I'm gonna talk about one of the big
questions perhaps the biggest question
how should we live together
how should a group of people who perhaps
live in a city or in the continent or
even the whole globe share and manage
common resources how should we make the
rules that govern us this has always
been an important question and today I
think it's even more important than ever
if we want to address rising inequality
climate change the refugee crisis just
to name a few major issues it's also a
very old question humans have been
asking themselves this question ever
since we lived in organized societies
like this guy Plato he thought we needed
benevolent guardians who could make
decisions for the greater good of
everyone
kings and queens thought they could be
those guardians but during various
revolutions they tended to lose their
heads and this guy you probably know
here in Hungary you live for many years
under one attempt to implement his
answer of how to live together his
answer was brutal cruel and inhumane but
a different answer a different kind of
answer which went more or less into
hibernation for 2,000 years has had
profound recent success that answer is
of course democracy if we take a quick
look at the modern history of democracy
that goes something like this along here
we're going to put the last 200 years up
here we're going to put the number of
democracies and the graph does this the
important point of which is this
extraordinary increase over time which
is why the 20th century has been called
this century of democracies triumph and
why as Francis Fukuyama said in 1989
some believe that we have reached the
end of history that the question of how
to live together has been answered and
that answer is liberal democracy
explore that assertion no I want to find
out what you think so I'm gonna ask you
two questions and I want you to put your
hands up if you agree the first question
is who thinks living in a democracy is a
good thing
who likes democracy if you can think of
a better system keep your hands down
sorry about those who didn't raise their
hands I'm sure they mean very well the
second question is who thinks our
democracies are functioning well darlin
there must be one politician in the
audience somewhere no but my point is if
liberal democracy is the end of history
then there's a massive paradox or
contradiction here why is that well the
first question is about the ideal of
democracy and all these qualities are
very appealing but in practice it's not
working and that's the second question
our politics is broken our politicians
aren't trusted and the political system
is distorted by powerful vested
interests I think there's two ways to
resolve this paradox one is to give up
on democracy it doesn't work let's elect
the populist demagogue who will ignore
democratic norms trample on liberal
freedoms and just get things done the
other option I think is to fix this
broken system to bring the practice
closer to the ideal and put the diverse
voices of society in our Parliament's
and get them to make considered
evidence-based laws for the long-term
good of everyone which brings me to my
Epiphany my moment of enlightenment and
I want you to get critical I want you to
ask yourselves why wouldn't this work
and then come and talk to me afterwards
about it its technical name is sortition
but it's common name is random selection
and the idea is actually very simple we
randomly select people and put them in
Parliament let's think about that for a
few more minutes shall we imagine we
chose you and you and you and you and
you and you down there and a bunch of
other random people and we put you in
our Parliament's for the next couple of
years of course we could stratify the
selection to make sure that it matter
the socio-economic and demographic
profile of the country and was a truly
representative sample of people 50% of
them would be women many of them would
be young some would be old a few would
be rich but most of them would be
ordinary people like you and me this
would be a microcosm of society and this
microcosm would simulate how we would
all think if we had the time the
information and a good process to come
to the moral crux of political decisions
and although you may not be in that
group someone of your age someone of
your agenda someone from your location
and some of your background would be in
that room the decisions made by these
people would build on the wisdom of
crowds they would become more than the
sum of their parts that would become
critical thinkers with access to experts
who would be on tap but not on top and
they could prove that diversity can
trump ability when confronting the wide
array of societal questions and problems
it would not be government by public
opinion poll
it would not be government by referendum
these informed deliberating people would
move beyond public opinion to the making
of public judgements however there would
be one major side effect if we replaced
elections with sortition and made our
Parliament truly representative of
society it would mean the end of
politicians and I'm sure we'd all be
pretty sad to see that
very interestingly random selection was
a key part of how democracy was done in
ancient Athens this machine is device is
called a claret area
it's an ancient Athenian random
selection device the ancient Athenians
randomly selected citizens to fill the
vast majority of their political posts
they knew that elections were
aristocratic devices they knew the
career politicians were a thing to be
avoided and I think we know these things
as well but more interesting than the
ancient use of random selection is its
modern resurgence the rediscovery of the
legitimacy of random selection in
politics has become so common lately
that there's simply too many examples to
talk about of course I'm very aware that
it's going to be difficult to institute
this in our Parliament's try this say to
your friend I think we should populate
our Parliament with randomly selected
people and we like joking what if my
neighbor gets chosen the fool can't even
separate his recycling but the perhaps
surprising but overwhelming and
compelling evidence from all these
modern examples is that it does work if
you give people responsibility they act
responsibly don't get me wrong it's not
a panacea the question is not would this
be perfect of course not people are
fallible human and distorting influences
will continue to exist the question is
would it be better and the answer to
that question to me at least is
obviously yes which gets us back to our
original question how should we live
together and now we have an answer with
a parliament that uses sortition but how
would we get from here to there how
could we fix our broken system and
remake democracy for the 21st century
well there are several things that we
can do and that are in fact happening
right now we could experiment with
sortition we can introduce it to schools
and workplaces and other institutions
like democracy and practice is doing in
Bolivia we
can hold policy juries and citizens
assemblies like the new democracy
foundation is doing in Australia like
the Jefferson Center is doing in the US
and like the Irish government is doing
right now
we could build a social movement
demanding change which is what the
sortition foundation is doing in the UK
and at some point we should institute it
perhaps the first step will be a second
chamber in our Parliament full of
randomly selected people a citizen
Senate if you will there is a campaign
for a citizen Senate in France and
another campaign in Scotland and it
could of course be done right here in
Hungary that would be kind of like a
Trojan horse right into the heart of
government and then when it becomes
impossible to patch over the cracks in
the current system
we must step up and replace elections
with sortition I have hope here in
Hungary systems have been created and
systems have been torn down and replaced
in the past change can and does happen
it's just a matter of when and how thank
you cursor number
[Applause]