I’m not ready to abandon representative democracy, but I agree technological advances have made a more direct democracy system sound feasible. I’m in the US where the design rules stated congressional representatives were never to exceed a 35,000:1 ratio, but the representatives removed that rule.
Yeah, it’s an idea I think about sometimes but don’t really get to try on in words. I get frustrated when reps hide unpopular actions behind bureaucracies and unelected bureaucrats against the people’s voice or best interests, like your example or something like net neutrality.
It’s getting more common to shift the system towards their ability to move unilaterally. In my home state, for example, this last legislative session they changed the referendum law to be non-compulsory on their part, with the argument that citizens are weaponizing it to stall land developers.
That was the only political redress we had available as it is becoming more common for the capital-captured legislature to ok plans that are unhealthy for the continued thriving of our communities in the name of money. As an example, severely oversubscribed water shares in the face of ultra high density housing is becoming a serious problem that they conveniently ignore when approving developments.
There are definitely more and lesser measures that would facilitate a shift back towards the citizenry, but it feels like less and less of a possibility every day our options get diluted in small ways.
