In contrast to the current failing system, our global liquid democracy on a blockchain, with subsidiarity, is designed to enable proactive decision-making and timely response to challenges.
Using technology, votes can be cast and tallied instantly, enabling quick responsiveness to emergent needs.
Our liquid democracy model is closer to a unicameral model than a bicameral one, thereby averting delays that typically arise in “upper” legislative chambers such as the US Senate, EU Council of Ministers, UK House of Lords, etc.
Constitutional review by our global constitutional court stands as the one potential source of delay or obstruction when necessary.
In assessing the effectiveness of our liquid model, we suggest a comparison with the representative model which prevails today. Its failures are numerous.
Failures of the Representative Model
Sadly, representative models prevent popular participation and discourage engagement. Only a tiny percentage of citizens, the elected representatives, can vote most of the time; the rest of us are restricted to voting only once every few years, and, typically, to voting only for candidates or parties. (In some places, such as California, policy questions also appear on the ballot, but these issues pale in both number and frequency compared to those considered by legislatures.)
The representative model also invites corruption, due to both to the enormous ratio between a single elected representative and their many constituents, and also the role of money in electoral campaigns.
In the United States today, the average elected member of the House of Representatives has 700,000 constituents. It is impossible for any individual truly to know this many people’s hearts and minds, so lobbying groups spring up to bridge the gap. Yet most lobbying groups are funded by private businesses and wealthy individuals; because of financial constraints, public-interest lobbying groups are the rare exception. This skews our policies away from the public interest, typically preventing necessary reforms.
In addition, in the US, there are no limits on the amount of money that may be spent on electoral campaigns.
These two factors combine to privilege the voices of the wealthy few over those of regular people, who have effectively zero real influence over policy. Nor is the problem limited to the US: according to Transparency International, “Sixty-eight per cent of countries worldwide have a serious corruption problem. Half of the G20 are among them.”