Smári McCarthy's Agenda for the Icelandic Constitutional Assembly

* Text: My Agenda and Emphasis for the Icelandic Constitutional Assembly. By Smári McCarthy ([email protected]). November 19, 2010

URL = http://www.smarimccarthy.com/issues_english.pdf

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1 Direct democracy & distribution of authority

Representative democracy is, topologically speaking, an advanced form of dictatorship.

To put into the hands of few the ability to make decisions that effect the whole can at worst be the prelude to corruption and power disequilibrium.

At best it is a gross oversimplification of the will of the individuals that form the polity, as political interests in representative systems serve to drive opinions towards a relatively small set of common denominators.

On various scales direct democracy has been tried, and has been shown to be effective. Although care must be taken in the design of such a system of self-representation, to avoid systemic feedback effects and paradoxical games, there are clear methods which can be used to acheive this goal.

A modern approach to this has been dubbed ”crowdsourced democracy”, whereby those who have a particular interest in a particular matter participate to the degree they feel is appropriate, and those who have less interest can opt to abstain or, more interestingly, transfer their vote to any third party who has a vote of her own. This maximizes both the political freedom of individuals to participate and the likelihood of well informed individuals leading the discussions on any given topic.

Exact implementation details are beyond the scope of a constitution, as such, but I am interested in attempting to enact into a constitution some form of direct democracy as far as it is reasonable and suitable to the current political environment in Iceland." (http://www.smarimccarthy.com/issues_english.pdf)

2 Representative accountability

As far as representation of some form does go, such as in international fora or public or regional assemblies, it is imperative that representatives of a polity express the informed will of their constituents and report back in an adequate way. Far too long has post-representation been the norm in international discourse, where representatives of representatives represent specific agendas which are frequently kept out of the public sphere and are often contradictory to the will of the people comprising the polity.

An example of this, from 2003, was the decision of then prime minister Davíd Oddsson and then foreign minister Halldór Blöndal to unilaterally declare support for the invasion of Iraq and participation in the Coallition of the Willing, without parliamentary debate or public referendum.

A less obvious example would be the decision of Iceland’s delegate to the United Nations abstaining in a vote to support the universal right of all humans to clean water. Had this issue been put to public referendum the general public would surely have supported such a right - and this actually applies to most countries.

Representatives of a polity must be accountable to the polity, and constitutional statements to that effect should be clear. They should be required to seek the opinion of the people, and after participating in fora provide information about what topics were discussed, why they are of interest or importance, what position the representative took on behalf of the polity, and what justification exists for such a position.

3 Transparency and information rights

In that vein, the right to information is paramount. Information is an absolute precondition for democracy.

All government data must be available to the public, and for that purpose the foundations for a freedom of information law should be engrained in the constitution. Exceptions to is rule should only be made for very explicit concerns for public - not state - security, and should be decided by an independent panel selected at random from the census, or for privacy concerns, in which case the public listing of such a document should include clear justification of why the document is redacted from the public record.

For the purposes of representative accountability and government transparency, a complete traceable history of all decisions and the processes used to achieve them should be recorded.

The constitution is, of course, not the appropriate place to make statements regarding exact implementation, but it is most certainly the place to make clear statements regarding public data transparency, financial transparency, open access to information, and the right to know.

4 Freedom of expression

The right to know is only beneficial if it correlates with a right to share what you know. An absolute freedom of expression should be guaranteed in the constitution, without such limitations or exceptions as are counted up in the current constitution or the European convention on human rights.

Returning to the free speech ideal embodied in the revolutionary constitutions of France and the United States is of the greatest importance now in this time of near-instantaneous communications. The Internet has altered the space the human mind is capable of navigating to such an extent that all over the world, repressive entities are attempting to limit our capacity for communication, to a great extent out of fear of what may come from an enlightened public.

We must modernize free speech in this constitution in such a way that we set an example for other countries.

5 Freedom of association

The freedom of association has been, in Iceland, interestingly restricted in a number of ways. Although none of these restrictions has been nafarious or endemic, they have had systemic consequences which have been to the detriment of society.

On the one hand, the existence of a state church has created a disequilibrium between the various faiths and non-faiths represented in the country. While 80% of the population is registered in the Evangelical Lutheran state-sponsored church, a overwhelming majority of the population have been shown to be either agnostic or atheist. The membership of the church is artificially amplified by various circumstances, such as the difficulty of leaving the church (which requires going to a particular office in a Reykjavík business district), the fact that children are automatically registered to the same denomination as their mother (rather than having them opt in), and most peculiarly, that newborn children of secular mothers get automatically registered to the state church.

To quote Hope Knutsson from Siðmennt (the Icelandic society of ethical humanists),

”In the year 2000 the Icelandic government spent billions of kronur on a year’s worth of anniversary celebrations of 1000 years of Christianity in Iceland. They prepared an outdoor weekend Christianity festival that they estimated 75,000 people would come to and re-routed traffic for that part of the country. Only 8000 people showed up in addition to the staff, performers, and foreign dignitaries. [...] Government and church leaders tried to justify the wasted money for more than a year afterward to the disgruntled public.” [1]

The separation of church and state is not an important concern for the creation of a new constitution, per se, but this illustrates a more serious problem.

Looking at how pension funds, collecting societies, industrial and business associations and other such organizations operate, a similar trend emerges. Indeed, the European Court of Human Rights has on two occasions in recent years found the Icelandic state guilty of violating associative rights for levvying an ”industrial activity charge” from industrial workers which goes to support Samtök Iðnaðarins, an organization of industrial stakeholders.

In short, the right to free association must be better guaranteed and more vigilently upheld than is currently the case.

6 Guaranteed basic income

With an unemployment rate of 6.4% down from 9.1% at its peak in 2009, but up from the pre-crash level of roughly 1.9% (source: Datamarket), Iceland’s workforce and economy are, despite everything, very active. The GDP of Iceland when adjusted for PPP, comes out at roughly 28,000 EUR per capita per year, or around 6 million ISK (source: IMF).

Already the state operates a fairly powerful economic safety net for people, with an unemployment benefit fund funded from a 4% insurance tax on all wages, and a municipal financial support system for those who aren’t ellegible for unemployment benefits. In 2008 the average annual wages on the labor market were roughly 3.6 million ISK per year (source: Hagstofa Íslands), with full unemployment benefits amounting to 1.8 million ISK per year (source: Vinnumálastofnun).

Under such circumstances the notion of basic income is not far fetched. The net systemic effect of guaranteeing basic income is minimal, as it would only serve to calm the frayed nerves of those who for various reasons cannot seek employment. Also, by adopting a single income guarantee system it would be possible to simplify the disabilities, pensions and unemployment benefits systems significantly, reducing the overall cost of system maintenance.

The adoption of a basic income system would potentially benefit Iceland’s economy by virtue of the ”candlestick problem”. It has been shown empirically that economic incentives decrease creativity whereas they increase productivity in labor intensive unskilled jobs. By creating a basic income the issue of survival will be, for many, pushed off the table, leaving headroom and mindspace to focus on creative ventures, which have a greater potential social and economic benefit than industrial production.

Iceland would not be the only country seriously considering this possibility. In the European Parliament resolution 2009/2205 on the role of women in an aging society, article 35 states amongst other things, that the European Parliament ”invites the Commission to consider a system where all men and women in the EU are granted the right to a basic income that is dependent on the Member State’s standard of living;”

Without going into implementation details, for there are a plethora of viable approaches to basic income, it would be reasonable to include a constitutional statement regarding the right of all to a basic income, which, if worded correctly, could lead to the adoption of such a system within not too many years.

7 Distribution of resources and sustainability

Iceland is a country of many resources. Fish, water, silicon, basalt and energy are amongst the many natural resources which can be found here in plenty. However, without a clear mechanism to facilitate the equal distribution of these resources amongst the people, or at least in such a way that all members of the population benefit from the use of these resources, the potential for inequality is great.

8 Other issues

It’s not easy to come up with a new system of governance. There are issues here I haven’t mentioned in part because for many I have no single answer and for many I have no answers at all.

Many things I do have clear opinions on in this context, such as not supporting wars, privacy, land ownership, capital ownership, property rights, and so on. I know less about how to solve the issue of appointing judges in a direct democracy, but tend to think that the fact that it’s not solvable easily may mean that the structure of the judicial system is wrong. I’m not set on any specific implementation details regarding direct democracy, but I do think that any limitations in scope for reasons of scaling or arguments against the wisdom of the crowd are dangerous, and that we shouldn’t sacrifice aggregate wisdom for the benefit of special interests.

We should bear in mind that any system will be attacked in various ways, and that whatever system the constitutional assembly does come up with needs to be rigorously fault tested, preferably independently by a wide range of different people with different backgrounds. If there is a way to subvert the democratic process, then, as we’ve seen all too often, somebody will find it, and use it to their own advantage. This must not be allowed. (http://www.smarimccarthy.com/issues_english.pdf)