Limited direct democracy and limited representative democracy can be joined together and judiciously balanced for a just distribution of governmental powers that does not unduly favor any particular group. The limited direct democracy is added to our government as a new fourth branch called demos to achieve consensus on a fixed set of key electroral and economic issues.

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America is not a democracy but a plutocracy.

Plutocracy is governance by the wealthy. Most of America's many political, economic and social ills are caused or aggravated by its most fundamental problem: America is not really a democracy but a plutocracy dominated and governed by a wealthy few. The wealthy hold a perpetual hegemony of power in our government through the generations, much to the detriment of the rest of the populace. Elections and our government's offices, laws, actions and favors are bought and sold just like any other commodity. America has the best government that money can buy.

While the major political parties and the elites that occupy office embrace some differing secondary issues that attract each of us to one over the other, all parties are bought by, serve and never fundamentally alter the ever present plutocracy. The fundamental injustices and the many economic and social problems caused by the plutocracy are never repaired.

The problem is not which party or elites currently populate our government. And superficial reform and tinkering will never fix the problem. The problem lies in the design of our government, its basic structure, a distribution of power that overwhelmingly and perpetually favors the wealthy.

A political cartoon illustrates our true situation: A giant, wealthy fat cat complete with a top hat, a big cigar and a cynical smile is standing legs apart and arms spread outward above the many tiny people below, the electorate. He laughingly exclaims, "You may take my Right hand or my Left hand, but you always get me!"

America has always been a plutocracy.

Our current plutocracy is not the result of irresponsible wealthy corporations and individuals corrupting in recent decades our once-sacred democracy. The creators of America's constitution and government were among the wealthy aristocrats of their day. When they created their new government, the founders excluded democracy to the extent politically possible at the time. They embraced instead the republican form of government, so-called "representative" democracy.

The great failure of our "representative' democracy is that our supposed representatives do not fairly represent the entire populace but themselves and their wealthy clients first and best. Its greatest service for the wealthy is that while excluding democracy it appears to be one. People dutifully vote in elections and believe the myth that America is a democracy, albeit a strangely unresponsive one that they repeatedly try and fail to make work for them. Thus, unrecognized for what it is by most people, the continued existence of the American plutocracy is assured.

Just, equitable governance can be achieved by adding to our government just the right kind and amount of direct democracy

Precisely because our government lies at the heart of the problem it also lies at the heart of the solution. If we alter our government in a way that makes it honestly include and serve the entire electorate, then we can easily and permanently correct the profound unfairness and inequity inherent in our current political-economic system.

Direct democracy--in which the electorate votes directly on issues--is the most commonly prescribed solution for the problem of plutocracy. But as the phrases "the tyranny of democracy" and "the rule of the mob" suggest, democracy also has some profound problems. Referendum-style, majority-rule, direct democracy with an unending stream of issues, if it were ever really tried, would only result in another form of tyranny: the political, economic, religious and behavioral tyranny of the simple majority over the rest of the populace. It would lead to conformity, mediocrity and a decline of freedom and excellence. It is only because majority-rule direct democracy has never really existed in the governments of nations that most people fail to see its shortcomings.

Further, direct democracy has rather severe natural limitations. A busy electorate whose members have varying capability is simply not capable of handling the myriad complex details of the modern state. And few people would want handling a never-ending avalanche of complex political issues to be the centerpiece of their lives. Therefore, of necessity, even with a measure of direct democracy, we still need representative branches in our government with elected and appointed officials to handle the myriad details of governance.

Direct democracy is indeed the answer to the problem of plutocracy. But given its pitfalls and limitations, we must design it carefully and choose very wisely what to include in it. Understand that it is by the inclusion in our government (or in any government) of just the right kind and amount of direct democracy that its representative branches are rendered truly representative, the tyranny of plutocracy is overcome, the democracy itself does not become a tyranny and the freedom of the individual is maximized.

How to really fix what's really wrong with our government

In my book Beyond Plutocracy - True Democracy for America, hereafter simply Beyond, available free at http://www.beyondplutocracy.com, I offer for your consideration a partial redesign of our government that, I believe, really fixes in just the right way what is really wrong with it. Unlike our current government, the consensus government, as I call it, that is presented in Beyond is an honest broker that fairly includes and represents everyone in our political-economic system.

Limited direct democracy and limited representative democracy are joined together and judiciously balanced resulting in a wise amount and just distribution of governmental powers that does not unduly favor any particular group. The limited direct democracy is added to our government as a new fourth branch I call the demos, pronounced as in democrat. The demos is a nationwide electronic network in which the entire electorate practices not majority-rule democracy but a new kind of democracy of my own design I call consensus democracy by deliberating, voting and achieving consensus on a fixed set of our nation's key electoral and economic issues.

The single greatest scam and failure of our nation's current political system is its electoral system. It is a set of loaded dice that overwhelmingly favors the wealthy. It lies at the heart of most of our failures as a society including our inability to achieve honest representation of the entire populace in government. More than anything else, it keeps powerful, wealthy elites in the seats of power and in a position to perpetrate many other scams against the rest of the populace.

The demos has an entirely new electoral system from that which we have today. Any number of candidates (who need not be wealthy or wealth supported) may take any amount of time to run for office for free within the demos and build a following. Members of the electorate may take any amount of time to study and deliberate about candidates and to reach out to each other across states or the entire nation to directly elect not "lesser evils" that are financed and, therefore, preselected by the wealthy as is done today but their champions, truly representative officeholders that resemble them in body, mind, interests and pocketbook.

The resulting senate and house automatically demographically resemble and serve the true and balanced interests of the entire electorate as they create laws, rules and policies for government, business, labor, mass media, environmental protection, etc. No quota systems, political parties or complex electoral schemes are required to achieve this balanced, honest representation. People just get to directly vote for whom they really want.

The second great scam and failure of our nation's current political system is the economic warfare conducted by the wealthy and wealth serving against the rest of the populace once they gain office. While the free, at-large, demos style elections proposed in Beyond would produce much more balanced and honest representation of the entire electorate than today, as insurance against plutocracy certain fundamental economic powers are moved from the other branches of government into the demos where the the electorate is empowered to directly set economic values that our government and nation must use as they function. Among other powers, the demos has the sole power to tax at the federal level.

Unlike plutocracy, which only achieves the consensus of a simple majority of elites, and majority-rule democracy, which only achieves the consensus of a simple majority of the electorate, consensus democracy achieves a political-economic consensus of the entire electorate. It produces a balanced, equitable market economy, a lean, centered, moderate, functional government and free, responsible citizens within a just, open, pluralistic, peacefully evolving, ever improving society that avoids the extremes and screams of both the Left and the Right.

While there would be some amount of learning and adjustment were it ever instituted, consensus government would not feel radically alien and unfamiliar to today's citizens. No attempt is made in Beyond to micromanage our government or our lives or to achieve some kind of idealized, altruistic or supposedly "objective" behavior or governing process. The powers of our government are simply reorganized in a way that does not unduly favor any particular group. Just as today, both our private economy and our government would function by the messy processes of "horse trading" and "wheeling and dealing," and each of us would have to study, work hard and find our place within society. But now, at long last, everyone would be fairly included and represented by an honest broker, an honest government.

Adapted to specific locales, the partial redesign that is applied to the American government in Beyond may be applied to every government in the world and to every level of government. The design creates a new kind of relationship both within and among nations that takes us well beyond our current dominance, authoritarianism and plutocracy.

It is our right and duty to win true democracy

"Change" is the key word and promise of every election. And we do indeed change back and forth over time between a kinder, gentler plutocracy and a harder, more carnivorous plutocracy. But the only changes that really matter--the creation of an honest electoral system and true democracy--never happen.

Any real change away from the status quo that so overwhelmingly benefits them is characterized by the elite as activism and radicalism. In truth, our current plutocracy is extremely radical, and the elites' relentless fight to ever increase their power, wealth and privilege is extreme activism.

Beyond's consensus government is designed to avoid all extremes and achieve the inclusion and a moderate consensus of the entire electorate--a golden mean--that facilitates justness, equity, individual freedom, personal responsibility and good citizenship.

In The Declaration of Independence Thomas Jefferson wrote that it is our right and duty to throw off despotism. We now suffer a despotism of extreme plutocracy. It is our right and duty to win true democracy, honest representation and just governance for our nation and the generations to come.

Submitter: Harold Hellickson

Submitters Bio:
A retired MBA, I am a former corporate ideologue, former 3rd party advocate and current curmudgeon. While a continued supporter of a 3rd party, I have concluded their efficacy cannot be demonstrated until our form of Government is changed to facilitate proportional representation. This will require an Amendment to the Constitution which Congress will not support.

I am skeptical of our democratic republic's turn to plutocracy as its form of governance. As a member of Convention USA, I support an Article V States Convention for the purpose of Amendment considerations beyond the influence of Congress.

My interests include ending our Government's policies of war and empire, restoration of monetary, fiscal, and trade policy sanity, reversing the income inequality trend, and improving social justice, the seven major defects of modern day America.

On these concerns and others, I am an open book; reference OpEdNews - Articles - Author's Page for Harold Hellickson