MDD-Movement for Direct Democracy

It stands to reason that, from the point of view of the enterprise as well as that of society as a whole, cooperation is always more advantageous than conflict because it permits the rational use of available resources and the avoidance of the losses invariably caused by conflicts. The more severe the conflict, the heavier the losses. The worst conflicts of all - wars - can result in millions of deaths and the destruction of enormous material and cultural wealth.

There is a well-known saying, sometimes quoted in politological works, "War is a continuation of politics by other means". This is certainly true if applied to the political systems which have existed up until now and which have been based on competition among various organizations, especially political parties. The word "party" comes from Latin (pars, partis, meaning "part"). This concept has been taken over by all great European languages. The very etymology suggests what party politics is about, i. e. instigating one part or parts of society against other parts - "divide et impera" (divide and conquer for the benefit of party oligarchies pretending to promote the interests of the group they allegedly represent, while in reality promoting oligarchic interests of their own).

The principle is the same in one-party systems (nationalist, fascist, communist or other dictatorships) and multi-party (or more-than-one-party) systems (the so-called "parliamentary democracies"). As one politologist put it in an euphemistic manner typical of this science: "Politics is an exploitation of bias." The only difference between one party and more-than-one-party systems is the degree of power concentration. In the latter, power is more diluted than in the former and, therefore, ordinary citizens have greater influence over decision-making in such systems than in overt dictatorships.

But even in more-than-one-party systems, the citizens are still far from being able to decide themselves about fundamental problems concerning their own quality of life. The very principle of the party system as such, that is to say a permanent conflict among various parties pretending to promote the interests of parts of the population to the detriment of others (and, in the long run virtually to the detriment of the entire society), is in direct opposition to the principle of democracy, which means rule by the (whole) people and for the people.

A truly democratic system can only be created and maintained by excluding all political parties and other organizations from decision-making which affects all citizens. A true democracy can only be based on cooperation between the vast majority of citizens as well as between the key institutions. A true democracy can only be a direct democracy, that is to say a system by which individual citizens have a real possibility to participate directly in the making of all important decisions concerning themselves.

Cooperation is beneficial for the vast majority of the citizens. By contrast, the permanent conflict among political parties, factions and corporations is only beneficial to the leaderships and well-paid bureaucracies of these organizations who have developed into a parasitic ruling elite, comparable to the hereditary aristocrats of the feudal era.

It is difficult to break through the barrier of silence with which the established media surround the power structures of party-based parliamentarism. By confounding the concepts "parliamentarism" and "democracy", they have hitherto succeeded in concealing from the general public the basically undemocratic nature of any party system. Let us, however, quote the famous remark, once made by Abraham Lincoln, "You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time."

A growing number of citizens in western countries are beginning to see through the bluff and to demand more democracy, even if still mainly only within the framework of the existing systems. The representatives and apologists of the establishment, when speaking about direct democracy, attack it in a demagogical way, claiming that direct democracy is impossible because citizens would have to decide on thousands of issues through nation-wide referenda. This is, of course, nonsense.

Direct democracy as conceived by us, means that referenda will be limited to a few, but fundamental, issues the nature of which can he understood by any ordinary citizen. Examples of such issues are direct election of the head of the executive from among an unlimited number of independent candidates, war and peace, the level of public spending on the armed forces, health-care, old-age pensions and the like, general principles concerning agricultural policy, immigration policy and environmental policy.

The vast majority of decisions - those of a more technical and restricted nature - will be made, as now, by Parliament. We are, however, opposed to Parliament consisting only or partly of the representatives of political parties or other organizations. There must be either direct personal elections of trustworthy citizens, or, probably in a more distant future, a sample representation.

Exactly how to organize such elections must be decided by a public discussion with the participation of as many citizens as possible. The system must eliminate all vested interests and all lobbying. We believe that the realization of a system of direct democracy according to the above proposals requires the establishment of computer-based voting facilities replacing the clumsy and expensive procedures of manual voting and counting which now exist. According to experts, the level of today's technology makes it perfectly possible and relatively easy to introduce computer-based voting into the political systems of Western countries at any moment.

In the long run, such a procedure will be not only more democratic and efficient, but also cheaper for the tax-payers. It should he evident to any unbiased observer that the extant systems of party-based parliamentarism which function by means of ceaseless conflicts and quarrels among various oligarchic groupings are becoming ever more incongruent with the level of social and economic development achieved in the West in recent times. To use a politological term, in the contemporary, social, economic and political context, party-based parliamentarism has become dysfunctional. It is being more and more discredited by innumerable scandals and failures. Its final collapse is only a matter of time.