Brett Hennig: What if we replaced politicians with randomly selected people?
Brett Hennig: ¿Qué pasaría si reemplazáramos a los políticos con personas seleccionadas al azar?
Brett Hennig co-founded and directs the Sortition Foundation, which campaigns to institute the use of stratified, random selection (also called sortition) in government. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
one of the big questions,
de las grandes preguntas,
que quizás viven en una ciudad
who perhaps live in a city
los recursos comunes?
las reglas que nos gobiernen?
the rules that govern us?
una pregunta importante.
an important question.
más importante que nunca
it's even more important than ever
de la desigualdad, el cambio climático,
climate change, the refugee crisis,
problemas importantes.
estado haciendo esta pregunta
themselves this question
sociedades organizadas.
in organized societies.
guardianes benevolentes
for the greater good of everyone.
por el bien de todos.
ellos podrían ser esos guardianes,
they could be those guardians,
tendieron a perder la cabeza.
they tended to lose their heads.
durante muchos años
his answer of how to live together.
su respuesta a cómo vivir juntos.
a different kind of answer,
un tipo distinto de respuesta,
hibernación durante 2000 años,
into hibernation for 2,000 years,
por supuesto, la democracia.
at the modern history of democracy,
la historia moderna de la democracia,
los últimos 200 años.
to put the last 200 years.
el número de democracias.
the number of democracies.
aumento extraordinario en el tiempo.
el siglo del triunfo de la democracia.
of democracy's triumph,
Francis Fukuyama en 1989,
alcanzado el fin de la historia,
the end of history,
vivir juntos ha sido contestada
has been answered,
a explorar esa afirmación.
la mano si están de acuerdo.
que vivir en una democracia es algo bueno?
living in a democracy is a good thing?
mantengan sus manos abajo.
keep your hands down.
que no levantaron la mano,
who didn't raise their hands,
democracias funcionan bien?
are functioning well?
en alguna parte en la audiencia.
in the audience somewhere.
liberal es el fin de la historia,
is the end of history,
o contradicción masiva.
or contradiction here.
se trata del ideal de la democracia
is about the ideal of democracy,
son muy atractivas.
are very appealing.
nuestros políticos no son de confianza,
our politicians aren't trusted,
por poderosos intereses establecidos.
by powerful vested interests.
to resolve this paradox.
de resolver esta paradoja.
it doesn't work.
no funciona.
que ignorará las normas democráticas,
who will ignore democratic norms,
y solo querrá lograr cosas.
arreglar este sistema dañado,
is to fix this broken system,
la sociedad en nuestros parlamentos
in our parliaments
y basadas en la evidencia
evidence-based laws
¿Por qué esto no funcionaría?
"Why wouldn't this work?"
conmigo sobre eso.
afterwards about it.
es “Selección aleatoria”.
and put them in parliament.
y las ponemos en el parlamento.
minutos más, ¿de acuerdo?
for a few more minutes, shall we?
a ti, a ti, a ti y a ti allá abajo
and you and you and you down there
durante los próximos años.
for the next couple of years.
estratificar la selección
to make sure that it matched
con el perfil socioeconómico
profile of the country
representativa de la gente.
sample of people.
some would be old,
comunes como Uds. y como yo.
ordinary people like you and me.
how we would all think,
cómo pensaríamos todos
crucial moral de las decisiones políticas.
the moral crux of political decisions.
someone of your gender,
y alguien con su historial
and someone with your background
se basarían en la sabiduría colectiva.
would build on the wisdom of crowds.
than the sum of their parts.
pero no a la cabeza.
that diversity can trump ability
puede triunfar sobre la capacidad
de problemas y preguntas sociales.
of societal questions and problems.
by public opinion poll.
encuesta de opinión pública.
irían más allá de la opinión pública
would move beyond public opinion
one major side effect:
secundario importante:
por una insaculación e hiciéramos
truly representative of society,
fuera representativo de la sociedad,
estaríamos muy tristes de ver eso.
pretty sad to see that.
de cómo se hacía la democracia
of how democracy was done
is called a kleroteria.
se llama kleroteria.
de selección aleatoria.
random-selection device.
elegían ciudadanos al azar
randomly selected citizens
de sus puestos políticos.
of their political posts.
eran mecanismos aristocráticos.
were aristocratic devices.
de profesión era algo que se debía evitar.
were a thing to be avoided.
the ancient use of random selection
antiguo de la selección aleatoria
de la selección aleatoria en la política,
of random selection in politics
ejemplos de los que hablar.
too many examples to talk about.
that it's going to be difficult
instituir esto en nuestros parlamentos.
conformar nuestro parlamento
with randomly selected people."
separar su reciclaje”.
separate his recycling."
pero abrumadora y convincente
but overwhelming and compelling evidence
estas actúan responsablemente.
they act responsibly.
Would this be perfect?
will continue to exist.
continuarán existiendo.
to me at least, is obviously yes.
al menos para mí, es obviamente sí.
a nuestra pregunta original:
to our original question:
ir desde aquí hasta allá?
nuestro sistema dañado
things that we can do,
están sucediendo ahora mismo.
happening right now.
and workplaces and other institutions,
lugares de trabajo y otras instituciones,
‘Democracia en la Práctica’ en Bolivia.
is doing in Bolivia.
y asambleas de ciudadanos,
and citizens' assemblies,
‘Fundación Democracia’ en Australia,
is doing in Australia,
el Centro Jefferson en EE. UU.
is doing in the US
is doing right now.
irlandés en este momento.
social que exija cambios,
demanding change,
de Insaculación en el Reino Unido.
is doing in the UK.
deberíamos instituirlo.
cámara en nuestro parlamento,
a second chamber in our parliament,
de ciudadanos en Francia
for a citizens' senate in France
hacerse aquí mismo en Hungría.
right here in Hungary.
right into the heart of government.
en el corazón del gobierno.
in the current system,
las elecciones con la insaculación.
elections with sortition.
systems have been created,
y reemplazados en el pasado.
torn down and replaced
(Húngaro) Gracias.
(Hungarian) Thank you.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Brett Hennig - Author, activistBrett Hennig co-founded and directs the Sortition Foundation, which campaigns to institute the use of stratified, random selection (also called sortition) in government.
Why you should listen
Before co-founding the Sortition Foundation, Brett Hennig wore a variety of hats: as a taxi driver, a software engineer, a social justice activist, a mathematics tutor and the primary carer of four boys. He finished his PhD in astrophysics just before his first son arrived.
After spending several disheartening years in civil society organizations and politics, Hennig became inspired by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's trilogy on political philosophy and began investigating and researching network forms of democracy. The resulting book, The End of Politicians: Time for a Real Democracy, has been called "a book for visionaries" by New Internationalist contributing editor James Kelsey Fry and described as "a powerful critique and provocative alternative" by Professor Erik Olin Wright of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Hennig has given many talks promoting sortition and has contributed a chapter, "Who needs elections? Accountability, Equality, and Legitimacy under Sortition," to the forthcoming book Legislature by Lot: Transformative Designs for Deliberative Governance (Verso, 2019).
Brett Hennig | Speaker | TED.com