Setting aside Capitalism vs. Communism (or maybe I just think I am), this structure vs. that. Why is it that there aren’t really huge lists of alternatives? Where are the people who are imagining new government structures?
Like electing citizens to office at random, like we do with jury duty (forget the word for it). Or totally different arrangements of legislatures. Or even a pure democracy in a modern sense. That one is especially probably a terrible idea, and they’re not even that unique, but who is brainstorming this stuff? Is it mostly just sci-fi authors? Where is it talked about that isn’t already bending toward a team in the already-existing scheme of things? Even the most radical sorts are referencing back to books/ideas that are a century old. There are ultimately like four ideas and we just kind of gave up? That’s all of them?
Why have we seen so few different approaches tried? Or seemingly even imagined? I feel like even in fiction, it’ll be 2,000 years in the future and the whole thing is structured like a glorified city council ruling entire star systems. I feel like it’s difficult even for our minds to imagine anything truly inventive, in that sense. Is that baked into the concept? Is it because we’re just dumb monkeys that only understand “big strong monkey better?” HAS this stuff been written about extensively and I’m just unaware (probably, yes)?
Lots of people, they just don’t get a lot of people reading about them. Most of the really serious ones are pretty wonky documents that most people wouldn’t want to sort through.
One idea I’ve personally had for years was taking away the voting rights of Representatives and Senators and making them glorified figureheads who write laws. Once they write a law (with Version Control being applied so we know who wrote what sentence) it’s instantly posted online in Wiki format where citizens (with proof of citizenship) can contribute in editing and work-shopping the new laws, and then when the new laws are ready, they are put up to a direct vote by the citizens. This would remove the representatives ability to be influenced in how they write the laws since citizens would have more direct control via editing the law and voting on it. I’m not as thoughtful as the more wonky people who have written a lot more serious stuff like this.
Outside an existing system, I think there’s lots of interesting writing on decentralized societies where diffuse power structures can lead to less consolidation of power by individuals seeking individual control. Anarchy lite, I guess you could call it?