My Agenda and Emphasis for the Icelandic
Constitutional Assembly
Smári McCarthy
[email protected]
November 19, 2010
1 Direct democracy & distribution of authority
Representative democracy is, topologically speaking, an advanced form of dic-
tatorship. To put into the hands of few the ability to make decisions that effect
the whole can at worst be the prelude to corruption and power disequilibrium.
At best it is a gross oversimplification of the will of the individuals that form the
polity, as political interests in representative systems serve to drive opinions to-
wards a relatively small set of common denominators.
On various scales direct democracy has been tried, and has been shown to
be effective. Although care must be taken in the design of such a system of self-
representation, to avoid systemic feedback effects and paradoxical games, there
are clear methods which can be used to acheive this goal.
A modern approach to this has been dubbed ”crowdsourced democracy”,
whereby those who have a particular interest in a particular matter participate
to the degree they feel is appropriate, and those who have less interest can opt
to abstain or, more interestingly, transfer their vote to any third party who has a
vote of her own. This maximizes both the political freedom of individuals to par-
ticipate and the likelihood of well informed individuals leading the discussions
on any given topic.
Exact implementation details are beyond the scope of a constitution, as such,
but I am interested in attempting to enact into a constitution some form of direct
democracy as far as it is reasonable and suitable to the current political environ-
ment in Iceland.
2 Representative accountability
As far as representation of some form does go, such as in international fora or
public or regional assemblies, it is imperative that representatives of a polity
express the informed will of their constituents and report back in an adequate
way.
Far too long has post-representation been the norm in international discourse,
where representatives of representatives represent specific agendas which are
frequently kept out of the public sphere and are often contradictory to the will
of the people comprising the polity.
An example of this, from 2003, was the decision of then prime minister Davíð
Oddsson and then foreign minister Halldór Blöndal to unilaterally declare sup-
port for the invasion of Iraq and participation in the Coallition of the Willing,
without parliamentary debate or public referendum.
A less obvious example would be the decision of Iceland’s delegate to the
United Nations abstaining in a vote to support the universal right of all humans
to clean water. Had this issue been put to public referendum the general pub-
lic would surely have supported such a right – and this actually applies to most
countries.
Representatives of a polity must be accountable to the polity, and constitu-
tional statements to that effect should be clear. They should be required to seek
the opinion of the people, and after participating in fora provide information
about what topics were discussed, why they are of interest or importance, what
position the representative took on behalf of the polity, and what justification
exists for such a position.
3 Transparency and information rights
In that vein, the right to information is paramount. Information is an absolute
precondition for democracy.
All government data must be available to the public, and for that purpose
the foundations for a freedom of information law should be engrained in the
constitution. Exceptions to is rule should only be made for very explicit concerns
for public – not state – security, and should be decided by an independent panel
selected at random from the census, or for privacy concerns, in which case the
public listing of such a document should include clear justification of why the
document is redacted from the public record.
For the purposes of representative accountability and government transparency,
a complete tracable history of all decisions and the processes used to acheive
them should be recorded.
The constitution is, of course, not the appropriate place to make statements
regarding exact implementation, but it is most certainly the place to make clear
statements regarding public data transparency, financial transparency, open ac-
cess to information, and the right to know.
4 Freedom of expression
The right to know is only beneficial if it correlates with a right to share what you
know. An absolute freedom of expression should be guaranteed in the consti-
tution, without such limitations or exceptions as are counted up in the current
constitution or the European convention on human rights.
Returning to the free speech ideal embodied in the revolutionary constitu-
tions of France and the United States is of the greatest importance now in this
time of near-instantaneous communications. The Internet has altered the space
the human mind is capable of navigating to such an extent that all over the world,
repressive entities are attempting to limit our capacity for communication, to a
great extent out of fear of what may come from an enlightened public.
We must modernize free speech in this constitution in such a way that we set
an example for other countries.
5 Freedom of association
The freedom of association has been, in Iceland, interestingly restricted in a
number of ways. Although none of these restrictions has been nafarious or en-
demic, they have had systemic consequences which have been to the detriment
of society.
On the one hand, the existence of a state church has created a disequilibrium
between the various faiths and non-faiths represented in the country. While
80% of the population is registered in the Evangelical Lutheran state-sponsored
church, a overwhelming majority of the population have been shown to be ei-
ther agnostic or atheist. The membership of the church is artificially amplified
by various circumstances, such as the difficulty of leaving the church (which re-
quires going to a particular office in a Reykjavík business district), the fact that
children are automatically registered to the same denomination as their mother
(rather than having them opt in), and most peculiarly, that newborn children of
secular mothers get automatically registered to the state church.
To quote Hope Knutsson from Siðmennt (the Icelandic society of ethical hu-
manists), ”In the year 2000 the Icelandic government spent billions of kronur
on a year’s worth of anniversary celebrations of 1000 years of Christianity in
Iceland. They prepared an outdoor weekend Christianity festival that they es-
timated 75,000 people would come to and re-routed traffic for that part of the
country. Only 8000 people showed up in addition to the staff, performers, and
foreign dignitaries. […] Government and church leaders tried to justify the wasted
money for more than a year afterward to the disgruntled public.” [Siðmennt,
2004; http://sidmennt.is/english/samt-the-atheist-society/]
The separation of church and state is not an important concern for the cre-
ation of a new constitution, per se, but this illustrates a more serious problem.
Looking at how pension funds, collecting societies, industrial and business asso-
ciations and other such organizations operate, a similar trend emerges. Indeed,
the European Court of Human Rights has on two occasions in recent years found
the Icelandic state guilty of violating associative rights for levvying an ”indus-
trial activity charge” from industrial workers which goes to support Samtök Ið-
naðarins, an organization of industrial stakeholders.
In short, the right to free association must be better guaranteed and more
vigilently upheld than is currently the case.
6 Guaranteed basic income
With an unemployment rate of 6.4% down from 9.1% at its peak in 2009, but up
from the pre-crash level of roughly 1.9% (source: Datamarket), Iceland’s work-
force and economy are, despite everything, very active. The GDP of Iceland when
adjusted for PPP, comes out at roughly 28,000 EUR per capita per year, or around
6 million ISK (source: IMF).
Already the state operates a fairly powerful economic safety net for peo-
ple, with an unemployment benefit fund funded from a 4% insurance tax on
all wages, and a municipal financial support system for those who aren’t ellegi-
ble for unemployment benefits. In 2008 the average annual wages on the labor
market were roughly 3.6 million ISK per year (source: Hagstofa Íslands), with
full unemployment benefits amounting to 1.8 million ISK per year (source: Vin-
numálastofnun).
Under such circumstances the notion of basic income is not far fetched. The
net systemic effect of guaranteeing basic income is minimal, as it would only
serve to calm the frayed nerves of those who for various reasons cannot seek
employment. Also, by adopting a single income guarantee system it would be
possible to simplify the disabilities, pensions and unemployment benefits sys-
tems significantly, reducing the overall cost of system maintanence.
The adoption of a basic income system would potentially benefit Iceland’s
economy by virtue of the ”candlestick problem”. It has been shown empirically
that economic incentives decrease creativity whereas they increase productivity
in labor intensive unskilled jobs. By creating a basic income the issue of survival
will be, for many, pushed off the table, leaving headroom and mindspace to focus
on creative ventures, which have a greater potential social and economic benefit
than industrial production.
Iceland would not be the only country seriously considering this possibility.
In the European Parliament resolution 2009/2205 on the role of women in an
aging society, article 35 states amongst other things, that the European Parlia-
ment ”invites the Commission to consider a system where all men and women in
the EU are granted the right to a basic income that is dependent on the Member
State’s standard of living;”
Without going into implementation details, for there are a plethora of viable
approaches to basic income, it would be reasonable to include a constitutional
statement regarding the right of all to a basic income, which, if worded correctly,
could lead to the adoption of such a system within not too many years.
7 Distribution of resources and sustainability
Iceland is a country of many resources. Fish, water, silicon, basalt and energy are
amongst the many natural resources which can be found here in plenty. How-
ever, without a clear mechanism to facilitate the equal distribution of these re-
sources amongst the people, or at least in such a way that all members of the
population benefit from the use of these resources, the potential for inequality
is great.
8 Other issues
It’s not easy to come up with a new system of governance. There are issues here
I haven’t mentioned in part because for many I have no single answer and for
many I have no answers at all.
Many things I do have clear opinions on in this context, such as not support-
ing wars, privacy, land ownership, capital ownership, property rights, and so on.
I know less about how to solve the issue of appointing judges in a direct democ-
racy, but tend to think that the fact that it’s not solvable easily may mean that
the structure of the judicial system is wrong. I’m not set on any specific imple-
mentation details regarding direct democracy, but I do think that any limitations
in scope for reasons of scaling or arguments against the wisdom of the crowd are
dangerous, and that we shouldn’t sacrifice aggregate wisdom for the benefit of
special interests.
We should bear in mind that any system will be attacked in various ways, and
that whatever system the constitutional assembly does come up with needs to
be rigorously fault tested, preferably independently by a wide range of different
people with different backgrounds. If there is a way to subvert the democratic
process, then, as we’ve seen all too often, somebody will find it, and use it to their
own advantage. This must not be allowed.