Seeing Our Democracy

Not a lot of people take the time to reflect on the nature of their relationship with their democracy, which revolves around two key pillars. The first pillar is the election of a person by a constituency, riding or district, typically every four or five years.

What’s to think about, you might ask? Well, we have no idea what this individual does for the years in office. We really don’t – except for what their social media staffer puts out. Of course, we have the technology to show citizens what our representative is doing. It’s not difficult to share calendars online, or have representatives wear a video camera like a few police agencies now insist. But representatives aren’t very keen on this idea. 

Maybe all that doesn’t matter because in reality our representative not only has very few resources or even more limited authority to do anything, but our elected representative is only one tiny piece in the quagmire of government. If the party leader, campaign donors and loudest or most organised members of the community haven’t stifled our representative, the civil service will.

Unelected and accountable government officials are most of our democracy. And civil servants are better qualified in their niche than the elected representatives, which means the latter is a dead duck when dealing with most technical matters. In fact, most representatives struggle to get even a basic grasp of the issues that more technical civil servants are engaged with. You’ve got to remember that elected politicians are fundamentally experts at getting elected; not at problem solving complex real issues.

The second pillar of our relationship is the exchange of tax for services. We pay taxes to get certain public services – road construction and maintenance, healthcare, education … it goes on. What’s interesting is that we have no choice but to pay taxes. And we have absolutely no control or even awareness of where our taxes are going. They go from our bank account to the government account. And that’s all we know. Should that worry us? We hand over more than a third of our annual income in various taxes, without knowing for what.

Some of those taxes are going to the government’s third-party suppliers, some for public servant salaries, and some for costs such as new computers and building maintenance. If any do a poor job, nothing changes. Government offices empty at 5:01pm, irrespective of deadlines. Those who’ve worked in this universe and in the private sector will understand that the two have vastly different interpretations of time. Nobody gets fired for delays or poor performance. Third party suppliers with good relationships simply get contracts renewed.

If the state belongs to us, do we not have a right to know where our taxes are going? Perhaps even a say in what they’re being used for? Surely, we should have in place a performance culture, with systems and processes, where under-performance is removed? Why is it that I can’t see the government’s contracts and performance thereof? After all, it can’t be hard given our technology. The reality is that we have a government fit for a few centuries ago – one that isn’t remotely interested in using technology to make itself more accountable and efficient for those that fund it.