beauty contests and citizen legislatures

What if we got rid of our 538 congress members and 100 senators - and instead let 638 randomly picked Americans decide how to run the country?

At first glance, it seems a terrifying prospect. What, you might ask, would a 1st grade teacher, a Starbucks barrista or a marketing director (as equally plausible to get picked as anyone else) know about deciding budget matters, immigration policy, national security - or any other matter our lawmakers muddle over in a given year? (That is, if you're not cynical enough to ask the same question about politicians.)

But citizen legislatures were, after all, how democracy got started. And today there's a growing movement demonstrating that, when properly briefed, a roomful of random Joes and Jills can be remarkably sensible - even more sensible than a chamber of elected leaders.

Joe Klein gives a snapshot of one of those successful demonstrations in, of all places, China. Led by James Fishkin, the granddaddy of "deliberative democracy," 175 participants representing a city of 120,000 (60% of whom are farmers) decide which projects should get precedence and how to allocate the budget. Over three days they go through three rounds of being briefed by experts (with different views) and deliberating. In the end, according to Fishkin, "the public is quite smart if you give it a chance."

Politicians might be that smart if given a chance as well. Many of the obstacles to true deliberation among elected lawmakers have been mentioned before in this blog. When politicians are beholden to interest groups to finance their next campaign - and when ever vote and floor speech is open for scrutiny - they are left with little room for open, frank discussion or compromise.

But even if politicians didn't have to raise a dime for reelection and they shuttered the press out of Capitol Hill, elected lawmakers might still fall short of our random 635 deliberators.

Politicians' problem is a variation of Keynes' beauty contest problem. In the market, Keynes said, prices aren't set by how much people think a stock is valued; rather, prices depend upon how much people think other people think a stock is valued. It's as if you were asked to put money on which leggy lady would win a beauty contest; you wouldn't bet on who you thought was the most lovely, but rather who you thought everyone else would vote for.

In Keynes' beauty contest, as in the market, contestants and stocks end up with distorted valuations. Similarly, in elected legislatures, policy preferences also get distorted. Politicians don't necessarily (or ever) vote for the laws they think wisest; they vote for the laws they think their constituents will think are wisest. It's guesswork at best. But even if they could get a precise poll, since their constituents aren't sitting down looking at expert information and the trade-offs each bill has, that poll won't represent what voters would prefer if they had time and access to full information.

Our hypothetical congress of citizens - who don't care about getting elected - doesn't need to do any guesswork. Instead of asking "which policy will others like" they can go directly to "what policy do I think is best?" As on the stock market, they'll be less apt to inflate some policies while discounting others.