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“I had a veritable mania for finishing whatever I began, which often got me into difficulties. On one occasion I started to read the works of Voltaire when I learned, to my dismay, that there were close on one hundred large volumes in small print which that monster had written while drinking seventy-two cups of black coffee per diem. It had to be done, but when I laid aside the last book I was very glad, and said, “Never more!””

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“Computers: Hardware of Democracy”

by Hazel Henderson

forum 70 (February 1970/Volume 2, Number 2)

��� Democratizing computer and communication technology could provide maximum feasible participation in politics for virtually everybody. The question is: “Do we want it?”

Is it inevitable, as our society becomes more organized and complex, that the individual citizen and non-expert must find himself increasingly shut out of the democratic decision making process?

Or will our frustrated citizens, already demanding greater access to decision mechanism, finally revolt against the domination of the experts and the giant organizations which now characterize our society?

Laymen are coming to fear that technology has slipped out of political control in America; and scores of environmental debacles, such as pollution, over-use of DDT, oil spills, man-made earth tremors and unlivable cities, have done nothing to reassure them as to the competence of those in charge to apply effectively the fruits of scientific discoveries. Technology has become rampant because it is applied so rapidly, and with so little coordination, by so many powerful and diverse organizations, whether big corporations or the military, space agencies and other governmental bodies, that our politicians and voters no longer have adequate information to keep up.

Many would argue that democracy is no longer possible or even desirable in this kind of society, where the voters has to maser so much information to use his vote wisely. If, on the other hand, we are to continue to be guided by the democratic ideals that gave America its original character, we must find ways of improving communication channels to inform the voter, and machinery to channel his participation and “feedback.” If we are to avoid further alienation and increasing numbers of bored, apathetic, irresponsible and violent people, we may have no choice but to turn our computer and communications skills, which are automating decision-making in business and other organizations, to the serve of the voter so he, with equal efficiency, can rapidly express his opinion to political decision-making matrices.

If more, not less, democracy is to be the wave of the future, what would this mean for business and professional men and all of our current decision makers? Some broad patterns are already recognizable: the rise of “consumerism;” the new tide of public advocate law firms modeled after “Nader’s Raiders:” the populist revolt against big businesses of the mass media; the increasingly difficulty in making public planning decisions–such as zoning, locating of highways and other projects–stick, unless they have been arrived at with maximum participation of affected citizens.

Corporate decisions will be similarly affected, and exhaustive surveying of various publics may be necessary before a company proceeds with a new project or markets a technological innovation. An since this kind of enhanced democratic participation would require integration of so much information and coordination of so many activities, it would also require an exponential increase in the need for communication and computer systems, and further development of programming to the point where any layman can communicate with the system directly.

Prospects for such vast changes and re-arrangements of power-relationships may be greeted with dismay by many current decision makers as they see further inroads being made into their managerial prerogatives. And yet the nature of computer and communications systems makes them ideally suited to collecting, analyzing and delivering “feedback” of voter’s viewpoints to the political system. When technology exists it tends to be applied in wider and more democratic ways as it becomes better understood and less expensive. Already, as the voter becomes more dissatisfied with his outmoded hand tools for political expression - the ballot, the pen and the periodic election of representatives - we are seeing evidence of the short-circuiting of these traditional methods by the use of polls to take the voters’ pulse on current issues; and when the machinery to channel participation is seen as impossibly slow, there is increased resorting to the politics of the street demonstration.

As an alternative to this kind of violent confrontation, which is the “communication of the last resort,” the instant electronic referendum is already technically possible; and the hardware, the television set as the citizen’s information-receiving device, and the telephone as his political input unit, is already in place in almost every home.

People with political views as diverse as, on the one hand, the Harlem leaders who oppose the New York State office building sponsored by Governor Nelson Rockefeller, and, on the other hand, H. Ross Perot, President of Electronic Data Systems Corporation, call for the same remedies: more referendums, more political participation by the “little man.” Mr. Perot has recently announced that he is shopping for TV time to present public affairs programs which would serve as electronic town meetings and provide ballots in conjunction with newspapers, so that voters could feed back their views. The new public affairs program, “The Advocates,” carried over National Educational Television affiliate stations, goes a step further by providing phone numbers and polls for instantaneous feedback. As more people become aware of these potentialities of computer and information systems, there will be increasing pressure to use them to serve individual needs rather then, as currently, the needs of specialists and organizational elite.

Before we are overwhelmed by fears of the tyranny of the majority, let us clarify two of our beliefs: one, citizens should participate in social decision making in a democratic society; and, two, we voters must communicate our views to one another, to the organizations in which we are involved, and to elected government officials. The rationale lies deep in our history. The notion that an informed citizenry should and can participate in every phase of national decision making is a central and ever-more-liberally interpreted premise of the great social experiment that is America. The notion is based on our belief that wisdom, creativity and commonsense are qualities distributed quite randomly throughout our population, not concentrated in one or another anointed group peculiarly fitted for leadership. So far, biology has not found us mistaken in this belief. If there is still validity in this central premise, that an informed citizenry is capable of self government, then it is our destiny to continue to govern this nation with the greatest possible consent of the governed, and to develop new methods for achieving this consent. Indeed, some of our most respected scientists and sociologists argue that democratic participation in government is more necessary than ever.

Political scientist Harvey Wheeler believes that party politics has been preempted by mass media and that we must develop a political system based on an organic, biological model where there is greater access to the wisdom and creativity of all our citizens - not only to elite groups which tend to become dangerous insulated from various aspects of reality.

Warren B. Bennis, a leading exponent of democratizing decision making in corporations, to ensure maximum flexibility and adaptability to change, states in his latest book with Philip F. Slater, The Temporary Society, that, for the same reasons, society at large must become more democratic. Just as the old corporate model of autocratic, pyramidal organization tends to function badly because of lack of feedback, obstructed flow of information both upward and downward, and arbitrary personal decision making at the top of the pyramid, so our current political oligarchy of giant, interlocking organizations and powerful special interest pressure groups prevent the rank and file’s corrective “random-access feedback” from modifying arbitrary political and economic decisions. Bennis and Slater believe that our current bureaucratic model of society will be replaced by a social structure that is more democratic, because “democracy becomes a functional necessity whenever a social system is competing for survival under conditions of chronic change.”

A paper delivered by Dr. H. Sackman, at the Third International Conference on Science and Society, speculated “that participatory democracy might be made technologically possible by the advent of time-shared computers. The idea would be that, with every person having access to a central computer, a senator in Washington could poll his constituency in a direct and intimate way.”

Indeed, we may have reached a point where participation by individual laymen in our increasingly specialized, fragmented society from being dominated by organizational dinosaurs, and eventually fossilizing and decaying. When a social system becomes too big to be properly coordinated and controlled, it begins to go haywire. Is communications nervous system becomes overloaded and corrective messages cannot get through to the control centers to coordinate the whole. In computer systems this corrective function is called feedback. In a similar way, voters’ opinions are corrective feedback to the body politic. This is why the ordinary voter is so important: his non-specialized viewpoint could provide such vital feedback to the system. For laymen tend to judge the nation’s allocation of resources by broad, often humanistic standards. They tend to raise the two old-fashioned questions: “What will this program do for people?” and “How will it create a better life?” A large enough proportion of citizens from all walks of life, asking these generalistic questions, is the best countervailing force to the imbalance created by special-interest pleading of big organizations with batteries of experts–all anxious to apply their own narrow range of expertise, without sufficient understanding of the total picture.

Take the program to a subsidize development of a supersonic transport plane. Corporations and government agencies and their experts with vested interests (economic or intellectual) tell us that the plane will be good for balance-of-payments problems, good for our national image, good for the aviation industry; that it will provide jobs for technicians (who are already in short supply). They tell us almost everything, in fact, except whether the program will be good for the majority of our people and will enhance the quality of their lives. If there had been easier, faster methods for voters to feedback their opinions on the SST, the program might well have been shelved before the outlay of millions of corporate and taxpayers’ dollars, and least until a way had been found to control its most objectionable feature, the sonic boom. More important, if the SST decision had been more democratically factored into a long-range simulation of the total transportation mix to satisfy the needs of citizens as a whole, it surely would have turned up as a lower priority item, then, say, faster airport-to-central city transit, high speed-short haul railroads between cities in congested areas, electrified urban minibuses, or what have you.

This is not to say that the citizen will have all, or even some, of the answers to often complex, technical issues. But his non-specialized viewpoint can discipline technocrats by raising broad humanistic question, thereby helping experts structure problems, justifying their projects and think through long-range consequences more carefully. We must remember, too, that sciences in not an absolute, but a tentative, discipline. The true scientist is humble and cautious, understanding that man’s knowledge is a mere pinpoint of light in the vast surrounding darkness of what is still unknown. In contrast to this true spirit of scientific inquiry, there are many arrogant pseudo-scientists who apply what is known with an irresponsible disregard for potentially dangerous side effects. Indeed, some of the more responsible scientists themselves are alarmed, and are calling for higher professional ethics in applied science.

To cope with today’s issues, and to use his vote wisely, the citizen must have better channels for receiving an ever-increasing torrent of information. So that citizens can become better informed, we must find ways of opening up existing and new channels of communications in commercial and non-commercial mass media. For the keystone of our belief in the ability of citizens to govern themselves properly is the assumption that they are sufficiently enlightened to vote wisely. Already we are the most broadly-educated population in world history; and we have the advanced technology of mass communications necessary to raise this level even further through educational broadcasting, community antenna television, computer-assisted instruction, and the like.

Publicly-owned broadcasting, for instance, if adequately funded, could provide continuous public affairs programming as well as free, equitable-apportioned time for political candidates and for both public and private officials. Higher education could be available to all via the airwaves, were we to emulate the British Broadcasting Corporation’s Open University, scheduled to commence operations in 1971. For education no longer needs buildings but on the voluntary communion of the minds of our greatest teachers and of all who thirst for knowledge and understanding. If democracy cannot work in America, surely it cannot work anywhere!

The basic hardware of our emerging information-based democracy is already in place. We must now learn to make it serve the individual. Collecting and analyzing individual viewpoints is already common practice in the commercial world; it’s done by market sampling consumer preferences, and by an increasing use of person data banks for credit information or medical histories. We see it too in statistical studies so prevalent in behavioral sciences, and of course in the increasing use that politicians make of opinion polls to sample the views of the voters. But all these uses are potentially a threat to the individual, because he is the involuntary subject- and sometimes the victim- of organized information gatherings. These activities are commissioned by private groups to obtain only such information from the individual, or about him, that they, not he, want divulged. Often the individual only vaguely understands the purpose to which the information will be put; and any study commissioned for one particular purpose, or for use of one particular group will inevitably suffer various distortions based on the particular need and bias of its instigator. The resulting study design, questionnaire and sampling techniques are similarly threatened by distortion.

A good example of this was the attempt to “sell” the ABM system to the American people by a group that supported the President’s position. They placed a full page advertisement in the New York Times, claiming a recent poll had shown “84% of the American people were in favor of the ABM.” This extreme example of a self-serving use of polling was luckily obvious in its distortion; after all, it is almost impossible to imagine that 84 percent of Americans would agree even on the merits of motherhood or apple pie! But other, more subtle and therefore more potentially harmful, uses of polling by politicians are becoming popular: for example, to “prove” to party bosses that a candidate is popular and can win an election; to buttress the political position of a legislator or even as President; to start bandwagon rolling; or to stifle dissent.

In fact, the private use of information-gathering techniques might be a disastrous for public decision making as Neilsen ratings have been for quality television- since such methods tend to screen out of consideration new or random ideas, which are vital component of an innovative society. We see, too, how muddled and bewildering the political scene can become when a President invokes an unmeasurable “silent majority” as his mandate, thus provoking his opponents to invoke their own equally vague, unmeasurable political strength. The battle of wills then centers on who can capture the most television coverage to display his pile of supporting telegrams, or on the number of marchers he can muster in the streets. Government by nose counting, or by polling of random samples, can lead to dangerous distortions in the democratic process.

However, from studying the various uses made of information and communication technology, we can begin to see it potential value if put to the service of the individual citizen, allowing him to decide what information to transmit to his elected representatives in deciding national issues. Dr. Donald Michael, author of Cybernation: the Silent Conquest, has gone further in pondering how information technology might be harnessed to serve the voter and help perfect the democratic process itself. In a recent issue of the magazine Daedalus he describes how a “citizen feedback” computer planning system might work. Suppose a city’s official planning system might work. Suppose a city’s official planning body purposes to redevelop a large area of the city. At a public hearing today, only about one percent of people affected by the proposal are able to testify, and only after waiting hors for the privilege. And, in too cases, all manner of behind-the-scenes horse trading has already taken place among various vested interests, whose votes are levered by the power of money or political alliance.

Instead, ideally, there would be a network of computerized “citizen terminals.” These terminals would be located in every voting precinct, and would all be hooked into the master plan at City Hall. All data in any way relevant to the new plan would be stored in the computer; any interest citizen would be able to visit the “citizen terminal,” where there would be technically-trained operator available, as well as maps and plans. Dr. Michael thinks that laws should be passed forbidding anyone to deny the citizen access to the computer terminal, because, as he says, “Citizens with different perspectives and politicians almost certainly will ask questions the professional forgot, thereby discovering significant implications that the professionals overlooked.” Eventually, one would imagine, it would be possible for the voter to punch into the computer his preference of a range of options on the plan; the computer would flag those features of the plan most objectionable as well as most satisfactory to most people.

The same basic “citizen terminal” system could be applied, for instance, to decide the kind of air quality necessary to keep urban citizens healthy and how costs should be shared. The computer could store all relevant information that even vaguely bore on the issue. For instance how much additional tax money would be needed to upgrade municipal incinerators and to haul compacted garbage by rail to sanitary landfills; how much property values would increase if pollution were cut 25 to 50 percent or more; how much money is currently being spent to clean up the effects of pollution, and how much would be saved if airborne dust particles were reduced 10, 50 or 90 percent. On the national level, we might compute the proportionate shares of air pollution expenses to be borne by municipalities, by industry, and the consumer in the form of higher prices. At the flick of a button, terminals might display various combinations of this information. For each citizen to evaluate- with the help of a trained computer technician, serving the same sort of function as a lawyer interpreting statutes. Then, on the basis of the information, the citizen might punch in his choice of available options, which the computer would tabulate and feed back into the program, forming a profile of what the majority of voters think about the relative merits of raising funds through increased taxes, higher prices, higher assessments or fines from industry.

In his recent book, Urban Dynamics, Jay W. Forrester describes the inter-related nature of urban systems. He uses computers to simulate an urban system in all its economic, psychological and physical dimensions and interactions. His model incorporates 22 rate variables, such as flow of people into and out of the city, rate of housing construction and decay, and starting of new businesses. These rates are controlled by how people react to conditions in the city; and their individual decisions constitute information feedback to the model. The Forrester model is probably the most far reaching and comprehensive systems approach to urban problems. But even his model has been attacked as being too small to include all the variables affecting the city from without, such as interaction with its suburbs or with national conditions. If this is so - and most criticism of computer systems approaches to public sector problems is that they use models significant external variables - then it could be argued that the only solution is to set up computerized feedback from every voter in the nation, and eventually to devise over-lapping computer simulations or our natural resources, our economy and our basic systems of transportation, power, manufacturing and communications.

This kind of computer use forms part of the suggestion of Dr. Daniel Bell for what he calls “a system for total social accounting” of costs and benefits. Such a system might make it possible for the first time for voters to measure, more accurately, how much of the cost of manufacturing a product a new plant might be planning to “externalize.” This time-honored corporate practice of “externalizing,” from their own profit and loss accounts, all those costs they hope to pass on the community, is one of the thorniest problems for the citizen.

How can he hope to know in advance how much it will cost town taxpayers to clean up a plant’s pollution of the water supply, for instance, if that extra cost of installing filtering equipment is one of the items the company hopes to “externalize?” Yet this sort of “cooking that books,” i.e. not really accounting for all the true costs of producing a product, make it almost impossible for the voter, even if he’s an accountant, to make an informed decision on whether it is a good or bad idea to permit the plant to locate in the community. The taxes that the plant will pay and the local jobs it may provide could be offset by the cost of cleaning up the water supply and by the possible loss of property values in the event the plant becomes an eyesore or excessively noisy.

Another exciting area where the computer is being harnessed to the democratic decision-making process is in the planning of more rational and suitable use of America’s remaining open land. Dr. Ian McHarg, an ecologist and land-use planner, is using computers to determine the optimum use of various kinds of land. For instance, some land is unsuitable for building; it may be too steep or the sub-surface rock may be unstable so that buildings may slide, subside or wash out in rainstorms; some land is best suited to farming and grazing; some is covered with timber and must be conserved to protect a watershed - and so can be used only for recreation; and, finally, some land is best suited for residential construction or for industrial development. Dr. McHarg surveys as a whole region, and- after taking into account factors such as geology, surface terrain, meteorology, population densities, transportation, water and other natural resources- superimposes on his maps different code colors representing areas best suited to building, farming, wilderness recreation, and industrial development.

Eventually, the map reveals for the entire region the best location for new cities, and the best possible areas for open space, parks, farms, and industry. In this way, we might plan America’s shrinking land and resources to best accommodate the tens of millions of new citizens expected in the next 30 years- without risking cancerous growth of existing cancerous growth of existing megalopolises, or putting up on treacherous mountainsides and floodplains ill-conceived buildings, which often cost the taxpayers dearly when their collapse is followed by demands for federal “disaster” funds. Plans like these could help indicate how we should space out the some- 200 new cities we will need by the year 2000, and may help to prevent future ecological debacles. Systems based on Dr. McHarg’s pioneer work would help us balance the use of our resources effectively for the greatest benefit of the country as a whole, rather than for benefit of such parochial interests as speculators.

All of these uses of computers will depend for their optimum effectiveness on how carefully and democratically the systems analysis is performed and the program written. If narrow, technologically oriented specialists continue to design data processing systems only with data that appear relevant to them, wondrous computers will continue to reflect narrow values and produce “garbage in-garbage out” results. For instance, a badly designed cost-benefit analysis of whether a city can “afford” to install air pollution control equipment might produce data which would “prove” that the city couldn’t afford to clean up its air.

However, if data had been included on emphysema disability claims, for example, or on the correlation between absences from work due to respiratory diseases and sulfur dioxide levels in the air, the answer might have been that the city couldn’t afford not to clean up. The best way to ensure that all these elusive variables get included in the model is to use extremely diverse, interdisciplinary teams of advisors: including, perhaps, a poet, a housewife, even a child, to develop random ideas in structuring the model. Jay Forrester points out that social/physical systems, like cities, are far too complex for one human brain. The only answer we have at hand is to develop more and more comprehensive access to all of society’s brainpower.

Is all this science fiction? If it is, it will not be because the decision to use it in this way will be shelved. Let us suppose, for a moment, that we did decide to put technology to the service of the voter to speed and enhance democratic participation in government decisions, and that every issue of local or national importance was to be decided by electronic referendum. Our scenario might be something like this.

It is an early February evening the year 2023, and John and Jane Doe are relaxing before the TV wall in their home communications center. The newly-elected President of the United States is having his first “fireside chat” with his fellow citizens. He maps out the main issues the voters have presented to his administration, together with the widest range of options suggested by citizens from all walks of life. These options have been winnowed and tabulated by computers as to priorities. Priority number six has been flagged for resolution now to meet long-range planning goals. Priorities one through five, while of global importance, need further information input and analysis. “Priority number six,” the President continues, “concern future development plans for U.S. Region Three, which as formerly known as Appalachia; and five major options have been developed from both random voter feedback and scientific and specialist feedback. The options will now be summarized and simulated on your home screen.

The first option is displayed in a series of colorful simulated maps and diagrams. It would designate the whole region as a national park, and the chief recreational playground for the two great adjacent megalopolitan regions: to the east, BOSWASH (formerly known as the northeastern seaboard from Boston to Washington), and to the west, CHIPITTS (formerly the great industrial region of the Ohio river between Chicago and Pittsburgh). The plan entails six new cities of 250,000 people each, to serve as spas and cultural meccas. Their chief industries would be leisure and tourism, health and beauty maintenance, and the Performing arts. Now charts appear showing that the economy of the region would grow at 10 percent per year for the first five years, and would require capital expenditures of half of one percent of current gross national product. Then, expected influxes of construction engineering and planning personnel are shown for the first five years of building; and, thereafter, the needs for increasing numbers of recreational managers and workers, doctors, beauticians, physical education personnel, and, of course, performing artists of all kinds.

“And now to Option Two,” the President says. The second option would designate the area primarily as a natural resource bank, with a secondary use as wilderness recreation. The plan calls for filling the old mines with plastics, iron, copper, rubber and other materials salvaged from the nation’s waste disposal plants; these items would be stored until needed for recycling into production. A network of small towns would be necessary; their economies would be based largely on caretaker and inventory control functions, while also providing for campers and hikers using wilderness areas. As each of the additional combinations of alternatives was presented, a new computer’s simulation would appear on the Does’ screen. The President reappears and makes his formal declaration that the referendum on these development plans for U.S. Region Three would be made at 7 PM, one week hence. He adds, “Each voter can, of course, receive plans from the U.S. Government Printout Office by dialing 235-4707 on his computer phone terminal.”

At 7 PM, one week later, John and Jane Doe- having discussed the plans with neighbors, and at their community town-hall meeting - have made up their minds. The telecast begins and the President says, “Good evening, my fellow citizens. I hope you have all done your homework, and that those of you who are registered voters will now give America the benefit of your informed, collective wisdom in tonight’s very important national referendum on the long-range development of U.S. Region Three. To refresh your memories, we will again simulate on your home screens the five alternative plans prepared with guidelines from your previous feedback. Please have your voting cards ready for the optical scanner to verify. At the end of the review of the five plans, please place your voting cards in the scanner and then punch in your choice of options, one through five, on your computer phone digit buttons.”

After the voting John and Jane relax while the returns are being tabulated. It has been a grueling week of study for both of them, even though the standard work week has been reduced to two days - a result of machines and other capital instruments largely taking over production of wealth. Apart from the U.S. Region Three plan, they have had to study an important local education proposition involving three options on the “mix” of educational services their growing town will need in the next decade; they also have had to fulfill their voluntary community commitments. The red indicator lights; and the Does return to their home communications center. They learn that Option One of U.S. Region Three has passed.

Next month, their tasks will include determining a 10-year transportation-design mix for their own U.S. Region One, monitoring a new study course given by the University of the Air, and beginning work to establish priorities on national resource allocation for the second phase of the 25-year plan - for the years 2025 through 2050.

Is this the way democracy might be headed? As automation produces more leisure and shorter workweeks, will citizenship itself take up the slack and become more demanding, so that for many it will be a full-time job? Will we use our technology to create a truly participatory democracy? Or will that ideal be prevented by various factors? For instance, will current decision makers be afraid that if citizens have too much undistorted information, and the means of channeling too many informed decisions into the political process, there would be a change in too many power relationships and a re-allocation to too many resources, which would, in turn, result in too many new people having access to power? Consider, too, the legitimate fear, shared by our founding fathers, that a truly direct democracy could not sufficiently filter the emotions of the voters, and might lead to a tyranny of the majority. In computer terms, would too much participation make the social system too sensitive to feedback and produce rapid over corrections, which could lead to destructive oscillation and loss of equilibrium? In short, is man too irrational to build a rational society?

Democracy certainly is a dangerous experiment, and yet our history has demonstrated a continuous movement toward more direct participation. The point is: technology is available, and like all technology will tend to be used, either willy-nilly by private groups as it is now, or systematically to restore power to the voter and to coordinate the interests of all more fairly. T

Computers Hardware of Democracy
by Hazel Henderson

forum 70 (February 1970/Volume 2, Number 2)

Democratizing computer and communication technology could provide

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