Anyone who wants to be a politician should be banned from being a politician.
The ideal politician is someone who takes time out from their career to give back and serve the people of their country. There are a few like this. Most politicians, though, see the role as an opportunity to serve themselves.
Politicians who make it to the very top can make millions of dollars once they retire. US Presidents Clinton, Bush, Obama and Trump have all made huge amounts of money from being in the White House.
But even low level success as a politician can be hugely profitable. The revolving door of politics sees many retiring politicians going on to work for businesses that they previously had responsibility for regulating.
The temptation to profit from politics is simply too great for most politicians. Arguably the only way to stop this corruption is by banning elections.
Woah, don’t panic. That doesn’t mean giving up democracy. With modern technology, it could be feasible to allow every citizen to vote directly on every point of legislation.
In reality, though, that might not be a great plan. Can we really expect every citizen to carefully study all aspects of an issue before casting their vote? Probably not.
However, an alternative has already been tested in another form of public decision making. The juries for criminal trials are picked by random and each jury member is effectively making a decision on behalf of every other citizen.
Why not select politicians using a similar random process? No-one wants to be picked for jury duty, but people understand the importance and act responsibly when selected. Couldn’t people be trusted to make responsible decisions on politicial issues too?
Of course, there would need to be careful consideration given to how civil servants work with this system. And it may even be possible to combine it with direct voting for those who want to.
The wealthiest 10% of Americans have hoarded 68.3% of all US wealth, leaving the poorest 50% to share just 2.5%. In the EU and the UK, politicians have limited the poorest 50% of their populations to wealth shares of just 4% and less than 6% respectively. Randomly selected politicians would reverse this unfair share of wealth.
So, could banning elections be the most effective way to ensure true democracy?
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