Demarchy is a proposal to replace elected representatives with adults randomly selected from the population, in much in the same way criminal juries are selected today.

I'm intrigued by this idea, but I'm not sure whether I'd prefer it to the status quo. On the one hand, representatives can be specialists who would usually be much more qualified than a typical adult to craft and understand lawmaking. On the other, elected representatives often lack diversity, are vulnerable to corruption and are voted in by an electorate who has little incentive to rationally evaluate what they do.

I do think it's superior to direct democracy, at least. The level of expertise is basically identical, but by giving the "voters" selected a much larger influence on the outcome, the incentive to be rationally ignorant declines.

I don't know where to even start with this, it's so full of fail. What makes you think rando Joe Six pack is invulnerable to the same kinds of corruption elected reps face? How are you concluding that the level of expertise is the same? What will you do in the face of variance?

I'm pretty sure this was the basis for an Asimov short story.

It's a fairly safe bet that any form of "what if we did X" was already explored by him 50+ years ago in SF form.

Certainly things like outright bribery are probably equally possible. But with no elections, there is no need for campaign contributions and the potential quid pro quo that can emerge there. There may also be less of an opportunity to develop a symbiotic relationship with the lobbying industry.


An average jury member is going to be roughly the same as an average voter in terms of education, intelligence, experience, etc. So if we can't trust the average person to be a jury member because they're idiots, they'd likely make equally idiotic decisions when voting in a referendum.

If the jury is relatively large, like Congress-sized, it would have a relatively small "margin of error" in terms of how representative it is of the population, like an opinion poll. You could trade off variance for personal incentives with a smaller or larger group.

Hmm.. a citizen legislature?
What a novel idea.
Wonder if its ever been tried before?
Maybe Wiki can help.

Quibble: Congress is absurdly small for the relative number of people it represents, but point taken.

I still think it's a terrible system, but these points are valid.

The rich would love it--you essentially get people who win the lottery and are primed to give out special favors so they can get the getting while it's good.

When a jury ****s up it affects the dude on trial as opposed to everyone in the ****ing country. Your hypothetical sucks and should be hippo farted.

When I say "relatively large", I mean relative to a criminal jury.

Reminds me of a discussion my daughter told me about with her govt teacher. Teacher point was:
Imagine if defendants were judged by professional jurors. Law school graduates who understand who the burden of proof is on, can't be confused by legal mumbo jumbo, know all the tricks etc etc. One day someone comes along and says "Wait a minute. I have a better idea. Let's have guilt or innocence determined by random people like plumbers, hairdressers, taxi drivers and florists. No legal training or intelligence tests required. Let's just let 12 random people with no knowledge of the law determine a man's fate when his life may be on the line."

You would think the person with that idea is crazy!!! It couldn't possibly be better than having defendants judged by legal professionals. But it absolutely is the best way.

If your average Joe SixPack isn't capable enough to make life decisions such as what insurance to have, whether to play a gambling game online, what type of shelter to have (building codes), etc (multitude of laws both federal and at the local level that dictate life decisions) how are they now suddenly capable to make decisions for a large group of people.

I think the reasoning behind electing representatives is that the populous would elevate someone they felt had better ideas than average and/or the means to get those ideas into reality.

Asking the audience has always been the most reliable lifeline imo

This. Are you aware the sage of Baltimore once wrote :

"Nobody ever went broke betting against the intelligence of the American public".

The thought of 538 complete randos deciding the fate of thew world is the stuff of a Stephen King novel.

Single terms for federal offices is a far better idea.