-
Recent Posts
Categories
- Athenian democracy (2)
- corruption (3)
- democracy (7)
- FAQs – Frequently Asked Questions (21)
- government (6)
- legislature (6)
- oligarchy (2)
- proportional representation (6)
- sortition (8)
- Uncategorized (64)
Archives
- March 2022
- December 2020
- July 2020
- February 2020
- April 2018
- March 2018
- July 2017
- February 2016
- June 2015
- May 2015
- October 2014
- September 2014
- July 2014
- February 2014
- November 2013
- June 2013
- May 2013
- April 2013
- February 2013
- May 2012
- March 2012
- February 2012
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- November 2010
- October 2010
- June 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- March 2008
Tag Archives: The Common Lot
(text) Sortition and Unarmed Peacekeeping as Steps to Abolish War
Steps to Abolish War: Unarmed Peacekeeping and a Two-Legged Democracy
Why Elections are the Problem and How to Make Democracy Real
I hope you will purchase my just-published essay “Why Elections are the Problem and How to Make Democracy Real”. Or cut & paste: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0081H7JVC The essay begins with a short review of how and why elections inherently produce legislatures which … Continue reading
Latest interactive book format
I’m re-writing my unpublished 1987 novel, *The Common Lot*. Maybe it would be a candidate for first fiction in this format (less than six minute TED talk): http://www.ted.com/talks/mike_matas.html
Should sortitional selection be used for the executive and judicial branches also?
No, definitely not. The executive and judicial branches must be chosen meritocratically, based on skills. The executive is charged to carry out the will expressed by the legislature and therefore requires management expertise.Similarly, judicial appointments require extensive training in the … Continue reading
How would sortition work to choose legislative representatives?
“The Common Lot: Next Step for Democracy” advocates that sortition (random selection) be used to select among qualified citizens who are willing to serve in the legislature. In order to be entered into the pool for random selection a citizen … Continue reading
What is sortition?
‘Sortition’ means ‘choice by lot; random selection’. Random selection in a large population will automatically produce, with small deviations, a proportional representation of that population. This is ‘automatic’ because of probability theorem: ‘The Law of Large Numbers’. A random selection … Continue reading
Commonlot's Blog 