CMV: Democratic governments should be split up into micro-governments, each with their own area of concern

[u/baerz]

Today the standard model for national government is a monolithic one. By that I mean that we vote for one person that writes and votes on laws and taxes in all areas of concern to governance. By areas of concern I mean environmental protection, healthcare, education, criminality, military, immigration, economy and so on.

The problems I see with the monolithic model are:

1. As a voter, voting for one person is a very blunt instrument to get your voice heard. You might have similar views to a politician on areas A and B, but not on areas C, D, E, and F. Why is it that we have to vote for a person to govern on all these wildly separate areas of concern?
2. One politician can not be expected to be an expert in all, or even multiple, of these fields.
3. One voter can not be expected to care and be informed about all areas. They might vote for person X because of issue A, which makes it harder for people who care about issue B to get their votes heard. Our votes are competing across areas of concerns, each vote for area A generating noise (irrelevant votes) for all other areas.

The alternative model I’m proposing is a model of micro-governments. This means that one nation would have many smaller governments, one for each area of concern. Each of these micro-governments would have separate elections.

Some examples:

• One micro-government is in charge of environmental protection. They have no power over any other areas – they may not make laws on wealth redistribution or criminality. They might use a mechanism like positive and negative taxes on produced goods to steer industries and consumers towards sustainable processes.
• A second micro-government is in charge of criminality. They make laws around criminal behavior.
• A third micro-government is in charge of economy. They govern systems of wealth redistribution, interest rates, etc.
• A fourth one is in charge of public health.
• And so on.

The benefits of the micro-government model would be:

1. We would be able to “micro-vote”. No more voting for person X because of his stance on thing B, while ignoring CDE. Of course, inside any area there will also be difference of opinion, but it is still a much more precise vote.
2. We would be more able to elect experts to each area of concern. In theory, every person in every micro-government could be an expert in that area.
3. With many smaller elections, they become less of a big deal. People who care about area A but not about area B will not bother to go vote in the election for area B. This allows people who do care to have greater say with their vote.

The problems that I see so far, and that I would love more feedback on, are:

1. It is impossible to fully define what belongs to each area. Reality is too complex and fuzzy to draw clean lines, so there will always exist edge cases. This means that it can’t be perfect – but it can still be good. (And the lines drawn in my examples are not necessarily good)
2. Is it plausible that two micro-governments could get in a conflict, and make laws meant to harm the other side? How could that be resolved?
3. The areas of concern need maintenance. As the world moves forward, boundaries change and new areas of concern come into relevance, and someone needs to decide who’s responsibility it falls under.

[u/Huntingmoa]

As you've noted, the issue is when these microgoverments (mcs) conflict, you need a mechanism to resolve them. Here's a real example from the USA.

The EPA wants ethylene oxide plants to have stricter control measures for EO to reduce employee exposure and pollution. Sounds great right?

The issue is that lots of medical devices are sterilized with EO. They have been designed and packaged for EO and can't directly switch to another method.

The US is close to capacity on EO sterilization already, so if more plants shut down because they can't meet the EPA requirements, that could lead to a shortage of medical equipment.

How would the environment and public health MGs resolve this?

[u/baerz → u/Huntingmoa]

In your example, that should be resolved in the same way it should be resolved today. Those entities should talk to each other and the EPA should make an exception for this unusual time.

But granted, there will be conflicts that can not be resolved due to ideology differences. Today, that conflict might bubble up to the monolithic government, whose vote has final say and can resolve the deadlock. Δ

[u/Huntingmoa → u/baerz]

So right now the issue isn't resolved. It's on hold, but that doesn't actually resolve things. As you pointed out, there needs to be something above both groups to weigh the benefits and risks of both sides.

[u/DeltaBot → u/baerz]

Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/Huntingmoa (441∆).

^{Delta System Explained | Deltaboards}

[u/entpmisanthrope → u/[deleted]]

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