Tuesday, August 5, 2014

Power to the People

Let us fly back 25 centuries into the past, to the Ancient Greece, where there was once used a political system known as Athenian democracy. It was a system where every man could voice his opinion and vote directly on legislation and executive bills. Women and slaves were excluded from this system (for "obvious" reasons).

What do we have today? I don't think we can call it democracy... Yes we can vote but... does it make a difference? I think not.

Democracy is, by definition, a political system where citizens participate equally in the proposal, development, and creation of laws (thank you very much Wikipedia!).

It doesn't matter if you vote or not, it doesn't matter in who you vote; in the end who rules are economic interests and big companies. Do you think your opinion worth's as much as the president of a bank? Of course not!

What is the alternative? Is there an alternative? There is.

People started voting for their representatives because it was impossible to know everyone's opinion about every single topic. That impossibility is GONE! We are not in the Feudal Age anymore; welcome to the Information Age. It's possible now what was never before: a real Democracy!

This idea was presented to me by a close friend of mine. I thought it was madness at first, I have to admit it. What would prevent the most significant classes from voting laws that only benefit themselves? I found my answer: the same thing that prevents politicians from benefiting themselves!

So... how would this really work? I'm not too sure about the details, but something like this: someone has an idea for a new law or a change to an existent one. That person has to collect a certain number of signatures first (to prevent people having to vote on 100 or more laws daily), them that law would be approved or disapproved based on everyone's vote, over the internet. For this to work, internet has to become a fundamental right, like education or liberty.

Think about it, really! Classics were right about a lot of things :D

Power to the people, power to you!

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