[music] I'm Alexander Heffner, your host on The Open Mind.

I'm delighted to welcome our guest today, Professor Hélène Landemore at Yale University.

She's the author of the terrific new book Politics Without Politicians The Case for Citizen Rule.

Again, that's Politics Without Politicians.

Welcome, Hélène.

Thank you.

Alexander.

Delighted to be here.

Delighted to have you.

And this is a tantalizing thesis.

When we live in a country in the United States where our elected officials get piss poor reviews, where we're in a hyper polarized climate where people constantly say we're on the wrong track.

Now it doesn't matter if you have President Obama, President Biden, or President Trump twice over.

Right?

We're still on the wrong track.

And I think it has a little bit to do, if not a lot, to do with with a basic thesis of your book, which is that we'd be better without, these politicians who infect the body politic, who infect the population with such venom and polarization.

What say you, professor?

Well, I think that, politicians present themselves as a solution all the time.

And somehow, as you mentioned, their ratings are poor, people are disaffected with politics.

There's a rising tide of populism across western democracies.

It doesn't appear that they're offering a very good solution.

So is the problem external?

Is it, you know, well, it's just the bad luck of, you know, the historical circumstances we're in maybe it's the fault of globalization, capitalism, social media, or maybe the common point is the politicians themselves, and at the very least, the selection mechanisms through which we choose them.

So, that's the hypothesis, at least.

Right.

And so how did you go about testing that hypothesis in different segments of electorates around the world?

Starting with the United States and then maybe branching off to other popularly elected, representative governments.

Well, I wouldn't say that I tested it.

I mean, it would assume that I can create a counterfactual, for example, whereby we would, -run particular politicians, -Well, I mean, testing it with, I mean, to understand the systems that are perpetuating the cycle that you describe.

So I would say that the signs that this could be the reason that we're in this, predicament are the systemic low ratings that, you know, elected assemblies have, have, in the US, in France, in the UK, the feeling of, the increasing feeling of a loss of agency among the electorate, people do not feel like even voting is that efficacious in in getting them what they want.

The fact that historically we know that actually, elections were an oligarchic selection mechanism were seen historically as that by the ancient Greeks, by political philosophers all the way up to the 19th century, really.

And so you start to wonder, okay, so maybe, in fact, the lack of agency the feeling that we are not empowered as a people comes from the fact that we're not in a real democracy or we're in a sort of very oligarchic one, that places too much emphasis on socioeconomic elites, their preferences and sort of empowers them more than, majorities, actually, and that the rest of us.

So, that it's a form of elite rule whereby we send, you know, some people from the upper socioeconomic crust to power for a sustained period of time with some rotation.

But they found a way to stay in power for decades in some cases.

So the rotation is not that, real and of course, they end up delivering for people like them more than for the, you know, 90%.

And so the disconnect is also there is that if at least there was an elite that delivered for majorities and for the rest of us, but they don't seem to be doing that.

The empirical social evidence that I give in the book seems to indicate that they're actually overly responsive to the preferences of the affluent.

That's not okay, you know, in a democracy, there should be sort of a concern for the entire population.

Right.

And again, when I said hypothesis, there is ample and indisputable evidence of what you're describing, which is an oligarchic class benefiting from a billionaire cabinet, that is most noteworthy about President Trump's current advisers.

It is most correlated to, tax cuts for corporations as opposed to, let's say, universal basic income.

But what I hear you saying is that the loss of agency has made politics more of a sport, like you're rooting for a team and you're not in power to get in the game yourself.

And it is something psychologically empowering that for the 30% of diehard partisans, of one cause or another.

But what I want you to identify is when we lost that sensibility, that it wasn't just tribalism rooting on the sidelines, when did it change, so that we felt the agency had disappeared and instead we had to just root for a team and it wasn't about whether we, engaged in or helped make efficacious policy that helped our families.

It was about whether we could go rah rah.

Right.

So, I think probably something happened in the 70s, 80s when, the conjunction of several factors made politics really, a spectator sports with people.

So, one is the globalization, which was not a natural fact, you know, of the world that happened to us.

It was chosen by the political class, you know, the western world over.

And that globalization kind of brought about, a loss of power for politicians themselves, in a way.

So they let themselves become disempowered to the benefit of corporations, economic interest groups, multinational corporations, things like that.

So then they had less power, which made them even less responsive to the preferences of majorities and sort of like more easily captured by very powerful economic groups.

So I think that really brought about a deeper disconnect between what majorities wanted when they voted for people and what those politicians got them, because they were a lot more, responsive to the preferences of these economy groups than the majorities that voted them in.

There's also, the fact that mass parties have been considerably weakened.

I mean, they've become, according to some readings, the vehicles for rent seeking by, you know, ambitious people rather than, vehicles for mobilization of ordinary people.

So there are fewer and fewer people that have like a share card or, I mean, maybe it's less true in the US, but in Europe, these are really empty shells at this point.

And so you have a sense that people don't even believe in the agency that parties can.

We're supposed to offer them and did offer them to some degree before.

The other factor is that concomitant with this globalization and the power of corporations and the loss of power of workers, you have an evisceration of unions.

So it's a lot of factors that make it so that the system becomes even more oligarchic.

But what I want to say is that I don't think it's something new.

I don't think it's something, contingent.

I think it's in the design, the design is oligarchic from the beginning.

It's just that we lost track of it because even though it was designed as a sort of an electoral oligarchy of sorts in the 18th century because we extended the franchise in the 19th century, in the 20th century, we felt like, oh, we're on track to democratizing power more and more, and then the World War II happened, compressed inequality, so people were sort of happy with the system.

But then something happened in the 80s.

I think that that really removes all the constraints on the oligarchy.

And then the real nature of that regime is being revealed now, I think.

Are you saying though, do I hear you saying that you think politics is more inherently oligarchic?

Or more vulnerable to capture by, the oligarchy?

That's what I hear you saying from a historical view.

Electoral politics is, intrinsically oligarchic.

Yes, that's what I'm saying.

I think the Greeks are right, and we should have listened to them.

And, tempered that with mechanisms that bring about the voice of ordinary citizens.

So now that we're here, your book could not be more essential.

The case for citizen rule.

When we are living in a time when artificial intelligence is demobilizing the population of workers, and is poised to do grave damage to, people's workforce and agency.

At least people think that they represent a craft or a profession, and that life may be tough, but they can continue to have an expertise and bring that to their human endeavor.

No, not so fast.

So wouldn't you say that the case for citizen rule is even more salient now when you have an oligarchic class that is boosting machines over human beings?

Absolutely.

I think it's really scary what's happening.

It feels like, I just mentioned the that globalization was presented as this, irresistible force of nature that was happening to countries, which is not true.

This was a political choice.

Coordinated in some cases by, you know, large corporations that were going to benefit from this.

And I feel like with AI it's the same thing just compressed in time, meaning this technology is presented to us as inevitable that its effects will be to put out of work, you know, millions of workers and that there's nothing we can do about it.

And all we can do is mitigate, accommodate, prepare for a world in which most people will be out of work.

And will we need some kind of a universal basic income.

But I think there is an alternative narrative where you say, no, we can shape the direction of technology, we should shape it, and we should step it democratically, not just through the will and interests of, the few CEOs at the top of this technology companies.

When does the citizenry, activate this idea, and demand citizen rule or what we would call, by those Athenians you referenced, to something closer to direct democracy?

We've seen in this country with the murders of, Yeah.

innocent civilians, mobilization of protests in those communities, namely Minneapolis, but not enough to garner, any kind of, significant change, at the federal level.

And it's not clear yet whether there's any significant change in Minnesota, for instance.

But my question is, realistically, when do you think citizens are going to demand citizen rule?

Do all their jobs have to disappear?

Do there have to be more bloodshed on the street, more Tiananmen Square like massacres in America?

I think for them to even demand it, they have to realize, what they have is not citizen rule.

And as a dominant ideology that tells them vote harder, right?

It's your fault.

You have it at your fingertips.

You just chose the wrong guy again and again and again and again.

And I think that what I'm trying to say is, you know what?

-you know what?

-Sorry.

You should demand something a lot more ambitious than the right to decide on who your next ruler will be.

You should ask for the opportunity to shape the agenda yourselves.

Not necessarily all at once, although that would be nice too.

It would be nice if we could have some referenda at the federal level.

But, through citizens assemblies that bring together randomly selected, you know, members of the polity to deliberate and make recommendations about the direction of the country at a minimum, and sometimes even, legislate and formulate policy at the maximum.

But, I don't think that's in the Overton window yet.

-I think I try to -No, no, that's definitely not.. open it with this book because, it's really fascinating.

Machiavelli used to say that, I mean, wrote that all that people want is not to be oppressed.

And so there's a great passivity in people like, as long as you just don't take their property away, and abuse our families, we'll tolerate a lot of abuse.

And I think, that's what, you know, people in power count on, that you can get away with a lot of things.

And I think it's shifting a bit with you know, Minneapolis or events like that, or in France, we had the yellow vest movement when the government went a little too far and tried to, impose a fuel tax on people who already were, you know, having a lot of problems making ends meet.

So in these moments of crisis, people rebel and people demonstrate, you know, break things sometimes, but they don't necessarily have a vision for what could take the place of the current order.

Okay.

Well I'm glad you arrived at that, that question of vision.

First your point about randomness.

I think it would have to be quite deliberate in recognizing the vehicles, namely the individuals who would want to enact that change.

Whether it starts with protests or not.

You mentioned Minneapolis.

I see you affirming earlier that you think AI could represent that catalyzing force as well in getting people to understand this is not citizen rule.

There's something potentially better out there.

And you say people have a hard time visualizing it.

For me, it's always been visualized in the form of participatory budgeting, namely the idea that citizens ought to make decisions about the welfare and well-being of their communities.

And they should be invited to that process.

When a municipality or a state or the whole country decides what are our budget priorities for the next year.

So to me, this has always been most obvious, but yet there hasn't been any way to make it feasible, make it, real.

Except in individual communities, here and there that have made strides with it.

But let's agree that your Overton window is way out there when it comes to, you know, this being like a jury of your peers.

And Yes.

Thank you for.

Yeah.

so what's the in-between thread here of getting to that point?

Well, so that the key word is jury, I think in fact, people can latch on that intuition, which is the citizens assembly these randomly selected samples of citizens that I have in mind, they are like jury duty on steroids.

It's not 12 people locked up in a room having to reach unanimity about a verdict of guilt or innocence.

It's about 150, 300 people randomly selected to decide by majority rule, maybe with a supermajority threshold about whether or not they want to, decriminalize abortion, whether they want to authorize the exploitation of, nuclear plants, whether they want to, liberalize the law to allow for assisted dying and even in the form of euthanasia, whether, you know, all these questions that are morally fraught and over which people have very strong intuitions and, are actually capable of deliberating and coming to reasonable conclusions about.

So the jury for me is what will expand that Overton window, because it's just taking an institution we know is very democratic, is core to American democracy, actually, and we just need to expand it beyond the criminal and civil, you know, cases to the political sphere.

Right?

Either instead of elected assemblies or in supplement to elected assemblies.

Right.

I would have trouble with that, Hélène, because of the fleeting role that the public plays in the jury system.

I mean, every few years, if not every decade, to me, it's not something that we can build on because it's not really a frequent, responsibility to which were attending to.

But precisely that's what makes it feasible, because if I said, oh, let's all decide together at all times on every single issue, at every level of the polity, this would be unfeasible, right?

-The beauty of -I understand.

the scheme that I'm proposing is that it's something you would do not frequently at least at the, you know, national level or even the state level.

You could do it more frequently, maybe at the council level, the town level, even in your local, you know, organization, etc.. But, general, it would not be extremely demanding.

It's just that when you get that mail, you know, in your mailbox that says you are, convened to this assembly, -then it's is demanding, -Maybe, maybe, yeah.

it's demanding intensely at times.

But for a sustained period of time, which could be several months, a couple of weekends of a several months.

But it's not that demanding, and the benefits outweigh the costs, in my view.

I understand what you're saying.

If you give someone an indication in such a correspondence that, they're going to be able to decide the fate of A, B and C, or this is an invitation to essentially engage in participatory budgeting and policymaking.

Sure.

I think that if you give people that feeling that this is not just a form letter, but this is their empowerment in representative rule, I agree with you.

I think that my point was that we've settled, we've settled for something that is a disconnect for that, you know, rule.

And we've asked our representatives to take charge.

I think the point that has been well-established now in the democracy reform movement in the United States is that if you do not have a president, let's say the next president, the 48th president of the United States, because I do not expect to hear this from President Trump.

If you do not have a president touting this message, or a governor of a state, we can't expect the kind of reform that I think we need.

Because the mayor of this town, in this state, started sending letters to constituents saying that they should, inviting them to be a jury of democratic governance in this case, participatory budgeting, right?

You're saying that we need as a citizenry to engage in, representing ourselves.

And I think you are also saying that we are going to increase the morale of our spirit if we do so?

Yeah.

So I just wanted to say two things.

One, I make a distinction between the jury model.

So the Citizens assembly, that are quite large, and town hall meetings or participatory budgeting, which are based on self-selection, right?

It's a big difference because self-selection, brings together the most vocal people who have time on their hands, who are very intensely passionate about an issue.

And that sometimes has bad effects as well.

Like it's not always good to count on self-selection alone.

So the beauty of random selection is that you bring out, those I call are "the shy" in the book.

The people who would never run for election, who would not join a participatory budgeting necessarily, who didn't think they would be considered for any of these kind of positions or functions.

So I think the diversity of the group is much larger in the context of citizens assemblies.

You get people who are never heard from to say their peace and to shape the process, it's very important.

Second, I just want to make an announcement.

Yes.

We don't have a governor yet, but might change soon, but we have now in Connecticut, the state comptroller, Sean Scanlon, who is backing up, a citizens assembly at the state level in Connecticut on local public services.

It's going to take place this summer.

I'm the director of design for it.

It's going to be large, 150 randomly selected citizens.

And our goal is really to get past all these theoretical objections that I keep getting and just show instead of tell.

And show that, no, Americans are not cowboys.

They can do this too.

They can do this too.

It's not just for Europeans and Irish people, French people, German people.

It's something that we can do here too.

In fact, I think it's quite, perfectly aligned with the democratic spirit which which to me is a lot more egalitarian and, agency driven than actually, you know, Europe, where there's a lot of passivity and skepticism and the legacy of, the [inaudible] regime is still there in some respect.

So, I do hope to show you this summer that this can be done here as well.

Well, absolutely.

We'll look forward to inviting you back to discuss your findings.

You should come and interview people.

That sounds good.

That sounds like a good idea.

And just to be clear, on my side, I wasn't suggesting we, forego the randomness.

I know typically you think of participatory budgeting as people volunteering to do it, but I was actually thinking of a hybrid between what we're both describing.

I see yeah.

Which is, randomized that.

But, in my book, it still could be defined as participatory -budgeting through, lotterying -A different selection mechanism -randomizing, who gets invited -Yeah, absolutely.

to what you call as a separate entity, a citizens assembly.

-I mean, -Yeah.

both of these things in my mind, it's like a triangle.

Okay.

And here, you know, or legs of a stool, and you've got participatory budgeting, citizens assembly.

And the stool itself, one could conceive of it is a constitutional convention.

Right.

Yes, mm hmm.

I mean, and these can be done state constitutional conventions can happen.

I'm talking about either or.

But what say you about whether I mean, of course, this is like the 800 pound elephant, gorilla, whatever, in the room.

No one wants to ever touch the third rail of a constitutional convention, because we think -that the end result could be -Wow.

-No politics or -So... no freedom.

So, you know, I feel like that goes beyond my book, so I but, I think you should, talk to someone like Larry Lessig at Harvard, he's pushing the idea of a constitutional convention at the federal level.

He has been for a while, right.

Constrained by, the veto right, basically, of state level citizens assemblies that would be selected at random.

So that way you cannot have a runaway convention, you cannot have a convention that votes away the democracy.

And, you know, decides to create a new empire or something, or a new monarchy.

I think that's pretty smart.

And convincing.

I think it's very, unlikely, as you said.

So for now, you know, I'm focusing on just, starting at the state level.

Offering an example of something that potentially works gets past the deadlock of electoral politics.

In our case, it's the issue of, how do we finance and deliver -local public services.

-Understood.

And I think it's a good issue for the for citizens assembly because elected officials have a hard time winning elections when they promise more taxes.

Right?

So it's really up to the citizen assembly to, to make that decision or consider the trade offs.

Yeah.

Larry has some very nuanced ideas.

I would say that the more likely scenario or what he was previously espousing when he briefly ran for president was politics without Citizens United.

So let me ask you this, as we close in the few minutes we have left, I think the politicians goes directly in tandem with Citizens United, which of course is the oxymoron of oxymorons.

-This is -Yeah.

politicians can be in the flesh represented by any company, any corporation -at any given time and unlimited -Yeah.

and the shareholder input, and what a company wants is exactly what a politician can deliver.

That's what Citizens United is.

So isn't another way of saying, Hélène, politics without politicians is politics without Citizens United?

Intersting.

Yes, I think Citizens United made things... Is it the same thing?

Well, no, it's not because I don't think if you want, you make it sound like the problem is purely American.

Right?

It's only in the US that we have this problem.

No, the problem of of politicians that are not responsive to citizens is true across the board.

It's true in Norway, it's true in, less so, of course, in Denmark, in Germany, it's even true in Switzerland.

So honestly, it's not even a purely American problem.

That has to do with the nature of capitalism.

The fact that corporations now are considered moral agents, with free speech and, but on that note I'd say one thing, is that now that we're in that predicament where, you know, corporations have so much influence, one way to contain them is to at least make them more representative of their shareholders.

Meaning instead of, concentrating all the power in the people at the top, the boards of director, or in the case of, investment firms, the managers, we could also decentralize power to investor assemblies modeled after citizens assemblies that would at least represent some of the somewhat ethical preferences that a lot of shareholders have.

Right?

So that's the work that I'm doing now with two economists, I just want to mention them, Luigi Zingales, and Oliver Hart.

We're trying to also bring that logic, okay, of if power is too concentrated, to undemocratic at the top of this corporation, at the top of this, big index funds and firms like Blackrock, State Street, Vanguard, then we should also rethink the corporate governance structure.

And citizens assemblies are a good model for that as well.

You're reminding me, Hélène, when I gave a speech, in 2017, I think it was, in Sydney.

It was building on a conference, that I keynote it on the the politics of post factual, the economics of post factual democracy.

And, I was encouraging the audience and to this day, I think I have not had a more captive audience who felt the electricity when I proposed to them that, then Twitter, should call a vote of its shareholders and the shareholders of the company -ought to demand, and that train -Oh oh, I totally agree.

-just blew by.

I mean, -Yeah.

but the thing is, how do we make this not on the fringe?

Because when I was saying that the community I was speaking to was, wow, we could do this, I could buy a share of Twitter and then be empowered to say, I want this to be a fact based platform of discourse.

You need a shareholder revolution there as well.

You basically need people to be aware of the options.

I don't think they're aware of the option either in the democratic sphere or the corporate world.

And when people have knowledge, they have power.

So my job as an academic is to give them the knowledge to lay out the options to give us, give them the arguments as to why politics without politicians and shareholder democracy with actual shareholder power would be much better for everyone.

Hélène Landemore, please, please, please read and encourage everyone you know to read Politics Without Politicians.

Hélène, a pleasure to be with you today.

Thank you, Alexander.

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