Super summary: it is difficult to ask for fees to those who can not vote

If you have not the slightest idea of what is going around, you also have the civic duty not to subjugate the rest of us to your ignorance ": with these words, David Harsanyi, a well-known American polemicist, has opened a huge debate on the compatibility between democracy and ignorance.
Who among us, in fact, has never asked "really worth my vote because her"?
This is not a new debate, but it opened in delicate moment for the Western democracies, which seem increasingly tired of themselves: illiteracy, populism rampant and complottismi hoaxes of all kinds seem to be appealing to an electorate called instead decide fundamental issues, from territorial government to end the future of the European Union (such as the referendum on Brexit), passing from 'constitutional settlement Italian.
It seems, indeed, to witness the affirmation of a discrete slice of the electorate who, like hooligans, is not interested in the debate, but rather to rock, not willing to investigate or inquire.
Only to rock.
Social networks are the litmus test of these phenomena.
Hence, again, the question: should also give them the right to vote?
Harsanyi says maybe not, it's not fair.
Or rather, it is necessary to rethink the method by which it grants the right to vote.
Universal suffrage imposed essentially two requirements: one master (you must reach a certain age, usually 18, to vote) and cognitive (you must be capable of discernment).
Harsanyi believes that these two parameters are not enough anymore, but there must be added a third: the 'information.
In order to trust a voter says, serves a simple, clear and effective mechanism for all: the civics test that all immigrants are subjected requiring US citizenship.
It would seem a simple and effective solution, but has sparked sharp criticism.
Most, perhaps rightly, accuse him of elitism, a political thought which sees only entrusting public affairs just lit the chance to rule the masses unable to organize.
Beyond the tones used by the polemicist, the problem that arises is certainly true and real, but the solution it not as easy as said.
Let's see why.
A real problem You know those comments tattered, in which the correct dell'acca use is a mirage and punctuation a habit radical chic?
It is undeniable that there is a problem in the constituency.
Indeed he has not entirely wrong those who say that "if you can barely read and write, how can you understand what a Def or how the Dublin Regulation?
".
The problem is called functional illiteracy and is a very serious phenomenon.
Unlike classic illiterate, functional illiterate literate, but he fails to apply this technique to understand the meaning of what they are reading or writing.
Quantifying functional illiteracy is very complicated and expensive, and the last attempt of any relevance it did the 'Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in 2013.
Maybe someone remembers it, because from that discovery came a given heavy for Italy: we are the country with the most functional illiterates among those in Europe analyzed by the OECD (but we get there in a moment).
According to this international organization a person who is a functional illiterate "can not engage in all those activities in which a certain degree of literacy is required for effective functioning of their group or community, and also [illiteracy] does not It allows to continue to use reading, writing and mathematics for its own development and that of the community. "
The OECD, therefore, defines 5 levels of skills, corresponding to 5 degrees of functional illiteracy (1 being the most severe level):
Level 1: you are able to complete simple questionnaires, to understand a basic vocabulary, determine the meaning of the sentences and read continuous text (for example a short text for children) with a degree of fluency.
Level 2: you are able to integrate two or more pieces of information (eg short news on a newspaper) on the basis of certain criteria, to compare them and develop a debate at the level of.
Level 3: you are able to understand dense or long texts (eg, reading a book) and select relevant information.
Level 4: you are able to perform multi-step operations, integrate, interpret, synthesize information from complex and lengthy texts (for example, by comparing an essay and a newspaper article).
Level 5: you are able to perform tasks involving research and the integration of information on more dense texts (for example, do a search), building the summaries of similar and contrasting ideas or different points of view and to evaluate the evidence.
70% of Italian adults could not get past the second level, while 5% could not even get to level 1.
Similar proportions in Italy, are also found with regard to math skills (numeracy):
Italy did not participate in full to the test on problem solving skills in technological environments (ie the ability to properly use the technology), but the only data available is that 24% of Italian adults in 2013 had never used a pc (with due respect to all the debates on public administration digitization).
The 'functional illiteracy is definitely the heart, but it alone does not explain the whole problem.
Because if it is true that if you can not understand a short text hardly be able to understand an electoral program, it is also true that historically universal suffrage elections were held even in periods where illiteracy (the primary one, not the one functional) was extremely widespread.
For example, in one of the first elections by universal suffrage Italian, one for the Constituent Assembly, there were no results particularly disruptive or otherwise low quality, but we were in a country emerging from war and with a great rate of illiterates.
functional illiteracy, therefore, must be added another parameter, which some see in the end of ideology and the party crisis.
In particular, the parties (and all the various forms of associations connected to them, such as local and youth sections, the Party schools) and non-party political organizations (such as unions) functioned as a filter, from the perimeter within which circumscribe information.
They served short to give a key to the world.
Who, among us, it was recently at a campaign rally?
Do you know where the headquarters of the party closest to you?
Now they no longer really exist, and most of the information we get from the internet, where the filter is ourselves: we read what we want to read, we convince ourselves of something not confront someone.
Because the test is non-functional praticabileAnalfabetismo, self-selection of information and away from the institutions they created one hand, the populism and, conversely, a widespread sense of elitism.
Populism and elitism are to all effects two sides of the same coin.
If populism sees in the will of the people, the only authentic form of democracy, elitism is an equally simplistic discourse: we remove the lower part of the electorate, so things will definitely better.
Harsanyi, as mentioned, proposes to introduce a civics test to "cut off the lower part" of the electorate, but this poses three types of problems.
First of all, an adverse selection: the tests would take part only those who imagine to be able to pass and you could self-exclude those who have the basics but do not plan to have them.
Second, there would be the question of who decides what is inside and what is outside the test.
Because it is clear that if it comes to acquiring citizenship is a speech, if it is to expand or decrease the number of voters (and therefore the votes) would push the political forces to adapt the tests to its target constituency.
In the third measure would create an economic problem.
In Italy, the eligible voters (including foreign residents) are about 50 million.
If only 60% of eligible voters (about the number of those who now goes to vote) is presentassero to take the test, this would mean organizing a test for 30 million people, with the related management costs.
To cut these costs could be done online, but would exclude in a discriminatory manner that 24% of adults (ie over 12 million people) who have never used a computer.
In short, the cost of such a test would add to those fixed for each election.
For example, the last general election (2013) had a cost of 389 million euro, broken down as follows:
A possible alternative The test then appears a hard way.
In theory, there is an alternative that experts believe possible, although difficult to apply: the 'drawing lots.
It is not the invention of some intellectual parlor.
It was one of the hotspots of the debate during the writing of the US Constitution, and still exists as a form of choice in some places, especially in the US.
It was the favorite form in the Athenian democracy in classical times (the elected positions were very few).
The draw has some vantaggiimmediati, but also many disadvantages.
Surely it is a much more democratic election system than representative: anyone can be elected without the need for large amounts of money for the election campaign.
Theoretically, also the election by lot, date its randomness, in the medium term would eliminate the possibility (very real) of a few dictatorship (extracts) on many (non-extracted).
However, the extraction method is not suitable for larger scale of a city policies.
First, because it would become very cumbersome it for certain types of public decision-making, such as the referendum, but most do not take away the problem we are facing: if 70% of Italians can not go beyond a simple discussion (level 2 OECD), how can evaluate and approve an economic measure even if randomly selected?
One problem (at the time) seems unsolvable so it's pretty hard to stop "those who have no idea of what happens around" to "subjugate his ignorance."
The mass democracy is a relatively new political form, full of contradictions and substantially fragile: it is much easier to get out of a democracy to come into authoritarianism do the opposite, as history teaches us.
A closer look, then, the election elitism drives us towards undemocratic forms.
This is because you can not impose taxes without giving to whom taxes pays the power to have a say.
So to accept the argument of Harsanyi but not abandon the principle of no taxation without representation, we should give up a big chunk of revenue for the already shabby state coffers.
Outside of legitimate beaten by bars and in the absence of viable alternatives, we rationally ready to give up school and hospitals for some rambling sentence?

From Wired