Democracy for the 21st Century : controlling technology, overcoming oligarchy

This dissertation develops a theory of democracy based on the premisethat there is no democracy in the 21st century without democratic controlof technology, and that democracy must be judged along three axes:1) Democracy—Monarchy: how is political power divided?2) Democracy—Oligarchy: how easily is money translated into politicalpower?3) Politics—Society: does democracy encompass the decisive processes ofsociety?To satisfy these criteria, this dissertation proposes a democraticfederalism grounded in the commons, which are not only integrated withinlarger governments, but constitute distinct and independent polities withan equal say in all matters concerning the physical organization of theirterritories. It integrates lottocratic selection within a system ofdirect (rather than representative) government, in which participation athigher levels of government is made possible by breaking open governingfunctions into their constituent parts, particularly in the legislature.Democratic federalism institutionalizes the tension between the centerand the periphery, the collective and the community, the abstractbenefits and concrete costs of modern technology through the dualrelationship between the commons and all larger polities of which it is apart. It is radical in that it requires a fundamental reorienting ofsociety—a rupture not only in our understanding of democracy, but in thepractice of citizenship, the idea of ownership, and our relationship tothe earth of which we are a dependent part.