Abstract: Equal human rights are the core of democracy. The problem is that human rights have never been equal, so we need bravery to enhance human rights to achieve a prosperous society. Such a democracy must give people equal legislative, judicial, and executive powers in society. Everyone should have equal rights to evaluate others for their actions. Each positive evaluation is intended to bring a small reward to the assessed person, and each negative assessment should result in a minor penalty. Such a policy will encourage everyone to respect others as equal human beings, please them, and avoid hurting anyone in any way. Power in the hands of people should create a good society. The equal evaluating power among people presents a new form of democracy, and the freedom of evaluation presents a new form of anarchy. Therefore, such a policy should be called democratic anarchy. Democratic anarchy should serve as an ideal example of a critical, non-ideal theory capable of building a just society and a bright future for humankind.
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Generally, it is assumed that democratic decision-making is the most effective and acceptable form of governance. The problem is that nobody knows precisely what this means. Of course, it would be ideal if people mutually agreed and created rules on an equal basis that would be valid in their collective. However, this is impossible to achieve because every society makes many decisions that cannot be decided upon by everyone, either due to a lack of interest, knowledge, or time. People also struggle with this because they have difficulties agreeing on something and can never agree on everything.
Therefore, society accepts an indirect form of democracy, where people elect representatives to govern in their name. Candidates who present the best choice to the people and win the most votes at the polls receive the mandate to represent the people and govern on their behalf in a given period.
Such a democracy has many shortcomings. An elected government typically has little incentive to meet the needs of those who did not vote for it, which often leaves them dissatisfied. Additionally, representatives of the people are generally quite privileged and tend to represent their interests rather than the interests of the people who voted for them. Aside from that, politicians are often elected with financial support from the wealthy, so they must follow their will if they want to remain in office. Ultimately, societal decisions are made by authorities who do not sufficiently follow the people’s will. The improvements in society occur when the social elite support the changes. If the elite do not support them, the changes are unlikely to happen. Such a democracy cannot be just. It is rather a fraud than a demonstration of the power of the people, by the people, for the people. People can hardly achieve their rights through democracy in most parts of the world.
Does this mean that the people’s needs cannot be met? Can democracy not be developed? Scholars of the social sciences do not see a solution to the problem of democracy and cannot establish any consensus on how a developed democracy should be structured. Establishing an expanded form of democracy requires discovering a new pathway to effectively implement the will of the people. To reach it, one needs to think outside the box.
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The future of democracy should not be primarily based on voting for people, but rather on evaluating people’s actions. Individuals should get equal and independent legislative, judiciary, and executive powers to assess others. A little power in the hands of people may incentivize them to act in the best interests of others. This kind of democracy would be simple, quick, and efficient. It may completely transform the foundation of social policy and foster a better society.
Let people allow everyone who, within the scope of their activity, can affect others in any way to do it freely of their own will. People do not have many choices because they cannot interfere with the freedom of activities of presidents, doctors, mechanics, or any other person, nor do they have the ability, the time, nor the right, not even the desire, to do so. However, all these people create advantages and disadvantages for others through their actions.
People can sense whether the activities of a president, doctor, mechanic, or any other person bring some advantages or disadvantages to them. According to this theory, individuals should have the right to reward those who create advantages for them and punish those who produce disadvantages. Such a right would direct all people to perform the most significant benefits and the least damage to others. Such an orientation of society would indeed follow the people’s will in the best possible way and, therefore, would present a developed democracy.
This paper argues that equal rights for people are the only proper orientation of society. In this regard, let each person have the same power to evaluate negatively three individuals who have hurt them the most in any given month and to assess positively three individuals who have created the most significant benefits in a month. For example, if a prime minister, neighbour, and boss harm a person the most in one month, they will evaluate these individuals negatively. On the other hand, if a friend, teacher, and singer produce the most significant benefits to a person, they will get a positive assessment. Also, people may use all the evaluations for positive or negative assessments or in any combination. This is the essence, and the rest is a technical matter which will be performed through an application on the Internet.
The sum of positive and negative evaluations individuals receive from others could be publicly presented on the Internet. Counting these evaluations will demonstrate to everyone how valued they are in society. These evaluations may become at least as important to people as page visits, likes, and followers are today. Nobody would like to be on the negative side of assessment, but on the positive side as much as possible. They will achieve this goal by working hard to create the most significant advantages for the community and diminish or abolish all disadvantages.
In this manner, all people will become equal authorities with small direct power in society. Given that all people will have equal rights and the power to award and impose punishments on others independently of any written rules, such a democracy will present anarchy. That is the reason why this evaluation system is named democratic anarchy. Democratic anarchy is supposed to make a flourishing society.
People would gain direct power in society for the first time in human history. Such power will eliminate uncontrolled or insufficiently controlled individual power originating in privileged social status. People need to understand that the privileged positions of individuals should be considered the basis of societal problems. The lack of equal human rights is why society has never been good. Democratic anarchy would direct each member of society to respect other people. People will become valuable to all people. People will be considered equal for the first time, resulting in harmonious and constructive social relations.
Everyone will judge other people freely. In this regard, many complain that individuals may evaluate others maliciously due to spite or envy. Such a risk exists, but an individual assessment cannot cause significant harm to anyone. The damage an individual can cause is insignificant compared to that of state authorities because authorities can pull entire countries backward. In the proposed system, such authorities would receive numerous negative evaluations from people, which, through minor regulation, could prevent them from committing evil acts as dictators have throughout history. Is allowing individuals to judge others incorrectly acceptable if such “trials” prevent significant societal destruction?
Something similar to democratic anarchy was already implemented on YouTube, where people could vote for songs or videos with a “like” or “dislike.” No more than 5% of people evaluated songs or videos inappropriately, meaning 95% valued others fairly. This suggests that democratic anarchy will serve society properly or even better than YouTube because people will have limited evaluation rights and will not spend the evaluations irrationally. They would likely evaluate other people honestly because they feel honoured by having direct power in society.
It can be assumed with high certainty that the equal power of people, by its nature, would make malice and envy hardly exist. However, if something like that still happens, each person would be able to correct a possible wrongful assessment they made of others by instigating a correct evaluation, even many years later, when they experience enlightenment under the influence of equal human rights. Their conscience will likely prompt them to do it.
For those still skeptical about democratic anarchy, it may be implemented by presenting evaluations only to the individuals being evaluated, and not to anyone else. This would be like people listening to anonymous gossip about themselves, and everyone would be interested in hearing it. As a result, most people will try to improve their social behaviour. However, the secret evaluation results may not stop the worst people from continuing their bad behaviour. Then, society may decide to discourage the wrongdoers by embracing the full implementation of democratic anarchy through democratic means. And even then, if people receive more favourable than unfavourable evaluations, they may keep the result a secret from others. However, if the total assessment is negative, it will be visible to everyone, forcing individuals with a negative evaluation to improve their behaviour.
Many people, including university professors, have criticized my work, arguing that it is impossible to judge others objectively. The answer to them is that objectivity is desirable but not essential. Besides, voters do not need to be intelligent or educated to have the right to vote. People will judge others based on how they feel, and everyone will be obliged to consider the consequences of their actions on others. This is what is needed to create a good society. By adopting democratic anarchy, people would appreciate other people, bringing considerable benefits to the community.
Furthermore, a system that supports people’s equal rights will develop objectivity in the community. People who receive negative evaluations will have to learn what is wrong with them, which will teach them objectivity. Objectivity will remove conflicts in society. In the future, people will likely only receive good evaluations, and then they will know they live in a good society. After these explanations, no one with good intentions for the bright future of humankind should refuse democratic anarchy. However, due to the influence authorities have provided through ideologies, people hesitate to discuss democratic anarchy.
Once democratic anarchy is accepted by society, it will not give much power to individuals, but their evaluations, joined together, will have enormous power. A person receiving many negative assessments would likely try even harder to avoid doing anything that inconveniences others. Moreover, the people who receive inadequate evaluations would never know who has evaluated them negatively, so they will try to improve their behaviour towards everyone. As a result, bullies would not exist at school, employers would not abuse their employees at work, neighbours would not produce obnoxious noise at night, salespeople would not cheat their customers, politicians would not lie to people, etc. They will all strive to please others in the best possible way. This would take privileged powers from everyone, eliminating social evils and fostering a good society.
When people get accustomed to mutual evaluation, they may democratically decide to increase the power of each assessment by assigning, for example, the value of one dollar to each of them. Each positive evaluation a person receives from somebody should bring them one dollar, and each negative assessment should take one dollar away from them. These evaluations would not significantly impact ordinary people. If two people do not like each other, they may negatively evaluate each other for years, which would not be a significant issue. Gaining or losing one dollar per month in the developed world has an insignificant impact.
The power of evaluations would efficiently affect authorities responsible for making societal decisions. The higher a leader’s position in society, the greater their responsibility to the people is. For example, the US President might receive 100,000,000 negative evaluations from the American people for implementing ineffective policies, lying, and engaging in aggressive behaviour against other countries. That would cost the president $100 million in just one month. On the other hand, the president’s supporters might not necessarily evaluate such presidents positively because they may have higher priorities for positive evaluations and allocate them elsewhere. Non-privileged presidents would no longer dare implement bad policies. And if it happens somehow, they will leave their positions fast. Only the most skilful and brave individuals would dare lead countries. They will no longer be authorities but sincere servants of the people. We elect our leaders based on our opinions about them. When our opinions hold equal judgmental power, the world will undergo a complete transformation.
So, what if influential people who own mass media unfairly accuse someone of being evil in society and thus prompt people to give inadequate evaluations to the wrong person? Such things are easily possible in today’s society. However, a proverb says, “Lies have short legs.” One day, the lies will be revealed, and nobody would like to be in the place of these lying individuals because the people would surely punish them. They may receive punishments for a long time and would not dare to be immoral again.
The point of democracy is to create rules that enable people to live well. So far, the best results have been achieved through laws; however, these laws have not solved social problems. Democratic anarchy may successfully solve all disputes in society by giving direct power to the people. In the future, democratic anarchy may offer a more effective solution for individuals and society than laws can provide. When people have the power to enforce justice independently, they will seek justice less often in courts. The courts would start losing their importance, together with the state oppression apparatus, including the police and prisons. Once democratic anarchy is established, it will begin replacing the enormous regulation imposed by authorities. Many state regulations may become obsolete in the distant future, which means they will be relegated to history. It would also release people from the alienation imposed by authorities and bring them closer to their true nature.
Besides, democratic anarchy cannot be corrupted. On the contrary, it will most likely eliminate immorality in society. Through equal evaluation rights, people will learn what is and is not objectively ethical. People will obey the ethics they spontaneously establish. There is no greater morality than equal human rights can provide. Actually, this is probably the only moral possible because ethics can hardly be based on privileges. Privileged individuals can hardly escape promoting their selfish interests, quickly moving them beyond morality. Democratic anarchy alone should be capable of creating an ethical and fair society.
Democratic anarchy may, for the first time, enforce the golden rule “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” which is capable of creating a good society. In essence, democratic anarchy embeds the principle of a fair market economy, which rewards the good behaviour of individuals. Democratic anarchy will do even better because it involves negative evaluations, which means everyone should consider what consequences their actions may have on others. It should work perfectly. Once democratic anarchy is established, it can initiate fast and significant social improvement.
The moment people get the right to evaluate others and be evaluated by others, they will be less willing to confront others and more willing to please them. No one will dare to be arrogant or aggressive. Only kind people will exist. This is the best possible outcome of democracy. The technology necessary for implementing democratic anarchy is already available. Democratic anarchy may be implemented soon, enabling a much better society to be built quickly. Democratic anarchy would likely fulfill the dreams of the dreamers throughout human history.
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Under pressure from democratic anarchy, governments would follow the needs of the people. The authorities would not dare to make the most important decisions for society alone, as they can easily make mistakes that might bring about widespread wrath and numerous negative evaluations. Suppose the authorities are unsure of the people’s needs. In that case, their responsibility, clearly defined by respecting people’s evaluations, will direct them to discover love for people’s participation in strategic decision-making processes through referendums. In this regard, they would most likely develop a simple, fast, and efficient method for people to make direct decisions, probably over the Internet.
People can directly influence society’s macroeconomic policy because it is the foundation that directs the economy, which in turn affects the entire society. One needs to enable people to decide how much money they want to pay in taxes from their gross income. The total sum of all the people’s expressions about taxation would determine the total amount of funds allocated for collective consumption. People will not pay taxes as much as they want. They will form the total amount of money for taxes, which then will be collected proportionally to the heights of their salaries. Similarly, each person can decide how to allocate their taxes. Each person would determine how much tax they would set aside to develop the economy, ensure safety, promote education, enhance health, improve infrastructure, and meet other collective consumption needs.
Theoretically, people can decide on collective consumption within the consumer groups as much as they want. All these shared consumption groups will have a far more significant overall impact if they are democratically allocated. Following the living experience, people will learn how much money they should collect for taxes and the best way to spend it. Thus, this spending would no longer be alienated from society; it would follow people’s needs most efficiently. Given that the new system may offer stable and good relations among nations, people would no longer allocate money for the needs of armies, and armies would cease to exist. In the proposed democracy, waging wars would no longer be possible.
The people must directly make strategic decisions in society, such as creating fundamental laws, because that is the only way society’s policies can certainly follow the people’s interests. Professionals could make all other decisions and be directly responsible to the people for those decisions. Once people get the direct power to participate in the decision-making process and judge those who make decisions on their behalf, it would most likely present the most developed form of democracy. One can hardly define a better political way. People would become so satisfied with such a democracy that they would not allow anyone to seize it from them.
Democratic anarchy is well elaborated in the book “Humanism - A Philosophic-Ethical Political-Economic Study of the Development of the Society” (Šarović, 2023).
Reference
Šarović, A. 2023. Humanism - A Philosophic-Ethical-Political-Economic Study of the Development of the Society, academia.edu.
https://www.academia.edu/144412790/Humanism_A_Philosophic_Ethical_Political_Economic_Study_of_the_Development_of_the_Society
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The main lesson of this article isn't just about how simply we can solve social problems and create a good society, but also about why it isn't so easy to do so. This article was submitted to left-wing journals, magazines and papers mainly in the Western world, but none of them published it. The reason is that the editors, like everyone else, are indoctrinated by the knowledge they acquire through the education system and have difficulties recognizing the truth. Scientific journals do not even consider papers without references to the previous work, as new ideas cannot have. Also, people do not like the uncertainty of new paths to the future, no matter how promising they may be. Then, they do not like losing privileged powers, which the article promotes as a condition sine qua non for any better future. Finally, those editors who might still be interested in publishing it are, in most cases, controlled or financially supported by the capitalist elite and thus refrain from accepting new ideas that challenge the elite's power and influence. No wonder humankind cannot improve.