I really don’t see that kind of deal-making happening in the TDG.
For starters, elected representatives have no favors to pay off to become elected. They are more free to work on behalf of their communities and/or their conscious when the constraints of the political parties have been removed. Currently, the party is the first loyalty of any elected politician. In the TDG, that loyalty is directed more positively.
Let’s use your farmer example. Very likely a rural agricultural community of 200 people will elect a farmer. And with the “good character and capacity for governance” being emphasized of that community, that farmer is probably going to be someone who is well respected in that community, which is good. But let’s assume that that community really wants that representative to lobby for more subsidies for farmers. If they don’t see that representative lobbying in this way, they will find someone else next year.
The level of neighborhood representatives really doesn’t have that much authority to make such a big change. So lobbying at this level is going to cast the representative as a one-issue representative, mostly looking for the advantage of his group, not society at large. If this particular representative is quite “pushy” to get more subsidies for farmers, he stands less chance of being elected at to next highest level, where he might have some effect in lobbying. So he has to keep his agenda on the quite side. But by being quiet, it looks like, to his voters, he is not lobbying for their cause.
The reason why he can’t be an effective one-issue lobbyist is that the TDG will develop a culture of consultation. With this culture, representatives should have a mind that is open enough to look at several alternatives, evaluating the pros and cons of each alternative, and vote based on what the evidence is telling him.
If the representative has a closed mind and continues with his ideology or mandate, that will be apparent. His or her rise in the TDG will stop there — even if his/her neighborhood continues to elect him.
Likewise, if the voters for the higher levels sense that some deal-making happened to elevate a neighborhood representative to district representative, that district representative will be seen as someone not to vote for the next highest level.
When a certain culture is created, it will be hard for the “current ways” to advance in politics.
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If I were take your finance/farmer/manufacturing model, which of these sectors has the most influence in public policy today? Pretty much in the order stated in the previous sentence. But when we consider the population of each sector, there are more people in manufacturing than in agriculture and more people in agriculture than in finance. So the current model is already tilted in the wrong way.
A blue-collar neighborhood will be electing one of their own people into government, not some guy/gal in nice clothes that lives somewhere else just because that person won a party election. If that blue-collar person has good character and capacity for governance, that person could go a long ways in the TDG. Try putting a blue-collar person onto today’s ballots.
