The Citizen's Burden

In the last post we talked about how in a modern democracy, elected representatives cannot really represent us accurately.  They instead mostly represent a bundle of their party's ideals.

Citizens can in theory influence politicians to promote their own agenda, through means like:

• Phone calls and letters to representatives
• Attending public meetings
• Petitions
• Rallies
• Advocacy groups

While people do this, doing these activities takes a lot of time and effort.  Consider the issues facing a typical parent who wants to attend a single public meeting or rally:  

• Transportation 
• Child care
• Work schedule issues
• 
  Prior commitments

The very people who need better representation -- the financially disadvantaged -- are the people who can least afford these costs.

Even in the case of writing letters to representatives, it takes a lot of time for each citizen to research issues to the appropriate depth.  With the explosion in complexity that we all face in the modern world, every area of policy has become very complicated.  It is impossible for each citizen to digest it all, and act on it.

After all of this, there is no guarantee the citizens voice will be heard, or will not be brushed off.

This is the Citizen's Burden.  And it is getting worse.

The politicians can smoothly say "Hey, the people can had their say, and there is very little opposition to our plan.  We only received 4 letters opposing!".  

Or "there were only 6 people opposed at the meeting!".  

That is because the Citizen's Burden effectively silenced the vast majority.  Very convenient for the powers that be.  

The Citizen's Burden is effective encoded in the structure of modern politics.  It is this structure that makes it nearly impossible to have effective governance that works for the people.

What can we do about it?  We will look at a possible solution in the next post.