Valery wrote, "Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them." That they may begin to participate in the affairs which properly concern them, the American people would have to learn what a true democratic process is and how to participate in it.

Chapter 25

Government, Business, and the Definition of Labor

The hectic state of work and life in America is not only a matter of historical chance. Nor is the financial desperation of the economic lower half of our society. While the advance of technology with its division of time into nanoseconds and picoseconds and of our own sense of urgently chasing after minutes and seconds has something to do with our great, modern rush, there is another fundamental cause. And while the personal finances and successes of each of us have much to do with our own talent, study, and hard work, none of us lives in a vacuum and is the sole agent of the wealth that comes one's way. Within government and industry, the political and economic laws and rules which have been created and exist in our society have a great deal to do with how long and hard we must work and who receives what rewards for effort and success.

In our political-economic system, economic success is rewarded by the accumulation of private property, of wealth. The notion of private property is, indeed, a sound principle. But it exists within the context of other 'principles' and practices which are unbalanced, corrupt, and unjust.

The materially successful person righteously exclaims, "This is my property!" Perhaps words to this effect could be true in a just society. But in an unjust society such as ours today some portion of one's wealth is not righteously earned. It is merely stolen property. That one does not go out and directly steal some particular property from some particular other, that one merely is born into and lives and conducts business within a system created by a privileged few long ago that redistributes to the few (steals) wealth created by the many, does not alter this fundamental truth.

To say that one merely is born into and lives and conducts business within a system that one did not create suggests an innocence which, in truth, does not exist. To continue to exist, the system that was created by the privileged few long ago must be and is actively sustained by the few today. The innocent child grows into an adult who learns how the system works and well knows its injustice. When conducting business and hiring others, the adult elects or not to take whatever unfair advantage over others that the system permits and fosters. The adult not only engages in immoral actions in the business world but votes for those in government who create and sustain the unjust laws, rules, and conditions under which business and labor are conducted. One may defensively exclaim, "I did not create the system! I am only trying to survive and prosper within it!" This is not an adequate defense. We are all caught within and are to some extent the victims of circumstance. But we are not _helpless_ victims. In the face of injustice clearly understood by all of us, one may choose or not to take action to change the unjust system and one's personal unjust actions within it. There are no adult innocents here.

In addition to unjustly redistributing the power and wealth of the populace to the few, our political-economic system creates or exacerbates many social ills. Despite its draconian effect on people's lives, government uses unemployment as a tool to manage the economy and to mitigate such factors as wage rates and inflation during the business cycle's expansions and contractions. Some people are made to work a great deal more than they would like to work while others would like to work but are underemployed or unemployed. All suffer various forms of illness and unhappy circumstances from this imbalance: stress, lack of leisure, physical and mental illness, family dysfunction, poverty, and hunger.

Within the current system, the personal costs of stepping off or being kicked off the "fast track" or of working less than full time are enormous. Most people cannot suffer the loss of the higher pay rates and benefits, especially healthcare benefits. Save for the leisure class, the system is geared to make most people slave in high gear until in old age they drop or are discarded to the trash heap. Millions watch what they thought were secure retirements evaporate as rules are rewritten and companies evade lifelong commitments.

Since the system politically excludes the economic bottom half of the populace and takes from it most of the fruit of its labor, a strong whip is required to serve as motivation to work. Hunger works wonders for keeping the populace in line and toting the load another day. Desperate, impoverished people create a source of cheap, obedient labor and soldiers. The fact or threat of unemployment, poverty, and even brute force strikes fear in the hearts of those who might be inclined to rise up against the system or demand justice.

And a lifelong mountain of debt serves well to keep the potentially unruly in line. Recall the lines from the song _Sixteen Tons_ sung by Tennessee Ernie Ford, "Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go. I owe my soul to the company store." Our entire system of mortgages and credit is now "the company store" which keeps the populace sufficiently enslaved and obedient for easy management and exploitation.

Whether it is true or not, it was written somewhere that at birth a Rockefeller receives five million dollars. This is not a bad start in life and not a bad idea. A wealthy nation such as ours could easily provide each child at birth with a modest sum of, say, $100,000 just for the sake of discussion. It could be conservatively invested and protected, earning daily compounded interest. Such a fund, to which employers and individuals could add money, would serve as a person's initial economic stake in life and as a nest egg in his or her old age. It could be used for the full or at least partial financing of education, housing, healthcare, and retirement. This would bring new freedom, opportunities, and possibilities into the lives of everyone. Instead of our being a nation of debtors, we could enjoy the economic and personal freedom found in being a nation of savers and investors. But as a matter of deliberate policy and action, the blind who occupy the seats of power choose to economically enslave the populace, the better to control and exploit it.

The prime forces motivating corporations, businesses, and bureaucracies are not the enrichment of human lives but profit, growth, efficient production, and self-preservation. The enrichment of lives that occurs—and there is much—is a spin-off lavished abundantly upon those whose lives are already lavishly enriched while ignoring those whose lives are impoverished. History has amply demonstrated that there is no shortage of people within government and business who are quite willing to do anything to anyone to increase business and personal profit no matter what are the social and environmental consequences.

Business will find its profits and efficiencies and set its relationship with labor, ever seeking the lowest possible cost, in any way that government promotes or favors by direct action or allows by turning a blind eye. Business has amply demonstrated through time and around the world just how low it is willing to sink in search of maximum profit. Government by its laws and rules pertaining to work has shown itself all too willing to be ever so helpful in satisfying the desires of business. Government can and does help labor to some extent. It is only good animal husbandry to keep one's economic serfs in at least minimal health and able to work and produce. But business and the personal profits of the elite class come first. This is the natural result of an electoral process and government that is essentially owned, populated, and run by the same elites that own and operate corporate America.

In recent decades we have seen business, with government's blessing, slash its work force, force its remaining employees to redouble their effort, define a small core of employees to be full time and give them a dwindling amount of perks and benefits and often longer work hours, and define most of its workers to be part-time, temporary, or "consultants" to avoid paying them healthcare and other perks and benefits. Or work is farmed out to other companies that pay lower wages and benefits or to other countries that profoundly abuse workers and do not protect the environment. Our government even rewards such practices by its tax laws. The ruthless, myopic pursuit of such policies by hosts of individual companies and by our government has impoverished the American middle class, drastically reduced the market for their own products, and caused national economic decay.

Always unfair and unjust right from its beginning, our American plutocracy now runs completely amuck. The greed and avarice of the elite both in and out of government run rampant. Money no longer simply "talks"; it reigns as our supreme principle and god. Millions have lost their pensions to corrupt business practices. Millions have lost their good-paying jobs, their health insurance, and their hard-earned, secure retirements. Americans in general and American workers in particular feel helpless and hopeless in the face of the speed and immensity of their forced decline.

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Reorganizing the powers of our government by the creation of a new, fourth branch, the demos, would go a long way toward redressing these injustices. The demos issues and other issues discussed in this work pertaining to leisure, minimum wage, taxation, the election of officials, and our political education would directly and indirectly affect work and reward in our society and mitigate our many social ills. But the good effect of a demos and the other changes discussed so far in this work would not be able to correct every business and government malaise. A great deal of the injustice and unhappiness in our society is the result of rules and laws created (or omitted) by the current bodies of government.

Many of America's unfair and irrational business and labor practices could be corrected simply by reorganizing the relationship among government, business, and labor and changing some government rules and regulations regarding the conduct of business and labor. The remainder of this chapter contains some recommended changes. These proposals are separate from the central proposal in this book for the creation of a new fourth branch of government, a demos consisting of the entire electorate, which is set in balance with the other branches of government. They should be taken as recommendations given to future demos elected members of the representative bodies of the government when those bodies' memberships demographically resemble the entire electorate in body, mind, interests, and pocketbook and honestly serve the entire electorate.

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My first recommendation is a more rational way to calculate reward for work. The basic recommendation is contained in the following six bulleted paragraphs, but there are further references to this recommendation in later text. (Not everyone will be able to follow this written description. A thirty-minute, animated, video demonstration would more effectively present the ideas.)

***** Define the length of a Standard Workweek as a certain number of work hours per calendar week. As described earlier in the book, the demos would set the number of hours in the Standard Workweek. Each calendar week would begin with what would be called "the first work hour" or more simply "the first hour." A person could work as few or many hours during each calendar week as was agreeable to him or her and the employer. At the completion of each calendar week the first hour of the next Standard Workweek would begin.

***** Eliminate the concepts of part-time, full-time, overtime, and salary work. Express all monetary reward for work as wages earned per Standard Workweek. Express all perks and benefits such as sick time, vacation time, pension, etc. in terms of minutes, dollar values, or percentages earned per Standard Workweek.

***** Using the work hour, not the workweek, to calculate all wages and benefits, pay both wages and benefits on a sliding scale, each hour earning more wages and benefits than the previous hour.

***** Using an hourly linear scale, increase the payment of wages and benefits in such a way that the work hour that is equal to the number of work hours in the Standard Workweek is paid 50% more wages and benefits than the first hour in the workweek. For example, in a 40-hour Standard Workweek, one would earn 50% more wages and benefits for the 40th hour than one earned for the first hour. An hourly wage increase _additive value_ is used to achieve this result: For a 40-hour workweek and a wage of $10.00 paid for the first hour, one would use the additive value $0.13 to calculate further hourly wages. One would be paid a $10.13 ($10.00 + $0.13) wage for the second hour, a $10.26 ($10.13 + $0.13) wage for the third hour, a $10.39 ($10.26 + $0.13) wage for the fourth hour, etc. By making this calculation repeatedly, one would end up being paid about a $15.00 wage for the 40th hour of work, about 50% more than for the first hour. The linear scale would keep increasing in the same manner past the 40th hour until the employee's last hour for the calendar week is reached. In a similar manner, use the appropriate minute, dollar, and percentage additive values to calculate the minutes, dollars, or percentage amounts of each benefit earned for each hour that one has worked during a calendar week. [11]

***** Completion of the work hour in a calendar week that equals the number of work hours in the Standard Workweek would result in one's receiving what by custom and practice would be considered to be full pay and benefits for the calendar week. For example, with a 40-hour Standard Workweek, completion of 40 hours of work would accumulate full pay and benefits for the calendar week. But this "full pay and benefits" mark would be just a point on a sliding scale. One who worked in a calendar week fewer hours than the number of hours in the Standard Workweek would receive some lesser amount of pay and benefits, and one who worked more hours than in a Standard Workweek would receive some greater amount. There would never be any extra lump sum of pay or benefits allotted for having reached any particular number of hours in a workweek or at any other moment such as holidays or when one is hired, terminated, or retired.

***** In addition to setting the length of the Standard Workweek, the demos would also set the minimum wage that could be paid for the first work hour of each Standard Workweek. This minimum wage should be accompanied by a minimum package of benefits that must be paid for the first work hour. The wage and benefits would increase with each work hour as described above. This package of benefits would be too complex for the demos to set. It should be set, therefore, by elected representatives, by congress. The minimum package of benefits should be similar to and proportional to the packages of benefits most commonly provided to employees throughout business and industry.

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Businesses and corporations are becoming more and more like perpetually transforming entities or shells which encase a dynamic flow of projects and processes. New products and services are continuously being created while old ones are discarded. The hiring, shuffling about, and laying off of employees is becoming an ever more dynamic process. The lifelong, loyal relationship between an employer and an employee is becoming increasingly rare, a ghost from a previous age. Increasingly, the principal loyalty of the employer has become to his or her business, and the principal loyalty of the employee must become to his or her own career. We need to embrace and facilitate this process by creating a whole new relationship among business, government, educational institutions, and labor. Redefining and justly rewarding labor as described here would be one important step in the right direction.

But something else is needed. So that one may "flow" from job to job or career to career in today's rapidly changing world and workplace without repeatedly falling into catastrophe, we need to change the relationship between the individual worker and the workplace. Some things currently "attached" to the individual workplace should instead be "attached" to the individual worker.

All benefits earned by an employee for each work hour should be fully funded _at the time they are earned_ , portable, and secured by law. Each employee should have a permanent personal account with a third party or agency outside the workplace into which is deposited all accumulated sick time, vacation time, pension funds, etc. These accumulated benefits in the account should not be the possession of the employer but of the employee to use or to easily take with him or her from job to job. Educational and unemployment benefits should also be accrued with each work hour and be deposited into the employee's account. All benefits would be used as the individual's life situation warrants. The idea is that the individual would move through his or her work life with an arsenal of accumulated benefits that could be used when needed. These accumulated benefits would be the individual worker's property, not the property of some particular business or of government. Throughout one's work life one should be able to convert accumulations that exceed certain minimum levels into cash to use at one's pleasure. Upon retirement one should be able to convert all remaining accumulations into cash.

Also related to the dynamic movement of labor, both the processes used by businesses and the economic and other demands placed upon businesses by government relating to the hiring, maintenance, and termination of employees should be streamlined and their costs reduced, the idea being that the costs involved in varying of the size of the workforce over time should be reduced. This would facilitate the "flow" of labor among tasks and jobs in our rapidly changing work world. The costs (other than wages and benefits) of having, for example, thirty-seven employees at a given time compared to, say, thirty-one should not be significantly higher.

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Healthcare is a special problem. You've likely heard the saying: The business of business is business. Business should not be burdened by the financing of healthcare, which, at any rate, it does poorly or not at all for the majority of people. The health insurance albatross should be removed entirely from the shoulders of business. Businesses could put part of their savings into their own coffers and use part to fatten employee's paychecks. (However, some businesses may continue to find it makes good business sense to provide employees with fitness guidelines, programs, and equipment.)

The huge for-profit, 'healthcare provider,' i.e., health insurance, industry (which has never applied so much as a band-aid on anyone) is an enormous drain, a black hole, on healthcare resources. The for-profit health insurance industry should be entirely scrapped and replaced by a lean, efficient, non-profit, single-payer system. This would produce enormous savings resulting in more resources going directly into real healthcare.

Everyone should be included within the healthcare system. This would save the enormous costs of determining coverage or inclusion and of the excluded showing up in emergency rooms with advanced diseases which would have been more inexpensively treated in doctor's offices, clinics, or hospitals by preventative care or during earlier stages of the diseases.

The new healthcare system which replaces the old one should be a cooperative effort between the public sector and the private sector. The public sector portion of the healthcare system should consist of a national, single-payer system financed in major part by general tax revenue (the amount of which is determined by the demos), and in minor part by a means-tested, scalable co-payment by the patients. Means testing should only be done on those who claim themselves incapable of making a full co-payment. As an added thought for your consideration, the co-payment could be waived or reduced for people who maintain ideal body weight and whose annual physical examinations reveal the results of adequate exercise and reveal no signs of alcohol, drug, or dietary abuse or of smoking.

The single-payer system should consist of a lean national headquarters and many local units which have a face-to-face relationship with the actual healthcare providers and patients at the local level. The system should be granular enough that those working in the local units have intimate knowledge of the local healthcare providers and of their patient clients. They could even have special offices right within the hospitals and buildings of major providers. Roaming audit teams guided by the local units would audit all or randomly or judiciously selected private healthcare providers, keeping a long memory and focusing on those who tended to abuse the single-payer's pocket book. The intent of local units and roaming auditors would be to provide a close watch against corruption, expense padding, and patient overuse. These local offices with their intimate knowledge of the local scene should also have the power to accept competitive bids from local healthcare providers for contracts to provide, say, 1000 mammograms payable in one lump sum to reduce costs.

Employees of the single-payer system should have rights equivalent to the rights of employees in the private sector, but the single-payer should be able to be readily and promptly fire an employee when it feels the action is justified and to expand and downsize operations as needed without legal entanglement. One should be able to offer suggestions for improvement of the single-payer system and to lodge complaints against the system and particular employees working within it.

The private sector portion of the healthcare system should consist of all of the private sector healthcare workers, professionals, clinics, and hospitals that already exist everywhere in the country. They would have to compete for business and patients just as they do now and for special contracts from the single-payer such as the 1000 mammogram example just described.

One should be able to sue the national healthcare system and the private providers of healthcare. The awards should be significant, but not today's astronomical amounts. The winning of any awards should result in a review of the process and personnel involved in the incident and the local and system-wide correction of any discovered problems.

The members of the private and public sector portions of the healthcare system should work together closely and creatively to devise programs and methods of improving the health and the healthcare of the people in the local community and to discover ways to reduce healthcare costs. Although, due to conflicting monetary interests, their relationship would have an adversarial aspect to it, they should strive to rise as much as possible to a cooperative level for the benefit of everyone. The methods and practices which prove most fruitful in a given local area should be forwarded to the national headquarters for distribution to all other local offices for consideration and possible use. There should be national standards, but local offices should have some leeway to do what works best for them.

Both the single-payer public and the private healthcare provider portions of the healthcare system should be rendered as efficient as possible. Both within and among organizations, communications and execution of tasks should be computerized, networked, secure, paperless, efficient, and _fast_. Any electronic forms (or paper forms presented to the patient) requiring routine patient data should first quarry the system for that data and enter it into the form rather than the patients being asked the same questions over and over again year in and year out. A patient's records should be kept private and yet the person should be able to go to any doctor, clinic, or hospital anywhere and be identified and medically known. The healthcare system should not create any processes that produce unnecessary paperwork, which would require more staff and increase overhead. The focus should be entirely on giving prompt, efficient, competent, loving healthcare to everyone.

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The recommendations in this chapter produce some very desirable results.

Those who for whatever reason worked fewer hours than the Standard Workweek set by the demos wouldn't be unjustly cut entirely out of benefits as they are today. They would receive benefits proportional to the number of hours worked. Those who worked more hours than the Standard Workweek wouldn't be unjustly rewarded too much but would earn full pay and benefits and then some. What takes the trauma out of the variation in work hours is that the wage and benefits scales would increase smoothly as the number of hours increased. There would be no "all-or-nothing" transitions such as those that exist between full-time and part-time work today.

Because the hourly wage and benefits sliding scales would be linear, slant upward, and reach ever higher amounts as the number of work hours increased during each workweek, the employee would be motivated to work more hours. While the wage and benefits scales would motivate employees to work more hours, they would discourage employers from working employees too long. Given the upwardly-slanting wage and benefits scales, at some point it would become a rational business choice to hire more employees rather than pay the current employees for increasingly expensive hours of work. The wage and benefits scales (and the absence of lump payments and healthcare costs) would act as an increasingly costly slope rather than a brick wall, removing jarring jumps from labor and production costs making them more predictable and manageable.

As the economy expanded, profits grew, and workers became in short supply, employers would be willing to pay for more expensive work hours, thus stretching the workforce and including everyone in the benefits of the expansion. As the economy contracted and profits shrank, rather than laying off employees employers could simply reduce the number of hours they worked each employee, thus conserving their skilled workforce for better times. Rather than workers ending up fired and in bad straights, they would simply tighten their belts a bit. At least they would still have jobs and something coming in to make do. During a contraction in the economy there would be less of a tendency to lay off workers so unemployment would not rise so rapidly taxing the resources of government.

Recall that the demos sets the percentage that private sector revenue and income are taxed in support of the federal government. Thus, government revenues expand and contract along with the rest of the economy. And its employees' wages and benefits would follow the same sliding scale calculations as those in the private sector. So the number of hours its employees worked would increase and decrease as the economy fluctuates just like in the private sector. When the rest of us are hurting, the government is also automatically made to tighten its belt in a way that conserves its skilled workforce.

With employers no longer involved in health insurance, with wage and benefit costs tied directly to each hour worked rather than to the concept of a forty hour workweek or to the number of employees, and with trained employees more likely to remain during lean times, costs, profits, hours worked, and wages would all efficiently expand and contract with the economy.

A market economy is all about selling goods and services to consumers. During an economic downturn, millions of workers having to tighten their belts a notch would remain better consumers than if a significant portion of them ended up entirely unemployed. This should cushion and lessen the downturn and aid in a more prompt recovery. Individuals who did end up jobless would have on hand accounts full of resources to use while preparing for and finding new jobs. And during the multiple job and career changes that the modern employee can increasingly expect, whatever other problems he or she must face, the lack of healthcare would not be one of them.

The redefinition of work and reward for work and other recommended changes presented in this chapter would not eliminate bad times and unemployment entirely—people would still quit jobs or get laid off or fired, and companies and businesses would still go belly up—but it would go a long way toward improving the relationships of employers, workers, and government and making all of our lives a lot more sane.

Chapter 26

How to Bring True Democracy to America

It is well and good to envision and write about an improved American government and society, but if one has no idea how to bring such a vision about, how to make it a reality, then it can only remain a vision. How can we successfully overcome plutocracy and establish true democracy in America? What is the best way to add a new fourth branch (a demos) and consensus democracy to our government? Ultimately, it must involve some kind of movement that results in our amending the Constitution. But what is the best way to do this, our best course of action? The current plutocracy, the current "establishment" is very strong. The political and economic mighty would use every legal, illegal, immoral, and even violent means to put up their best fight and put down any true democracy movement.

We must rule out violent, bloody revolution. History has shown ad nauseam that it only brings new tyrants, new plutocrats. We can also safely rule out change from above. The privileged elites that originally created our government and the elites that have populated it throughout its history have had more than 200 years to introduce at least some measure of true democracy into our society, and they have not done so. The change must come from the people at-large, from "we the people."

We are already caught up in a great revolution, a huge, rapidly accelerating, electronic transformation. Computers, phones, and many other devices have become ubiquitous, mobile, and interconnected into giant networked systems. Worldwide communication has become nearly instantaneous. And group interactive processes involving thousands and even millions of people that are widely dispersed over large areas, even the whole world, have become not only possible and instantaneous but convenient.

So magnificent and eye-dazzling has been this transformation that it has masked how little our relationship with each other has actually changed. In ancient times the organized, powerful few enslaved and exploited the many, and the few still do so today. Direct, in-your-face, physically enforced enslavement has mostly _but far from completely_ shifted toward a kinder, gentler, somewhat more distant economic exploitation. But it is still enslavement... economic enslavement. Do understand that our economic relationship that overwhelmingly favors the few is ultimately physically enforced by police, courts, prisons, and the military.

The economic bottom half has always been and remains today a beast of burden for the upper half, really for the upper twenty percent. Given this circumstance, this unjust political-economic relationship, whatever other uses we have made of our rapidly expanding electronic capability, one principal use has been to create better control over and exploitation of the many by the few, improved enslavement.

Nationwide electronic voting is coming to America (and to the world). If the plutocrats design, build, and operate the electronic voting system, they will create a system that continues to overwhelmingly favor them in elections just as today and contains only trivial issues that are quite incapable of overcoming the plutocracy and establishing true democracy within our government. They will use the system to continue to keep real power solely in their own hands, to improve their economic enslavement of the rest of the populace, and to make their undue advantage even more secure and certain.

But it need not be so. A rightly designed nationwide electronic voting system like the demos and the consensus democracy described in this book can be used to liberate rather than enslave us. The trick is how to use the new technology to _outflank_ the plutocrats and ultimately bring about the addition of a demos to our government as a new fourth branch.

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The American people have never participated in a true democratic process in which they held real power. In their believing what we have today to be democracy, people show that they do not understand what democracy really is.

"We the people" should use the Internet to demonstrate what true democracy is. By creating a demonstration demos on the Internet within which the members of the electorate may participate, people would come to understand what a true democratic process is and glean its implications for their lives in the real world: "Oh! This is what a real democracy is! I want this in our real government!"

As almost anybody who has had much to do with today's Internet knows, it is very fragile and unstable. Data transmission is slow and intermittent, connections become disconnected, web sites crash, dead and broken links clutter the landscape, and a small army of bright, misguided computer hackers take unending glee at breaking into web sites, raising havoc, and cranking out a steady stream of ever-improved computer viruses.

Given these circumstances, getting an Internet demos up and running _reliably and securely_ would be a daunting task. Most likely any group of people who attempted to create and run such a site on the Internet would be flying by the seat of their pants and operating on a shoestring. Add to these difficulties the likelihood that even a fairly large group of Internet users who joined and participated in the demos would not accurately reflect our whole society but youth over age, the more educated over the less educated, and the upper economic half of the population more than the lower half, thus skewing the demos consensus.

None of these difficulties and challenges is insurmountable. Despite all, a demos could be designed, constructed, and run well enough to achieve its central purpose: to demonstrate to the American people and to the people of the world what it is like to participate in a true democratic process, the idea being that they may compare their current political systems with it and come to want and demand that a demos be added to their real governments. The other proposals presented in this work could also be incorporated into the demos site creating an understanding and demand for these reforms to our society as well.

A working demos would also serve as the tool and test bed for the improvement of the demos' physical infrastructure, software and user interface, security, mathematical system, and rules and procedures. The site's creators and managers could enter into a synergetic interaction with its users to discover new ideas and better ways of achieving ends, always keeping in mind that the demos must be designed to serve not computer and Internet virtuosos but all members of an electorate with widely varying capability. Demos participants would gain experience and confidence in the art and practice of deliberative democracy.

Of course America's currently established elite would point to the unreliability and insecurity of the Internet and to the very possibly embarrassing instability of the demos site and try to make good reason of it, along with other reasons they would no doubt dream up, as to why a demos could not work and cannot be tried. The people creating, running, and participating in the demos should be prepared for this. There is a world of difference between running a demos on the current Internet on a shoestring and the creation and running of a real demos with the full weight and resources of the federal government and the American people behind it.

### ~~~~~~~

The process would start with a dedicated group of programmers, mathematicians, economists, and students of political science working together to create the demos site. Once the demos is operational and on the Internet, its existence would be made known, and people would be invited to participate. At first there would only be a few people participating at the site, but, if all goes well, there would soon enough be a few hundred people and then a few thousand. The presence of the demos site could be made known by the people who created and maintained it and by the growing number of participants using every known method of Internet and other advertising. If the idea of a demos is attractive, demos deliberations are interesting, and voting results are promising, participants would tell their families, friends, neighbors, co-workers, and others about it. Soon Internet-savvy news and interest groups would start asking, "What is this hubbub about?" In time, the always-hungry news and interest groups around the country and world would hear about it, enquire, and report the news. If this scenario proves successful, then hundreds of thousands and even millions of people could end up participating in the demos.

All the while there would be an increasing individual and collective recognition of what a true democratic process is like. Standing in comparison in people's minds would be the so-called democratic process that exists in our current American government. It would be clearly recognized as the scam and farce that it really is. More and more people would come to exclaim about the demos, "I want this in our real government!" In fact, since the Internet is a worldwide phenomenon, people around the world could and would explore the demos as "read-only" visitors, come to the same realization and understanding about the lack of any true democratic process within their own governments, and desire changes to their own governments as well.

### ~~~~~~~

As people participated in the demos, debated, and read and viewed more and more mass media discussions about the virtues of a demos and the shortcomings of our current government, our collective consciousness and will would move from desire to demand to action. A mass movement would be afoot with the Internet demos site serving as its nerve center. The current people of privilege, the establishment, would, of course, be dead set against it and make every kind of maneuver, manipulation, and sabotage against the success of the movement. But like an avalanche "we the people" would roll right over them and eventually win them over. In time, in a generation or two, history would prove and the leaders of those times whose predecessors resisted the fundamental changes to our government would come to see and agree that the changes affected our lives, our nation, and our world profoundly for the better.

Once the demos web site became sufficiently developed and functional and many people were frequenting the site, then we could treat the demos as if it would become the fourth branch of government. We could treat it as if it already were the fourth branch of government.

If this Internet demos came to be frequented by a large number of people with serious intent and result, it is entirely possible that it could become something of a power center in its own right even before a real demos became an official part of government. Our elected 'representatives' repeatedly toss us biased polling results and tell us ad nauseam how "in touch" they are with our minds and hearts. The demos could become _the_ place where the electorate's real views concerning the issues were made known. It could also serve as a place for would-be political candidates to test the waters. Successful candidates could watch their names climb up the Candidates lists. The Internet demos could possibly come to be seen and felt as an alternate or "people's" government. It could become a true political power to be reckoned with. In this way something of a demos could unofficially serve America (and prove itself) before a real demos were made an official part of government.

Another idea that could attract participation in an Internet demos even though it was not, as yet, an official part of the government is to include the currently sitting president, senators, and representatives in its Candidates lists. Also, during real elections, the names of those running for office could be added to the Candidates lists. Until the demos officially became the fourth branch of government, some temporary procedural rules would have to be added to accommodate the fact that it is not really the demos voting system by which the candidates are elected to office and officeholders maintain their seats in office. For example, both for seated officeholders and for candidates running in real elections, the names of candidates would occupy their correct positions in the Candidates lists but they would be highlighted. A high ranking in a demos Candidates list by virtue of the number of demos votes a candidate received compared to other demos candidates would be a feather in a candidate's or officeholder's hat or a real embarrassment if he or she held poor ranking. And it would be enlightening to see who would currently be occupying the seats of office if the demos vote were the final say in the matter.

If the Internet demos managed to develop a large number of active participants, then current officeholders may become curious or even seriously concerned about their rankings in the demos Candidates lists. Sitting officials and their followers may begin to actively participate in the demos to improve their showings. Everyone participating in the Internet demos may come to see it as an important place to evaluate candidates running for office in real elections. The demos could come to have real clout even before officially becoming the fourth branch of government.

### ~~~~~~~

From the moment of its first creation and function on the Internet until the demos finally became the new fourth branch of government, the demos should serve the dual roles of being a working demonstration of a demos and being the center of nationwide organization and action designed to win its inclusion in government, a _True Democracy Movement_. Along with much other information, the demos should prominently display for each candidate his or her support or lack of support as demonstrated by words and deeds both within and outside of government for the constitutional and other changes that would be required to make it happen. The millions of voters in the current electoral system should make such support a litmus test of greater importance than any other considerations when voting for candidates. This litmus test should continue for however many years it takes to win the goal, the demos actually becoming the official fourth branch of government.

The Internet demos itself could possibly be that official demos if the demos site and the Internet could be made sufficiently secure and broadband Internet connection were made available to the homes of all members of the electorate and, indeed, ubiquitous throughout the nation. In this case the _Movement_ portion of the demos site would be discontinued as no longer relevant. If, for whatever reasons, that were not possible or practicable, then a demos dedicated ground or satellite based nationwide network would have to be developed and constructed. Once the dedicated government demos became operational, moving day will have arrived. All people then currently participating in voting and deliberations at the Internet demos would have to pack up their votes and opinions and move them over to the government demos. With its mission accomplished, the Internet demos would be turned off.

Chapter 27

The Effect of the Demos on American Society

Forty years have passed since a new fourth branch, the demos, was added to our government. To start the initial ball rolling, the author of _Beyond Plutocracy_ posted the book on an Internet web site at www.beyondplutocracy.com, gave it away free to everyone, and worked hard to make its presence known. Soon a small body of capable pioneers gathered around their common cause, the creation and publicizing of a functional demonstration demos on the Internet. At first not much seemed to happen. But in time, and then quite suddenly, seemingly overnight, a critical mass or flashpoint had been reached, and word and enthusiasm spread like wildfire. The _True Democracy Movement_ was born—new hope and will for an honest government and a just nation at long last.

Initially, as was expected, resistance to the creation of a demos as a fourth branch of our government had been strong among established, privileged interests. From the time of the creation of a demos on the Internet until the creation of a real demos within the American government, seventeen difficult, confrontational years had passed. The electorates of several states had to repeatedly replace their legislators until the required votes could be mustered to finally amend the Constitution.

The breakthrough came when we elected a president who was for it. She worked hard to make it happen, and called for a plebiscite on the issue. The result of the plebiscite was a nearly universal "yes" from the electorate.

A state of barely contained excitement existed while the actual constitutional amendment was struck, the initial demos issues were hammered out, and the body of demos laws and rules, practices, and mechanisms were created. Legislators repeatedly attempted to create watered down, ineffectual versions of a demos and repeatedly got booted out of office by a watchful, no-nonsense electorate which used the Internet demos site as its guiding example and as its center of communication, organization, and rally. Unlike our aristocratic founders, legislators in the electronic age were not able to hide behind nailed doors and slip self-serving legislation past an unknowing populace. Uproar followed uproar, each larger than the previous one.

By nearly universal demand the original twelve demos issues in the _Beyond Plutocracy_ book were included in the newly forming demos with only minor changes from the original proposal in the terms that the president, senators, and representatives served in office. Two other issues were included in the demos by the time the constitutional amendment was ratified. (Actually, America was not the first but the third country in the world to form a demos. Norway took the lead followed by Germany.)

### ~~~~~~~

Dramatic changes have occurred in America and the world. To this date, thirty-three countries have added a demos to their existing governments including India, Japan, Britain, and Russia. Thirty-one of these countries have formed a loose association called the _True Democracy Federation_. No tariffs or trade barriers of any kind exist within what people now simply call _the federation_. Several other countries have strong demos movements afoot including—will wonders never cease?—China. In America forty-three of the fifty-two states have added demoses to their state governments; scores of counties and cities have done likewise; and much popular pressure is being applied within many others.

### ~~~~~~~

The study and practice of _true_ democracy are now an integral part of the high school curriculum. Although their votes don't actually count during demos computer tallies, as part of their instruction and preparation high school students participate as honorary members of the demos electorate. Although their opinions are clearly indicated as those of students, they are given a full voice in the democratic deliberation of demos issues. Small clusters of students are often assigned to each demos issue. The task of a cluster is to study the principal deliberations and arguments surrounding its assigned issue and report its findings to the larger class. Then each student is asked to draw his or her own conclusions concerning each issue and vote accordingly. A student may change one or more votes at any time, but he or she must present a brief paper discussing his or her reasons.

Participation within the demos is now old hat, and classes for the elders and interested others have long been in decline. While some people participate in the demos deliberations almost as a way of life, most members know their minds and only give their vote on this or that demos issue the occasional tweak.

### ~~~~~~~

It has become the social expectation and the norm for government, business, and everyone to function and live within the parameters set by the consensus of the demos. Never having to do it before, at first congress had difficulty keeping on budget. But after getting kicked in the butt a few times by the demos, it got its act together. All areas of government now function by a process of triage, spending only what money is actually on hand—well, almost, the demos does allow a small amount of convenience debt—and spending it only for what is most needful and at best cost. A simple system of surplus money buffers strewn throughout government, limited borrowing, and prompt repayment make sane the difficulty of the various parts of the government staying on budget from year to year.

Congress has long ago adjusted to new members being seated nearly every month as current members finish their terms or get the boot. The membership of congress is much more varied than in the old-white-male days. The "old-boys' clubs" that once held hegemonies of power in the house and the senate are long gone. Committees are populated and legislative processes are created in a much more democratic manner now.

With all due respect to so-called color-, gender-, and orientation-blind government, most people trust their own. It is self-affirming and comforting to see people with faces and minds like one's own sitting in the seats of power. The proportions of races, religions, ethnic groups, ages, sexes, and sexual orientations that exist in the nation's electorate are now found within congress and everywhere else in government. Given this fact (and the close attention and quick fingers of the demos electorate, not to mention its control over taxation), government has at long last become the servant of "we the people," all of the people.

### ~~~~~~~

Every member of the demos is reminded ad nauseam: when voting on demos issues or for candidates for office, one should always vote for one's true self-interest, and at the heart of one's true self-interest always lies one's economic self-interest. Whatever other qualities one wants in a candidate, that he or she is actively working for your own true economic interests should always come first. What our ancestors never could seem to understand somehow, we keep foremost in mind. It's even carved in stone in Washington:

When voting on demos  
economic issues and for candidates,  
first consider and always vote  
for your economic interests.  
All other issues are secondary.

Something of great importance that many of us had to learn the hard way is to select candidates that are not too radical and uncompromising. What good does it do one if one's chosen candidates are theoretically championing one's interests in Washington but they are unwilling to work with others to actually achieve results that serve one's interests? Candidates must be willing to give some things that others want to earn support for what they and their constituencies are seeking. Uncompromising extremists create much heat but little light.

The nine demos economic issues have long been fairly straightforward. Once people learned their true self-interest by reading stuff in the demos or by talking with friends and neighbors, they got it right and now keep it right. People learned to take what appears in the media and even what is written in the demos with a grain of salt. They have learned to be cautious of the speeches of leaders, preachers, pundits, and so-called experts. Their interests are usually not the same as one's own. People will say anything to get others to vote their way. One should mostly trust the familiar faces and voices of one's family and friends sitting around the kitchen table chewing on the issues, people who one personally knows and who share an economic condition in life similar to one's own. There is always someone among them who makes the best sense and who pays close attention to the question of one's true self-interest.

Electing and keeping track of politicians proved more difficult. But people have gotten quite good at keeping their eyes on the ball. As advised in detective and crime stories, they have learned to follow the money. Follow the money! They understand clearly, what good does it do to vote for someone who resembles oneself, who seems to have good personal morals and character, or who spins attractive promises if that person has a history of voting against one's true economic self-interest? We have learned to always vote for someone who truly represents us and acts in our interest. And people have learned to keep a look out for a new candidate against one's current choice turning sour.

It is helpful that one needs only to focus most centrally on the offices of the president, one senator, one representative, and a potential replacement for each office or seat. It has helped a lot that each politician or potential politician and his or her actual voting record and its effect on the real flow of money are always being discussed pro and con in the demos.

### ~~~~~~~

Some people feared that Candidates lists for the election of the president, senators, and representatives that could have literally hundreds or even thousands of names on them would turn into a chaotic circus like a certain California election long ago. Those old periodic elections are not at all how the new electoral process works. The demos electoral process is ongoing and votes continuously "ride" on candidates. Candidates have a long, highly visible row to hoe as they progress slowly up the Candidates lists over time. By the time a candidate has progressed to the heights of a list he or she has been thoroughly examined and deliberated by members of the electorate. Flash-in-the-pan, media-hyped, twinkling stars and those who say one thing but do another have little chance within this steady, studied electoral process.

Also, just a few people in just a few states do not have an undue influence in the electoral process, as they did in the old primary system. And the end of state electoral district systems also brought the end of gerrymandering.

### ~~~~~~~

Scandal within government and industry has decreased a lot. The public attitude toward it has shifted from hatred and loathing to a more benign intolerance. If bad enough, vote them out; when necessary, give them some hard time; clean up the mess; let's move on. Some look at the still messy haggling and wheeling and dealing within congress with a wary eye, but at least it works for all of us now. The members of the senate and the house have managed to overcome their "old boys' clubs", and they have reviewed and simplified the legislative process somewhat. As predicted by its creator, the demos itself has become a big hit. It is loved and protected by all.

There has been something around for some time now called _The Glass House Rule_. Aside from a few spy and military operations, any person or group can sniff into every little detail of government spending even during early proposal stages before the money is actually spent. The sickening repetition in the old days of one stinking political scam after another rising to the surface of public consciousness years _after_ the scams took place have become a rarity. Politicians have actually started to become honest. It's the only way to survive.

Many people, including me, believe that the demos is capable of evolving from its current manner of functioning—a balance of self-interest (or selfishness, as some characterize it)—to a much more enlightened state. So far almost everyone has focused on a very narrow definition and understanding of what's in one's self-interest. But when looked at rightly, when one has "the eyes to see," one's true self-interest can be seen in a much broader and more enlightened way. If we humans are, indeed, capable of transcending our current selfish state and entering into an altruistic, selfless state, the demos could continue to function perfectly in that transcendent state. Today the demos consensus is a balance of selfishness, everyone pulling in their own direction, with a not unhappy result. Someday we may learn to selflessly trust, love, and pull together, discovering a much greater happiness.

### ~~~~~~~

As a result of the demos' imposition of a rather steep tax scale at the highest end of corporate annual gross revenue, several corporations have split into smaller companies as a matter of economic necessity. A dozen major corporations had moved their headquarters to countries outside of the federation to escape its effect. But incurring stiff federation penalties and tariffs, significant loss of business, and instability in their new homes, already half of them have come crawling back.

All of the nations in the federation possess a just balance of power within their governments in the form of a true democratic branch, a demos, balanced with their other branches of government. In response to the will and consensus of their entire electorates, all of them have adopted increasingly similar "people-friendly" government, business, labor, wage, and environmental standards, laws, rules, and practices that produce a reasonably level playing field for individual and corporate competition and enterprise. As more and more countries join the federation, and it becomes increasingly untenable to survive economically outside it, the days of multinational corporations roaming the world in search of the dollar-a-day worker and environmental escapism are drawing to a close. As power shifts back to governments, corporations no longer rule supreme. And as power shifts from the plutocrats to the entire electorates of nations, the self-serving governments once owned by the elite no longer serve only the few. People feel empowered. Now government really is by their consent, and they really are the supreme power.

### ~~~~~~~

As a result of the distribution of the tax burden set by the demos, the old American aristocracy has fallen into 'decline.' But it is far from destitute. What was considered by it to be "decline" still keeps most of its members within the upper regions of the current distribution of wealth. While there remains a fairly wide distribution of wealth in America, the electorate of the demos does not vote the bottom economic half into a state of poverty (as did the old plutocratic government). The bottom half of the nation has to live modestly by the standards of the top half, but it does not live in poverty and it is not destitute. The wealthy can still afford some fancy digs, but the outrageous fortress-castles and huge, walled estates of pre-demos days have evolved into museums, bed & breakfasts, and the like.

The fortress mentality is no longer needed. Crime is down. Most people now own a bit of property—really own, not just hold a mortgage—and feel a greater respect for the property of other people. Feeling a general sense of inclusion and economic fairness, people of differing levels of income and wealth feel more comfortable with each other and mix more easily.

The pre-demos system was ruthlessly tooth-and-claw because in a world where slipping toward the bottom was so disastrous great fear and insecurity drove everyone clawing toward the top. Now, with the lower economic regions more comfortable, people aren't driven to literally do anything to anyone to 'succeed' at any cost. We are even in danger of becoming civil!

If the form of America's old political-economic system could be likened to a comet racing through space (or through time) with the wealthy, powerful plutocrats at the head and the bottom half of the population trailing off in distress and despair in the long, vacuous tail, the new system can and has been likened to an ellipse moving forward through time, the slowly varying length of the ellipse representing the slow variation in the distribution of wealth over time and the elliptical shape itself, as opposed to the thin tail of the comet, indicating that everyone is basically economically included in the society. No one is left to claw their way too far over the top or left to fall too far off the bottom of the economic radar screen. The shape of the ellipse slowly changes as it moves through time in response to economic expansion and contraction and the demos electorate's economic mood. Since the new political-economic system has a demos, with its logically interconnected system of homeostatically functioning issues tending toward central stability and setting the system's largest economic parameters, the ellipse avoids the extremes, remains intact, and does not burst into some other broken shape or form.

### ~~~~~~~

Due to a mighty din and clamor, the now-more-sensitive-to- _all_ -of-the-voters, elected officials even rewrote along the lines suggested by the creator of the demos—I never can remember his name; alphabet soup—the rules and legislation pertaining to labor. The consensus of the demos on the length of the Standard Workweek hovers today around 30 hours. Although appropriate calculation programs exist in computers and pocket calculators everywhere, most folks are able to take into mind first work hour rates of pay and benefits, crank out a good guesstimate of a week's wage and perks, and give an on-the-fly "yes" or "no" to a new job offer.

Although technically there is a Standard Workweek which is used for pay and benefit calculations, there is almost unlimited variation in people's work schedules. When corporations and businesses balk at giving consideration to the needs of people in their personal lives, the demos threatens to increase the business tax rate. Parents are finally able to be with their children and _each other_. The latchkey kid is a thing of the past. Families and kids are healthy again.

Under the new work rules all sick time, vacation time, unemployment benefits, continuing education benefits, and pension funds are kept in fully-funded, conservatively invested, insured personal accounts in third-party repositories. No corporate or government IOUs or borrowing against funds are allowed. When one goes from job to job one keeps every minute and penny that he or she has accumulated. Employers are quite used to it and do not allow any such accumulations to stand between them and a new, good employee.

### ~~~~~~~

Now that the members of the electorate really have control over who represents them, the more responsive and responsible congress finally created a non-profit, single-payer healthcare system financed by general tax revenue and patient co-payments that includes good, basic care for everyone. Employers are no longer in the loop. The for-profit health insurance industry no longer exists. Lawsuit excesses have been firmly restrained. All hospitals, doctors, and other healthcare providers compete in the private sector for their patient clientele. The single-payer administrators and all private sector parties work together and strive toward an efficient, universal, paperless process. People may go anywhere they please for healthcare and are medically known when they get there. Caregivers consider themselves blessed to be able to spend most of their time giving real patient care again.

The national system works a lot better than the old mess did. But it isn't heaven either. The generosity of the demos in funding healthcare and the length of the delays in various healthcare services hang in an uneasy balance. But at least employers, the blood-sucking for-profit health insurance industry, and irresponsible lawyers are no longer part of the equation, and everyone is included. We are all happy about that.

In response to competition and in the search for excellence, many people are experimenting with ways to improve healthcare delivery. Some caregivers in larger healthcare enterprises got the bright idea of replacing the "first-come-first-served" waiting room system with one that prioritizes the order in which patients are seen. True emergency and trauma care gets first attention, followed by those who use the healthcare system the least and whose current visits will likely take the least amount of time. These are followed by patients whose visits it is estimated will take a longer time. Last to be seen are those who most frequently plague the system with every kind of minor complaint and sniffle. Waiting is the price they pay for excessive use of the healthcare system. This bright group of caregivers has even started an express line they call "fast care," a takeoff on the supermarket express line and the fast food restaurant's drive-through window. If one needs an annual flu shot or a couple of stitches removed that's the place to go. In their striving toward excellence, these caregivers even communicate creatively with patients who wear cell phones and pagers, which is almost everyone. Who sits in waiting rooms? The caregivers use "total daily patient waiting room hours" as one of their measures of progress toward their goal of fast, competent care with the minimal wait for the most people.

### ~~~~~~~

Employees, employers, and government are all comfortable with the new sliding-scale method of paying wages and benefits for work and with their new cooperative relationship with each other. Actually, the 'new' relationship is not really sensed as new. A new generation has come down the pike, and the 'new' relationship is for them the norm.

Employee demoses have even sprung up within several factories and corporations. One CEO 'cheerfully' grumbled that he'd have jumped overboard, but lacking a golden parachute...

### ~~~~~~~

There will always be businesses and personal lives that go belly up so there will always be a bit of 'poverty.' But what 'poverty' there is is usually short-term, not generational, and it can scarcely be compared with the crushing poverty of old. There has become so little of it that public and private agencies have plenty of resources to help folks put their lives back in order and on track again.

It is now conceded by even the staunchest diehards that crime was intimately connected with poverty. As poverty dramatically declined, crime also declined. (Or was it because excessive wealth declined?) The prison population has declined by a third, and the numbers are still on their way down. (Twenty-seven prisoners are now serving life terms for illegally altering demos votes, a crime classified as treason.) With the dramatic decrease in crime, people have become comfortable once again in the streets and parks.

### ~~~~~~~

People feel more empowered. They don't feel helpless in the face of the goliaths: big business, big government, and big labor. None of them are quiet so big, aloof, or invincible as they used to be. The federal government is about two-thirds the size it was forty years ago, and that includes with the addition of the demos. One fellow estimated that all of the electronic gear strewn across the nation that serves the demos could be packed into a couple of large warehouses.

Coffee shops are doing a booming business. Everyone, it seems, has a newfound expertise in politics, and no one is without opinions. Half of the people's views seem utterly insane to me. One wonders how the demos could possibly function with all of these imbeciles about. But it does, and somehow, almost by some invisible hand, it manages to produce greater wisdom than the elite few ever did.

The economy is robust and doesn't swing so wildly as before. The government has finally stopped using unemployment as a tool to fight inflation. Consumption isn't quite as frantic as in the old days, but people still like their consumer trinkets. Debt in all areas—government, business, and personal—has decreased substantially from pre-demos days. But people are people; they just can't seem to resist facing the camera, laying their hand on the plate, and saying, "Charge it."

Within our truly new world order, one's life isn't utterly destroyed by stepping off the fast track. We still like our things and our comforts, we Americans, but we seek and hold them more lightly and shed them more easily. Having few possessions is not the disaster that it once could be.

People have more leisure and seem more comfortable and happy to my old eyes than were their recent ancestors. They seem less driven, more relaxed, and more able to enjoy the moment. More people stop to smell the roses. The leisure and travel industries are booming.

I do not know of any place within the federation that it is not safe to travel. Nations and people feel fairly included and treated. Long-standing hatreds and feuds have considerably waned.

Arts of every kind are blossoming with new personal expression. Much of it is—well, let me be kind—but there is no shortage of people who have surprised themselves and others. Even as people embrace civic-mindedness and social responsibility, there is ever more variety in personal dress, grooming, behavior, beliefs, and expression. We are becoming, it seems, playful walking works of art. It is safe to be different, which is good because ultimately each of us is unique anyway. The populace is becoming increasingly literate and well read. Religious, philosophical, and literary groups abound. More and more people are meditating and seeking "enlightenment" or what some call "Christ consciousness." I'm not sure what that's about.

Me? When I'm not working, I like to hang out at a local coffee house, sip tea, input my thoughts to Mem (supposedly writing a book), and chat with the people around me, helping them to correct the errors in their thinking.

Our finally getting our political-economic relationship, our social contract, in humane working order was only a necessary pragmatic step that we had to get behind us before we could focus on what's truly important in our lives: loving and enjoying life and each other.

Chapter 28

Social Efficiency and the Quality of Life

The word _efficiency_ is often negatively associated with factory efficiency experts forcing workers to work ever faster and more robot-like. The word _conservation_ is often negatively associated with Scrooges living second-rate, minimal lives rather than consuming more and more the red-blooded American way.

Efficiency and conservation are two of our best friends. In the long run, they have done more to improve the quality of our lives than any other actions that we take. Efficiency and conservation reduce cost and labor and increase leisure time and the quality of life. Efficiency and conservation are the best friends of every smart person, business, government, and society.

Along with the injustice and inequity of our current plutocratic society and its corrosive effects on the quality of all of our lives, particularly on the economic bottom half, another important complaint is that it is inefficient. The addition of a demos as the fourth branch of government along with the other suggestions made in this work would greatly increase our efficiency and our quality of life.

Here is just a brief list of some of the inefficiency and waste under our current plutocracy which would be corrected by the changes in our government and society discussed in this work:

***** In concentrating most of our nation's power and wealth in the hands of the few we create a huge social imbalance and a host of disastrous and costly social disorders that can never be corrected no matter how much time, effort, and money are thrown at the problems.

***** Over-concentrated wealth requires a huge military and police force and every manner of wall, barrier, device, assurance, and insurance to protect it.

***** Millions of people in poverty, especially when concentrated into urban ghettos, requires an enormous constellation of resources to maintain order and to prevent rebellion and even revolution. The maintenance of this fundamental injustice also requires a huge judicial and prison system. Millions of potentially educated, productive, taxpaying people are instead turned into criminals that must be caught, tried, and imprisoned at enormous expense.

***** The vast difference between the perceived extreme luxury, security, pleasure, and happiness at the top of the social heap compared to the extreme poverty, insecurity, pain, and unhappiness at the bottom drives everyone clean out of their humanity and into a tooth-and-claw rat race and fist fight in which some will do anything to anyone to achieve 'success' while 'losers' litter the landscape. Both the 'winners' and the 'losers,' the carnage of our current system, overcrowd our overtaxed mental and physical healthcare systems. Anger, anxiety, angst, alienation, loneliness, and addiction reign supreme. We have become hardened, trivialized, dehumanized caricatures of our full potential capacity and humanity.

***** Billions of medical dollars are wasted extending for a few days or months and in a ghastly, mechanical manner the lives of the wealthy terminally ill while many millions of people left out of the healthcare system receive no proper preventive medical care and show up in emergency rooms with costly, advanced, medical problems. Many billions of potential healthcare dollars are thrown down a black hole, the for-profit health insurance industry, an industry which has never put so much as a single band-aid on anyone.

***** A several thousand page tax code, the principal purpose of which is tax evasion by the wealthy and which is understood by almost no one, causes uncountable hours of anguish and billions of dollars to be spent by businesses, individuals, and government.

***** A huge labyrinth of government processes and programs both in the legislative and executive branches having to deal with the fallout from our current unjust government and social system. An endless sea of impossible forms and hoops that people destroyed by the system must wade through almost as a way of life just to get a bit of help, people who would not be there in the first place were it not for the system.

***** An equally huge labyrinth of processes and programs in both government and industry designed to obscure the corrupt, often illegal, usually immoral wheeling and dealing, mutual back scratching, and self-serving actions of the elite.

***** A plague of often unscrupulous corporations, special interest groups, and PACs pumping a river of money into election campaigns and government, debasing and corrupting them and effectively disenfranchising the electorate. A dispirited electorate and a cynical populace throughout the land.

***** A world based upon plutocratic governance and unjust, opportunistic political-economic relationships within and among nations is forever at war. A huge portion of the resources of the world's nations is consumed by military and security budgets depriving their use for the benefit of humankind. The American military budget is nearly equal to the military budgets of all other nations combined.

***** What is the emotional cost of the fear, anxiety, resentment, distrust, alienation, complexity, and diminishment that all of this brings into our lives?

Government, business, and each of our lives can and should be made much more sane and simple.

All of these problems and many more would be completely corrected or significantly reduced if our current plutocratic government were modified by the addition of a demos and consensus democracy and by the implementation of the other suggestions made in this book.

Chapter 29

Us versus Them

There are a lot of people in the upper economic minority directly and indirectly doing much evil to people in the lower economic majority. But there is not some monolithic conspiracy among all wealthy people to hold everyone else in a state of bondage and exploitation.

No doubt there are wealthy individuals and groups that rationalize their evil deeds using the now-debunked, self-serving notion of Social Darwinism in which the powerful elite, by virtue of its being the elite, is "the fittest" and has every right to use lesser or less capable people as beasts of burden. But it is seriously doubted that many among the wealthy believe this. There are certainly people who are not really into politics or ideology that are willing and working very hard using every means they can manage—all our current system permits and more—to put the economic screw to everyone about and beneath them.

Everyone at every economic level has some good and some evil within them. No one has a monopoly on either quality. While there are some among the powerful wealthy that have done and continue to do great evil, it is not because they are inherently more evil than others but only that they are in a position to do greater evil when they choose to do so.

Likely most wealthy people are not even that political. Like everyone else, they are just going about their business and living their lives. Can they help it if the system under which we live rewards them so handsomely for just going about their business? Many people probably never even think about it, never think to question the political and economic structures that permit and so dramatically affect the results of their actions. To them the rules of the game are just there like the world and life, and that is that.

Many recognize that our society is unfair but feel too powerless to do anything about it: "I would rather things were not this way, but who am I to change them? I am just one person. Well, if that's the name of the game, I will play it as best I can. I just don't want to end up at the painful bottom of the economic heap."

It is popular in America today to see oneself as the victim of this or that person or situation. While it is true in our carnivorous, plutocratic society that many people are indeed victimized, too many people shirk responsibility for their own actions blaming everyone around them. We are a ridiculous chaos of lawsuits. One could look upon all of us, even the dehumanized well-to-do locked within their gilded prisons, as victims of the political-economic system created by the founders. And, bringing the notion of victimization to its absurd conclusion, since authoritarianism and plutocracy are merely the blind cultural expression of our biological male dominance hierarchy, perhaps we are all the victims of evolution or of God.

For lack of a better or a higher vision or in comparison to the many deeper horrors around the world, many people consider our current state to be perhaps flawed but sufficient. Current practice comes to be felt as normal. New, young workers, never having mastered their history lessons in school and never having known in their jobs the times that their elders knew when labor was stronger and more prosperous, do not miss the now-gone rewards and protections, think their work conditions normal, and can't see any use for unions. Worldwide and historically, even the abused, the enslaved, and those who are defined as untouchable have come to believe their situation and their lot to be normal when they have never thought deeply or known anything else.

None of this can make morally right that which is truly wrong in its essence. That something is the way of the world does not mean that the world should be that way. Other life forms are the slaves of instinct. We have the ability to choose to live together in many different ways. In our having this ability to choose, we have both the capacity and the moral duty to rise to our highest selves.

Even if the intent from above is at times actions for the good, we still have the problem of paternalism: the system, principle, or practice of managing or governing individuals, businesses, nations, etc. in the manner of a father dealing benevolently and often intrusively with his children. "We the people" are not children. We are fully capable of participating directly in the most central decisions that fundamentally affect our lives.

### ~~~~~~~

One could fruitlessly haggle over such issues forever, each person merely embracing a self-favoring or self-justifying view. It is best to toss indignation, self-righteousness, and blame aside, take responsibility for our situation, join together in united action, and improve our lot by altering our government and society.

The central problem is not particular people or their actions but the political-economic _system_ under which we live. We are products of the world in which we live and our experiences within it. If that world, if the system in which we live is changed, then we and our actions will change too. The struggle is not merely between good people and evil people but of all of us to rise above our current human condition, to transcend our current relationship and enter into a new more humane, loving, and spiritual relationship. We must rise above our biological dominance and our cultural, authoritarian expression of it. Through culture accumulated and modified through the millennia, we have already stepped well beyond our biological roots in many aspects of our behavior. It is time and over time for us to step beyond our primate dominance hierarchy and establish a more perfect relationship, a more perfect union.

Although there would no doubt be opposition to and a struggle preceding the establishment of a demos and the other changes discussed here, this work is not about anyone dominating anyone else. This work is not about one group winning and another group losing. It is not about crushing the elite or taking revenge for past wrongs. It is about forgiveness and transcendence.

The goal of this work is to bring about the diminishment of dominance by our coming together within a new body, the demos, capable of achieving a profound and perpetually evolving consensus among all of us concerning a few issues that are central to our relationship. In our achieving a more just and equitable political-economic relationship, we will have achieved a more democratic and moral footing on which to stand while we debate and discover in other areas of government and society common ground and greater tolerance of our varying beliefs, values, and ways. True democratic deliberation cannot occur until we achieve a just relationship.

Our goal as a people should not be to establish some common image that we all strive to mold ourselves into but only to establish a small, vital body of consensus and common understanding. Political and economic inclusion and a fair and just society will enable everyone to earn at least a modestly comfortable living free of the desperation caused by the unbalanced political-economic system that we have today. Each person will have the resources to fully develop and express his or her unique being. We as a society will be in a position to flower into the fullest expression of our most wondrous and delightful quality, our cultural diversity. We are gathered here from the entire world, and we have the potential to demonstrate to the entire world how loving and beautiful a people can be, if only it finds its right way.

It is by our achieving our correct balance of power and some common ground via our consensus on issues within the demos that we will maximize the justice, freedom, and happiness of everyone.

Chapter 30

Beyond Plutocracy

Capitalism, the market economy, is our best form of economic relationship. At its best it promotes freedom of action and interaction, motivates personal and local decision making, creativity, improvement, entrepreneurship, and productivity; and it creates much wealth. But an unbridled capitalism that reigns supreme concentrates excessive power and wealth into the hands of ruthless, greedy elites within and among nations who then create, populate, and use self-serving governments to exploit the rest of the populace and override the common good. Unbridled capitalism often plays nations and people against one another in a most underhanded way in search of its Holy Grail: maximum growth and profit and minimum responsibility no matter what the environmental and human costs. Creating constitutions, governments, laws, rules, and economic entities that cause the fruit of the labor of millions to be taken from them and handed to the sly, cunning, manipulative few is economic rape, and it becomes, at its worst, economic terrorism.

Everywhere today, American elites who exploit our own populace conduct business with elites of other nations who exploit their populaces. One method used among others, political and economic elites agitate and manipulate religious and moral conservatives and others to achieve their self-serving ends. And the politically and economically excluded and exploited use whatever means that are available to them, including religion, to fight back or fight for inclusion. Thus, once or at least potentially peaceful religions become radical, polarized instruments of political-economic and ultimately physical warfare.

Fanatic religious and other extremist and terrorist groups spring up like mushrooms and are empowered worldwide because we drive people to them. Insurrection and revolution within nations and now international terrorism are the result of fundamental injustice. Hatred and rage come from long experience of violence done against one in one form or another including economic violence.

Attempting to harden and protect an unjust state and its populace against insurrection and terrorism that can come from any direction at any time is enormously costly, inefficient, and destructive to personal freedom and the social fabric. When it ultimately fails and a nuclear bomb, poison gas, or infectious organism is successfully let loose on the nation and it retaliates by vaporizing... well, you choose your worst escalating nightmare. To think one can take everything from everyone else and take one's way in everything and then live in peace with them or militarily hold them at bay forever is pure folly.

The notion that the West in general and America in particular are fostering democracy and individual freedom within themselves and around the world is also pure folly. Not being true democracies themselves but only plutocracies, the most powerful, wealthy nations are really only attempting to push a worldwide plutocratic empire unto a reluctant world. They are trying to create a worldwide plutocracy in which they reign supreme by sufficiently and permanently politically, economically, and militarily rendering everyone else everywhere else subservient to them.

Even as they engage in this immorality it must be said, wealthy nations are not inherently more evil than are others. All current nations, great and small, are authoritarian plutocracies that practice some good and much evil, each in its own way and as it sees its own interests. While great powers are capable of and all too often engage in great evil, some of the world's worst atrocities are conducted by some of its poorest nations. And everywhere religious and other groups immorally attempt to shove their values and systems down the throats of others by brute force.

The best way to fight terrorism is to not create the terrorist, the insurrectionist, or the revolutionary in the first place. The best way to do that is to create inclusive, just, equitable governments, societies, and relationships within and among nations that do not drive individuals and nations to anger, rage, desperation, and violence. Political-economic inclusion, justness, and equity attract people toward the current state, taking the wind out of the sails of radicals.

There will always be some level of competition and disagreement among us. That is only natural and even healthy. But we now exist at an extreme and in an extreme state of illness. We currently function at the level of three year olds fighting over the toys while our world spins increasingly out of control. It is time for us to grow up.

### ~~~~~~~

Historically, government design has long been improving. Continuing to improve it should not be considered radical or unwise. We Americans have now had over two hundred years to see and we must finally admit that while the founders got much right what they got wrong is terribly wrong. It is time and over time to improve yet again and improve very fundamentally the design of our government. This is so for all of the world's governments.

The government design offered in this book represents the _minimal_ partial redesign of current governments that gets the job done, that actually moves us beyond plutocracy. Anything less merely rearranges the furniture, merely reorganizes the plutocracy a bit while keeping it firmly in place. The design presented here creates a new kind of relationship within and among nations that takes us well beyond our current dominance, authoritarianism, and plutocracy. It facilitates peaceful, equitable, humane relationships among just nations, each possessing a demos practicing consensus democracy as part of its governing structure. Simply because people participating within a demos in each nation will not permit such conditions to exist, it makes possible a worldwide free trade that does not exploit local conditions of tyranny and misery to unduly fatten the lives of distant others. Everyone will _fairly_ benefit from the trade.

Notice that no mention is made here of a sovereign world government, a decidedly dangerous entity. We have merely the association of and agreements among free, sovereign nations, each possessing a demos and a just, equitable political-economic system.

This government design takes us into a new national and world order that is worthy of the word _new_. Almost miraculously, all of this is gained simply by including within our current governments a modest measure of just the right kind of _true_ democracy.

### ~~~~~~~

To date, we have not managed to overcome dominance by the few and our authoritarian, plutocratic forms of government. But someday, if we do not self-destruct first, we will transcend our current state. Rule by dominance, oppression, and exploitation is inherently unstable. It carries within itself the seed of its own destruction. We possess an inborn need to be free and treated fairly. We never cease trying to overthrow injustice and abuse. We dream of and work toward a more just, happy, and peaceful way of being in this world. We do not mouth empty words but truly seek kinder, gentler nations and a new world order.

Our inability to date to correct the distributions of power and wealth in America (and elsewhere) may be taken as a measure of the ignorance, division, and apathy within the many, and, indeed, among all of us. Those among us who hate and feud with each other—those within various racial and ethnic groups; the political and religious liberals, conservatives, and fundamentalists; those of differing genders, orientations, and lifestyles; the rich and the poor—must loosen their fanatical grips on their cherished divisions, hatreds, and fears.

To counteract the many forces pulling us apart, we desperately need a force which brings us together and sets our nation aright. We must come together at least to an extent sufficient to create and participate effectively in a true democratic process within a demos. The only way that we may fulfill our promise and reach and sustain our fullest potential as a people and a nation is to create within our government at long last the true democracy and the just balance of power that we now only profess.

A nation divided cannot stand. A momentary, patriotic upsurge in the face of crisis and war should not be confused with the ongoing love and pulling together that would come from true democracy and justice and the political and economic inclusion of everyone. Even as America reaches its pinnacle of power and wealth, it suffers severe cracks in its foundation and the beginning of decline. Our very freedom is in decline. We are a nation of the blind leading the blind, and we have, indeed, fallen into a ditch. We are at odds both with each other and with the larger world community. Polarization, hatred, rage, and discord abound. Our nation is being torn asunder. America must become just, or it will perish.

A world divided cannot stand. Not just an ideal, we must someday become a community of just nations... or we will die. Meanwhile, we live in a purgatory of physical and economic warfare and terrorism, and we remain a crippled caricature of our fullest human potential. We will continue to suffer our current purgatory or worse so long as we do not achieve justness, inclusion, and equity within and among nations.

It has the means, and, were it not so blind, America could become the world's first truly just nation and a light unto the world. But, as we are now, we can only show that part of the world which needs and accepts our guidance the way from hell to purgatory. We cannot show the way to heaven for we have not yet found our own way. We have mastered the creation and accumulation of wealth, but we are spiritually bankrupt. Inclusion, justice, and brotherhood remain but dreams. In truth, in our current state, we merely attempt to impress plutocracy the American way onto a reluctant world. We cannot serve as a model of true democracy and just governance for the world. True democracy and just governance are lights we do not yet possess.

### ~~~~~~~

Article V of the Constitution of the United States of America gives us the means to alter the Constitution, but our _right_ to amend it and even to tear it up and create a whole new constitution and government comes from an entirely more fundamental source. That source was beautifully proclaimed and appealed to in _The Declaration of Independence_ which was signed by some of the same people who created and signed the Constitution:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Well said, don't you think? We have unalienable rights; governments are instituted to secure these rights; governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed; and when a government becomes destructive of these ends it is the right and _the duty_ of the people to alter or abolish it and institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles and _organizing its powers in such form_ as to them shall seem most likely to affect their safety and happiness.

It is ironic that the very people who embraced such weighty ideas and lofty ideals created a plutocratic form of government which prevented most of the people living under it from directly participating in any of the decisions which determine the conditions under which they must live. It is the height of duplicity for them to have claimed that their government derived its powers from the consent of the governed when they deliberately excluded the vast majority of the population from even participating in the government that they created.

Given the opportunity that most people living in those times were denied and most people living in our times are still denied, we would not have then and certainly should not now give our consent to their self-serving, wealth-serving government! "We the people" have suffered enough under their unjust government!

The wrongs that they did in their time we can and should set right in our time to achieve at long last a proper balance of real power and a fair and just measure of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" for _everyone_. It is time and over time to move beyond their plutocracy and create a more perfect union.

Appendix 1

Demos Computer Calculations: Methods of demos voting, demos mathematics and software programming, and the relationship of the demos issues

The three basic methods of demos issue presentation and voting—three-button, pie chart, and line graph—are described in this appendix. Some of the mathematics and software programming that would be required for the operation of the demos is discussed. And the functional relationship among the demos issues is discussed.

The discussion includes the nine economic demos issues. It does not include the three electoral issues: the electing of the president, senators, and representatives.

### ~~~~~~~

Although the economic issues are expressed numerically, the demos members would only come in contact with simple numbers and charts. They would never need to make any mathematical calculations or have any contact at all with the demos' "under-the-hood" mathematics.

Each demos issue would be framed and treated in such a way that its current demos consensus is expressed as a simple numeric, percentage, or monetary value, or as a simple line on a chart displayed on the issue's demos page. As members changed their votes over time on an issue, the continuously recalculated consensus on the issue would slowly change, sometimes increasing and sometimes decreasing.

As discussed earlier in this work, within our bodies pulse rate, body temperature, and respiration are homeostatic systems which avoid life-threatening high and low extremes, tending toward and hovering about more central norms. Each demos issue would function like a homeostatic system, the demos consensus on the issue tending away from all extremes and hovering around a more central norm. It would not be any mathematical restrictions or formulas which caused this homeostatic behavior but the many opposing views and votes of the demos electorate pulling the issue's consensus in opposing directions and canceling each other out, resulting in the consensus avoiding the extremes and hovering around a more central norm.

Unseen by voters, each demos issue would be represented and processed mathematically within the demos computers. Although the issues are not all directly coupled mathematically, the nine issues are interrelated and form a logical, functional whole that would be responsive to the many millions of inputs of the demos members, producing a cyclic stream of calculated output. This output would be used both to update the data displayed on the demos issues' pages and to supply numeric values that our government and society must use as they function.

It should be the highest ideal and would be the goal and task of the demos mathematicians, software programmers, and hardware designers to make sure that this, indeed, does happen, that the mathematics, software, and hardware they create and use responds to and reflects the true will of the demos electorate and produces accurate, useful output.

For the protection of the demos, both during its creation and during its operation, all demos mathematics should be entirely transparent, that is, the mathematics should be made entirely available to the general public for examination and criticism. This includes all manipulations by the senate—including the specific vote of each senator on each demos issue—of the annual rates of change of demos issues described in the chapter entitled _The Extremes and the Rate of Change in the Demos Consensus on Issues_ and discussed again later in this appendix.

Many mathematicians throughout the country would be interested in the demos mathematics. They would be able to assure themselves that the demos mathematics is honest, fair, and truly achieves its intended goals. New and better mathematical methods may arise from among them.

It is less clear how transparent and visible the demos software and hardware should be. For reasons of security, it would seem prudent to not place all of the software and hardware design into the public domain. Perhaps only those parts of the software and hardware directly involved with mathematical calculations could be made public. Perhaps everything could be made public save that which has to do with demos and data security.

No single branch of mathematics could handle all of the necessary tasks. The demos mathematics would likely be a rather prosaic, pragmatic cobbling together of simple arithmetic in some places, a bit of algebra here, some calculus there, and statistics in yet other areas.

The principal areas requiring mathematical calculations would be:

***** Calculations on the voting data collected from the demos members resulting in values to be used for further calculations

***** The processing of the economic data required by the demos

***** The preparation of input values for those issues that required them

***** The generation of output data for the updating and display of demos issue pages and to serve as the numeric expression of the demos consensus

Ultimately, all of the mathematical formulas and programmed processes would need to function as an integrated whole in a rapid, never-ending cyclic process. A very large amount of data would have to be handled, and the cyclic process should have as short an interval as possible. Therefore, whatever mathematics would handle a given task the most efficiently and quickly using the fewest calculations and computer cycles should be used.

Whatever tasks could be handled at a lower, more peripheral level should not be sent to a higher, more central level. The voting terminal and its software including its mathematical formulas would handle the rendering of the demos pages.

The demos system would contain a hierarchy of pages which provide detailed information about the issues and provide the forum in which the issues are deliberated and debated, all of which would require handling. This discussion will be restricted to only the nine economic demos issues' voting pages.

### ~~~~~~~

The nine economic demos issues are listed in the following table (Figure 1). For convenient discussion each issue has been assigned a number and a short reference name. The method of voting that would be used for each issue is also included.

Figure 1: The nine economic demos issues and their voting methods

There would be three basic demos issue voting page designs and voting methods that require handling: the three-button method, the pie chart method, and the line graph method. (See Figure 1.) The following discussion of these three input methods is merely a means of conveying some of the problems involved. The best mathematical and programming methods for handling each situation would need to be created by competent mathematicians and software programmers.

All three input methods—three-button, pie chart, and line graph—are ultimately based on one, simple input concept: By the means provided for each input method, the demos member would indicate that he or she wishes one or more values to be increased, kept as is, or decreased. Both on the demos issues' voting pages and within this discussion the three choices "increase," "keep it as is," and "decrease" are symbolized and referred to by the colors green, yellow, and red. "Increase" is symbolized by the color green, "keep as is" by the color yellow, and "decrease" by the color red.

Along with other information, each of the nine demos economic issues' pages would display two main kinds of information: the current consensus of the demos on the issue and the demos member's current vote on the issue. For the three-button input method, the current consensus would be shown as a numeric figure, and the member's current vote would be shown as a highlighted green, yellow, or red button. For the pie chart input method, the current consensus would be indicated by the size of the pie slices, and the member's vote would be indicated by the green, yellow, or red color of each slice. For the line graph input method, the current consensus would be indicated by the location of the line on the graph, and the member's current vote would be indicated by green, yellow, and red colored segments of the line.

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We first discuss the three-button input method. The page of a demos issue using the three-button input method would have a green up arrow "increase" button and below that a yellow square "keep it as is" button and below that a red down arrow "decrease" button. The very first time that a new member displays an issue's page the yellow button would be highlighted. After that, whenever the member displays the issue's page, his or her current selection would be highlighted. The member could optionally mouse-click (or use some other input device as is used with computers today) one of the two other buttons to alter his or her vote. The new selection would then become the currently highlighted button. The member could change the vote again and again as desired. When done, the member would click a button labeled "Done." The color of the member's currently highlighted selection would be sent immediately to the demos system as a packet of data or sent later if the voting terminal is not currently "on line," i.e., connected to the demos system.

When all the demos members' votes on a three-button issue are gathered and tallied by the demos system, the results would be expressed as three percentage figures which total 100%, for example, 20% "increase" (green), 30% "keep it as is" (yellow) and 50% "decrease" (red). Mathematical calculations would be performed on these three values that convert them into a single resultant value for use in further calculations.

### ~~~~~~~

In the pie chart input method, something must be divided into different portions. The total of that something, 100%, would be displayed as a circle which is divided into wedge-shaped slices of various sizes. The sizes of the slices would represent the current demos consensus on the issue. The pie chart input method would be used for two demos issues. In one issue the pie would be divided into three slices. In the other issue there might be, perhaps, six slices or so. Each of the slices of the pie would represent a certain percentage of the whole, and each slice would be proportionate in size to its percentage of the whole.

The first time that a new member displays an issue's page all of the pie slices would be colored yellow. The member would indicate for a pie slice whether to increase, keep as is, or decrease the size of the slice (and, therefore, the percentage value of the whole represented by the slice) by repeatedly mouse-clicking the slice. Each mouse-click would toggle the color of the slice to the next color: red, green, yellow, red, etc. The member would repeat this toggling process for each slice the color of which he or she wanted to change.

Since the member cannot change the size of the whole, if any slice is colored green, then at least one slice must be colored red. If any slice is colored red, then at least once slice must be colored green. When done, the member would click a button labeled "Done." If these conditions are not met when the member mouse-clicks the "Done" button, then a pop-up window must be displayed to help the member. When the "Done" button is clicked, the color data of the slices would be sent to the demos system for use in calculations.

When all the demos members' votes on a pie chart issue are gathered and tallied by the demos system, the results for each pie slice would be expressed as three percentage figures which total 100%, for example, 20% "increase" (green), 30% "keep it as is" (yellow) and 50% "decrease" (red). Mathematical calculations would be performed on these three values that convert them into a single resultant value. There would be a resultant value for each slice of the pie. Based upon these resultant values, the sizes of the pie slices (and the tax percentage each of them represents) would be adjusted relative to each other. The resultant values would also be used in further calculations.

When the member returned to the issue's demos page at some later time, the voting terminal would display the pie chart using the same size pie slices that are being sent to all members during its current cycle of computations, but this member's pie slices would be colored as they were when he or she last displayed the page.

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We now turn to the line graph input method. In the line graph input method, the issue would be presented as a line on a graph. A vertical line along the left edge of the graph, the vertical axis, would be labeled at equal intervals from bottom to top with percentage tax rates, i.e., 0%, 1%, 2%, 3%, etc. up to 100%. A horizontal line along the bottom edge of the graph, the horizontal axis, would be labeled from left to right with monetary amounts, i.e., $0, $1,000, $10,000, $100,000, $1,000,000, etc. A single line extending from left to right on the graph would represent the current demos consensus for percentage tax rates for increasing monetary amounts.

The chart would be divided into 100 tall, narrow sections of equal horizontal width by 101 vertical lines extending all the way from the top to the bottom of the chart. The first vertical line at the left edge of the chart would be the chart's vertical axis which would be very visible, but the remaining 100 vertical lines would be invisible to the member or faintly visible, as the programmer desires. (For this discussion, we will say the vertical lines are faintly visible.) Since the scale of the monetary values along the horizontal axis is not linear, each of the 100 sections would include a wider range of monetary values than the section to its left. This manner of scaling was found necessary due to the huge variation in monetary amounts that would need to be displayed on the chart. As the tax rate line extends across the chart crossing over the faintly visible vertical lines it appears to the eye as one continuous line, but actually it is divided by these lines into 100 segments. Since the tax rate line may curve upward as it extends to the right, the line's 100 segments may be of unequal lengths.

The demos member would vote on line chart issues by indicating which, if any, portions of the line on the chart he or she wanted increased in height on the chart, which portions kept as is, and which portions decreased, thus indicating which monetary amounts should have their percentage tax rates increased, which should have their rates left as is, and which should have their rates decreased. Using the mouse or some other input device, the member would indicate which portions of the tax rate line should be higher, which portions should be kept at their current height, and which portions should be lower in the following way:

When the mouse is moved left and right, on the voting terminal screen an easily-seen vertical line would move left and right on the chart, jumping from one of the 101 faintly visible vertical lines described earlier to the next as it moves, never resting between them. The mouse-movable vertical line would always intersect the percentage tax rate line somewhere along its length. To select a piece, a segment, of the tax rate line, the member would use the mouse to position the moving vertical line at one end of the desired segment, press and hold the mouse button, and then drag the mouse left or right. Leaving the first mouse-movable vertical line at one end of the desired segment, as the mouse is moved left or right a second easily-seen, moveable vertical line would emerge from the first line on the chart and follow the mouse left or right. When the desired endpoint of the tax rate line segment has been reached, the user would release the mouse button. The two mouse-movable vertical lines would remain on the screen delimiting the desired tax rate line segment. A small three-button input window would pop up containing a green up arrow "increase" button and below that a yellow square "keep it as is" button and below that a red down arrow "decrease" button. The member would mouse-click the desired selection. The three-button input window would disappear, the selected segment of the percentage tax line would be colored green for "increase" or yellow for "keep it as is" or red for "decrease," and one of the two vertical mouse-movable lines would disappear. The member would again be able to use the mouse-movable vertical line to select and color some other segment of the tax rate line. The member would be able to repeat the process as many times as he or she liked. When done, the member would click a "Done" button, and a data packet would be sent to the demos system.

The line graph's background color should be dark. The percentage tax rate line would have the following colors: The very first time the demos issue's page is displayed to a new member, the line would be entirely yellow. Then the member would select and color various segments of the line green for "increase" and red for "decrease" as desired. The member would also be able to select green and red segments of the line and return them back to yellow for "keep it as is." A selected line segment could also contain multiple colors, some portions red, some portions yellow, and some portions green. It would end up being colored the single color selected by the member. When done, the member would click "Done."

The next time the member returned to the issue's page the line would be displayed with its location on the chart dictated by the current cycle of demos computer calculations, but it would be colored green, yellow, and red just as the member had left it during the previous session. The member could again select and color segments of the tax rate line as desired.

Along with the member's identification, etc. the data packet received by the demos system as a result of the member's line graph session would contain a color set consisting of a series of 100 green, yellow, and red colors, one for each of the 100 small segments into which the tax rate line is divided by the chart's 101 faintly visible vertical lines. (The member would likely have selected and colored, say, three or four large segments of the tax rate line, but each of those segments would be subdivided into some number of the 100 smaller segments into which the whole tax rate line is divided by the chart's faintly visible vertical lines. For example, if the member selected, say, a two inch segment of the tax rate line and colored it red, then that segment might consist of, say, 23 of the 100 smaller segments, all colored red and all appearing to the eye as a single two inch long red segment.)

The demos system would already have the current demos consensus for the tax rate line in the form of a set of 100 pairs of line segment values. The pair of values for each line segment would consist of the monetary amount value and the percentage tax rate value of the midpoint of the line segment. Only the tax rate values of line segments would ever change, moving each line segment up or down on the chart. The monetary value amounts of the tax rate line segments' midpoints would remain fixed at the values of the locations along the horizontal axis of the midpoints between the 101 vertical lines on the chart.

Within the demos computers, each of the 100 segments from the member's tax rate line would have a matching segment from every other demos member, some of them colored green, some colored yellow, and some colored red. For each line segment, the number of green colors would be summed, the yellow colors would be summed, and the red colors would be summed. The three sums would total 100%, and each color's sum would be expressed as some percentage of that 100%. These three values would be mathematically processed as described later, and the value of the percentage tax rate of the segment's midpoint would be adjusted accordingly. These calculations would be repeated for each of the 100 tax rate line segments.

The resulting data would be used as input for further calculations within the demos. Appropriate data packets would also be sent to members' voting terminals upon request. During the current cycle of the calculations all demos members would receive data for the same location of the tax rate line on the chart, but each member would receive his or her own current colors for the line. The data would be used to create a new percentage tax rate line for display on the member's voting terminal screen. Using mathematical curve fitting methods, a line would be drawn through the midpoints of the 100 segments forming a smoothly curved tax rate line.

Over time, a demos member may be glad to see that portions of his or her percentage tax rate line colored green, yellow, or red have, indeed, been gradually moving in the desired direction or have been remaining in the desired position, meaning enough demos members have been in agreement with the member to move the line so or keep it as is. Or, sad to say, the votes of the member and like-minded others are being outweighed by more members voting in a contrary way, and the line does not perform according to the member's color. Even so, the member's vote continues to ride on the issue and to affect the calculations made for the percentage tax rate line.

Businesses and corporations with larger annual gross revenues and individuals with larger annual incomes or larger inheritances could not have a lower tax rate than those with smaller amounts. Therefore, the following rule would apply to the percentage tax rate line: No point on the line may be lower than any point on the line which is to its left. To put that another way, no point on the line may have a lower percentage tax rate value than any point on the line to its left. Depending on demos members' input, the current percentage tax rate line could be relatively horizontal or flat resulting in something near a "flat tax"—it is very unlikely that the consensus of the demos would produce an absolutely flat tax rate—or it could curve significantly upward toward the right resulting in a progressive tax rate.

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The three-button input method would send one color datum from a voter's voting terminal to the demos system. (A _datum_ is a single item of data. For clarity in the following discussion, the word datums is used as the plural of datum rather than _data_.) There would be four demos issues that use this method for a total of four color datums. The pie chart input method used for one issue would send three color datums. The other issue using the pie chart method would likely send around six color datums. Each of the three issues using the line chart method would send 100 datums for a total of 300 color datums. Altogether, the demos system would store and use for calculations about 313 color datums for each voter.

Although the voters would not be conscious of it, in a sense, each voter would be casting 313 votes, most of them involving tiny line segments in line graphs. In the following discussion, in addition to the term consensus referring to the demos consensus as a whole or the demos consensus on one of the twelve demos issues, it will often refer to the consensus on one of the individual votes within the set of the 313 votes.

The complete voting data set residing in the demos computers for the nine economic issues would consist of 313 elements or members, and each member of the set would consist of a green, yellow, or red color datum from each of the millions of demos voters. (Given the importance of the nine economic issues, such as the entire electorate jointly setting the size and distribution of the tax burden, this is a fantastically small amount of data. And, using an algorithm, it could be compressed to a surprisingly tiny amount of storage space.)

So each member of the set of 313 color datums received from one voter would have a matching member from every other voter. Matching members are processed together as a group. For example, the datum in position number 273 might represent the same pie slice from the same demos issue for every member of the demos. All color datums occupying position number 273 would be processed together in the following way: The number of green datums would be summed, the yellow datums would be summed, and the red datums would be summed. The three color sums would total 100% of the datums, and each sum would be expressed as some percentage of that 100%, for example, 20% green, 50% yellow, and 30% red. These three percentage values for the member would be mathematically processed together to produce a single resultant value.

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The conversion of the three color values to a single resultant value is shown graphically in the following figure (Figure 2(a)). The graphic image is only used to aid the reader in understanding the conversion process. The demos computers would use a mathematical equation to effect the conversion. The color values 50% green (increase) + 20% yellow (keep as is) + 30% red (decrease) = 100% of the vote.

Figure2: Conversion of the three color values to a single resultant value

This resultant value would not itself be the new current consensus for the member but a variable that is used for further calculations that effect over time appropriate change in the value of the current consensus for the member. Altogether, the many millions of color datums in the complete voting data set residing in the demos computers would be mathematically reduced to 313 resultant values. These initial and many further calculations would be repeated for each cycle of the demos calculations, each cycle taking perhaps a few seconds.

Using the graphic in Figure 2(a), the three color values are converted into a value that represents the current annual rate of change in the demos consensus expressed as a percentage. In the figure, the initial color values are 50% green ("increase"), 30% red ("decrease"), and 20% yellow ("keep as is"), which equals 100% of the vote. The resultant value, the current rate of change in the consensus, is +2% per year. This conversion of three color values to a single annual rate of change value would be repeated for each of the 313 elements or members of the complete voting data set.

Since its three-color data set consists only of one member of the 313-member voting data set, for the three-button input method, that is the end of the conversion process. The resulting current annual rate of change value may be used as is in further calculations. But the pie chart input method has three or more members in a data set—a green, yellow, and red color value for each pie slice in the pie chart. Either the annual rate of change resultant values in the data set must be mathematically adjusted in relation to each other or the adjustment must be made at some later stage of calculations on the data set to insure that the sum of the pie slice size values always equal 100% of the pie, no more and no less. And each of the three issues using the line chart input method has 100 members in its data set. The 100 annual rates of change values resulting from the conversion process as well as further calculations based upon them must retain a sensible relationship with each other over time. It would not do for the 100 tax rate values to migrate over time to wildly differing vertical locations as the tax rate line progressed across the line chart. A mathematical curve fitting process must be applied to the data set at some point during each cycle of demos calculations to insure a smooth tax rate line.

The mathematical formula that the demos computers would use to calculate the current annual percentage rate of change in the demos consensus is as follows:

C = (G - R) ÷ (100 ÷ M)

C = the current annual percentage rate of change in the demos consensus (If the value of C is positive, the consensus is currently increasing. If negative, the consensus is decreasing.)

G = the green vote expressed as a percentage of the total vote

R = the red vote expressed as a percentage of the total vote

M = the maximum annual percentage rate of change of the demos consensus (This may be the default value of 10% or some other value set by the senate ranging anywhere from 5% to 20%. See the discussion below.)

Future demos mathematicians may develop what proves to be a better formula for the conversion process. But this one will suffice for the current discussion. The following discussion implicitly uses the above formula as we intuitively examine the graphic images in Figure 2 to reach the same result.

Now let us examine in Figure 2(a) an example of the conversion process that would be applied to each of the 313 members of the complete voting data set. The figure actually consists of four scales extending from a common fixed zero point ("0"). Notice that the long horizontal line is actually divided into a black upper line and a gray lower line. A gray scale extending rightward from 0 to 100% is used to plot the value of the green ("increase") color. A gray scale extending leftward from 0 to -100% is used to plot the value of the red ("decrease") color. (The red color actually has a positive value, but for convenience in calculation it is treated as a negative number.) The 0 to 100% scale for the yellow color value extends downward, but for simplicity only a yellow line is shown in the figure. (The green, yellow, and red lines are quite wide; they're more like bars; but we'll just think of them as lines.) The fourth scale, used to plot the current annual rate of change in the demos consensus, extends along the upper half, the black half, of the horizontal line. From the zero point it extends rightward through positive percentage values and leftward through negative percentage values.

The conversion process itself is very simple. The green value (+50%) is added to the red value (which is expressed as 30%) resulting in a sum value of +20%. (If the red value had been larger than the green value, then their sum would have been a negative number.) Moving vertically from the +20% value on the gray scale, we see the associated +2% value on the black scale. Thus, the current rate of change for this member of the 313-member voting data set is +2% per year. The demos consensus for this member of the data set is currently slowly increasing over time.

Notice that the value of the current consensus on the member of the data set is not involved in the conversion calculations. The demos electorate does not vote directly on a desired value for the current consensus but only on the direction—increase, keep as is, or decrease—that the current consensus should move. Using the vote tallies, the conversion process determines both the direction that the consensus will move and the rate that it will move expressed as an annual percentage. Using further mathematics, during each cycle of calculations the demos computers will increase or decrease the value of the data set member's consensus by the appropriate very tiny fraction of the current annual rate of change, in this case of +2%.

But the annual rate of change is itself an ever changing value. The demos computers would use whatever is the current annual rate of change value during each cycle of calculations to determine the movement of the consensus value during the cycle.

Notice in Figure 2(a) and in the mathematical formula that the demos computers would use to calculate the current annual percentage rate of change in the demos consensus that the yellow ("keep as is") value (20%) is not used in the calculations. Even so, the yellow value does have its effect and a "keep as is" vote is not wasted. This 20% of the vote is denied the green and red values, keeping them smaller than they would otherwise have been and keeping the current annual rate of change value smaller then it would have been.

Looking at the figure we can intuitively see that as the values of green and red become more equal and/or the value of yellow becomes larger, the resulting current annual rate of change value, whether positive or negative, becomes smaller in magnitude. The rate of change value and, over time, the change in the demos consensus only become significant as green and red become increasingly unequal and/or yellow becomes smaller.

Notice in Figure 2(b) the small inward pointing arrows near the left and right ends of the black upper scale and in Figure 2(c) the outward pointing arrows. What do they signify? Recall from the chapter entitled _The Extremes and the Rate of Change in the Demos Consensus on Issues_ that, for the safety of the nation, the senate would be charged with the responsibility of altering only when absolutely necessary the _rate_ at which the demos consensus may change. (The senate could not set the rate to zero. In due time, the full change would occur.) It is by altering the size of the percentage units on the upper black scale with respect to the percentage units on the lower gray scales that the rate of change of the demos consensus is altered by the senate.

The lower gray scales along which the green and red values are plotted remain fixed in their length and in their markings from -100% to +100%. But the upper black scale may be expanded or contracted horizontally.

Imagine that the upper black scale is printed on an elastic band. When the ends of the band are pulled away from each other horizontally, the black scale expands and its percentage marks become further apart. When the band is allowed to contract, the scale contracts and the percentage marks become closer together.

In the normal or default position of the black scale shown in Figure 2(a) when the senate has neither expanded nor contracted the scale, the -10% mark on the black scale corresponds to the -100% mark on the red color's scale, and the +10% mark on the black scale corresponds to the +100% mark on the green color's scale.

Figure 2(b) shows the black scale when the senate has contracted the scale, as indicated by the inward pointing arrows. Notice that the black scale now has a -20% mark corresponding to the -100% mark on the gray scale and a +20% mark corresponding to the gray scale's +100% mark. And the 20% mark on the lower gray scale is now aligned with the 4% mark on the upper black scale. Contracting the black scale _increases_ the annual rate of change in the consensus for a given set of green, yellow, and red values.

In Figure 2(c) the black scale has been expanded by the senate, as indicated by the outward pointing arrows. It now has a -5% mark corresponding to the -100% mark on the gray scale and a +5% mark corresponding to the gray scale's +100% mark. And the 20% mark on the lower gray scale is now aligned with the 1% mark on the upper black scale. Expanding the black scale _decreases_ the annual rate of change in the consensus for a given set of green, yellow, and red values.

Senators would not vote on the annual rate of change of the consensus of each individual member of the 313-member vote data set, but only on the rate of change of the demos consensus of each of the nine economic issues. When a senator voted, say, on the rate of change in the consensus of an issue that uses a line graph, he or she would be actually voting on the rates of change of the consensus on all 100 members of the line graph's data set. Voting in the senate on demos issues' annual rates of change would be similar in style to the demos members' voting on the issues themselves. Each member of the senate would have a green ("increase"), yellow ("keep as is"), or red ("decrease") vote riding on each economic demos issue's annual rate of change which he or she may change at any time. The senate's ever current consensus on each issue's rate of change is mathematically tied to the expansion and contraction of the black annual rate of change scale of the issue, thus controlling the issue's annual rate of change. (In the mathematical formula that the demos computers would use to calculate the rate of change, the senate's consensus is tied to the variable "M".)

As shown in Figure 2(a), the black annual rate of change scale has a built-in default value of 10%. Its -10% mark aligns with the gray scale's 100% mark and its +10% mark aligns with the gray scale's +100% mark. All 313 members of the vote data set would have this default setting. Keeping in mind that the senate votes on the annual rates of change of demos issues, not individual members of the data set, the senate would have the power to as much as double or half this 10% amount. That is, the senate may set the alignment of the black scale to as much as 20% per year as in Figure 2(b) or as low as 5% per year as in Figure 2(c).

Whether it is at the default rate of change or is set to some other rate by the senate, the current rate of change setting must be understood as the current _maximum_ possible rate of change of the consensus, not as its actual rate of change. Using the default rate of change for this discussion, when the rate is at its default of 10%, to achieve the full plus or minus 10% rate of change in a demos issue's consensus, the entire demos electorate would have to vote green ("increase") or red ("decrease"), both highly unlikely events. Rates of change in the realm of plus or minus 1% to 4% per year would be more likely.

At the default rate, an ongoing consensus movement should be moderate, not too sluggish or excessive; it should usually require little or no ongoing alteration by the senate. It is possible that the 10% default maximum rate of change suggested here may be too low or too high for this or that demos issue and senators would too frequently or even continuously have to slow down or speed up the rate of change to achieve a more reasonable rate. In such a case, the issue's default value itself should be changed until the senate has little need or reason to alter the rate.

A note of caution here: While establishing the correct default settings for the annual rates of change of demos issues should be a scientific or technical issue, it could also be made into a political football. Setting the demos issues' annual rates of change defaults to 10% (or whatever is deemed initially most appropriate by demos scientists, technicians, and mathematicians)—10% is strongly recommended—should be included as part of the constitutional amendment(s) that create the demos. A constitutional amendment would then be required to alter an issue's built-in default at some later date. This would secure the defaults against alteration for the purpose of mere momentary political intrigue. The senate's being able to alter the rates away from their defaults in limited measure would allow intrigue enough for ongoing politics.

At first one might think that taking a whole year to change a demos consensus value between 1% and 4%, which is likely when the default maximum is set to 10%, is really sluggish. But the demos issues are very fundamental to our society. The demos consensus _should_ change slowly. To prevent the fabric of society from tearing asunder, the change in consensus values should be evolutionary, not revolutionary. Also, once the demos has been in place and functioning for a few years, each demos issue's consensus will have settled into a value with which the electorate as a whole is comfortable. It will then homeostatically hover about its "golden mean" and not venture too far or too wildly. Even if it did shift to a new homeostatic center, it would likely do so slowly over time.

When necessitated by national or international events and the demos and the senate are of like mind and act in concert, the demos consensus can rise to the occasion and change quite quickly. Let us say that at a needful time 90% of the demos members have voted green ("increase") on a given demos issue and 10% have voted red ("decrease"). Also wanting a rapid increase in the issue's consensus, the senate has significantly contracted the upper black scale in Figure 2 placing its +20% mark in line with the gray scale's +100% mark as in Figure 2(b). Adding the -10% red and the +90% green vote tallies, we have a sum of +80% which is aligned with the +16% mark on the upper black scale. That is a very high annual rate of change.

Thus, very high rates of change could be generated by the system when needed. And yet, most of the time for most demos issues there would likely be a significant yellow ("keep as is") vote; the green ("increase") and red ("decrease") vote counts would be nearly equal; the senate would be comfortable and not alter any demos issues' annual rates of change; and the consensus values would change very slowly.

If and when the members of the demos were moving a consensus too rapidly for the safety of the nation in the eyes of the senate, the senate could simply expand the black scale slowing the rate of change.

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We turn now to what would be the relationship among the nine numeric or economic demos issues and the relationship of these issues to the rest of government and society. These issues are not merely an unrelated collection but form a logical, interrelated system and a functional whole. (See the following figure (Figure 3).)

Figure 3: The relationship of the demos issues: The demos issues form a logical or functional whole. The arrows show the directional influence or relationship among the issues. Starting at the bottom and moving against the arrows shows a series of dependencies. Issue 9 is dependent on issue 8. Issue 8 is dependent on issues 5, 6, and 7. Issues 5, 6, and 7 are dependent on issue 4. Issue 4 is dependent on issue 3. Issue 3 is dependent on issues 1 and 2. The dependencies are in part on mathematical calculations within the demos and in part on economic conditions and data that lie entirely outside of the demos.

As discussed earlier, each economic issue would function like a homeostatic system, the demos consensus on the issue tending away from all extremes and hovering around a more central norm. Taken together, these issues would function in a manner analogous to the several homeostatic systems functioning within a living organism. In a living organism, homeostatic systems produce the stable conditions and supply of substances required to keep the organism alive. In a similar manner, the electorate's consensus on the economic demos issues would produce the stable conditions and supply of decisions required to maintain internal political and economic stability and to keep our society functioning smoothly and evolving peacefully as conditions change.

Although the issues are not all directly coupled mathematically, the nine economic issues form a functional whole with a logical flow of influence. The arrows in Figure 3 show the connections among the issues and the direction of their influence.

Starting with issue 9 and moving against the arrows, we see a series of dependencies. Issue 9 is dependent on issue 8. Issue 8 is dependent on issues 5, 6, and 7. Issues 5, 6, and 7 are dependent on issue 4. Issue 4 is dependent on issue 3. Issue 3 is dependent on issues 1 and 2. While the issues are not all directly coupled mathematically into some kind of giant mathematical formula, some issues require an input value that results from calculations made within a preceding issue. Other issues are dependent on values received as a result of economic conditions and data which lie entirely outside of the demos.

Starting at the top of Figure 3 and moving with the arrows in the direction of the influence of the issues, in setting the length of the Standard Workweek, issue 1, the demos would have a profound effect on the actions of government and society. Along with other factors, it would directly or indirectly influence how long we worked, how much we got paid, how productive we were, the cost of goods and services, and the sum of personal income and corporate and business revenue in the private sector. The case would be the same for the demos' setting of the minimum wage, issue 2. Raising and lowering the minimum wage would raise and lower all boats at or near the bottom of the wage scale and would raise and lower the cost of the goods and services most directly or indirectly connected with this labor. Thus, it would also affect the sum of income and revenue in the private sector.

Therefore, while demos issues 1 and 2 would not have a direct mathematical connection to issue 3, the federal tax rate, they would have a major influence via the general economy. If the demos set the tax rate at 22%, then, as the sum of income and revenue increased and decreased, the tax revenue available to the federal government would increase and decrease as well. This and other considerations would directly affect what the members of the demos electorate considered to be a prudent federal tax rate, thus causing them to raise or lower the rate.

As a result of the current state of the economy producing some current sum of income and revenue and of the federal tax rate set by the demos in issue 3, some given amount of tax revenue would be available to the federal government. In issue 4, tax burden division, the demos would determine how much of that burden would be borne by corporations and businesses, how much by a personal income tax, and how much by an inheritance tax. The total tax burden, 100%, would be distributed among the three sources of taxes by setting a certain percentage for each of them.

The demos' having divided the federal tax burden among three sources of taxes by its consensus in issue 4, those burdens would then be passed on to issues 5, the corporate tax scale, 6, the personal income tax scale, and 7, the inheritance tax scale. These three issues would all function in the same manner. Using the line chart input method provided in issues 5, 6, and 7, the demos members would distribute each of the three tax burdens among the taxpayers.

An important point must be noted here. The following is true for issues 5, 6, and 7: Recall that the line graph input method would have percentage tax rates (1%, 2%, 3%, etc.) marked along the vertical axis, monetary amounts ($0, $1,000, $10,000, etc.) marked along the horizontal axis, and a single tax rate line on the graph. By its coloring various segments of the tax rate line green (increase), yellow (keep as is), and red (decrease), the demos members would determine the _relative_ distribution of the tax burden over the various monetary amounts, what monetary amounts would have lower tax rates _relative_ to other monetary amounts and what amounts would have higher rates. But it would be the demos computers which set the _absolute_ value of the tax rates by adjusting the overall height of the tax rate line in relation to the linear (equally spaced) tax rate percentage markings along the vertical axis.

The total amount of the tax burden placed on a given tax source is known from issue 4. The relative distribution of the tax burden placed on the source is set by the demos members. By adjusting the overall height of the tax rate line relative to the tax rate scale on the vertical axis, the computer sets the absolute tax rates required to meet the source's tax burden. To make this vertical adjustment of the tax rate line, the demos computers need yet another set of data: A reasonably accurate estimate of how many taxpayers there are at each monetary amount. This data is estimated by using the relevant data from the previous tax year and adjusting it using best guesstimates of this year's economic conditions, revenues, and incomes.

The demos cycle of calculations would happen very rapidly, in seconds, while the tax rate line would change only very slowly and infinitesimally over weeks, months, or years. This vast difference in time scales would be used to advantage. The demos members would always see a tax rate line on the graph that is actually history by a few seconds, having been calculated during the previous cycle of calculations. But, given its very slow changes, this tax rate line would serve perfectly well in the present moment.

As a result of the tax rates set in issues 5, 6, and 7, the government would then have the information it needed to create the tax tables for the next tax collection season. When that season has come and gone the federal government's coffers would be full with our cheerfully contributed money.

The results of issues 5, 6, and 7 are then passed on to issue 8. In issue 8, amount of debt or saving, the demos would set for our government how much it must increase or decrease the amount of debt that it is carrying or savings that it holds. If saving was increased, this amount would have to be subtracted from the collected tax revenue and saved before the remainder of the tax revenue was divided and allocated. If saving was decreased, the sum of the tax revenue would have to be increased by the amount withdrawn from the saving. If debt was increased, the government would have to sell more financial instruments and add the amount to the collected tax revenue. If debt was decreased, the government would have to subtract the designated amount from the collected tax revenue and use the funds to retire some of its current debt.

With the result of issue 8, the total amount of funds on hand for allocation would now be known. The whole of the funds equals 100%. Various percentage portions of this whole would be allocated to various areas of the government. The process of allocation would begin with the demos consensus on issue 9, tax revenue allocation. As discussed earlier in this work, issue 9 would allow the demos to divide the tax revenue into four broad areas of government: What percentage of federal tax revenue should go to healthcare, what percentage to other entitlements, what percentage to the military, and what percentage to the remainder of the federal government? The budget that the rest of government created would have to fit within these broad strokes set by the demos. The details of the budget process would likely already have been in progress in other areas of government and would only have to undergo some final adjustments when the exact demos consensus on issue 9 is finally known.

Regarding the timing of events, voting within the demos would be a continuous process that never ends. At every moment the demos would have a current consensus for every issue. Therefore, the specific numeric values constituting the consensus would always be available whenever the information was needed by anyone within the government and the larger society for whatever purpose. As the other branches of government went about their business setting tax tables, adding to or subtracting from savings or debt, selling or retiring financial instruments, and working out budgets, whatever information that was required from the demos consensus would simply be noted at the proper times. To minimize political manipulation, the exact moments when the various demos consensuses are noted and used by government agencies should be formalized.

The demos would also require data from sources outside the demos. The big ticket item required by the demos for calculations beginning with issue 3 would be the sum of income and revenue for the most recent year. Determining this sum would likely be a difficult task requiring as much art as science. Perhaps extrapolation from previous years would be required and educated (scientifically, not politically, motivated) adjustments from those years given the current state of the economy. At any rate, the sum of income and revenue for the most current year should be determined as objectively, accurately, and promptly as possible. The demos would require a lot of other input data as well to support its hierarchy of pages beneath the demos issues' pages where further information concerning the issues would be available and where the demos electorate deliberated and debated the issues.

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Described elsewhere within this work is a somewhat whimsical comparison between our political-economic system today and a system which has a demos operating within it: If the form of America's old political-economic system could be likened to a comet racing through space (or through time) with the wealthy, powerful plutocrats at the head and the bottom half of the population trailing off in distress and despair in the long, vacuous tail, the new system can and has been likened to an ellipse moving forward through time, the slowly varying length of the ellipse representing the slow variation in the distribution of wealth over time and the elliptical shape itself, as opposed to the thin tail of the comet, indicating that everyone is basically economically included in the society. No one is left to claw their way too far over the top or left to fall too far off the bottom of the economic radar screen. The ellipse slowly pulses as it moves through time in response to economic expansion and contraction and the demos electorate's economic mood. Since the new political-economic system has a demos, with its logically interconnected system of homeostatically functioning issues tending toward central stability and setting the system's largest economic parameters, the ellipse avoids the extremes, remains intact, and does not burst into some other broken shape or form.

The notion of an ellipse, or, perhaps even better, an ellipsoid, moving through space and time and slowly changing shape in response to the changing demos consensus and to economic conditions is simply a metaphor. There would be no such mathematical entity within the demos mathematical calculations. It would presumably be possible to mathematically interrelate certain numeric values of the demos consensus creating a mathematical ellipse or ellipsoid that was responsive over time to the overall demos consensus. Although serving no purpose within the demos calculations themselves, such a mathematical entity could be used for animated video explanations of the function and performance of the demos and its overall effect on society.

It would not be the demos mathematics as such that maintained this described homeostatic behavior and stability but all of our views and demos votes on the issues pulling in their opposing directions. Long before any extreme would be reached in the theoretical full range of a demos issue's consensus, opposing views and votes in the electorate would move the consensus in a more moderate direction. The demos calculations, formulas, software programs, and hardware would in no way create or make our decisions for us. They would simply be obedient servants dutifully collecting, processing, and outputting data that assisted us in achieving our democratic consensus. The demos' never-ending, cyclic recalculations using the numeric values representing our ever-current consensus would have no will of their own. They would be merely passive, abstract reflections or representations of the consensus of _our_ wills.

Appendix 2

Revenue, Income, and Inheritance Tax Calculation

Recall that three issues—the setting by the demos members of the corporate and business, the personal income, and the inheritance tax scales—require the line graph voting input method. A vertical line along the left edge of the graph, the vertical axis, would be labeled at intervals from bottom to top with percentage tax rates, i.e., 0%, 1%, 2%, 3%, etc. A horizontal line along the bottom edge of the graph, the horizontal axis, would be labeled from left to right with annual gross revenue or income amounts or with inheritance amounts, i.e., $0, $1,000, $10,000, $100,000, $1,000,000, etc.

The single line displayed on the graph, the percentage tax rate line, would represent the current consensus of the demos electorate on the issue. A demos member would vote on the issue by selecting various parts of the tax rate line and coloring them green, yellow, and red to indicate which portions of the line and, therefore, the tax rate should be increased (green), kept at their current level (yellow), or decreased (red).

Given a simple sliding-scale tax rate with no exemptions, the most obvious manner of calculating the amount of a given taxpayer's tax would be to simply locate the dollar amount of the taxpayer's gross revenue or personal income for the tax year or of an inheritance along the horizontal axis of the graph, note the percentage tax rate of the point on the tax rate line vertically above this amount, and then simply multiply this percentage rate (expressed as a decimal number) times the dollar amount to calculate the tax. Done!

This is not the manner in which the tax amount due would actually be calculated. The method of calculation that would be used is presented below.

But, for the moment, let us stick with the tax calculation method just described. The demos member would not need to do any calculations to determine the amount of tax due. The demos voting terminal would calculate the tax for the member. The demos issue's page would allow the demos member to simply type the dollar amount of revenue or income for the year or of an inheritance into a small box, and, given the current demos consensus, the percentage tax rate and the amount of tax due would be immediately displayed. In addition, as a visual aid, uniquely-colored lines, say, light blue, would extend vertically from the specified dollar amount on the horizontal axis to the intersection point on the tax rate line and from there horizontally left to the vertical axis tax rate scale. Or, at tax time, the taxpayer may simply look up the dollar amount in the appropriate tax agency's tax table to see the amount of tax owed.

It should be understood that the demos would be used for voting on issues including the setting of the tax rates for each of the three sources of tax revenue. It would not be used for the calculation of one's actual taxes. The voting terminal could only show the tax rate and the amount of tax due for a given dollar amount given the _current_ consensus of the demos. A voter may find this to be a useful tool when coloring various sections of the percentage tax rate line green, yellow, and red when casting a vote on tax rates or to merely satisfy curiosity. Although the tax rates currently shown by the demos would likely be very close to what the rates will be at tax time, the actual tax rates for a given year would be set when the tax revenue collection agency used the demos consensus at some predetermined time, the same time each year, for the creation of its tax tables for the year.

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With these things in mind, let us now examine the actual method by which each taxpayer's tax would be calculated. It may be that this is not a new idea and we may be merely reinventing the wheel, but this idea came spontaneously to this writer while examining the question of fairness in the calculation of taxes.

The source of the dollar amount to be taxed doesn't matter. Whether it is from revenue, income, or inheritance, the demos' three tax scale issues' pages have a similar appearance and the tax calculation method is the same.

The question of fairness in taxation is rather nebulous. We may and do honestly disagree as to what manner of taxation is fair. Some people consider any and all taxation to be unfair and would ban it entirely. Some people believe certain exemptions are necessary to achieve fairness. Some people favor a flat tax. Other people favor a simple sliding-scale, i.e., a progressive, tax. For the demos a simple sliding-scale tax with no exemptions has been embraced.

While we may in our society consider to be fair the principle that the more one has benefited economically the larger the tax burden one should bear even to the extent of bearing a higher tax rate, i.e., a progressive tax rate, there is a much fairer method of sliding-scale or progressive tax calculation than the one described above. Wealthier taxpayers, who generally know what is to their advantage, will no doubt realize that it is primarily as a matter of fairness to them that the tax computation method described below was devised. (Given the hard time the wealthy have been given in this book, the inclusion of a new method of calculating sliding-scale taxes that is fairer in a way that is beneficial to these poor souls may seem surprising. But, as has been written elsewhere, this work is not about socking it to the rich. It is about fairness and equity for all.)

The question may be raised as an issue of fairness, why should a company or individual earning during a given tax year a dollar amount, say, twice as large as some other company or individual have to pay at a higher tax rate for _every_ dollar earned? Wouldn't it be more fair for the company or individual to pay the same rate as the other taxpayer for the dollar amount that is equal to that of the other taxpayer and then pay taxes at a higher rate only for the dollar amount earned in excess of the other taxpayer? But there aren't just two taxpayers; there are millions of them. Can a simple, sliding-scale and yet more equitable tax calculation principle involving millions of taxpayers be devised in which a company or individual earning a greater amount does not have to pay at a higher tax rate for every dollar earned?

Yes. The tax computational method that would be used by the IRS and the demos is as follows: The first dollar earned or inherited during the tax year by every taxpayer of a given tax revenue source—corporate and business, personal income, or inheritance—would be taxed at exactly the same rate. Every taxpayer who earned a second dollar during the tax year would have that second dollar taxed at the same rate, and, depending on the percentage tax rate scale set by the demos for the issue, the tax rate levied against the second dollar may be the same as but more likely slightly higher than the rate levied against the first dollar. Every taxpayer who earned a third dollar would have that third dollar taxed at the same rate, which may be the same as but more likely slightly higher the rate levied against the second dollar. Each taxpayer would continue to be taxed in this dollar-at-a-time manner until the taxpayer had no more earned or inherited dollars to be taxed.

Surprisingly, we may use exactly the same line graph described elsewhere in this work and again at the beginning of this appendix. Basically, what we need to do is to alter how we see and use the dollar amount horizontal axis of the graph. Rather than seeing, say, a $10,000 dollar amount as a lump sum to be taxed at a single rate, imagine 10,000 vertical lines rising up from the horizontal dollar amount axis from its one dollar point to its $10,000 point to meet the tax percentage rate line at 10,000 points along the line. Each point along the horizontal axis represents one of the 10,000 individual dollars to be taxed, and each intersection point along the tax rate line represents the rate at which its related dollar would be taxed. The total tax due would equal the sum of the taxes levied on the individual dollars.

This method of calculating taxes would involve many calculations. Before the age of computers this method of calculating taxes would have been absurd. But now we do have computers capable of lightning-fast calculations and monitors capable of displaying beautiful graphic representations of calculated results. It is time for our method of calculating taxes to catch up with our calculation capabilities.

As for the taxpayer, the method for determining the amount of tax due on a given dollar amount remains exactly the same as that described in the first tax calculation method above. The demos issue's page would allow the demos member to simply type the revenue, income, or inheritance dollar amount into a small box, and, given the current demos consensus, the average or overall percentage tax rate and the amount of tax due would be immediately displayed. (With this tax calculation method—each dollar being taxed at a different rate—determining the amount of tax due involves a lot of computer calculations, but the average or overall percentage tax rate levied is determined by a simple calculation. It equals the dollar amount of tax due divided by the dollar amount being taxed times 100.) Or, at tax time, the taxpayer may simply look up the dollar amount in the appropriate tax table to see the amount of tax owed.

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While a person who believes any taxation at all or any kind of progressive taxation to be unfair would not be placated by this method of calculating taxes, and a taxpayer may still get steamed about a tax burden, this method of tax calculation would at least achieve tax fairness in the sense that if a taxpayer earned or inherited, say, $100,000 during a tax year, the taxpayer would pay the same tax on the 1,000th dollar as every other taxpayer who earned or inherited a 1,000th dollar and the same tax on the 100,000th dollar as every other taxpayer who earned or inherited a 100,000th dollar.

Appendix 3

Simplifying the Tax Code

Our current federal tax code contains four principal areas of complexity: 1) the sheer variety and number of taxes and fees, 2) the differing tax schedules and scales applied to various sources and amounts of revenue, income, gain, and windfall, 3) a complex labyrinth of deductions, exceptions, loopholes, and write-offs designed by the wealth-serving writers of the tax code for the purpose of evading the payment of taxes, and 4) social engineering, a maze of corporate and personal subsides and credits designed to support various causes or to adjust or rearrange in some way the social landscape.

To this complexity we add a Mt. Everest of complimentary complexity in the private sector: millions of perplexed, harried taxpayers scrambling to meet the tax deadlines, an army of tax accountants gathering information, making calculations, and filling out a sea of paper and electronic forms required by the taxpayer and by the taxing agency, and another army of lawyers and money manipulators in financial institutions and in other corporations and businesses cranking out an ever more varied and fanciful collage of financial actions, tools, and instruments designed to dance with or do end runs around the intricacies of the tax code for the purpose of minimizing or avoiding altogether the payment of taxes.

The main purpose of the complexity in our tax system is obfuscation, to prevent everybody else from seeing the slight of rich hands avoiding the payment of corporate and personal taxes while dumping the load onto other taxpayers.

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The principal proposal of this work is to create a forth branch of government, the demos, consisting of the entire electorate directly deliberating and voting on twelve of our most central political-economic issues. Among other things, the power to tax would be removed from the other branches of government and placed fully into the hands of the demos. Five of the demos issues would deal with the amount that we choose to tax ourselves and the distribution of that tax burden. All taxes, levies, and fees of every kind at the federal level would be eliminated and replaced by only three simple, sliding-scale taxes which allowed no exemptions of any kind: a tax on the annual gross revenue of corporations and businesses, a personal income tax, and an inheritance tax. Thus, in one clean sweep all of the complexities of the current tax system would be tossed out.

For a given taxpayer, all corporate and business revenues from every source or stream during a tax year would simply be totaled and taxed. So also with all personal income and inheritances; each would be simply summed and taxed. All sources of revenue, income, gain, and windfall of every kind would be completely taxable. There would be no exemptions of any kind for any corporation, business, or individual.

That sounds rather scary, doesn't it? The wealthy would do their best to frighten the middle class by reminding it that its loopholes would be lost too. But one shouldn't fall for this scare tactic. Under our current tax system, tax loopholes for the wealthy are much better than anybody else's. In a simple, sliding-scale tax system without exemptions, we would pay taxes on all of our revenue or income but at a much lower rate than we currently pay on a portion of our revenue or income. In the end, when all the dust settled, with a sliding-scale tax system with no exemptions, wealthy corporations and individuals would no longer have available the hiding places and the tools they currently use to evade the payment of taxes and to dump the burden onto others. The middle class and the working poor would be much better off with a no-exemption, sliding-scale tax system the tax scales of which are set by the entire electorate in the demos than they are under the current system with scales set on everyone by the self-serving elite.

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Despite all of the good that would be achieved with the simplification of our tax system, the question may be asked: In our making such a radical simplification wouldn't we be throwing the baby out with the bath? Aren't at least a few of the complexities in our current tax system there for good reasons? Isn't some complexity necessary for the purpose of achieving fairness and equity in taxation?

Consider the following situations:

If one lived in a house for 20 years, sold it, and moved to another location to follow a career, under our no-exemptions rule the money received from the sale of the house would be added to the taxpayer's other income for the tax year sending the taxpayer's tax rate into higher regions and the tax bill into the stratosphere leaving significantly less money to buy the next house. And what about all the money that the taxpayer originally paid for the house? The taxpayer has already paid taxes on that money. Shouldn't it first be subtracted from the sale price of the house?

What about a business that moved to a new location or sold off part of its assets to become more efficient or to focus on that which it does best? What about someone who made a "killing" in the stock market, who won a lottery or won at gambling, or who was wise or lucky enough to hold a piece of property whose value wildly increased before being sold? The person may have been poor for his or her whole life until the gain or winning, and now, suddenly, all that will have changed. But at tax time the person would fork over a significant chunk of the gain. What about someone who had just completed a long-term contract and was paid a lump sum at the end of the work? What about somebody who had just received a gift or an inheritance? What about anybody who had received any significant lump sum or amount of property?

In our search for equitable simplicity shouldn't we retain the concept of a capital gain, the cost of something being subtracted from its sales price and only the gain taxed? And surely we must also create a reasonable way to tax lump sums of revenue and income? For all of its good intentions, aren't we forced by the need for a certain amount of complexity to back away from a no-exemptions tax system located entirely within the demos? For, if any complexity at all is introduced into the system, that complexity could not be handled by the demos and would have to be defined and handled by the plutocratic, err... 'representative', branches of government, wouldn't it? Wouldn't that undermine the power of the demos, and nullify the result of this whole enterprise?

Recall our analysis of our human condition and of our political-economic situation. We are organized into dominance hierarchies. The cultural expressions of our biological dominance are authoritarianism and plutocracy, governance by the wealthy. In our American expression of dominance, the wealthy, aristocratic founders created a constitution and a government that the wealthy use to serve themselves first and best. They created a government of divided powers but— due, among other things, to a deeply flawed electoral system that overwhelmingly favors the wealthy—divided only among the wealthy excluding all others and excluding democracy to the best of their ability. Their "republican" form of government, our supposedly "representative" democracy, is and always must be deeply flawed.

But, as the phrase _the tyranny of democracy_ indicates, pure, unopposed democracy is also deeply flawed in that the simple majority can create oppression of another sort.

We found our solution to authoritarianism and plutocracy to lie in a redistribution of the powers of our current republican form of government. We created a hybrid _consensus government_ consisting of a new, truly democratic branch, the demos, the powers of which were set in balance with the existing plutocratic branches, redeeming them by rendering them truly democratic and representative. Along with other powers, the demos was given the sole power to tax.

Now, the political-economic power held by America's elite is huge. It holds all the aces. The demos would have to have sufficient power to adequately counterbalance the power of the plutocratic branches. Possessing the sole power to tax was to be a cornerstone of that power. To the extent the power to tax was diluted by being shared with the plutocratic branches, the power of the demos itself would become reduced.

Historically, every advantage has remained in the hands of the wealthy few. It is the exception that the many has had the upper hand or even a sufficient measure of power. It is extremely difficult to gather sufficient power into the hands of the many to effectively counteract and counterbalance the power of the few. Therefore, it would be anathema to dilute the demos' sole power of taxation.

But even if this were done by giving the plutocratic branches the power to introduce some complexities into taxation, wouldn't the demos still possess significant power? The demos would bring the entire electorate into one political body and give that body the power to determine how much we are taxed and the distribution of that tax burden. The demos would have the power to set the length of the Standard Workweek, the size of the minimum wage, and the amount of the national debt. And the demos would provide the means for electing the president, senators, and representatives in a powerful, new way.

This new way of electing these officeholders would give the electorate the ability to place into office people who truly represented it. These representatives would add only that complexity into the tax code which served all of us well and none to serve only the wealthy. That's the way it would work, wouldn't it? And, overall, the demos would retain sufficient power to balance the plutocratic branches, wouldn't it?

Well, that's the big question, isn't it! The big worry would be, of course, that while writing a new, improved tax code our new, improved representatives slipped into that code enough wealth-favoring loopholes and evasions to undermine the consensus of the demos on taxation, the size and distribution of the tax burden that it sets.

Even with our new way of electing its members, depending on those within the plutocratic branches to write honest tax code would place us dangerously close to our present situation and throw the results of our whole power redistribution enterprise into question. There would be no point in creating a demos that possessed powers insufficient to its task. So, again, once the power to tax had been removed from the plutocratic branches of government and placed into the demos, it would be anathema to place even the smallest portion of that power back into the their hands.

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Here are four possible solutions to the dilemma that would keep the power to tax solely within the demos: 1) Embrace the no-exemptions rule as the lesser of evils. 2) Create a dozen or so most essential tax rules at the time that the demos is created (following the guidelines discussed later in this appendix), and then create no new ones. 3) Give the demos the power to create and maintain a simple tax code. 4) Combine both 2 and 3; create an initial simple tax code at the time the demos is created, and then give the demos the power to alter and add to that initial code.

Let us examine the strengths and weaknesses of each of these proposals.

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Embracing the no-exemptions rule as the lesser of evils would keep the sole power of taxation entirely within the demos and undiminished. But we would forego the concept of capital gains, and we would have no mechanism to handle lump sums of revenue or income. Lump sums would simply be added to all other revenue or income received during the tax year driving the taxpayer's tax rate to higher levels.

There are, however, some mitigating circumstances. First, this method possesses a rudimentary fairness in that we would all be in the same boat. For example, _any_ person selling a house would have to have the whole selling price of the house added to his or her current tax year's income and taxed.

Second, by our demos consensus we would be setting the aggregate amount of our tax burden and the distribution of that burden. Thus, we would likely have a smaller, more efficient government and lower tax rates that were easily borne even during a year that contained an unusual lump sum of revenue or income. One's average tax burden over the years would be significantly less than it is under our current tax system.

Third, the notion of double taxation causes many to grind their teeth. If one buys a home with funds which have already been taxed and later sells it for a larger sum, then it seems almost instinctually fair that one should only be taxed on the gain above the original purchase price. Our current tax code offers consideration for this and selected other particular situations. But double, triple, quadruple, etc. taxation is laced throughout the entire system. By the time that an end consumer receives a product or service, it has been taxed in many ways. All of these "invisible" taxes are, of course, added into the price of the product or service. The consumer ends up paying all of these taxes with money on which he or she has already paid taxes. A tax system with no exemptions and double taxation is not wonderful. But it would also not be something new. Even with its flaw of double taxation, a demos tax system with no exemptions would result in a significantly lower overall tax burden for taxpayers than what we bear under the multiple taxation of our current system.

A few people who are able to see deeply into the matter would understand that it is best to accept this first no-exemptions method. Its virtues outweigh its flaws. But many would be skeptical and want to examine other possibilities.

### ~~~~~~~

Moving on to our second method of keeping the power to tax solely within the demos, we could create a dozen or so most essential tax rules at the time that the demos is created (again, following the guidelines discussed later in this appendix), and then create no new ones. We can readily see that in creating no new rules once the demos is set in motion, we would have a rigid situation that did not allow further amendment as time and wisdom may demand. However, this second method would get us beyond the even more severe limits placed upon us by the no-exemptions rule of the first method. Even just a few judiciously devised rules could take us a long way toward what many would feel to be a more equitable and comfortable tax system... if the rules really were equitable and the elite did not manage to slip any self-serving rules among them.

Consider this proposal for the more equitable taxation of lump sums than merely adding them to one's revenue or income for the year:

The basic idea is to level lump sums over a period of years so that they may be taxed more lightly in smaller chunks. The scheme could be created both as simple tax code written at the time of the creation of the demos or as code written later by the demos.

Notice especially the nearly universal applicability by taxpayers of the proposal. Every corporate, business, and individual taxpayer in America could use this proposal to advantage. The few other rules included in a brief, simple tax code should also be universally applicable. No rules should be included that by their nature effectively apply only to a wealthy or some other select few.

Every corporate or business taxpayer in the nation that wanted one could own one and only one special _deferred revenue account_ which could be offered by banks and other financial institutions that met qualifications for financial soundness. Every individual taxpayer who wanted one could own one _deferred personal income account_. And, as needed, each individual could also own one _deferred inheritance account_. A general name for all three types of deferred accounts might be _deferred earnings accounts_. All other means and financial instruments that involve the delay, reduction, or elimination of the taxation of revenue, income, or gain should be eliminated. The funds that a taxpayer added to a deferred earnings account could be invested to earn interest but only into instruments in which the principal was protected and FDIC insured.

Rather than our defining exactly what a lump sum is or what specific sources qualify, a taxpayer could deposit any desired amounts of revenue, income, or inheritance into the appropriate deferred earnings account. A taxpayer could run virtually all revenue, income, and inheritances through these accounts, year in and year out.

Each deposit into the deferred earnings account would be divided into ten portions and would follow its own ten-year schedule of maturation. Most people's accounts would likely be quite simple, not containing many deposits. But a given account may contain hundreds or even thousands of deposits, each following its own ten-year schedule of maturation.

The holder of an account could make deposits into and withdrawals from the account at any time. When a deposit of any amount was made it would be automatically divided into ten equal portions. Beginning with the day of the deposit, the first portion would mature in exactly one year, the second portion in two years, etc.

When a portion of the deposit matured, it would be automatically transferred out of the account to some other account of the account holder's choice. On the day of the transfer, the transferred portion would become taxable and would have to be added to the taxpayer's revenue or income for that tax year. The second portion of the deposit would be automatically transferred and become taxable one year later. The third portion would be transferred and become taxable the third year, etc. A financial institution providing deferred earnings accounts would have to report all such transfers of funds to the tax agency, i.e., the IRS, as taxable income. Such funds would no longer be taxable and could not be redeposited into one's deferred earnings account; there would be no reason to; there's no taxation to minimize.

Interest earned by funds in one's deferred earnings account would be periodically transferred to some other account of the account holder's choice and become taxable income on the day of the transfer. Or it could be periodically credited to the deferred earnings account itself, each credited amount having its own ten-year schedule of maturation from the date of the credit.

An account holder could withdraw funds from the deferred earnings account at any time following these rules: The particular original deposit from which the money was being withdrawn must be specified. The money could only be withdrawn in the amounts of the original ten portions of the deposit beginning with the tenth portion and working backward toward earlier portions. The withdrawal would become taxable revenue, income, or inheritance during the tax year of the withdrawal. The institution providing the account must report the withdrawal to the tax agency.

Corporate, business, and individual taxpayers would be able to run any and all desired revenue, income, and inheritances (lump sums or otherwise) through such accounts to level out the sums for the purpose of taxation. Ultimately, all revenue and income would be taxed but at more reasonable rates than if lump sums were taxed in a single tax year. This proposal would place the taxation of lump sums or irregularly received sums on a more even keel with, say, the taxation of revenue and income that comes in more or less similar amounts daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, or annually.

Upon the death of the account holder, the portions of the deceased's estate inherited by others could, if desired, be taxed entirely during the current tax year, which, given low to modest tax rates, would likely be the option taken by most people receiving smaller inheritances. Or an inheritance could be liquidated, if necessary, and the funds deposited into the inheritor's deferred earnings account. However, any portion of the inheritance which was already in a deferred earnings account of the deceased's would be deposited into the deferred earnings account of the inheritor to continue its schedule of maturation already in progress.

Thus would be solved the problem of taxing lump sums. In addition to taxing lump sums more equitably, this proposal would also provide some other benefits. All corporations, businesses, and individuals would enjoy the same measure of tax deferment of from one to ten years on the various portions of deposited funds. With depositors motivated by the combination of lower taxes on revenue and income, deferred taxes, and the interest earned on such accounts, the rate of savings in America would rise dramatically.

After the initial ten-year period, this deferred earnings proposal would not significantly affect the amount of tax revenue that the government collects. Any deposits entering the deferral pipeline would be offset by other maturing portions of deposits ripe for taxation. The tax revenues lost due to lower tax rates on lump sums would be offset by the taxation of the interest accrued on the deferred earnings accounts. And millions of people possessing comfortable amounts of savings would need less government assistance during hard times.

This deferred earnings proposal serves as an example of a way to create simple, universally-applicable tax rules. The tax code need contain precious few of such rules to be made equitable and just.

The biggest drawback to the scheme described here is that one may want to use a lump sum now rather than have it enter one's revenue or income stream in ten chunks over a period of ten years. A modified proposal could deal with this difficulty.

Rather than depositing lump sums and other revenue or income into deferred earnings accounts, they could be immediately utilized while their tax liabilities are entered into _deferred tax accounts_ which would not contain funds but only tax liability records. It would be the tax liabilities which are divided into ten equal portions following a ten-year schedule of maturation in a manner similar to that described for deferred earnings accounts. Whether deferred tax accounts were maintained by taxpayers, third parties, or the tax agency, maintaining the accounts on the Internet would provide convenient access for the relevant parties.

The principal difficulty with this deferred tax scheme, and it's a big one, is in the collection of the taxes due. As the taxes on a lump sum became due over the ten-year maturation period of the tax liability, the lump sum itself may be long gone: spent, squandered, invested and lost, etc. The taxes would have to be paid from new funds, funds the taxpayer may not have. The taxpayer's finances may have gone belly up. The corporate, business, or individual taxpayer may no longer even exist. Perhaps for a fee third parties could bond or somehow guarantee payment of the taxes or the taxpayer could, without disturbing certain FDIC insured invested funds, use them as temporarily "locked" collateral for payment of the taxes. Given such complexities, it is probably most wise to simply let taxpayers decide how much, if any, of their earnings to run through their _deferred earnings accounts_ and let it go at that.

A simple tax code could easily contain a few rules that define certain situations basic to all of us, e.g., the income from the sale of one's primary residence would not be taxed if the funds were used to purchase another primary residence within a specified duration of time.

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We now turn to our third possible way to keep the power to tax solely within the demos: Give the demos the power to create and maintain a simple tax code. Such a code could include tax rules such as the deferred earnings or deferred tax proposals discussed in this chapter and simple rules such as that covering the sale of one's primary residence.

Unlike a rigid tax code written at the time that the demos is created and set in motion, code written by the demos could be amended and expanded. Perhaps as or even more important, none of our nation's tax code would be written by wealth-serving, self-serving elites behind closed doors but by all of us, the entire electorate within the demos.

At first glance, this seems impossible. How could a body consisting of the entire electorate write something as long, complex, and esoteric as tax code?

Before moving on to an explanation as to how it could be done, let's reflect a bit on the previous sentence. _Tax code need not and should not be long, complex, and esoteric._ It never should have been so, even in our current tax code. In fact, if we had representatives who were honest brokers that fairly represented _all_ of the people including when writing tax code, then we would have no need in the first place to create a demos, reorganize the powers of our government, and remove the power to tax from the plutocratic branches. A prime virtue of the demos' writing of our tax code would be that the code would, of necessity, always remain simple, concise, and honest.

That the demos may write tax code, a mechanism would have to be created to facilitate the process. The first element of that mechanism would be the addition to the twelve demos issues of a thirteenth "tax rules" issue. This issue would provide the means to propose, deliberate, and vote on rules of taxation and nothing else.

Recall that beneath each demos issue's initial page a formal hierarchy of pages exists which serves to facilitate the process of pro and con discussion of the issue. The structure, function, and process of these pages and their discussion was described in various chapters, particularly in the chapters entitled _Consensus Democracy_ and _The Demos Electoral System—An Honest Way to Elect the President, Senators, and Representatives_.

Recall that the deliberation of issues involved pro-and-con discussion and that any demos member could introduce, argue, and counterargue proposals. Further, a combined method of voting and a "round robin" mechanism was discussed that fairly presented the various opinions to the demos electorate. The only thing to be added here is that for the tax rules issue the deliberations would center on proposed tax rules and modifications.

Not being numeric in nature and not lending itself to mathematical calculations, the tax rules issue could not be a consensus-style issue as would be the nine economic demos issues but would have to be handled in a majority-rule style. Just as the founders required at least a half-dozen times in the Constitution, not a simple majority vote but a super-majority of two-thirds of the demos members would be required to pass a tax rule (or tax law, if that is the better term).

This super-majority requirement would significantly increase the probability that any tax rule approved by the demos would serve the majority of taxpayers rather than some privileged few. The demos members should be ever on guard against and reject tax rules which are written in such a way as to appear to be usable by most taxpayers but which in actual practice, when meeting the qualifying criteria, serve only the few. This would be very dangerous turf, a potential back door for the insinuation of plutocracy into the demos. The non-wealthy members of the electorate would have to be ever vigilant about and really understand the full repercussions of any tax laws proposed within and approved by the demos.

Since the demos membership would be constituted of all able, of-age citizens, the tax rules that it created would not require further approval by the executive or legislative branches. Its rules, however, would have to pass constitutional muster should relevant cases involving the rules come before the Supreme Court.

Any number of tax rule proposals could be simultaneously debated under the tax rule issue. Only one proposed tax rule at a time could exist on the issue's initial or primary page for formal required voting by the entire demos electorate. A tax rule may only appear on the initial page in its unabridged form. No title or brief description may be used. The rule should be assigned a number for easy reference. Of course, brief pro and con arguments would also appear on the page as described elsewhere in this work.

The proposed tax rule that made it to the tax rules issue's initial page for formal demos voting would be the one that currently held the most votes among those demos members deliberating and voting on proposed tax rules beneath the initial page, the votes that increase an argument's visibility as discussed in the chapter entitled _Consensus Democracy_.

One procedural rule would always exist in the top position of a list of the proposed tax rules under discussion. The procedural rule would be that no current rules may be amended and no new rules may be added to the tax code at this time. So long as this procedural rule enjoyed more votes than any of the tax rules under deliberation for amendment or addition to the code, then it would be displayed on the tax rules initial page. Thus the tax code could be prevented from growing in length and complexity as the demos saw fit.

A proposed tax rule that made it to the tax rules issue's initial page would remain there for a year. Recall that every member would have the civic duty to refresh his or her demos votes, affirming each vote as is or altering it, at least once a year. Requiring that a tax rule that has made it to the issue's initial page to remain there for a year insures that every demos member will have cast a vote on it.

Meanwhile, beneath the tax rules issue's initial page, the demos members would have a long time to deliberate other proposed rules and amendments and to bring in line, by their voting, the next rule or amendment of greatest interest.

One proposed tax rule or amendment per year, (and even it may be voted down)? What a long, slow process! It would take fifty years to create a tax code of even modest length! Yes, it would be a good system, wouldn't it? Nothing would find its way into the new, simple tax code which was not subjected to extensive, highly-visible deliberation and which could not earn two-thirds of the demos vote. It is highly likely that only rules could pass muster which were written in clear, concise language and which could be reasonably utilized by the vast majority of taxpayers rather than by only a privileged few.

Oh, but all of the members of congress, all of the nation's lawyers, and all of the writers of advertising, product disclaimers, and corporate and consumer contracts would be participating in the creation and deliberation of tax rule proposals and amendments. Wouldn't they be able to muck up the works with their legalese, doublespeak, and word juggling? And just how long might "a tax rule" be?

Well, not _every_ congressperson, lawyer, and ad, disclaimer, and contract writer is a bad person. Some wordsmiths would be on the side of "the people" and for the good of the nation. As fuzzyheaded as many of us admittedly are, there would be no shortage of people both within the demos and about us in our daily lives to raise the alarm about this or that sour tax rule proposal. The long process of haggling over a proposed tax rule would go a long way toward rendering it clear, concise, and honest. Further, any tax rule that appeared shiny during approved but in actual practice lost its luster could always be brought back onto the table for amendment or deletion.

### ~~~~~~~

We now turn to our fourth method for keeping the power to tax solely within the demos: Combine methods 2 and 3. Create an initial simple tax code at the time the demos is created and then give the demos the power to amend and add to that initial code. There is something muddy or impure about this method. If it could be said that the demos would produce clear, honest tax code which represented the true will of the people, would this proposal not start them out on the wrong foot? For who would write the initial body of tax code before the demos became functional and able to create its own tax code? The creators of the demos, likely a people-minded lot, could create it. But would code of their design reflect the true will of the electorate? Our current 'representatives' in congress could write it, but they've already shown us their true colors. That is why we want to remove the power to tax from their wealth-serving, self-serving clutches in the first place.

If there is to be a tax code more complex than simply "no exemptions," of the four methods presented here for our keeping the power to tax solely within the demos, the third way—the demos should write it—seems the surer way to achieve a simple, clear, honest code that represents the will of all of us. The slow, thoughtful development and evolution over the years of a small body of tax rules would be our surest road to wisdom.

### ~~~~~~~

Here are some principles that the demos should follow when writing tax rules:

***** Although written in terms that seem to apply to all corporations or individuals, our current tax code contains rules that, when all of the criteria are met, really only apply to a specific corporation, group, or person. None of our new, simplified tax code should be defined to be applicable only to the wealthy or to a particular class of people or type of businesses, corporations, or organizations. There should be no rules in the tax code which by the nature of the criteria that are applied or by the level of revenue or income to which the rules could be realistically applied cause those rules to be applicable to a minority of taxpayers. Every rule in the tax code should be directly applicable by the vast majority of corporations, businesses, or individuals.

***** A particular tax rule should not result in disproportionate advantage to the wealthy taxpayer. If a rule benefits by, say, 10% a taxpayer with a given level of annual revenue or income, then the rule must benefit by 10% or more all taxpayers with lesser revenue or income. To put it another way, a tax rule may have a neutral or progressive effect on the overall tax rate but not a regressive effect.

***** None of the simplified tax code should exclude from taxation interest or fees paid on any kind of consumer or home loans, on capital or other investment of any kind, or on the purchase of anything whatever by a corporation, business, or person. The deduction of interest is just a form of subsidy. Government must have money to operate. What it can't get from one taxpayer, it will take from others. Thus, subsidies force some taxpayers to pay other taxpayers' bills. Investments and the borrowing of money in one's personal or business life should be entirely a private affair having nothing to do with the tax code. To the extent that government is engaged in providing entitlements, handouts, and social engineering, it should be done in other areas of government.

***** There should be no such thing as depletion allowances, depreciation allowances, or any of the other hundreds or thousands of esoteric or exotic write-offs, exemptions, or evasions that now exist in the tax code.

***** There should be no rules or exceptions favoring or disfavoring various groups or lifestyles, e.g., married vs. single, children vs. no children, providing care for others vs. none, suffering various kinds of misfortune or losses vs. not, heterosexuality vs. homosexuality, etc. Anyone seeking assistance of any kind from the federal government should go to what I earlier called _The Glass House_ , that part of government that transparently handles all entitlements. The tax system is not the place to handle lump-sum or any other kind of grants.

***** Beware of those bearing gilded gifts. Sly and crafty tax code often gives an ounce to the average taxpayer while handing a pound or a ton to the wealthy or privileged. Do not approve a tax rule that helps you only a little while it helps others a lot. If you can't make use of a proposed tax rule in your own life, then don't vote for it. If you can't read and understand a proposed tax rule or understand it when it is explained by someone you personally know and trust, then don't vote for it.

### ~~~~~~~

Now, of these various ways to handle the simplification of the tax code while keeping the power to tax at the federal level entirely in the hands of the electorate within the demos, I most favor and strongly recommend: 1) the handling of lump sum and other earnings using the universally available (but always optional) _deferred earnings accounts_ described earlier; 2) beyond that, no exemptions of any kind for anyone at any time; and 3) handling all entitlements using _The Glass House_ (discussed in an earlier chapter), not the tax system.

### End

Band of Webmasters

Using the net to repair our government

This note is for a certain few that have just "the right stuff".

Nationwide electronic voting is coming. Either the plutocrats will build and use it to further secure their undue power or others will build it the right way to bring true democracy to America.

Bringing true democracy to our nation is a large undertaking that eventually must involve all of us. But creating a demos and consensus democracy must begin with a select band of brothers and sisters. You have the right stuff if you're an Internet savvy programmer-webmaster who knows how to reach out to and work with similar others across the net. And you would like to use your skills to help the world become a better place.

You read _Beyond Plutocracy_ cover to cover including about, I emphasize here, how demos deliberations work (Chapter 9), how voting and vote processing works (Appendix 1), and how to bring true democracy to America (Chapter 26). You understand what you read in this book; you see the vision; you have a demos and consensus democracy running inside your head. You know how to build a demos on the net and make it known. And you know others that will help you.

I'm an old guy with one foot in the grave. If I'm still around and asked, I'll be happy to advise you about demos look, feel, and function. But my technical ability is limited to just cobbling together a simple HTML-only web page.

I've shown you consensus democracy's principles, structures, and functions in enough detail for you to fill in any remaining details and achieve a correct result. One caution: To achieve true democracy the demos must be accessible to _everyone_. Keep it clean and simple. Avoid unnecessary glitz, bells, and whistles that could only be understood and used by the technically savvy.

Show America and the world what a true democracy looks like and how it feels to participate in it. Use the demos web site as the nerve center for a _True Democracy Movement_. Bring in the young for the long haul. Continue until the Constitution is amended and a demos is added to our government as a new fourth branch.

About Me and the Writing of Beyond Plutocracy

I am a lifelong reader of several fields of study at a casual, layperson level: Metaphysics, religion, philosophy, history, particle physics, cosmology, biology, genetics, primatology, psychology... Surprisingly, given the subject of this book, economics and political science are not prominent among them. While far from best in show, I could be best described as a self-directed generalist who always seeks his highest purchase, largest view, and a grand synthesis. I am now sixty-eight years old. As I've aged, much, if not most, of what I've read and pondered has slipped beneath the waters. What is left is either essence or dregs, or perhaps a bit of both.

I have long treasured my favorite questions: What is reality? What are we? Since we are here together on this Earth, you and I, how do, might, and should we arrange our often conflicting ways that we may live in peace and intelligently husband our world? _Beyond Plutocracy_ is my attempt to answer the question how we should be ... at the level of nations.

I am not a writer, that is, I do not earn my living by writing. For me, spelling, punctuation, and grammar are mysteries of the universe. Please forgive my shortcomings. It is my hope that you will find my message of sufficient value to bear them.

Nor am I a scholar. As you have seen if you have not jumped to this page out of turn, _Beyond_ is not a heavily footnoted or referenced work. It is a body of carefully considered opinion. I am an expert on only one thing: the content of my own mind.

I have been writing this book within my mind for most of my life. While not failing to also see our light, love, and good, as a child I could not help but see and be angered and saddened by the injustice, inequity, and dysfunction in our nation and in the world. Over the years my thoughts became more constructive and I turned to the questions: What is "the good society"? And what kind of government would best produce it? For decades I created, attacked, and destroyed political-economic systems in my mind. So frequently and fiercely did I focus on the problem of governance that it even became the content of my dreams.

Finally, in my early fifties, I had a series of major breakthroughs in my thinking. All that was obscure and complex suddenly became clear and surprisingly simple. Most of the breakthroughs came while I slept. I kept pen and paper at my bedside. Night after night I'd bolt out of fevered sleep to fully awake with major government design problems fully resolved. I'd scribble madly and collapse back to sleep. I wrote the first draft of _Beyond_ over a period of ninety nearly sleepless days. My health was so adversely affected that I was certain it would be the death of me. I then spent the next ten years writing and polishing the book to the best of my admittedly limited ability.

One of the most important questions that one can ask oneself in life is this: Is the world a better place for my being in it? The best that one person can do is to be generally loving and helpful to others and to try to make some contribution toward the good in some larger sense. _Beyond_ is my attempt to make a contribution toward the good.

Thank you for reading it.

Roger Rothenberger

November 27, 2012

E-mail: roger.rothenberger@gmail.com

Endnotes

 _Beyond Plutocracy's_ introduction goes well beyond what a book's introduction normally contains. It is really a synopsis containing a brief summary or view of the whole book. Some parts of its text were copied from the main body of the book. Thus, in the one or two hours it takes to read the introduction one may gain a fairly good idea of the partial redesign of the American government that is presented in _Beyond_ and why it is needed. However, many ideas important to the design had to be left out of the introduction. One cannot fully understand and appreciate the design save by reading the entire book.

 In some works the phrases _the few_ and _the many_ (or, on rare occasions, _a few_ and _a many_ ) are capitalized. In other works they are italicized. Hereafter in this work no special treatment is given them, their meaning being made clear by their beginning with the article _the_ or _a_ and by the context in which they are used. The phrases refer to singular entities containing multiple members. Since the phrases are so frequently used in this work, it seemed less cumbersome and more natural to streamline their use by treating them sometimes as singular and sometimes as plural, depending on the context.

 _The Lemurs' Legacy_ by Robert Jay Russell, p. 156, published New York : Putnam, 1993, a Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam book, ISBN 0874777143

 Single quotation marks are used to enclose terms that are thrown into question. The single quotation marks indicate that the enclosed term is considered to be not really true. Depending on its context, the term may be used sarcastically or even with scorn. For example, in the sentence, _The result of our 'representative' form of government, our 'republic', is a perpetual plutocracy,_ the single quotation marks indicate that our so-called representatives do not really represent and our so-called republic is not truly a republic.

 After completing the first draft of this book, focusing principally on the biological male dominance hierarchy, its cultural expression (the authoritarian state and plutocracy), our particular American expression of dominance and plutocracy, and offering a solution for the problem, it seemed that something was lacking. The work needed a closer look at American constitutional history than my aging memory could supply. I needed to brush up. As with the books used by the schools I attended during my youth, most of the works that I perused concerning revolutionary and constitutional times seemed rather too worshipful of "our forefathers" and their constitution. And they missed what I believe to be the most central and important point. Then I discovered (and I now recommend to everyone) _The Making of the American Constitution_ by Merrill Jensen, 191 pgs., copyright 1964, published by the D. Van Nostrand Company, Princeton, New Jersey. Merrill Jensen's lucid discussion resonated deeply with my lifelong thoughts. Within his broad and professional discussion I felt that I was seeing my more narrowly focused views about dominance and plutocracy, though certainly not my terminology, expressed in terms of the time and actions of the founders. From _The Making_ and other works I relearned in part and in part learned anew the principal events of the time and culled certain lists such as the conditions that brought the founders together, the issues that divided them, the several advantages the nationalists-turned-federalists had and took during ratification, and the often questionable means they used to achieve their often questionable ends.

 The Constitution of the United States of America begins with the words "We the people..." In this work, the phrase "we the people" is used repeatedly and always within quotation marks as a reminder and for emphasis. It should never be forgotten that our government was created in the name of "we the people," all of the people, and cannot legitimately serve principally the interests of the few. It should also never be forgotten that the phrase "we the people" includes everyone, rich and poor alike. This work is not about the poor rising up against the rich but about all of us rising above our current state and embracing a more perfect union.

 For a long time I remained undecided about including a tenth economic issue, but I finally left it out: Expressed as a daily-compounded, annual percentage rate (APR), what is the highest total amount that may be charged in America by any person or entity for any loan of any kind for any purpose? This would have been a 3-button style issue. If the current demos consensus on the issue was, say, 11.32%, the members of the electorate would vote green (increase), yellow (keep as is), or red (decrease) to alter the percentage value over time. (A rose by any other name is still a rose. The term _highest total amount_ includes all interest, processing fees, service charges, and any other kind of costs that the sly and cunning care to dream up.)

 The apologists of the current political-economic system never tire of using what may or may not be reasonably accurate statistics to show that if the annual income of all of the wealthiest people in America were entirely taxed away the resulting sum could not remove the poverty of the many at the economic bottom of our society. This devious argument distracts from a gross inequity in our society even more profound than that of annual income, total _accumulated_ wealth. Obviously, the wealth gained by the wealthy in one year could not alleviate the deep poverty created by their long history of taking and hoarding the fruit of other people's labor generation after generation. The wealthiest few in America sit atop and hoard a vast mountain of our nation's accumulated wealth that could be used in part to greatly ease and even permanently remove the suffering at the economic bottom and leave an only slightly less wealthy class at the top.

 It has recently become the rage among the wealthy, wealth-serving politicos, and the fools they manipulate to call the inheritance tax by the name "death tax." As is done with tiresome repetition by politicians to hide the true nature of a proposal or action, a loaded word or phrase is used to appeal to emotions, thus avoiding reason. "Death tax" and "save the family farm" indeed! Most folks are well protected by a very large exemption in the inheritance tax. What the wealthy want is to hoard every last penny of their vast accumulations of wealth generation after generation. Laughable, but this hypocrisy may well work. This is just another good reason why a demos is necessary in our government. Most people are not stupid. They have a lot of common sense. But too many people are not able to untangle the cunning, devious lies that are forever plotted and executed against them by their supposed "representatives" and "servants" in the current American plutocracy.

 In a later chapter, _Government, Business, and the Definition of Labor_ , changes to current labor law are proposed that would alter the situation a great deal, but even with those changes the concept of the Standard Workweek would still remain central to our society, and the setting of the length of the Standard Workweek would remain a very important demos issue.

11 For simplicity all values in this discussion are rounded off. In an actual situation in the workplace, computers or calculators would make all wage and benefit calculations more precisely and with the greatest of ease. In the example wage calculations presented here a 40-hour Standard Workweek is used and a wage of $10.00 paid for the first work hour. To end up with a $15.00 wage for the 40th hour of work, a 50% increase above the $10.00 paid for the first work hour, one must calculate the amount that each hour's wage must be increased above the previous hour's wage, an amount we may call the _additive factor_. In our example the additive factor is calculated as follows: The value 0.5 is divided by 40 yielding the value 0.013. The first hour's wage $10.00 is multiplied by the value 0.013 yielding the amount $0.13. So $0.13 is added to each hour's wage to calculate the next hour's wage. 11

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