@hanrahan @Ilandar
Contrast this with the old world where historically in britain, there were centuries when only landowners were allowed to vote. The industrial revolution saw new laws that allowed those with a certain acreage OR enough cash could vote. The system was horrifically skewed towards the wealthy. I can completely understand early Australian insistence that all adults vote and then extending it to include Aboriginal people in 1967. Nobody is excluded from contributing to legislation. At least we must all chose a party every four years. On the other hand- in the age of the internet - Why we aren't voting online over party membership, platform and policy decisions beggars belief. There are attempts to make a difference. Both by direct action (XR as example) and indirect pressure https://ccl.org.au/
eureka@aussie.zone 1 month ago
Direct democracy is a neat area of exploration, and there’s been great theory on how to securely and anonymously implement verifiable voting systems. There are some major implementation problems with online voting whatsoever from a security perspective, but nonetheless I think direct democracy a good system to aim for, especially seeing the gap in (e.g.) the Labor Party policy internally between the members and the leadership.
In a way, yes, although I also believe that contribution is extremely limited and astronomically overshadowed by capital (see things like lobbying and mass media bias) making direct action and indirect pressure necessary to represent the worker class.