He's pining for something that's already been screwing us over for a long time now, even assuming it functioned properly. To have equal say from citizens is to insinuate that the vast majority of incompetents in any given society should have the same say in matters as the tiny minority of competents; given we're functioning on a 50% majority rules system, and given that each vote is equal to the next, you wind up with 100% of all decision making--including choices in representatives, or the choice to have representatives at all--stemming from the least-fit members of society, in other words the opposite of meritocracy: not rule by the best, but rule by the worst. Given that the definition of democracy is "rule by the people", and given that the people have decided to give up their power to rule to others (i.e. politicians), it becomes very clear that the people are obv. not fit to rule--they admit it themselves through their actions. Given that they're not fit to rule, anyone offering the people greater sway in political matters, after having given up their ability to govern, is basically just an attempt to rub the public's ego in the hopes of getting some of that given-up governing power, so is the role of every politician, Lessig included.
Considering over the last few decades the people have allowed themselves to be bribed to give up their votes to even less qualified individuals than they normally would've voted for (i.e. electing criminals), given a perfect system where everyone's vote truly mattered equally and there was no corruption whatsoever, they would still vote in whomever was willing to give them the best goodies. Even Lessig is guilty of it:
Citizen Funded Elections
A core corruption of our political system is the concentration of funders of political campaigns. That concentration creates extraordinary inequality. The Citizen Equality Act would end that inequality, at a minimum by adopting a campaign funding proposal that is a hybrid between John Sarbanes’ Government by the People Act, and Represent.US’s “American Anti-Corruption Act.” That hybrid would give every voter a voucher to contribute to fund congressional and presidential campaigns; it would provide matching funds for small-dollar contributions to congressional and presidential campaigns. And it would add effective new limits to restrict the revolving door between government service and work as a lobbyist.
Just what the doctor ordered: more taxes to throw at politicians. But to the average voter with less than 2k$ in savings, it looks like a wonderfully empowering thing.
There is absolutely nothing he has proposed here that will solve any fundamental problem (if not worsen them), all he's doing is saying whatever he needs to say to get into power to enforce whatever "well-intentioned" vision he has in store. Considering he'd do something like bribe the public to get into office, I really don't think he's fit to rule, but at the same time, nobody who will seek political power is ever fit to rule as all they can do to get into office is bribe you better than the other guy, it has absolutely zero to do with their ability to govern righteously. If he really wants to change things for the better, he'll find a way outside of politics. If he really is well-intentioned and he still seeks political power to fix things, he's a mirror of the average voters, and I don't want the average voters running this country any more than I want the average voters to perform open heart surgery on me--in both cases, I suffer. One could argue this is the lesser evil of a corporate-funded politician, but in truth neither are preferable to posterity, nor is this form of government which enables both fascism (
rule by corporations) and communism (democracy, a million laws later.)
Democracy (politics) is the tool by which the weak make all weak, many slaves with few masters; meritocracy (market), the tool by which the strong make all strong, many masters with few slaves. Unless Lessig starts talking about that, I feel he is irrelevant, just another faceless politician aiding in the suffocation of this nation's economy (i.e. its lifeblood.) Whatever criterion he will be selected by to run this nation will be entirely void of considering his ability to actually lead, so it's a pointless exercise to consider him over any other politician as the results will wind up similarly, more slaves fewer masters. Supposedly this is what we're trying to avoid so it is of supreme, even fatal irony that we keep voting ourselves into slavery, keep voting ourselves into tyranny. Again, what more can you expect from a nation governed by the worst?--they either don't know what they're doing or, worse, purposefully do poorly for self-benefit.
Anyhow, if you think you can get some advertising space for bitcoin out of it, I say go for it; that's about the only boon I can see from this.
