The idea that you erode lobbying power by direct democracy misunderstands political power. In a direct democracy, when there’s a bill you don’t like you don’t need to convince anyone who actually read the bill that the bill is bad. You can just run a lot of ads that say “bill X is bad because of Y”.
To get good governance you need a system that allows votes for laws to be made based on a good analysis of the merits of the law.
I think its fair to say direct democracy would not eliminate lobbying power. And to your final point, I agree that reliable educational resources or perhaps some other solution would be needed to make sure whomever is doing the voting is as rational as they can be. It’s not sufficient to only give everyone a vote.
Regarding your point around running ads, to make sure I am understanding: do you mean the number of people who actually read the bill will be sufficiently low, that a viable strategy to get something passed would be to appeal to the non-reading voters and misinform them?
And to your final point, I agree that reliable educational resources or perhaps some other solution would be needed to make sure whomever is doing the voting is as rational as they can be.
Understanding what a law does takes effort and time even if you are generally educated. Even if there are educational resources available plenty of people don’t have the time to inform themselves about every law.
Representative democracy is about giving that job of understanding laws to democratically elected officials and their staff.
In the absence of that, the people who spent full time engaging with laws are people who need to get a paycheck from somewhere else. Those can be lobbyists. They can also be journalists. Most journalists also get paid by corporate masters.
The idea that you erode lobbying power by direct democracy misunderstands political power. In a direct democracy, when there’s a bill you don’t like you don’t need to convince anyone who actually read the bill that the bill is bad. You can just run a lot of ads that say “bill X is bad because of Y”.
To get good governance you need a system that allows votes for laws to be made based on a good analysis of the merits of the law.
I think its fair to say direct democracy would not eliminate lobbying power. And to your final point, I agree that reliable educational resources or perhaps some other solution would be needed to make sure whomever is doing the voting is as rational as they can be. It’s not sufficient to only give everyone a vote.
Regarding your point around running ads, to make sure I am understanding: do you mean the number of people who actually read the bill will be sufficiently low, that a viable strategy to get something passed would be to appeal to the non-reading voters and misinform them?
Understanding what a law does takes effort and time even if you are generally educated. Even if there are educational resources available plenty of people don’t have the time to inform themselves about every law.
Representative democracy is about giving that job of understanding laws to democratically elected officials and their staff.
In the absence of that, the people who spent full time engaging with laws are people who need to get a paycheck from somewhere else. Those can be lobbyists. They can also be journalists. Most journalists also get paid by corporate masters.