Sortition:
Research Proposal by Dr Keith Nilsen
Social theory has failed to adequately account for three main
aspects of democratic development: the absence of sortition in
modern political systems; the significance of common sense realist
analysis within radicalism; the influence of factional conspiracy.
These failures are interrelated and find reflection in the truth,
self evident to common sense, that whereas on the one hand election
by sortition must tend to contain the influence of factions on the
other election by voting for nominated competing candidates must
tend to engender their development. These omissions in social
theory are general and can be detected in modern US constitutional
analysis. In response to denial of these failings, in 2003 I
conducted an inspection of the first 50 books on the subject of
democracy listed by the British Library catalogue search computer
(a librarian witnessed by signature the titles listed). None of
them had any reference at all to the word sortition, or even random
selection. It is also entirely absent from the books in the
bibliography below, excepting those by Dowlen (which on his
admission takes my research as a point of departure) and
Finer.
Misrepresentation of Athenian democracy dates back certainly to
James Madison and includes the marked tendency of theorists to
equate sortition with ‘direct democracy’ denoting participation by
the mass of the electorate in decision making and with this lawless
'rule by the mob.' In such fashion Montesquieu invented the fiction
that ‘pure democracy’ could only survive without descent into
tyranny when confined to small states. In fact however sortition is
an alternative form of representation, not ‘direct democracy.’ Its
use in Athenian democracy became more orderly and law based as
methodological improvements in delegation, record keeping,
executive decision making and legislative procedure were developed
over time. In the later period the 'living constitution' of
Athenian democratic process was even to some extent quite possibly
not only more flexible but also more just than the intrigue bound,
factional activism of modern judicial aristocracy.
My research has led me to address these omissions in social theory
due in some measure to the particular path of political development
which I have followed. In 1976 I abandoned Marxism as a viable
paradigm after studying the problems of planned economy. From 1978
to 1987 I suspended these doubts in order to investigate further
Lenin's claim that 'Marxism is all powerful because it is true'
premised by an informed understanding of the commonsensical,
practical qualities of his approach, including such principles as
one man management, his conviction that radical theory should be
polemical in nature to expiate opportunist tendencies and
accordingly his view that Left organisation should facilitate this
requirement. Throughout the eighties I promoted Lenin's tenet that
the principal paper of the Left should be aimed at the level of
politically advanced workers, and that the track record of leaders
should be both transparent and subject to freedom of criticism and
with this the common sense judgement of the politically active
working class. I formulated this approach as a first step to
tackling the many difficulties of Left strategy in its relation to
democracy with a view to differentiating truthful and opportunist
approaches. I believe it remains valid, and could have general
application to democratic organisations. I was not satisfied with
the indecisive nature of Soviet responses to this proposal.
After the 27th
CPSU
Congress I adopted once again a sceptical approach towards Marxism,
and began research aimed at constructing an alternative viewpoint.
Like radicals such as Tkachev, I sought an essentially Darwinian
approach to the relation between truth and common sense through the
prism of British empiricist understanding, and accordingly began to
recognise the superior merits of agnosticism in their relation to
atheism. In September 1991 I attended the CSCE parallel human
rights conference in Moscow and was soon made aware that
'postmodern' Left strategy had supplanted Lenin's indifference to
Machiavelli with Gramsci's enthusiasm for such voluntarism not only
in the west, but also in the east. Though it had been intimated to
me the Italian leader had a strong Soviet following in 1979, no
open expression of this tendency was in evidence during my
employment in Moscow. The distinct approaches of Gramsci and Lenin
with regard to truth, common sense and Machiavellian chicanery have
longstanding antecedents within radicalism dating back to the
enlightenment largely in reflection of differences between British
and European philosophy. My knowledge of their relation to
communist propaganda and intelligence strategy became more
comprehensive more especially so after my amendment to composite 54
at the 1992 Labour Party conference was accepted to establish a
committee to deal with questions of secret service democratic
accountability.
Dowlen (preface, 2008) states my interest in sortition began with
this initiative, in truth however it had begun in the eighties upon
discovering the fact, still astonishing to modern understanding,
that Athenian democracy was founded upon its use, and that Kautsky,
following Hegel, had dismissed this form as 'immature' and
inevitably destined to succumb to the party system of democracy in
its mature, bourgeois form.
My
PhD thesis incorporated criticism of 'Third Way' strategy both in
regard to its negligent disregard for intelligence on the potential
scale of communist factional activity and also in its uncritical
endorsement of neopragmatist philosophical assumptions and failure
to give any account of the role of common sense realism.
Accordingly and unsurprisingly there is no reference or explanation
in any of Anthony Giddens' published work of the fact, recognised
by Finer (1998 p 362 ) that Madison's claim that Athenian democracy
had 'no cure for the mischiefs of faction' was not only wrong but
the opposite of the truth. Against this background I believe it
possible to link the theoretically superficial, cosmetic basis of
Third Way strategy with Soviet reluctance to give decisive support
to defence of Lenin's principle of freedom of criticism: they
represent two sides of a singular opportunist tradition which has
certainly some of its origins in the failure of Lenin’s heirs to
uphold this principle with regard to his assessment of their
character. If this principle had been upheld I believe it possible
that reconciliation between the Russian and American revolutionary
traditions could have been achieved long ago on the basis of
advances in social theory, including clarification of what Gramsci
had shown recognition to be the 'good, English, meaning' of common
sense, and with this the true nature and significance of the first
modern republic.
The American revolution was limited in its success due to the
alliance with reactionary forces necessary to ensure its survival.
These considerations helped shape the avowedly radical Declaration
of Independence, the pragmatically conceived articles of
confederation and federal constitution and the resurgently radical
Bill of Rights. As Jefferson recognised, it is the first and the
last of these documents which are the most fundamental, since they
both deal directly with self evident truths of common sense and the
unalienable rights which arise from them.
Modern radicalism does not maintain a consistent grasp of these
distinctions given its wholesale adoption of neopragmatism, its
failure to account for the long forgotten role of common sense
realism, and its failure to uphold democratic principles of
political organisation. In this light the frequently repeated claim
that the struggle between originalism and the interpretive 'living
constitution' school of leftist thought has arisen due to cultural
changes of the 1960's is both superficial and inadequate. The
complaint that conservative critics of this approach doubt the
sincerity of its advocates (Goldford p.203) is without real
justification given the history of communist dissimulation in
pursuit of united front policies. The claim that Leftists are
engaged in a Gramscian 'long march through the institutions' (ibid
p 22) in regard to matters of constitutional interpretation will
remain legitimate until contemporary radicalism is able to
demonstrate clear support for the US Bill of Rights. As President
Bush has noted, the varied forms of totalitarianism generally
uphold self selecting organisational principles of leadership. The
suspicion is that career leftists inclined to the soft totalitarian
outlook are correspondingly attracted to aristocratic fields of
influence such as in the academic establishment and the judiciary,
where sortition has as yet no role in the appointments systems.
Bruce Herschensohn for example has claimed that 90% of Capitol Hill
jobs are taken by Democrats, even when Republicans win
elections.
I do not rule out the possibility that concepts such as
‘underdetermination’ (Purcell 2007) and Kant's 'synthetic a priori'
(Goldford p.238) may have some use in understanding the US
constitution, but only on the basis that the self evident truths of
common sense are properly understood as being evolutionarily stable
and objective, not culturally relative determinations.
Interpretivist inclinations are however almost entirely relativist
in orientation and as such more usually presupposed by dogmatically
atheist assumptions. 'Living constitution' advocates are
consequently susceptible to confusing alienable rights which can be
subject to culturally relative considerations (such as Lenin’s
advice to Inessa Armand that issues of post coital ‘choice’ in
regard to birth control were petit bourgeois in nature) with
unalienable rights such as the right to life. Against this
background much of the textual argumentation in US constitutional
law appears excessive. The radical legal aristocracy need to move
on from this terrain of debate, since it is largely constrained by
and a function of narrow parameters of factional deliberation which
themselves could in the long run be complemented with less partisan
institutional arrangements, perhaps even including amendments to
the exclusively aristocratic composition of the supreme court. The
US constitution is the world's most advanced democratic framework
for facilitating political progress by consent and it should be
respected as such, not as an object for manipulation and distortion
by means of judicial activism and aristocratic meddling.
If general agreement can be reached that the said fundamental
founding documents are and will remain essentially correct,
attention can be focussed on expanding the parameters of democracy
to include non partisan institutional arrangements. This is the
context in which the self evident truths of common sense in their
relation to sortition can be afforded greater understanding in US
democratic development along with Jefferson's self evident but
unincorporated constitutional truth that the 'earth belongs to the
living,' including in regard to its implications for inherited
wealth and multisystemic macroeconomic choice mediated by long term
constitutional review. Progress on these issues must be based on
popular agreement to such changes, which ultimately can facilitate
a process of constitutional amendment first at state, then at
federal levels. This process can also include education and debate
concerning whether it is appropriate that supermajority support to
effect change at both state and federal levels is ultimately
necessary. Aside from its Bill of Rights amendments the federal
constitution is a limited, narrowly and indeed secretively
conceived 'blueprint for liberty' which can and should be further
developed in accordance with the aspirations of its founding
fathers. In this way the evident flaws in understanding upon which
it is based, not least among which is the potential role of
sortition in containing deleterious factional influences while also
facilitating non partisan means of amendment and ratification,
'recommendatory' or otherwise, can be corrected and improved upon.
Similar errors also affected the aristocratic early American
approach to citizen payment in regard to political participation
which need to be addressed. By such means a framework of common
understanding and broad political participation through which
conflict between radicalism and conservatism can be managed more
effectively can hopefully emerge. This possibility is not wholly
unrealistic: I have been informed through their embassy in London
that such an example of reform would be emulated by the Russian
Government. My research, which includes ongoing development of a
rolling citizens deliberative jury on both sides of the Atlantic as
means to 'prove' the existence of the self evident truths of common
sense, is oriented to these goals. Simultaneously addressing the
problems of electoral fraud and falling voter turnout, results show
over two thirds of respondents have agreed to the above proposals.
They are incorporated in a short pamphlet on 'Absentee
Ballots'
together with a model resolution.
Conflict resolution strategy also includes questions of a military
nature, both in regard to secret services, and also more broadly.
In 2003 I submitted proposals for democratic development and
security force recruitment in Iraq to USAID incorporating the use
of random selection as means to contain infiltration by enemy
factions. I would like to continue research in this field with the
assistance of US armed forces public affairs officers. That war is
politics conducted by other means is a truism few can doubt,
whether at regional, global, or world historical levels of
conflict, all of which are more safely viewed as being
interconnected.
My investigative research can in the process of addressing these
tasks also seek explanation for why Madison so misrepresented
sortition in attempting to combine Hume's theory of faction, tenets
of mixed government, Montesquieu's separation of powers and the
unavoidably pragmatic solution of federalism to curb the influence
of faction in his extended republic.
The commonplace antidemocratic prejudices of the period certainly
affected the parameters of 18th
century
political debate, yet neither can it be ruled out that darker,
factional motives of either noble or ignoble character also played
a role.
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