The Ancient Invention That Solves Corruption

0:00 This is an American ballot.

0:01 With it, you’re free to vote for any

0:03 candidate you choose to represent you in politics.

0:05 So long as the candidate raised millions dollars

0:08 and is running with one of two parties.

0:11 But, once in office, they can deliver on all their promises.

0:15 So long as they decide to keep them.

0:19 This is American democracy.

0:22 It’s strange, comparing it to the original democracy, from 2500 years ago.

0:27 This is an ancient Greek “ballot” from Athens.

0:31 With it, you don’t vote for anyone—except yourself, if you want to.

0:36 There’s no majority decision; just a random draw of a name.

0:41 And…Blade Petersen has been selected for a seat in Congress.

0:47 Maybe that’s you.

0:49 This is a lottery, and it’s democracy as originally intended:

0:54 *politics without politicians*.

0:56 But why should anyone take this seriously?

1:00 Letting random people run the country, really?

1:04 Except, why should anyone take this seriously?

1:08 In America, public approval of Congress hovers around 15%.

1:11 Here and in Britain and France,

1:14 two-thirds of citizens think their governments corrupt.

1:17 It’s not hard to tell why.

1:20 Politicians openly engage in insider trading,

1:23 take bribes they call “campaign finance,” consort with complete monsters,

1:28 and after office take jobs at big corporations they protected from regulation.

1:33 [A, ch.

1:34 1] And none of that should surprise us!

1:37 Aristotle—an ancient Greek philosopher who

1:39 lived in this political system—literally wrote

1:41 the book on *Politics* that gave us the terms like democracy,

1:45 oligarchy, and monarchy.

1:47 And in it he wrote, thousands of years ago,

1:50 "It is accepted as democratic when public offices are allocated by lottery;

1:55 and as oligarchic when they are filled by election.” [B,

1:59 4.9] Elections produce an unaccountable,

2:02 corrupt, and immoral political elite, because they are oligarchic *by design*,

2:07 because elections have four big problems:

2:10 selection bias, cognitive bias, corruption, and—most fatal of all,

2:15 what James Madison called “*the* mortal disease” of government—polarization.

2:20 Lotteries, on the other hand, well they aren’t just more democratic.

2:24 They actually work better, because they solve all those problems

2:29 with four ancient principles:κοινός (koinos),σοφός (sophos),εὔθυνα (euthuna),

2:33 andἑνότης (henotes), and I’m going to explain each of them.

2:39 But you don’t have to take my word for it.

2:41 After all, the city that used lotteries, that invented this system, Athens,

2:44 was one of the richest and most powerful civilizations of its

2:48 time and produced some of the greatest minds in history:

2:52 Plato, Socrates, Diogenes, Euripides, Thucydides,

2:54 the fathers of philosophy, science, drama, and history.

2:57 Oh, and today two major countries have recently

3:00 begun using lotteries to reshape how they do politics,

3:04 and it’s actually working.

3:06 So, I’m going to explain how this works,

3:09 how the ancients used it, and why lottery is so effective.

3:12 Along the way, I’ll take the arguments against it seriously,

3:16 and we’ll hear from real participants in today’s

3:19 modern experiments who went in skeptical or downright angry.

3:23 Jules: I thought it was a scam.

3:25 Finbarr: At first, I thought I’ll punch him

3:28 through the window But who by the end, were completely sold.

3:32 Jules: There is a communion of souls.

3:36 You feel it.

3:37 This is the case for a return to lottery:

3:45 a case for rebuilding politics without politicians.

3:50 To understand how and why lottery works,

3:52 we need to look at how the Athenians used it,

3:56 Their system, not unlike America’s government today,

3:58 was sort of organized around three core branches.

4:01 The Assembly was a legislature where laws were debated, drafted, and chosen.

4:06 But instead of politicians,

4:08 it was full of whichever citizens showed up, usually some 6,000 people.

4:13 Now participation was extremely limited by modern standards—no women,

4:18 and Athens had a vast enslaved population—but

4:22 Athenian citizenship extended to all free adult males,

4:26 making Athens more inclusive than even 1800s America.

4:31 The Council, meanwhile, functioned like a sort of executive branch,

4:35 setting the Assembly's agenda and ensuring the implementation of its laws.

4:39 But instead of a President, this too was filled by ordinary citizens:

4:44 500 of them, randomly selected to serve for one year at a time.

4:48 To do that, they used a device like this: the Kleroterion,

4:53 an ancient lottery machine.

4:54 Names were inscribed on small ceramic pieces, then inserted into the face.

5:00 Some numbered or colored balls were then

5:02 dispensed to determine which names were drawn.

5:05 And all of this was done in public

5:07 so everyone could see the system wasn’t being rigged.

5:10 This is modeled after archaeological findings of kleroteria

5:13 believed to be used in jury selection,

5:16 because yes the courts—not unlike our own—randomly

5:20 selected jurors to preside over cases each day.

5:23 Except, in Athens, it was random citizens only: no judges allowed.

5:29 You can see some of the DNA of our own government here,

5:32 in the birthplace of western civilization,

5:34 but its most crucial quality— popular power

5:38 and real participation— has since been largely stripped away.

5:42 Today, we get to cast a vote every few years,

5:45 while in the meantime vast governmental

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7:00 Now, back to Athens.

7:01 So, like us, they had a sort of three branch system,

7:05 but at every turn the people,

7:07 not politicians, professionals, or experts, were in charge.

7:12 So did it work?

7:14 Yes.

7:15 This democratic system brought many more Athenians into the fold,

7:18 gave them a reason to care, and expanded the perspective of the political

7:22 institutions with the life experiences of merchants,

7:26 sailors, farmers, laborers, and yes, some wealthy aristocrats.

7:30 With this democracy, for the next two hundred years,

7:33 Athens ascended to greatness.

7:35 At its height, it was a naval superpower, a commercial empire,

7:39 and the stomping ground of some of the most innovative thinkers in history.

7:43 But this system was forgotten,

7:45 because it ruined the city with faction and infighting.

7:49 At least, that’s what you’d think if you read what

7:52 the American founders had to say about Athens…but that never actually happened.

7:56 Though Athens had its share of civil strife,

7:59 over two centuries, democracy repeatedly won out and proved remarkably durable.

8:05 It only fell to an army led by Philip

8:08 of Macedon and his son Alexander the Great,

8:10 who went on to conquer 2 million square miles across Asia.

8:15 Talk about tough luck.

8:16 So, why, then were America’s founders so mistaken about Athenian democracy?

8:21 Well, for two thousand years after Athens fell,

8:26 democracy lay dormant, almost forgotten.

8:30 Until something happened.

8:35 In the 1600s, new scientific discoveries

8:38 and groundbreaking technologies empowered a growing class

8:41 of wealthy citizens to question the old

8:43 establishment forces of monarchy and religion.

8:46 By the late 1700s, this movement reached its peak,

8:49 when colonists in America rose up against

8:51 the British crown in a fight for national independence.

8:54 And when they succeeded, it seemed like lottery and democracy had

8:58 a chance for a comeback millennia in the making.

9:01 But the American founders rejected it.

9:03 Instead of lottery and democracy, they chose elections and republicanism.

9:07 From one perspective, this was understandable.

9:10 Athens was one city.

9:12 America was spread across 13 states over 1,000 miles.

9:16 Getting random citizens to and from the capital

9:18 in the 1700s would have been a nightmare.

9:20 But the founders went further,

9:22 condemning democracy as a faction-riddled mess that would

9:26 certainly destroy any society where it took root,

9:28 and in part that’s probably because

9:30 the American revolution was powered by wealthy farmers,

9:33 merchants, and lawyers—men of wealth and property.

9:36 They needed a way to consult the broader

9:40 population—of property-owning white men—while

9:42 practically limiting competition for real

9:45 power to a narrow political elite with the leisure

9:49 time to spare politicking in Washington, DC.

9:52 The best way to do that?

9:55 Elections.

9:55 Now, the founders did also make a number

9:58 of apparently compelling arguments for the advantages of elections.

10:01 They argued elections were effective

10:03 at synthesizing and representing diverse interests.

10:06 They argued elections delegated power to wise,

10:09 capable men, filtering and refining coarse public opinion.

10:13 They argued elections provided a system of accountability

10:16 that would avert corruption and punish poor leadership.

10:19 And, most importantly,

10:21 they argued elections would prevent faction and division which,

10:25 if left unchecked, would result in civil war and social collapse.

10:30 They probably believed those arguments, but in the 250 years since then,

10:35 American history and modern scientific research have proven them wrong.

10:40 On all four counts—representation, knowledge, trust,

10:43 and unity—the Ancient Athenian lottery outperformed modern elections.

10:48 Let’s start with representation.

10:50 The Athenian approach is built

10:52 on the principle ofκοινός (koinos)—meaning common,

10:55 shared, or ordinary—because this is how Athens treated power.

11:00 If you wanted to participate in politics,

11:02 you needed some free time to attend the Assembly—though a daily stipend

11:06 for attendees helped—you had to be willing

11:08 to throw your name in the Kleroterion, and you had to care about your city.

11:14 Now, this work was seriously demanding of people’s time.

11:17 It wasn’t *easy*, but it was fundamentally accessible to every citizen.

11:21 Compare that to America.

11:22 On the one hand, participation is easier.

11:25 Just show up to vote once every few years, and you’re done.

11:28 But on the other hand, to make a real impact,

11:31 to actually participate, it’s incredibly exclusive.

11:33 Standing for an election means committing to a multi-year project of traveling,

11:39 glad-handing, self-advertising, and fundraising.

11:42 One of these is a lot more inviting to normal people.

11:45 And one of them is a lot more inviting to nutcases.

11:49 This is called selection bias.

11:52 Only certain kinds of people want to stand

11:54 in elections or stand any chance of winning them:

11:57 the charismatic, the beautiful, the confident, the wealthy and well-connected.

12:00 [A, ch.

12:01 2] In turn, voters have only a narrow choice, and elections produce a small,

12:06 homogeneous political elite that not only looks nothing like the public

12:10 but thinks nothing like them and frequently cares little about their problems.

12:15 [A, ch.

12:16 3] Elections merely give people a choice of their preferred member of the elite.

12:22 That’s why Aristotle called them oligarchic.

12:24 By contrast, he defined democracy as a regime in which

12:28 everyone may have a turn at being in power,

12:31 which is what Athenian lottery achieved.

12:33 [B, 6.2] By filling their assemblies with whoever showed up

12:37 and their public offices and juries with citizens selected by lottery,

12:42 the Athenians acted like statisticians,

12:44 producing a representative slice of Athenian society with large, random samples.

12:49 By replacing politicians with the people,

12:52 Athens ensured that politics served the people.

12:56 It was politics by the people, of the people,

13:00 for the people— not politics for politicians.

13:04 And thisκοινός (koinos), this superior representation,

13:07 doesn’t just apply to *ancient* lottery.

13:10 Modern lotteries in Ireland have revealed the exact same pattern,

13:14 which we’ll discuss in just a bit.

13:17 But maybe you’re thinking that electoral selection

13:20 bias is valuable in its own way.

13:23 Politics is a hard job, and it requires certain skills.

13:27 But random samples don’t just make politics more representative.

13:31 They literally make politics smarter, and I can prove it.

13:35 This isσοφός (sophos), the wisdom of lottery.

13:38 In the early 2000s, Scott Page,

13:41 a researcher at Cal Tech, found something unexpected.

13:44 He observed that when faced with a task, given certain conditions,

13:48 “a randomly selected collection of problem solvers outperforms

13:52 a collection of the best individual problem solvers.” [J,

13:56 2.6][✱] In other words,

13:57 a random group is usually better at problem solving than a group of experts.

14:03 That's a big claim, and his investigation

14:05 and research are complicated and nuanced.

14:07 Moreover, there’s a lot of modern cognitive

14:10 science research that backs this conclusion up.

14:12 These books and this video by VSauce are great if you want to learn more.

14:16 But the simple explanation is this: more talented

14:20 problem solvers tend to think in similar ways— frequently,

14:23 they’ve received similar educations at similar

14:25 elite colleges and lead similar lives.

14:28 As a result, they’re vulnerable to similar blind spots,

14:31 and they tend to fall prey to group-think biases.

14:34 Does that sound familiar?

14:36 On the other hand, groups with diverse cognitive styles— people

14:40 who think about things in different ways— tend to be

14:43 more effective because they see things things their peers miss

14:46 and tend to be more comprehensive in their explorations of solutions.

14:51 Cognitive diversity trumps ability.

14:54 Therefore, politics should seek to replicate

14:57 cognitive diversity in deliberative decision-making.

14:59 [A, ch.

15:00 5] And elections don’t achieve this.

15:02 Elections don’t produceκοινός (koinos).

15:04 They don’t replicate the cognitive diversity of the public,

15:07 because they select for a very particular type of individual,

15:10 about whom voters only get rare opportunities to simply thumb-up or thumb-down.

15:15 That’s not deliberation.

15:17 The Athenian Council, Assembly, and Juries couldn’t be more different.

15:21 These institutions operated like a city in microcosm:

15:24 with a share of large landowners and brash,

15:27 wealthy businessman, yes, but also artisans and day laborers,

15:31 sailors and subsistence farmers, all of them with their own knowledge,

15:35 expertise, experience, perspectives, and distinct approaches to problem solving.

15:40 And here, citizens got into the nitty-gritty details of politics,

15:45 crafted policies through hours of conversation and argument,

15:48 and spent a lifetime learning to deliberate and govern.

15:52 By achievingκοινός (koinos)—or representation—through random sampling,

15:57 Athens also achievedσοφός (sophos)—superior

16:00 political intelligence through cognitive diversity.

16:04 And this virtue isn’t just limited to ancient Athens.

16:07 Just a few years ago, as we’ll see shortly,

16:10 a lottery-selected body in France solved a major

16:13 problem that had stumped politicians for years.

16:16 Except, there’s just one problem.

16:19 This *diversity trumps ability* theorem assumes everyone

16:23 is actually working toward the same goal.

16:25 But what if some of these random citizens are selfish or badly motivated?

16:30 At least with elections, there’s some public scrutiny.

16:33 We know who holds office and we can choose

16:36 not to elect them again if they become corrupt.

16:39 But remember, elections actually prioritize selfish and ambitious people.

16:45 And, as for elections preventing corruption, well how’s that’s working out?

16:51 No, here too lottery has the advantage,

16:54 and it’s calledεὔθυνα (euthuna)— the examination.

16:58 Before taking office,

16:59 every person selected by lottery in Athens was subjected to an intensive

17:03 public audit assessing not his competence but his character and integrity.

17:07 If enough citizens came forward to complain about someone,

17:10 he’d actually be passed over.

17:12 (G, 375-376) But if they passed,

17:14 after their single year term, they were then examined again,

17:17 compelled to report on their time in office

17:20 and show how they used public funds during their term.

17:23 Failure of an audit resulted in a severe fine, or worse.

17:27 And at the head of everyεὔθυνα (euthuna) were, again, ordinary citizens.

17:31 Accountability in Athens wasn’t institutionalized.

17:34 It was socialized: every citizen checking each other.

17:39 In America, by contrast,

17:41 a byzantine system of ethics watchdogs, inspectors general,

17:44 and congressional oversight committees—far removed

17:48 from public scrutiny—sit contentedly alongside campaign finance,

17:52 lobbying, corporate revolving doors, congressional stock trading,

17:56 and life-serving career politicians who keep doing

17:59 corrupt shit until the day they drop dead:

18:03 all of which, if ordinary people had a say,

18:06 would be outlawed and punished tomorrow.

18:08 So,κοινός (koinos),σοφός (sophos),εὔθυνα (euthuna).

18:12 The American founders said elections were the key to representative government,

18:17 to intelligent and capable government, and to accountable government.

18:21 But on each count, they were wrong to discount

18:25 the ancient wisdom of the old Athenian lottery.

18:28 Yet there was one last issue they thought more important than any of these.

18:34 Faction, also known as division or polarization.

18:37 In one of the most-cited defenses of the American Constitution,

18:41 James Madison called faction “the mortal

18:44 disease under which popular governments have everywhere

18:48 perished,” for which "Democracy…can admit of no

18:51 cure.” Elections, on the other hand, he called “the cure.” [E, C] Now,

18:55 the US is still standing, so elections haven’t been a complete failure,

18:59 but we did fight a horrible Civil War

19:02 less than a hundred years after Madison’s essay.

19:05 And today, America *is* deeply polarized.

19:08 Enter, the fourth and most crucial virtue of lottery:ἑνότης (henotes)— unity.

19:15 Imagine that you've just been selected for the Athenian Council.

19:18 Now, Athens was tiny by modern

19:21 standards—maybe 30,000 adult male citizens—but even so,

19:24 no one person could possibly have known everyone else.

19:27 A year-long appointment to an intensely demanding job

19:30 with total strangers may sound like a recipe for disaster,

19:33 but think of the bonds that it would build.

19:36 Then add to that occasional attendance of the Assembly,

19:40 alongside thousands more fellow citizens.

19:42 Then multiply all of that, year over year, for a lifetime.

19:47 Think of the civic pride and spirit.

19:49 Compare that to American elections,

19:52 where politicians are sorted into political teams before they even take office.

19:57 Madison was dead wrong.

19:59 Elections force us into faction, to join opposing teams,

20:02 to cheer for each other’s defeat.

20:04 Trump: “I hate my opponent.

20:05 I don’t want the best for them” Lottery

20:09 and public assemblies force us to work together.

20:12 But it’s not just a thought experiment.

20:15 For nearly 250 years, despite repeated coups by oligarchs and foreign invasions,

20:19 time after time the Athenians restored the democratic system.

20:23 [F, ch.

20:24 6, 8, 10] And thisἑνότης (henotes) still

20:27 shines through today in modern experiments with lottery.

20:29 So let’s take a look at those stories and learn how

20:33 Ireland and France took the ancient

20:35 wisdom ofκοινός (koinos),σοφός (sophos),εὔθυνα (euthuna),

20:39 andἑνότης (henotes) and applied them to our modern world.

20:42 First, let’s look at Ireland.

20:44 Between 2013 and 2014, 100 random Irish citizens—two-thirds ordinary people

20:49 and one-third politicians—were selected to form a Constitutional

20:52 Convention to tackle a handful of issues

20:55 that were gridlocking the country’s parliament.

20:58 And when it started,ἑνότης (henotes) was nowhere to be found.

21:02 Finbarr: At first, I thought I’ll punch him through the window.

21:07 That’s Finbarr O’Brien describing his first encounter

21:10 with one of his fellow convention participants,

21:12 an openly gay man named Chris Lyons.

21:15 One look at him, and Finbarr was filled with hate.

21:18 You see, one of the issues the Convention

21:20 had to resolve was the question of gay marriage,

21:23 a contentious topic in this deeply Catholic country.

21:26 Yet Finbarr didn’t attack Chris, and he didn’t leave.

21:30 Over ten weekends, he joined the group deliberations,

21:34 frequently voicing his opposition.

21:36 That is, until toward the end,

21:38 when he stood up to share something he hadn’t told anyone.

21:43 When he was a child, Finbarr explained,

21:46 he’d been sexually abused by an older man.

21:49 For decades, he’d hated gay men.

21:51 But over the course of the Convention,

21:54 he’d realized that the people he thought were

21:57 his enemies were rather a lot like him.

22:01 He’d changed his mind.

22:03 [I] In the end, the Convention, including Finbarr,

22:06 recommended that same-sex marriage be legalized in Ireland.

22:10 Not only did this Convention prove the incredible power ofἑνότης (henotes),

22:14 of unity, in democratic lottery,

22:16 this decision proved itsκοινός (koinos) andσοφός (sophos).

22:21 Where politicians had been gridlocked for years,

22:23 the Convention broke through and represented the public will.

22:27 Put to a referendum,

22:29 the Convention’s recommendation was approvedby 62% of voters.

22:33 [H] Since then, Ireland has continued to form new Conventions by lottery:

22:38 these filled 100% with ordinary citizens.

22:40 And they’ve continued to succeed where politicians fail,

22:44 tackling tough issues that are hard to solve with electoral horse races.

22:50 The next Convention, discussing abortion,

22:52 recommended reforms that passed in a referendum

22:55 with a historic-high 66% of the vote.

22:57 [A, ch.

22:58 4] But Ireland isn’t alone.

23:00 France has also begun experimenting with lottery.

23:04 In early 2019, when massive protests against

23:07 a proposed carbon tax plunged the country into chaos,

23:10 President Macron spent three months touring

23:13 the country to hear people’s concerns.

23:16 And at the end…nothing happened.

23:18 Macron— citing experts— insisted that the carbon tax was simply the only way.

23:23 So the protests continued,

23:24 and when some academics approached Macron with the idea of a lottery,

23:29 he was desperate enough to sign off.

23:31 Then, when the 150 randomly-selected citizens convened in Paris

23:35 to form the Citizens’ Convention on Climate Change,

23:38 Macron promised them that their recommendations would be

23:41 applied to law or referendum “without filter.” [A, ch.

23:44 6] But some participants were unsure of the whole thing.

23:47 Jules: I thought it was a scam.

23:49 [A, ch.

23:49 7] That’s Jules, one of the 150.

23:52 When he arrived, Jules was a skeptic of climate change,

23:55 and of the whole lottery business.

23:57 On day one, he refused to check his luggage at the door of the convention,

24:01 swearing he was just about to leave at any minute.

24:03 [A, ch.

24:04 7] But Jules stayed, and though he never changed his mind on climate change,

24:08 he found a sense of belonging, a sort of civic family in the Convention.

24:13 Jules: There are a lot of members who love me very much

24:17 and whom I love very much… There is a communion of souls.

24:21 You feel it.

24:22 [A, ch.

24:23 7] This is, yet again, lottery proving its power ofἑνότης (henotes), of unity.

24:29 But the Convention proved more than that.

24:31 It proved lottery’sσοφός (sophos)— its power

24:33 of collective wisdom— and itsεὔθυνα (euthuna)— its accountability.

24:37 Repeatedly, in the face of enormous protests,

24:39 political elites— backed up by experts— swore up and down that a carbon tax,

24:43 despite massive outrage, was the only way.

24:46 But in the end, the Citizens’ Convention produced 149 proposals

24:49 to address climate change— not one of them using a carbon tax.

24:54 And afterward, French politicians doubled down

24:56 on their duplicity by refusing to apply

24:58 the convention’s recommendations to law or to a referendum, like they promised.

25:03 Now, eventually, public outrage compelled French politicians

25:06 to pass some of the Convention’s proposals,

25:09 producing the most ambitious climate legislation in French history.

25:14 Unfortunately, this means the Convention has been

25:17 less successful than one would have hoped, though not because lottery failed

25:22 but because politicians obstructed the people’s accomplishments.

25:26 Randomly selected ordinary citizens aren’t

25:29 just more representative than politicians.

25:31 They aren’t just more intelligent than politicians.

25:34 They aren’t just more accountable than politicians.

25:36 Ordinary citizens *care* more than politicians—about each other,

25:42 about their communities, and about doing the right thing.

25:45 So how could we apply lottery today,

25:47 how can we conjure the forces ofκοινός (koinos),σοφός (sophos),εὔθυνα (euthuna),

25:51 andἑνότης (henotes) to improve our politics?

25:54 Unfortunately, France shows just how limited the impact

25:57 of reforms can be if applied in half-measures.

26:00 Athenian lottery worked because it defined the shape of the citizen’s life.

26:04 We, on the other hand, have forgotten how to be political animals.

26:08 For lottery democracy to work,

26:10 the average American should expect at least once, if not more than once,

26:13 in his or her life, to be called to serve at some level of government.

26:19 That would mean lotteries, assemblies, councils *at every level:

26:22 from the national all the way down to the local.* That is…ambitious.

26:26 And in truth, lottery probably can’t solve all our problems.

26:32 No one change ever can.

26:35 Nor do we really know exactly what would

26:37 happen if we went full bore on it tomorrow.

26:40 So even if we can’t—or maybe

26:43 shouldn’t—replace all our elections with powerballs tomorrow,

26:47 we do know a few things.

26:49 We know that elections have real oligarchic tendencies we need to take

26:54 seriously if we want to restore any public faith in popular government.

26:58 We know that the founders were wrong to write lottery off completely.

27:02 We know that lottery has some real virtues.

27:05 And we know that in countries that have tried it recently,

27:09 this ancient method has proven just as effective as it was 2500 years ago.

27:17 If you want to learn more about lottery, read this book,

27:20 by Yale political scientist Hélène Landemore,

27:22 published just this February: Politics Without Politicians.

27:25 And in the meantime, if you want to support our efforts

27:28 to tell more stories that matter to democracy,

27:31 consider becoming a YouTube or Patreon member for some exclusive content,

27:34 grabbing some merch like this shirt, poster,

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27:40 It’s a great way to stay safe on the internet,

27:44 and every signup supports the channel.

27:47 And as always, thanks for watching.