The government of a republic must "be derived from the great body of the society, not from an inconsiderable proportion, or a favored class of it; otherwise a handful of tyrannical nobles, exercising their oppressions by a delegation of their powers, might aspire to the rank of republicans, and claim for their government the honorable title of republic."
James Madison, Federalist N0. 39, "Conformity of the Plan to Republican Principles" 1788
Looking at our government today -a House of professional politicians, a Senate filled with mutimillionaires, a string of presidential family dynasties --it seems hard to maintain that our officials are in fact "derived from the great body of the society" and not "a favored class" merely posing as representatives of the people. (p. 184)
....
Parpolity, developed by the political scientist Stephen Shalom, would build a legislature out of a hierarchical series of nested councils. Agreeing with Madison, he says each council should be small enough that everyone can engaged in face-to-face discussion but large enough that there is a diversity of opinion and the number of councils is minimized. He estimates the right size is 25 to 50 people. (p. 186)
.....
Shalom discusses a number of further details --provisions for voting, recalls, and delegation -- but it's the idea of nesting that is key. Under such a system, there are only four representatives who stand between you and the people setting national policy, each of whom is forced to account to their constituents in regular, small face-to-face meetings. Politicians in such a system could not be elected through empty appeals to mass emotions. Instead, they would have to sit down, face-to-face, with a council of their peers and persuade them that they are best suited to represent their interests and positions.
There is something rather old-fashioned about this notion of sitting down with one's fellow citizens and rationally discussing the issues of the day. But there is also something exciting and new about it. In the same way that blogs have given everyone a chance to be a publisher, Wikipedia lets everyone be an encyclopedia author, and YouTube lets everyone be a television producer, Parpolity would let everyone be a politician. (p. 187)
The Internet has shown us that the pool of people with talent far outnumbers the few with the background, connections, and wealth to get to a place in society where they can practice their talents professionally. (it also shows us that many people with those connections aren't particularly talented.)
The democratic power of the net means that you don't need connections to succeed. (p.187)
...
New online tools for interaction and collaboration have let people come together across space and time to build amazing things. As the Internet breaks down the last justifications for a professional class of politicians, it also builds up the tools for replacing them. For the most part, their efforts have so far been focused on education and entertainment, but it's only a matter of time before they turn to politics. And when they do, professional politicians beware!
(p.188)
Sources:
The Boy Who Could Change the World: the Writings of Aaron Swartz (New York, NY: The New Press, 2015)
http://rebooting.personaldemocracy.com/node/5490
Aaron Swartz 2008 Age 21
The essay first appeared in Rebooting America: Ideas for Redesigning American Democracy for the Internet Age, edited by Allison Fine, Micah L. Sifry, Andrew Rasiej, and Joshua Levy (Personal Democracy Press, 2008).
