Setting aside Capitalism vs. Communism (or maybe I just think I am), this structure vs. that. Why is it that there aren’t really huge lists of alternatives? Where are the people who are imagining new government structures?

Like electing citizens to office at random, like we do with jury duty (forget the word for it). Or totally different arrangements of legislatures. Or even a pure democracy in a modern sense. That one is especially probably a terrible idea, and they’re not even that unique, but who is brainstorming this stuff? Is it mostly just sci-fi authors? Where is it talked about that isn’t already bending toward a team in the already-existing scheme of things? Even the most radical sorts are referencing back to books/ideas that are a century old. There are ultimately like four ideas and we just kind of gave up? That’s all of them?

Why have we seen so few different approaches tried? Or seemingly even imagined? I feel like even in fiction, it’ll be 2,000 years in the future and the whole thing is structured like a glorified city council ruling entire star systems. I feel like it’s difficult even for our minds to imagine anything truly inventive, in that sense. Is that baked into the concept? Is it because we’re just dumb monkeys that only understand “big strong monkey better?” HAS this stuff been written about extensively and I’m just unaware (probably, yes)?

  • Noizth@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    3 hours ago

    Because anything that doesn’t solve 100% of our problems gets the same response “Can’t be used” or “But it doesn’t solve this specific problem”. Even though current systems do not solve 100% of our problems.

    Then like software made with spaghetti code, they keep adding systems reliant on that spaghetti code that makes it really difficult to unfuck it all.

  • vvilld@lemmy.world
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    6 hours ago

    Honestly, I think the issue here is more your lack of education/awareness than anything else.

    Like electing citizens to office at random

    Ancient Athens had a system to do exactly this for a period of time.

    Or even a pure democracy in a modern sense

    Check out the Democratic Confederalist system currently in practice in the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (commonly called Rojava). It’s not strictly pure democracy, but that’s a core principle, and it’s MUCH more participatory than virtually any other governmental system on the planet.

    The big issue here is that education is always political, even if you don’t think it is. I’m guessing, based on your writing here, that you were educated in a western liberal democracy. The curriculum you were taught in school, especially with regards to governmental systems, civics, and history, is heavily influenced by the ideology of your country: liberal western representative democracy. I had the same education in school growing up. The curriculum is only interested in presenting alternative forms of government as a way to show how great the one you were living under is. “Monarchy was bad for these reasons, so we replaced it with liberal representative democracy.” “Fascism is bad for these reasons (while ignoring all the ways it’s very similar to our current system), so be happy you have a liberal democracy.” “State communism was authoritarian and bad, so be happy you have what you do.” Etc.

    They never talk about the shortcomings of their own system, or the benefits of others, because they aren’t trying to educate a bunch of radicals who might one day overthrow the system.

    There are a lot of people thinking of alternative forms of government. For my own personal ideological biases, I’d recommend reading stuff by people like Mikhail Bakunin (1814-1876), Peter Kropotkin (1842-1921), Murray Bookchin (1921-2006), David Graeber (1961-2020), or Abdullah Öcalan (1948-).

    • hornywarthogfart@sh.itjust.works
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      38 minutes ago

      Not the OP but just wanted to say thanks for typing that out. I think it perfectly answers the question, gives several examples/explanations, and provides further research resources. It’s always genuinely great to come across posts like this.

  • deafboy@lemmy.world
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    6 hours ago

    Multiple good hypotheses here. I’d like to add my own. The governments can be viewed as a modern iterations of religious cults, and there is no bigger taboo in a religious organization than questioning the basic dogma.

    Try to question democracy in a democratic republic and you immediately get the weird looks, and irrational dismissal. 9 times out of 10 this self preservation instinct is good and beneficial to everyone involved, because giving a benefit of doubt to closeted authoritarians would be a mistake. That one time somebody really wants to have an honest discussion, it simply sucks.

  • jol@discuss.tchncs.de
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    10 hours ago

    Lots of different forms of local government exist, including “random” or round-robin. Just maybe natural selection has selected only certain kinds for state governments.

  • humanspiral@lemmy.ca
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    5 hours ago

    US rulership is rigged to serve Oligarchist/zionist/warmongering mandate. US colonies rigged to serve CIA/Oligarchist alliance. The first obstacle to democracy is do you need the current rulership structure’s permission for it?

    The only alternative to that permission is secession or those “Freedom cities” that are unfortunately backed by technofascists and “radical zionists”. Secession requires permission to not be genocided. One way to obtain that permission is by paying for “protection tribute” from powerful neighbours, and former slave master. Paying tax without receiving any services in return whatsoever. This can also be done by giving your “protection master” bonds for free, or if they buy bonds, a very high interest rate. Or simply give them a percentage of tax revenue. If they break their protection promise, you are allowed to cancel the bond. You can buy protection from multiple parties including nuclear weapon strikes against your other protectors “aggression”.

    Freedom cities while somehow marketed as fascist tax havens are opportunities for better democracy too. Crypto currency systems have very good democracy elements to them. Can have UBI/freedom dividends supported by a tax system that is based on half “density based property taxes” (Georgianism), and half local sales taxes, and global income taxes. This is a non slavery based prosperity system, that eliminates crime and homelessness. Verifying residency is only requirement, and regular payments for groceries and rent through crypto can be proof enough. Those who live in less than average square footage, spend less than average, and earn less than average have a net tax refund/subsidy. Those who earn more enjoy a peaceful city with massive amenities. Hedonist freedoms would generally attract more residents than they repel, IMO.

    Direct democracy, with revocable delegation rights, is easy under several crypto systems. Delegating your stake to a validator gives them the right to vote on any proposal/issue in your place. But if you vote on that issue, then it overrides your share of the delegate’s vote. Residency verification can make voting 1 resident=1vote instead of usual crypto 1 coin=1vote. This allows you to trust someone overall to represent you, while still representing yourself whenever you want. You can also change delegates at any time. I get how your “randomly selected leaders” also avoids oligarchist beholdment, but after they are elected/appointed, they will make new friends very quickly, who will explain how their self enrichment can also make America great again with their media help.

    If the US government/President authorizes fascist freedom cities, what could be the rationale against turning your existing city into a pure democracy freedom city? Or at least applying for one of the 10 “spots” with a real democracy governance proposal that is still a tax haven from US empire costs, and carry implicit protection costs (for freeish) by being offered.

  • schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de
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    11 hours ago

    There already are some differences in government structures between countries.

    Why are many of them similar? I think it’s a combination of these:

    • countries that became newly independent or rewrote their constitution looked at other countries for inspiration
    • Many (older) countries followed a somewhat similar path from being absolute monarchies to aristocracies (with nobles represented in a parliament which then became increasingly more powerful than the monarch) to the parliament becoming elected by all of the people to, in some countries, the monarchy being abolished and replaced by a president (essentially an elected monarch).

    I think you may enjoy reading this: https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/06/17/slightly-skew-systems-of-government/

  • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    18 hours ago

    Lots of people, they just don’t get a lot of people reading about them. Most of the really serious ones are pretty wonky documents that most people wouldn’t want to sort through.

    One idea I’ve personally had for years was taking away the voting rights of Representatives and Senators and making them glorified figureheads who write laws. Once they write a law (with Version Control being applied so we know who wrote what sentence) it’s instantly posted online in Wiki format where citizens (with proof of citizenship) can contribute in editing and work-shopping the new laws, and then when the new laws are ready, they are put up to a direct vote by the citizens. This would remove the representatives ability to be influenced in how they write the laws since citizens would have more direct control via editing the law and voting on it. I’m not as thoughtful as the more wonky people who have written a lot more serious stuff like this.

    Outside an existing system, I think there’s lots of interesting writing on decentralized societies where diffuse power structures can lead to less consolidation of power by individuals seeking individual control. Anarchy lite, I guess you could call it?

    • howrar@lemmy.ca
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      18 hours ago

      An idea I’ve been toying with is that laws should be written like software with lots of test cases. It makes no sense to create laws with ambiguous terms that only become concrete when it goes through court. We should know what the law actually is before it gets passed.

  • AnarchoSnowPlow@midwest.social
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    18 hours ago

    I think whether we like it or not economic systems have forced their way into our political systems.

    And anyone with any existing power is strongly incentivized to kill any “new ideas” in the womb. As they would most likely represent a departure from the current system that they benefit from.

    Any dramatic restructuring is going to be a very “significant” event. We may currently be on the precipice of one such event in the United States, this remains to be seen. The existing power structures have been significantly destabilized and pre-existing norms and rules are being outright ignored.

    Power will shift, it remains to be seen how much and to where.

    In any case, we may have the opportunity for you to see some new interesting governmental concepts, or perhaps a return to some classics, or a mix of the two (a little overtly capitalist fuedalism perhaps?).

    We sure do live in interesting times.

    • Pandemanium@lemm.ee
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      4 hours ago

      I think this might be the best time to start having these conversations: when things are getting bad for almost everyone, and there is so much governmental upheaval that changing the economic system becomes a lot less disruptive than it would be during good times. It’s only going to become more and more clear that capitalism is failing.

      My favorite economic system so far is a land value tax with UBI. I still don’t know exactly how businesses would operate, but this system would eliminate the parasitic generational wealth siphoned from hoarding property and housing. It would also allow for people to not work if they’re unable to.

      I’m sure it’s probably just delusional hopium that we could ever get through the threat of fascism and come out of it with a better system than what we had, but that’s about all I got left right now. The rest is just doom.

      • AnarchoSnowPlow@midwest.social
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        18 hours ago

        Yeah… The spectrum of options arrayed before us appear to be heavily weighted towards enforcing arbitrary hierarchies which is… Not ideal.

  • TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zip
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    10 hours ago

    You could also look back. History has many examples of people governing themselves in various ways that differ from the systems used at the moment. Even within the spectrum of contemporary democracy, there are several options to choose from. People could just look up what kinds of democracies are used in other countries and how they differ from the one used (or not used) in your home country.

    I think we need a new radical philosopher who comes up with a new way of government, and starts promoting it actively. Actually, long ago, I heard a small political party do just that. They wanted to switch to the kind of direct democracy used in Switzerland, which sounded nice IMO. If people heard about someone proposing an alternative, they might at least consider it.

    The way I see it, people aren’t really exposed to different ideas of this kind. They see the problems, but not the answers. People aren’t really proposing new solutions that much, now are they?

    • ivanafterall ☑️@lemmy.worldOP
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      18 hours ago

      If you have any specific examples, that’s just the kind of thing I’m after. Stuff that makes me go, “whoa, I didn’t know that was even a thing!”

      • naught101@lemmy.world
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        11 hours ago

        Have a read of Wengrow and Graeber’s The Dawn Of Everything. It’s a re-examination of the political implications of archeology, and it’s pretty inspiring. Definitely dispelled me of any notion that capitalism or communism or totalitarianism were the only plausible systems.

      • TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zip
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        14 hours ago

        Ideally, you would find a “philosopher king”, but that’s unlikely to happen. The next best option would be liquid democracy or some sort of direct democracy. If that’s not an option, you could switch to preferential voting that leads to a coalition parliament fairly often. Proportional representation works too. Basically anything other than FPTP.

      • MrEff@lemmy.world
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        17 hours ago

        Think of a more direct democracy. I will oversimplify enough to annoy those from Switzerland:

        Differing levels of law require differing thresholds. Country votes on a law, the majority above the required threshold vote it in. It becomes a national law. That is easy. What about when it fails? Then look to the state level. Did it pass the threshold for your state? Yes? Then it is a state law. Failed state level? Let’s look at your county/city/local level. Passed threshold? Local law.

        Again, over simplified, but general idea.

      • outbakes9510@piefed.social
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        15 hours ago

        The Constitution of the Italian Republic and The Constitution Of The Republic of Poland have been interesting to read. Reading about the ways the Knesset and Parliament of the United Kingdom and the Riksdag work has also been interesting. I’m sure the constitution of Germany is interesting too, but it uses a structure that is less similar to the others I’ve researched recently (elected representatives of the states are involved in choosing federal representatives, whereas in other places local representatives have much less influence on country-wide elections).

        It’s also interesting to see who is the commander in chief of the armed forces: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commander-in-chief

        In general, I find it hard to design fundamental social institutions (constitutions), but I expect that someone will find a way to improve those that we already have.

        In particular, I would not have come up with the Constitution of the Italian Republic if I was working in isolation, but I haven’t noticed any major flaws with it (at least for periods of peace: the election of the president requires participation from every region, so if one was occupied by a foreign power such that it could not participate in an election it might be impossible to elect a president). One thought I had is that it might be good to limit the president’s ability to dissolve parliament, like limiting that power to cases where the parliament has had a significant amount of time to produce a budget but hasn’t actually done so (as is the situation for Poland), to avoid situations where the president says they dissolved the parliament but the parliament says they impeached the president before being dissolved.

        Some similarities I’ve found

        Of the states I referred to, there are some interesting similarities I’ve noticed.

        • If there are two legislative bodies, the more populous one has significantly more influence compared to the other.
        • The head of government and the head of state are different people. The head of government is a position that probably doesn’t have a set term limit and is occupied by someone appointed by the legislature (this is usually called a “Prime Minister”). The head of state is a president or a monarch (and, for a president, there is a set term limit). Often, the consent of the head of state is required in order to appoint a head of government (but this is not true for the Kingdom of Sweden). The head of government actually handles most of the powers of governing, while the head of state provides continuity during the periods when there is no head of government and/or before an elected parliament has convened for the first time.
        • The head of state can usually dissolve the legislature (and usually force the removal of the head of government) (but not for the Riksdag of the Kingdom of Sweden, and only in certain circumstances for Poland) in order to have new elections. This might be useful if a legislative body is failing to address critical business due to conflicts between representatives, by allowing voters to elect different people that might actually be able to accomplish more useful things. In comparison, I consider it to be unlikely that any representative or senator in the USA can be removed except by a vote of the legislative body itself: https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/30455/how-can-a-senator-be-removed-from-office-during-a-term-for-medical-reasons https://discover.hubpages.com/politics/How-Do-I-Remove-a-REpresentative-from-Offfice
        • Fundamental obligations and rights are similar. Consider “We call upon all those who will apply this Constitution for the good of the Third Republic to do so paying respect to the inherent dignity of the person, his or her right to freedom, the obligation of solidarity with others, and respect for these principles as the unshakeable foundation of the Republic of Poland.” for Poland, and for Italy “The Republic expects that the fundamental duties of political, economic and social solidarity be fulfilled.” and “All citizens have equal social dignity and are equal before the law, without distinction of sex, race, language, religion, political opinion, personal and social conditions.” and “It is the duty of the Republic to remove those obstacles of an economic or social nature which constrain the freedom and equality of citizens, thereby impeding the full development of the human person and the effective participation of all workers in the political, economic and social organisation of the country.”.
  • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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    18 hours ago

    We can imagine all kinds of things.

    Imagination does fuck all in a the face of legislative process and beaurocratic entity which forcefully redistributes wealth for military and public wellbeing.

    No matter what system you imagine its going to end up as a big circle of old men pushing pens around and reading at a podium.

    • null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      17 hours ago

      Another way to say the same thing: it’s confirmation bias.

      Other forms have been imagined and in many cases tried but representative democracy (even when it’s really just an illusion) is the only way to organise large populations of people.