Summary

The latest world events, political trends and scientific studies point to an approaching global political crisis associated with the problems of the degradation of «democracies». In order to understand why the «democracies» are degrading, it is necessary to consider the reasons. The reasons can be found out by examining the core of the existing political systems, that many are calling «democracies».

 

- The established world political systems, called «democracies» in the modern world, are not, by definition: 

Democracy (ancient Greek δημοκρατία «democracy» from δῆμος «people» + κράτος «power») — is a method of group decision-making with equal influence of participants on the outcome of the process or at its significant stages.

 

It is generally recognised that countries, which are considered to be democratic, have built systems of polyarchic power: 

Polyarchy (ancient Greek πολυαρχία, from poly- + ancient Greek Greek αρχία (power) — is a political system based on open political competition of different groups in the struggle for support of voters.  Described in detail: Dahl, Robert. A Preface to Democratic Theory.

 

Formed world polyarchic political systems are not the same as democracy. The public competition of political elites and the involvement of the population in the political process make the concept of polyarchy close to the concept of democracy. But this is not the same thing.

 

- Therefore, the recent studies on the degradation of «democracies» can only be considered as applied to the polyarchy of political elites: 

Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt How Democracies Die,

Foa R. S., Mounk Y. The Danger of Deconsolidation, 

Mounk Y. The Undemocratic Dilemma.

 

  - The public choice in polyarchy matches to the guaranteed choice of the social welfare function made by the dictator: 

Kenneth J. Arrow, 1951, 2nd ed., 1963. Social Choice and Individual Values.

 

In other words, in the current regimes of polyarchy, we choose the dictator of the social welfare function, and those are called democracies only because there are some public institutions made to raise public attention if the ruling elite exceeds the reasonable (Pareto efficient) legislative, judicial and executive moral scope peculiar to democracy. And the ruling elites (or clans) are supposed to listen to public opinion.

 

- The most general requirement for a social welfare function in a democracy is the consistency of this function with the Pareto efficient criterion: if the practicality (welfare) of one of the society members increases, the rest should not decrease.

Pareto Vilfredo, Compendio di sociologia generale, 1920

 

In a concentration situation: 1% has more wealth than the remaining 99% of the Earth’s inhabitants, this is clearly not the Pareto efficiency and this fact can be one of the main evidences of the «elite polyarchy» model failure at the current stage of societal development, the reason and the sign of the upcoming world disaster.

 

- Polyarchy theorists believe that excessive concentration and centralization of power is a significant brake on democracy. Therefore, an important factor in the development of «polyarchic democracy» is the dispersal of the economic and political resources. It can safely to say that the current concentration of economic and political resources in the hands of ruling elites and thus the existence of an «imitation polyarchic democracy» as one of the causes of the world's political crisis.

 

- Arrow’s theorem will be true for each individual choice of «overextended» economic and political resources if the social welfare function aggregated in his theorem is presented as its components. In practice, these institutions perform the basic state functions. By choosing themselves their judicial and legislative executives, power according to Arrow's theorem, they will get local function dictators of public welfare in their person.

By choosing themselves their judicial and legislative executives, power (after having become aware - informative) according to Arrow's theorem, they will get local function dictators of public welfare in their person.

 

- Separately selected local dictators of state functions will not be able to go into a huddle with each other, in terms of less than their powers, find the Nash equilibrium.

(Nash, John F. (May 1950). «Non-Cooperative Games», if they will be legalized through elections of 10 or more from each government branch and, accordingly, at each level of management. Under these conditions, real agreements (cahoots beyond the general Pareto efficiency) between executives can be reached only after several years (theoretically even more): 

Yakov Babichenko, Aviad Rubinstein Communication complexity of approximate Nash equilibria.

 

- Selected executives, in case of applying the conclusions of the work of George Akerlof (George A. Akerlof. The Market for «Lemons»: Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism)

about the establishment of guarantees (annual re-elections) in the presence of asymmetric information (election promises), will be forced to cooperate with voters due to the fact that the time to find Nash equilibrium with the voter (within Pareto efficiency) will be incomparably smaller than finding Nash equilibrium with other functionaries (cahoots without a common Pareto efficiency framework) due to the incompatibility of the set of possible strategies in each set of players and the limited time of authority. In this case, the entire system of state administration, with its election by the people, will strive for Pareto efficiency of society.

 

In addition, the difference in the time of finding the Nash equilibrium between the elected functionaries and the voters (cahoots outside the general Pareto efficiency) puts «prisoner dilemma» between people’s deputies, in this case, «whether to go into huddle with each other in prejudice of voters' interests dilemma». The optimal solution to the dilemma will lead to Pareto efficiency of the entire system.

Albert William Tucker Contributions to the theory of games, Annals of Mathematical Studies 1950

 

- Comparison of polyarchic systems: the existing one, where the elite is chosen - the global dictator of social welfare function, with the supervision of the chosen controllers, with the polyarchic system where the local dictators of separate state functions and controllers are legally chosen by the people leads to an understanding of the true «polyarchic democracy» not the imitative one.

In the second case, a direct separation of powers is ensured, with each branch of government dependent on the electorate.

 

- An unquestionable sign of modern democracy is the separation of powers. The separation of powers was first considered by Aristotle, then by John Locke, and finally formulated by Charlemagne-Louis de Montesquieu. 

Montesquieu, De l'esprit des lois, livre XI, 1748

 

The idea of separation of powers lies at the heart of any modern democratic state. The principle of separation of powers was implemented in the US Constitution of 1787 and supplemented by the «founding fathers». (А. Hamilton, J. Madison, J. Jay) a model of «vertical» separation of powers, the division of powers between federal and state authorities. In addition, the «classical model» of separation of powers included a well-known system of checks and balances, which was later profaned by the legalization of the lobbying system.

 

- The separation of powers has not been fully implemented in any country in the world. The reason is the technological impossibility of separation of powers by branches and levels of government under polyarchicic regimes. The very essence of polyarchy does not allow doing it.

 

- The absence of a real separation of powers, and as a consequence, the lack of mutual control of the authorities in the interests of the owner of power - the people - is one of the main factors of systemic corruption. Both political and related economic corruption. Without systematic political and economic corruption, traditional corruption is a banal crime, is being eradicated by an independent law enforcement system. Naturally, in the case of its separation from the executive branch of government and the election of senior law enforcement officials by direct vote for a limited period.

 

The half-century unsuccessful «struggle» of political regimes against corruption proves that the root cause of the problem is in the essence of the polyarchy.  The types of polyarchies - presidential, parliamentary or mixed (right or left) - do not solve the problems of mutual control of power branches in the interests of civil society. The billions of euros and dollars allocated to fight corruption is a fight against the consequences, creating the appearance and useless waste of taxpayers' money.

 

- As an example, citizens of many modern polyarchal countries with the help of mediators elected for 5 years (deputies, president, coalition) «elect» attorneys, judges, and key civil servants. Those elected are not obliged to do anything to the citizens, and therefore work for those who have really elected them. For such state executives, the people are only the subject of management, but not a partner and employer.

Thus, the prerequisites for the emergence of a deep state are created.

 

Where is the logic? Shift the kings with their retinues (elites), so that over the centuries people will become the subject of control (subjects) again, bring temporary «kings» with their own selected or engaged retinues (elites) into power for 5 years, those who create themselves as a safety resource in case of resigning both  national oligarchy and the world financial hegemony. Kings were not interested in the withdrawal of funds from the country and the creation of transnational elite, much more powerful financially than their countries. They were masters of their countries. Who is the real owner of the countries with the systems of temporary elite polyarchies? Obviously not their people.

 

- The global resource hegemon in the form of the super elite is extremely advantageous to modern national elites. The power of national elites is temporary, and having withdrawn the part of national resource during the reign from their country the national elite becomes a part of the transnational super-elite. Its colossal capital is sufficient for:

- Funding Transnational Funds Supporting Narratives of polyarchy;

- The content of «independent» non-state «democratic» institutions;

- Material and informational support of power concentration under the guise of reforms;

- Safeguarding untouchability for changing national elites;

- «brainwashing» of peoples about the lack of alternatives to polyarchal regimes through the purchased media;    

- The material content of «useful modes»: - intellectuals, populists, nationalists and opinion leaders through endless «thematic» grants and awards.

 

The solution to the problem of direct or indirect bribery of national elites (ruling clans) and their populists is facilitated by the fact that the overwhelming majority of the public is busy with ordinary, daily activities or simply surviving with their 1% of wealth, rather than with the control of elites suffering from exorbitant greed.

Therein lies the modern profanation of the ideas of civil society control that came into the power of parties or clans. National and even more so, international corruption has long been out of the control of civil society due to the lack of effective levers to influence the decisions of the authorities and the loss of real public control over the media.

 

- The presence of international systemic corruption in modern society is a cancer of civilization. Outdated political systems of polyarchies with more than two hundred years of functioning, inextricably linked to them international systemic corruption schemes, are hybrid threats not only to Western civilization, but also to the whole world.

The polyarchic system is unstable, easily transformed into a dictatorship without artificially creating enough costly counterbalances, the action of which is easily nullified by conspiracies of officials connected with a single center of decision-making.

 

Polyarchies are extremely dangerous when power is concentrated in one hand. Examples of recent history - the «legitimate» usurpation of power by Hitler and Stalin - have led to the greatest tragedy in the world.

  Modern polyarchic «legal» usurpation of power in different countries of the world leads to impoverishment of peoples, seizure and excessive concentration of resources, which threatens their subsequent world redistribution and, as a consequence, world wars.

 

-  What prevents people from directly choosing state executives and controllers with their re-election a year later, as a guarantee of their functions in Pareto efficiency? The answer is obvious - unawareness of causal problems.

The artificially created system of smooth talking of causal problems, distracting the attention of societies of «democratic» countries to artificially created problems of consequences, significantly complicates the awareness of causal problems. A sure sign of smooth talking are heated discussions in the media of pseudo-problems (problems of consequences) without offering solutions.

 

Thus, have been set up and are being maintained narrative: the lack of alternatives for concentrating power in one hand, faith in «good» leaders and their managerial superpowers, denial of the possibility of true democracy, loss of citizens' faith in democracy, inability of citizens to directly influence the fate of their country.

It is not necessary to change the structure of government. By changing the electoral system of the governing elite to the electoral system of people’s representatives in the government structure, the regime of government automatically changes: the outdated political system will be changed to a democratic one, without radical changes in the structure of government. 

 

In this case, the system of «elite polyarchy» is transformed into the system of «people polyarchy», which is much closer to the «ideal democracy», and much further from the imitational one. Global and local system of corrupt surplus value: Money - Politics - Money will be lapsed in several iterations by the described mechanism, because of leading to Pareto efficiency.

 

- Separately, it is necessary to figure out the coincidental in time crisis of the world transnational super elite, expressed in its stratification into clans, and in the beginning clan division of spheres of influence into weaker national elite polyarchies. This state is extremely dangerous due to the possible transition of the confrontation of the transnational super-elite clans from the cold phase to the hot one, involving people in the conflict, first those of the imitation democracies.

 

- That is not to deny the elite usefulness, under conditions of well-founded leadership and not leaderism elites play their natural role as engines of human progress also in the political sphere.

Leadership is a process of social influence, through which the leader receives support from other members of the community to achieve the goal.

Chemers M. An integrative theory of leadership. — Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers, 1997

It is important to build interconnected relations of peoples with their elites and the super elite.

These problems require additional research and development.

 

- Transformation of existing regimes by national societies to the system of «people polyarchy» can be implemented along the following lines: (and on the basis of generalisation of the generally accepted scientific works):

 

 

Direct elections of the central government: 

Term of office up to 3 years

President with the functions of control of the Constitution

Commander-in-chief

Term of office from 1 to 2 years

Chief Justice and Court Members

Attorney General and members of the board

Head of the Security Service

Head of the Anti-Corruption Department

Head of the Special Prosecutor's Office

Head of the Bureau of Investigation

Prime Minister

Minister of Government Property

Minister of Finance

Minister of Health

Minister of Police

Education Minister

Head of the Central Election Commission (CEC) and its members

Legislative Deputies

Head of Central Bank and his deputies

Head of Antimonopoly Authority

Head of public media and members of media regulatory institutions

 

Direct elections of regional authorities:

Term of office from 1 to 2 years

Governor

Judges

Attorneys

Representatives of the regional legislature

Head of Police

Head of Healthcare

Head of Education

Head of Public Property Management

Head of Land Administration

Head of Election Commission and its members

Head of Public Media

 

Direct elections of local government:

Term of office from 1 to 2 years

Mayors or Heads of Communities

Attorneys

Judges

Executive Representatives

Healthcare Committee

Education Committee

Head of Collective Property Management

Head of Land Administration

Head of the Election Commission and its members

Head of Public Media

 

- The terms of office and the number of elected managers are functionally dependent and subject to change: the more elected, the longer the term is possible.  

 

- The most important safeguard of the «people’s polyarchies» is the annual re-election of people's representatives for each branch of power of at least 10, at each level of government. The total amount of years spent in office by individual representatives may remain traditional, due to the fact that the time required to develop synergistic partnerships may not be enough, and it is unlikely that a full set of new managers could maintain consistent strategies.

 

- The above configuration of the polity structure must observe the basic rules of public choice, and not contradict the basic Constitutions of democratic nations or the Charters on human rights of UN and EU.

 

- In economically developed countries, parts of the presented layout have been implemented historically and intuitively. These countries are the least affected by the global political crisis. The introduction in the full complex (or its semantic modification taking into account historical peculiarities) of the system of election of people’s representatives in the structure of government in countries with pronounced «elite polyarchy» will allow them to avoid the global political crisis and go to the regime of the people or that will be identical to «democratic polyarchy».