Wednesday, November 30, 2016

Springtime for China's Coal Industry: Is China Too Big to Swerve Enough to Avoid the Climatic Iceberg Ahead?


Even as Chinese government officials “called on the United States to recognize established science and to work with other countries to reduce dependence on dirty fuels like coal and oil,” China was “scrambling to mine and burn more coal.”[1] Notably, short-terms concerns were dominant. “A lack of stockpiles and worries about electricity blackouts” were “spurring Chinese officials to reverse curbs that [had] once helped reduce coal production.”[2] By December, 2016, coal mines were reopening, and with them coal miners were returning to work. The renewed activity would of course make it more difficult for China and the world to meet CO2 emissions targets, “as Chinese coal is the world’s largest single source of carbon emissions from human activities.”[3] In fact, China’s use of coal results in more emissions “than all the oil, coal, and gas consumed in the United States.”[4] The implications for being able to contain the global rise in temperature within 2 degrees C are not bright from this real-life scenario. It is important, therefore, to grasp the underlying dynamics behind China’s plight.
Even as 2014 had brought “the autumn of coal,” and 2015 and early 2016 instantiated the winter, the new spring later in 2016 came during what would be the hottest year for the planet since record-keeping began. The cyclical pattern evinced here does not fit with the maximizing nature of global warming.
The Chinese government was not adjusting fast enough, given the climatic toll even by the closing months of 2016. The sheer scale involved is likely the main culprit—China’s population being over a billion. Despite ambitious hydroelectric-dam projects and “the world’s largest program to install solar panels and build wind turbines,” coal still produced almost three-quarters of the country’s electricity.[5] Even with conservation measures on the use of electricity—which, by the way, are practically non-existent in sunbelt republics like Florida and Arizona—a billion people must necessarily consume a lot of energy cumulatively. Even with the one-child policy, the sheer size of China’s population was something the government could not ignore.
The dynamic I have in mind is that of the Titanic, the largest ship of its day (1912) and yet with a rudder that was too small, given the size of the ship, to turn it sufficiently in time to avoid the upcoming iceberg. By analogy, a climatic “iceberg” was approaching Earth so fast and was so close even by the end of 2016 that the governments of large, empire-scale, countries like China and India would need larger rudders in order to steer close enough to alternative energy sources to have even a chance of avoiding a collision with full-blown climate change. The culprit, in other words, lies not only in the proclivity of human nature to privilege instant gratification backed up by short-term politics and thinking; our ships of state are outmoded, given how large we’ve allowed our species to become. The problem is thus not in China’s rough transition from central-planning to a government-regulated free market.



[1] Keith Bradsher, “Despite Climate Vow, China Scrambles for Coal,” The New York Times, November 30, 2016.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid.

Tuesday, November 22, 2016

The Courts Go After Gerrymandering: Deconstructing a Conflict-of-Interest


In the U.S., the boundaries of both federal (e.g., U.S. House of Representatives) and state legislative districts are redrawn every ten years after the census to “ensure that each district contains roughly the same number of people.”[1] Both major political parties in state legislatures “often remap districts to favor themselves, either by cramming opposition voters into a single district or by dividing them so they are the majority in fewer districts.”[2] I contend that a simple majority vote is problematic, given the irresistible temptation to redraw the districts for partisan advantage rather than merely to take account of changes in population.
By a 2-to-1 ruling, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin found in November, 2016 that the Wisconsin Assembly’s redrawing the legislative chamber’s districts was an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander favoring the Republican Party. U.S. courts had struck down gerrymandering on racial grounds, but never on “grounds that they unfairly give advantage to a political party.”[3] For the first time, a court offered a clear mathematical formula for measuring partisanship in a district. The Court found that the legislature’s redrawing of its districts violated both the First Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment because the remapping “aimed to deprive Democratic voters of their right to be represented.”[4] The motive here is problematic, for it puts partisan advantage above the duty to act for the public good by fairly adjusting for changes in population.
In other words, the ability of the party that controls a legislature to use the census-adjustment responsibility for private (i.e., party) ends puts the party in a conflict of interest. The party being in the majority of a state legislative chamber is sorely tempted to put partisan goals above the democratic aim of achieving fair districts. Democracy itself suffers so a majority can remain in the majority.
One solution to this conflict of interest is to require a 2/3rd majority (or majorities in both parties) to approve changes in the districts. The latter pertain to the entire legislative chamber, as part of its basis in representative democracy, so it is only fair that at least some of the minority party approves.
My main point here is that going by simple majority enables, or sets up, the conflict of interest. Given the overwhelming force of the partisan temptation, the conflict should be deconstructed. In fact, all institutional conflicts of interest that can reasonably be taken apart should be, due to how ongoing temptation plays out in human psychology/nature.



1. Michael Wines, “Judges Find Wisconsin Redistricting Unfairly Favored Republicans,” The New York Times, November 21, 2016.
2. Ibid.
3.  Ibid.
4. Ibid.

Tuesday, November 15, 2016

The Trump Organization and a President Trump: Minimizing the Exploitation of Conflicts of Interest

In a matter of days after his being elected as President of the United States, Donald Trump decided to put his business empire in the hands of his adult children. Roughly a month later, in recognition of the intractable conflicts-of-interest problem even were his three eldest children to run his roughly 500 companies, he announced that he would sever his ties with his empire; after all, he would have his hands full as the federal president of another sort of empire: The United States of America. Even so, he did not mean to divest, suggesting that conflicts of interest involving his brand could be salient through his tenure as U.S. President. It is important to remember that nothing in federal law prohibits the President from continuing to run his own business; the conflict-of-interest rules that apply to other federal officials do not apply to the office of the president. Even so, enormous external pressure was being brought to bear on the president-elect to divest completely from his businesses.

The Trump Organization’s vice president of marketing pointed to the “transfer of management of the Trump Organization and its portfolio of businesses” to the children.[1] As laudable as it is for a father to have such pride in his offspring, the conflicts of interest cannot be ignored. “The inclusion of the kids on the transition team makes it clear that there is no real separation between their politics and their family,” said Lisa Gilbert of Public Citizen.[2] With Trump’s children running the Trump Organization, it could hardly be pretended that it’s assets would be in a blind trust.

Turning operations over to Donald Jr. and Eric would not qualify as a blind trust because the U.S. President would have knowledge of the company’s major assets and be in contact with the people running the business. “To say that his children running his businesses is the equivalent of a blind trust—there is simply no credibility in that claim,” said Matthew Sanderson, a Washington (Republican) lawyer.[3] “It’s not a blind trust when you know what’s in it,” Richard Painter, who oversaw White House ethics policies under President George W. Bush.[4] Accordingly, the Office of Government and Ethics informed Trump’s lawyers that only a divestiture would result ethical concerns.[5] Trump could object that selling his brand could risk its impairment. As the Trump brand is his name, he could be expected to continue to have a vested interest in how well the business does. At the very least, he would not want to see it fail.

While a president’s business should not have to take a major hit, the notion that assuming public office is a duty should be sufficient to justify costs—even in terms of opportunities lost (i.e., opportunity cost)—arising as a result of the business being put in a blind trust. Yet in the case of a business empire of real estate, whose properties would of course be known to the future president, expunging, or deconstructing, the conflicts of interest would be impracticable. So the task, I submit, is to do what can realistically be done while still recognizing that conflicts of interest are inherently unethical because human nature, being what it is, cannot be expected to stand up to the temptation, even if a latent one.

In Donald Trump’s case, at least four possible conflicts of interest stood out in the wake of the election. Firstly, the Trump International Hotel was already operating out of the Old Post Office Building, which is owned by the U.S. Government, when he was elected president. The institutional conflict of interest lies in Donald Trump as U.S. President appointing the head of the General Services Administration, the agency that manages the building, while Trump’s children run the hotel (even as they were advisors in their father’s transition team). A personal conflict of interest lies in his enrichment from officials including of foreign governments staying in the hotel when visiting Washington even if just to make a good impression on the president. Even while Trump was the president-elect, foreign diplomats were booking stays so they could comment on what a nice luxury hotel the president has.

Secondly, the U.S. President oversees the National Labor Relations Board, which, a week before the 2016 election, ruled against Trump’s hotel in Las Vegas. Being a major employer while being the U.S. President, Trump would naturally feel tempted to exploit the latter role in favor of the former. The same sort of conflict of interest would apply to the IRS and the EPA—two other federal agencies highly relevant to business.

Thirdly, roughly half of Trump’s 30 properties in the U.S. had debt as of the time of the election. As President of the United States, Donald Trump could put in his own Chair of the Federal Reserve in 2018. He would have a personal financial interest in keeping interest rates low. Additionally, he would be tempted to use is role as president to put pressure on his banks should any of his properties (again) be in financial trouble.

Fourthly, the need to adequately protect Trump’s New York home in Trump Tower set up the conflict of interest whereby Trump would profit by renting several floors to the U.S. Secret Service. The operative question is whether a president should profit monetarily from his own protection.

Trump’s own modus operendi of using publicity to sell his brand should also be considered. Selling his brand had been so very salient in his business persona (and even in his role on The Apprentice) and the pattern continued with VP-elect Mike Pence giving a prominent speech at Trump’s hotel near the White House that Trump could hardly be expected to stop advancing the financial-political synergies after taking the oath of office. That he explicitly extolled his brand of steak during an acceptance speech after winning a primary (or caucus)—even furnishing some of the steaks on display—suggests that he would at the very least make references to his brands on the “bully pulpit” of the presidency. What he might do behind the scenes in the White House to further his business empire is anyone’s guess.

Yet disentangling Trump from his business empire may be unrealistic, given the man, his brand, and the nature of a large and prominent business. “It is unprecedented in modern history to have the level of complexity of global substantial business relationships that the president-elect has, and the litigation that inevitably follows any complex business venture,” said Norman Eisen, a former special counsel for ethics and government reform.[6] The presidency has so much power that the possible points of contact are too numerous to deconstruct on a case by case basis. “Since he has the power to affect all policies in this country, there are bound to be almost daily potential conflicts of interests between his business holdings and his decisions as president,” said Fred Wertheimer of Democracy 21.[7]

Jimmy Carter put his peanut farm in a blind trust. Ronald Reagan and both Bush presidents used blind trusts as well. Trump’s case is not so simple. “The layers of potential conflicts [of interest] he faces are in many ways as complex as his far-flung business empire.”[8] At the time of the 2016 election, that empire included more than a dozen hotels and golf courses, commercial real-estate including Trump Tower, and marketing deals.[9] Even were Trump to place the Trump Organization in a blind trust (i.e., not run by his children), he would undoubtedly know the major assets—many of which literally have “Trump” emblazoned on them far above street level. So even divestiture—selling the business to outsiders—would not obviate possible conflicts of interest.

Pressuring Trump to liquidate the business he founded may be asking too much of the man, especially if public service is considered a duty. Should he be pressured to take such a hit to his family business simply because he decided to step up to the plate for the good of his country? I’m by no means suggesting that this was his only motivation, but it should be asked whether it is in the national interest to put large stumbling blocks in front of accomplished, successful people who would otherwise undergo public service.  Fourteen-months of campaigning could be enough of a repellant for would-be presidents of excellent caliber; having to sell or liquidate “your baby” could be asking too much.

In short, ridding the future president of any possibility of conflicts of interest concerning his business-role and his role as U.S. President could be so detrimental to Trump’s private affairs that doing so would be asking too much of his public duty. Moreover, the message sent out to future well-qualified candidates for the office would be that being president would cost them dearly.

I am not suggesting that we should throw our hands in the air and not attempt to curb Trump’s opportunity to get even richer from being president. Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York City and one of Donald Trump’s advisors during the campaign, advocated trusting the future president. “You have to have some confidence in the integrity of the president. . . . The man is an enormously wealthy man. I don’t think there’s any real fear or suspicion that he’s seeking to enrich himself by being president. If he wanted to enrich himself, he wouldn’t have run for president.”[10] Yet he sold his steak-brand during his speech after a primary.

Moreover, given the level of temptation that is in a conflict-of-interest situation, I submit that trusting Trump is not a wise option. Furthermore, although he undoubtedly believed after the election that having his children run his business-empire would ensure its survival—not to mention profitability—the business would hardly suffer from the hiring of a seasoned CEO along with an independent monitor. Such an arrangement would be fitting, given the extraordinary nature of the situation of a president being the founder and head of a business empire. However, such an arrangement would fall well short of staving off potential conflicts of interest.

Given how oriented Donald Trump has been to selling his brand, he should at the very least divest financially from his businesses and licensing agreements. Owing to the nature of a family business, he could transfer his ownership interest to his children, who would hold off from running the Trump Organization until their father has left the presidency. The management during Trump’s term of office would essentially be in a blind trust even though the business itself would not be. It asks too much of the man to sell off his family business to be owned and run by outsiders, for his family might not get the business back after Trump leaves office. The use of the Trump International Hotel in Washington even when Trump was president-elect suggests that even this arrangement would not forestall conflicts of interest, but at least the public would have some deserved solace in knowing that some distance has been placed between the president and his business empire while he is in office.





1.  Fredreka Schouten, “Watchdogs Warn Trump on “Blind Trust,” USA Today, November 16, 2016.


2.  Fredreka Schouten, “Watchdogs Warn Trump on “Blind Trust,” USA Today, November 16, 2016.


3.  Eric Lipton and Susanne Craig, “Trump’s Far-Flung Holdings Raise High Risk for Conflicts,” The New York Times, November 15, 2016.


4.  Fredreka Schouten, “Watchdogs Warn Trump on “Blind Trust,” USA Today, November 16, 2016.


5. Maggie Haberman and Jo Becker, “Donald Trump Is Said to Intend to Keep a Stake in His Business,” The New York Times, December 7, 2016.


6.  Steve Eder, “How Federal Ethics Laws Will Apply to a Trump Presidency,” The New York Times, November 11, 2016.


7. Fredreka Schouten, “Watchdogs Warn Trump on “Blind Trust,” USA Today, November 16, 2016.


8. Lipton and Craig, “Trump’s Far-Flung Holdings Raise High Risk for Conflicts,” The New York Times, November 15, 2016.


9. Ibid.


10. Ibid.


Friday, November 11, 2016

Getting an Election So Wrong: The American Media and Pollsters in 2016

“After projecting a relatively easy victory for Hillary Clinton with all the certainty of a calculus solution, news outlets like The New York Times, The Huffington Post and the major networks scrambled to provide candid answers.”[1] The dynamics likely went beyond even candid answers from the media, with major implications for how much reliance Americans should place on their media-establishment for political information.

“You were in a bubble and weren’t paying attention to your fellow Americans,” filmmaker Michael Moore wrote.[2] To be sure, “all the number-crunching of state polls pointed to resounding success” for Hillary Clinton in the Electoral College.[3] The journalists could simply insist that they were reporting those polls. “Virtually all the major vote forecasters, including Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight site, The New York Times Upshot and the Princeton Election Consortium, put [Hillary] Clinton’s chances of winning in the 70 to 99 percent range.”[4] Even so, Chris Wallace, an anchor at Fox News, make the following observation on election day. “A lot of media outlets made a decision sometime after the convention that Donald Trump was beyond the pale and they no longer had to observe the normal rules of journalism and objectivity.”[5] Clearly this was true of The Huffington Post, which declared Hillary Clinton “cleared” by the FBI on the Sunday before election day in spite of the fact that the agency was still investigating the Clinton Foundation, whose fundraising may have involved quid pro quos involving Hillary Clinton’s role as U.S. Secretary of State.

At the very least, groupthink was in the mix, meaning that the mainstream media was “on the same page” concerning assumptions regarding the upcoming election. Besides their being just plain wrong, their narrowness was such that society itself could hardly break free of the force of the narrative. Moreover, the narrowness suggests that the power of the American media was at the time too concentrated, such that alternative views, which can provide a check on groupthink, could not get through. In a representative democracy, a narrow conduit by which information is not only conveyed, but also interpreted and subject to ideology, represents a major flaw. Put another way, that the mainstream media outlets were all singing the same song suggests that societal debate on matters of public policy was also very likely too narrow, and subject to everybody being wrong in a major assumption.

Yet Wallace’s assumption that merely reporting the polls would be objective is vulnerable. Polls can only contribute so much. The “failed election predictions suggest that the rush to exploit data may have outstripped the ability to recognize its limits.”[6] Such limitations include “the potentially flawed assumptions of the people who build predictive models.”[7] Additionally, polling can offer only probabilities that cannot fully capture whether the motivation to vote will actualize at the proverbial ballot-box. For one thing, social desirability may spur poll respondents to say they will vote only because it is a societally recognized duty. Lastly, polls prior to an election cannot account for voters who change their decision at the time of voting.

So even the media’s common assumption that polls can and should receive such overwhelming emphasis was faulty, and the groupthink on this point left the electorate vulnerable to going to vote with a flawed understanding of how Americans had been reacting to the candidates. Just as political campaigns are not objective, journalists (and especially those who serve as commentators) are not merely conduits for facts. Given the subjectivity all around, a certain wideness of narrative (and assumptions) made more likely by a less concentrated mainstream media would enhance the American democracy.




[1] Jim Rutenberg, “News Outlets Wonder Where the Predictions Went Wrong,” The New York Times, November 9, 2016.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Steve Lohr and Natasha Singer, “How Data Failed Us in Calling an Election,” The New York Times, November 10, 2016.
[5] Jim Rutenberg, “News Outlets Wonder Where the Predictions Went Wrong,” The New York Times, November 9, 2016.
[6] Steve Lohr and Natasha Singer, “How Data Failed Us in Calling an Election,” The New York Times, November 10, 2016.
[7] Ibid.

Thursday, November 10, 2016

California and Britain: “Calexit” and “Brexit”?



Nearly six months after a majority of British voters voted to secede from the E.U., interest was building among Californians on the possibility of a “Calexit” from the U.S.[1] In fact, supporters were proposing a referendum to take place in 2019. Although the two exits would be comparable—two large states of empire-scale unions (California’s economy being larger than that of France, and California’s population being larger than that of Poland)—the reasons for a Brexit are more fundamental than those for a Calexit. As a result, the secession of Britain from the E.U. would have a firmer foundation in terms of political theory.


The complete essay is at Essays on Two Federal Empires.




[1] Eugene Scott, “Interest in #Calexit Growing after Donald Trump Victory,” CNN, November 10, 2016.


Sunday, November 6, 2016

Organizational Conflicts of Interest and National Interest: The Case of Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation

Organizational lapses, such as in non-profits or companies, regarding institutional conflicts of interest can extend in impact as far as distorting or impairing government policy and national interest if a principal of the organization also holds a high government office. Relying on whether a position in such a dual-role has scruples of character against exploiting conflicts of interest is vulnerable because people differ substantially in character. As a result, I contend that even the appearance of such conflicts should not be permitted. I use the case of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation to make my point.

In late 2011, “lawyers from Simpson, Thacher & Bartlett LLP, the firm contracted to run the internal Foundation audit, emailed a draft of a government memorandum and recommendations to Podesta, who was serving as a special advisor to the Foundation [and would be Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign manager], and Bruce Lindsey, then the Foundation’s CEO.”[1] The audit draft indicated that a conflict-of-interest policy had not been implemented. Conflicts were not disclosed in a timely fashion, and board members did not follow the policy when they became aware of conflicts of interest. “In addition, some interviewees reported conflicts of those raising funds or donors, some of whom may have an expectation of quid pro quo benefits in return for gifts,” according to the draft.[2] For example, a leaked email from Huma Abedin, Hillary Clinton’s Deputy Chief of Staff at the U.S. State Department indicates that Hillary Clinton arranged a $12 million donation from Moroccan King Mohammed VI to the Clinton Foundation in 2014 in return for the Clinton Global Initiative hosting its international meeting in Morocco.[3]

The broader question is whether Hillary Clinton exploited the conflict of interest between her discretion as Secretary of State—a public interest—and her private interest in the Clinton Foundation. After the government of Saudi Arabia had contributed at least $10 million to the Foundation and Boeing had contributed $900,000, Clinton cleared the sale to the Kingdom of $29 billion worth of advanced fighter jets, including Boeing’s F-15.[4] That Israel was warning the Obama Administration that the sale would destabilize the Middle East suggests that the United States’ national interest was not being served. Perhaps the question for a person in such a dual-role is precisely, what is being served?

When Hillary Clinton was serving as the Secretary of State, “the State Department approved $165 billion worth of commercial arms sales to 20 nations whose governments [had] given money to the Clinton Foundation.”[5] The Department “also authorized $151 billion of separate Pentagon-brokered deals for 16 of the countries that donated to the Clinton Foundation.”[6] Even if motive cannot be definitively ascribed, that the Secretary permitted the appearance of the conflict of interest may reflect an underlying problem of character, and perhaps even a general toleration societally of institutional conflicts of interest even at high levels. Clearly, the problem of conflicts of interest was not taken seriously within the Foundation. According to the audit memo, the lawyers found no evidence that the Foundation’s own written conflict-of-interest policy was enforced.[7] At the very least, this enabled the sort of conflict-of-interest that Hillary Clinton enabled the appearance of at the State Department.

Therefore, I contend that society should not allow even the appearance of institutional conflicts of interest. Of course, such a prohibition would itself require a societal sentiment of disapprobation regarding the institutional sort of conflict-of-interest, and, unfortunately, I suspect that at least as of November, 2016 too many Americans—even if for partisan reasons—were indifferent toward such conflicts of interest and the high-level people who have exploited them or at least have been fine with standing in the shadow of such conflicts.




[1] “Clinton Aide Says Foundation Paid for Chelsea’s Wedding, WikiLeaks Emails Show,” FoxNews.com, November 6, 2016.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Richard Pollock, “WIKILEAKS: Hillary Got $12 Million for Clinton Charity As Quid Pro Quo For Morocco Meeting,” The Daily Caller, October 20, 2016.
[4] David Sirota and Andrew Perez, “Clinton Foundation Donors Got Weapons Deals From Hillary Clinton’s State Department, International Business Times, May 26, 2015.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid.
[7] “Clinton Aide Says Foundation Paid for Chelsea’s Wedding, WikiLeaks Emails Show,” FoxNews.com, November 6, 2016.

Wednesday, November 2, 2016

Iceland’s Pirate Party on Systemic Change in Developing Democracy

Rarely does systems theory become a political issue; instead, political parties and their respective candidates brandish policy positions geared to fixing particular issues (i.e., parts of systems). In Iceland, the Pirate Party proffered an exception leading up to the 2016 election. “We do not define ourselves as left or right but rather as a party that focuses on the systems,” said Birgitta Jónsdóttir, the party’s leader.[1] In other words, the party made system itself the issue. “We stand for enacting changes that have to do with reforming the systems, rather than changing minor things that might easily be changed back,” she said.[2] Even if the minor things could not be easily changed back, I contend that fixing them is still sub-optimal when the systems of which they are part are warped, and thus deficient as wholes. Therefore, a political party’s emphasis on systems as themselves being in need of reform presents the world’s population with a practical way to redress systemic problems.

In Iceland alone, the economy collapsed after the banks failed in the 2008 financial crisis, and in 2016 the prime minister resigned after being named in the Panama Papers scandal. The corruption itself indicates that the political economy—as a system—was broken. The nexus of business and government was particularly in need of reform beyond little fixes. Hence, the Pirate Party’s platform included “advocating for direct democracy” and “total government transparency.”[3] Wikileaks had already given the world’s population an idea of just how valuable transparency can be; at the very least, it had shown just how corrupt the world’s political elite was.

The move to direct democracy makes sense under the circumstances. Were major policy decisions themselves taken by electorates on election day—rather than lumping such decisions with those of which candidate to vote for—the political elite, including elected officials, would have less power. Given the level of corruption revealed by Wikileaks, reducing the power makes sense. Were electorates able to vote on major policy positions, the winning candidates would be obliged legally to implement the winning policies because the popular sovereign (i.e., an electorate) is the source of governmental sovereignty (i.e., the power of governments in republics).

Were policy positions distinguished from the question of who should fill a public office, no longer would voters be put in the position of voting for a candidate in spite of disagreeing with some of his or her policy positions; the decision on candidates would pertain to them (e.g., competence and trustworthiness). Voters not in favor of any of the candidates (e.g., they are all corrupt) could bypass that line and still vote on policies, and thus still participate as a citizen. I suspect that many Americans could have benefitted from such a reform in 2016.

The Pirate Party was essentially saying that humanity needs to catch up with democratic theory; existing systems being warped by political and business elites. Because a given candidate typically takes positions on several issues, a voter is essentially voting on all those positions in voting for the candidate even if that voter does not agree with all those positions. This is a structural flaw in representative democracy that stems from putting too much emphasis on office-holders. To be sure, they could still have discretion on policy matters not on the ballet that are either minor at the time of the election or come up during the term of office. Separating out the policies from decisions on candidates for the offices would provide a closer fit for the voter’s preferences on the major policies as well as the candidates—including on their judgment, which would theoretically apply to the remaining discretion on minor or upcoming policy matters.

To the extent that democracy, which can be viewed as a hybrid of direct and representative, reflects the will of the people, that system of government is rightly deemed legitimate. Given the spread of democracy in the world since the early modern age, addressing the system itself of how candidates are elected and major policies are adopted and implemented would represent a major step in political development for our species.

Unfortunately, systemic change is labeled “radical” by the interests of the status quo. In its article on Iceland’s Pirate Party, USA Today begins with “Iceland’s radical Pirate Party.”[4] The value-judgment that goes with radicalism antedates the judgment of the Icelandic people and thus subtly works against systemic change even though there is a good case for it. The world could do worse than read of a party whose platform makes systemic change explicit (and as being valuable).

Ideally, electorates, as the popular sovereign in democracies, will someday take up the power to decide directly rather than by party (or candidate) on alternative systemic changes. Even the question of whether major policy decisions should be made by electorates on election day apart from voting for candidates for public offices could be put before the electorates in a binding fashion. Few political elites would willingly cede such power willingly, without pressure from an electorate. This is why Iceland’s Pirate Party is so significant; in short, it may show the way.



[1] Kim Hjelmgaard, “Hacker-founded Pirate Party Could Win Iceland’s Election,” USA Today, October 28, 2016.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.