Fractal democracy (FD) would be a game-changing improvement over existing electoral systems, which have largely been captured by monied interests. A fractal democracy is a multi-level representative democratic system composed of nested sets of electors and representatives, with each group of electors composed of only a few people, e.g. five people per group. An FD hierarchy is composed of elected representatives of groups of elected representatives of groups of elected representatives, and so on. In optimal FD hierarchies, each group is the same size and each is very small, so that its members can get to know each other well. Five is a good choice of number of members of each consultative group. With five-person FD groups each choosing a representative from within their group and sending that representative up to the next level in the FD hierarchy, electors would consistently be represented by people they personally know well and meet with regularly, e.g. for one afternoon each month. This vastly improves accountability — especially when contrasted with elections every two to four years involving millions of voters in an electoral district choosing a “representative” they’ve never met in person, after being subjected to relentless barrages of propaganda that grossly distort their view of the candidates. Here’s an extraordinary fact: It would take only eleven levels of a five-person-per-level FD hierarchy to represent the entire adult population of the United States! While it’s implausible that the existing electoral system could be displaced by an FD system, since that would require a major overhaul of the US Constitution, there is no reason why an FD system couldn’t be used as a “primary” voting system to select strong candidates to stand for election in the existing electoral system. Such an FD hierarchy could also serve as a hierarchy of consultative policy formulation teams, thereby generating enormous momentum in favour of specific policy reforms advanced level by level from the bottom up. Moreover, the usefulness of FD representative hierarchies isn’t limited to government: FD systems can also be used for highly accountable, transparent, due-process-rooted self-governance of civil-society organizations or corporations.

Fractal Democracy is the Real Deal
Fractal Democracy is the Real Deal