The age of big government is over! Bureaucratic, wasteful, expensive.
Why do we need 645 MP's? Less than 100 will do the job. In this day of internet age we can allow the country to vote every day on open issues. That way the government is truly representing the people. The government web page will have a list of issues that are open to voting every day and the eligible voters will have a secure ID to prove their identity. The number of people serving ministers will also be slimmed down saving costs. Government can be thin, lean and mean and still get the job done. Instead of a parliament filled with ministers we would have an expanded cabinet of say up to 50 ministers, and a further 50 ministers who would be responsible in ratifying decisions made by the populace and the cabinet like a mini house of lords.
Politicians would be elected still by constituencies but more emphasis would be on efficiency and a small central government for national issues. Local government would also be shaken up and made to do more with less.
I am hoping for additional input and ideas on this matter also.
Unfortunately governments everywhere are heading in the opposite direction, most notably in the US where many auto workers and bankers can now trace their managerial hierarchy to Washington. This is an interesting concept and I continue to think developing economies (read: small) are the best place to enact this type of radical change. Those are the places that are flexible enough to adopt drastically new programs and also have a real need to experiment with new policies in order to bring their competitive output in line with the larger world. Some things to think about would be 1) what do we do with all the ex-government employees and 2) what about the social science question of voter turnout, whereby less frequent and more public voting encourages turnout by increasing visibility. Also how do we control the number of items on the docket such that it is not cumbersome for the average person who is not a professional politician? It almost seems as if private citizens have allowed governments to develop the way they have to separate out the drudgery of lawmaking so that the rest of us can focus on banking it.
ReplyDeleteHi, some good comments and points.
ReplyDelete1. Government employees would need to be deprogrammed from the collective conciousness of big government and then re-educated to be able to accommodate the new slimmer leaner system.
2. Is there any advantage to public polling? If we can make a secure online system that cannot be abused, surely people feel safer and more secure voting in the privacy of their own home?
3. This is a more complicated question. The government will need to explain things honestly on the web page prior to the voting form. I think that there would also be a system of "voter support" freephone numbers with a mixture of professionals and volunteers who would be avai8lable to answer questions. Plus the most important issues would be discussed daily on a special TV channel.
It is our own fault we have moved away from thinking for ourselves in the last 50 years or so, but we need to teach people how to think and how to analyze for themselves again before teaching anything else.
I suggest that the big items that really count would be on a one month docket allowing citizens the time to come to a decision. Easier yes or no or abstain votes could be as frequent as daily.
It certainly needs to be worked on, but ultimately I think the results would be better than what we have now.