3 – Election is not synonym of democracy

An election essentially leaves the choice between candidates already preselected by political parties
An electoral campaign is quite expensive, to be elected costs a lot, the support of money powers cannot be avoided and is necessary
Therefore, members of a political cast obtain powers without any counter-power, form an oligarchy and are thankful (and in debt) for their election towards money powers that backed them
True democracy does not use election but the random draw/sortition to pick its representatives
Also, true democracy gave limited powers to its representatives for a short mandate/term
And as final point, true democracy organises counter-powers efficient enough to balance out the powers given to the representative

By setting up such institutions in general (in particular the random draw / sortition), the Athenians achieved true democracy for over 200 years and consequently the poor always remained in power and the rich never took over. This did not prevent the Athenian society from flourishing (and setting a historical precedent).

The election process has been used in France for 200 years (and similarly elsewhere) and has always mechanically led to the opposite result: power always left in the hands of the 1% and never in those of the 99%. Each day, we suffer the dire consequences of such politics (see Chapter 1).

It was never meant to be a democratic tool and yet, we vow an almost religious cult towards election. The random draw / sortition must be rediscovered.

Understanding random draw / sortition

You most probably have objections towards the concept of the random draw / sortition, but take the time to understand what it is really about. Your objections have already been raised by others and solved by the Athenian democratic constitution. If the concept of the random draw / sortition has been “forgotten” in all our so-called democracies and erased from the collective memory, it is because it is a threat for the very few who rule. Listen to what will follow and you will understand that it is not about “randomly giving power to just anyone”, it is not a lottery ticket and is much smarter than that.

1. Understanding the random draw / sortition in 5 minutes.

Download the MP3 – (Interview Reporterre.net, Febuary 11, 2011)

2. Table comparing “Election vs. Random draw / Sortition” page 6 of this document

Centralite_du_tirage_au_sort_en_democratie.pdf

The principle of election if fundemantaly aristocratic for it must designate the best (the fittist) amongst us to rule (aristos). However, nowadays, it is the best spokesman who is rewarded by the election. Associating the word democracy and the word election is therefore profound non-sense, a mistake with dire and terrible consequences. This mistake leads to defining democracy with the procedure that is it’s worse enemy, it’s complete opposite. Twisting the meaning of words in this case is very troublesome and makes it very difficult to resist to such a wrongly named regime (oligarchy named democracy) because it simply becomes impossible to designate the opponent (oligarchy) and the goal (democracy) at the same time. This is a cunning method. The way of using a word instead of another is a weapon to fight against resistance. It has a name: the newspeak (Orwell, 1984).

We must absolutely refuse to use the word democracy to describe it’s exact opposite, only then will people start to realize the difference.

Citizen did not get up and suddenly decide to elect representatives. The principle of electing our chiefs (who should in fact be our servants) is written in our constitution, the supreme law of our country. Do you know who wrote the constitution?

Next Chapter : At the heart of the problem, our constitution

Vidéos

Etienne Chouard & Yvan Blot (Parliament Member)
Debate on true democracy.

A MUST SEE, oligarchy seen from the inside, examples of democratic tools (Switzerland)
Etienne Chouard – Meeting
The election system.