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July 16, 2015|Accelerating Democracy, Decentralization, Empiricism, Obamacare, Prediction Markets

Creating a More Decentralized and Market Driven Democracy

by John O. McGinnis|

Princeton University Press had just published a new paperback edition of my book, Accelerating Democracy: Transforming Governance Through Technology.  It argues for using the tools given by our new computational technology to help democracy adapt to our accelerating rate of social change.

The basic insight of the book should be congenial to friends of the classical liberal tradition in political thought. It is to deploy decentralized mechanisms that modern technology makes possible to improve self-government. For instance, the internet greatly facilitates betting pools, called information or prediction markets, which permit people to bet on the occurrence of future events. Such markets already gauge election results more accurately than polls. If legalized and modestly subsidized, they could also foretell many policy results better than politicians or experts alone. We could then better predict the consequences of changes in educational policy on educational outcomes or a stimulus program on economic growth. In short, such markets would provide a visible hand to help guide policy results. Unfortunately, while such markets are a public good, our government now impedes them at every turn.

The internet today also encourages dispersed media like blogs to intensify confrontations about contending policy claims.

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August 16, 2013|10th Amendment, Accelerating Democracy, Angela Merkel, Islam and the West, Obamacare, War of 1812

Friday Roundup, August 16th

by Richard M. Reinsch II|

Can we Accelerate Democracy with new information technologies and more transparent rule following and accountability? John McGinnis thinks we can and he stopped by Liberty Law Talk to discuss these ideas. Did the War of 1812 reveal the failure of Jeffersonian ideology? Stephen Knott argues that it did in our feature review essay of a new anthology on the War of 1812. Can you incorporate the Tenth Amendment? After Printz, what would be the point? So, has Angela Merkel been reading her Pierre Manent? Islam and the West: An Interview with Robert Reilly Something new on healthcare from the National Research Initiative at AEI: "[E]stablishing…

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August 11, 2013|Accelerating Democracy

Accelerating Democracy

by John O. McGinnis|

This next Liberty Law Talk is with John McGinnis, the George C. Dix Professor of Constitutional Law at Northwestern University, on his book Accelerating Democracy: Transforming Governance through Technology. McGinnis aims for an updated government that will use technology enabling it to fit with the progression of change in the twenty-first century. This involves improving the government's capability to better utilize accumulated information to make sounder public policy. Part of this, McGinnis argues, is in using prediction markets and ensuring that information flows more transparently to citizens. Also, government must not stand in the way of new developments like Artificial…

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April 12, 2013|Accelerating Democracy, Chai Feldblum, Free Speech, Immigration policy, Joel Kotkin, Margaret Thatcher, Religious Liberty

Friday Roundup, April 12th

by Richard M. Reinsch II|

  • The current Liberty Law Talk is with Vincent Cannato, author of American Passage: The History of Ellis Island, on the Constitution and immigration policy. Would that the majority in Arizona v. United States had read their history on this subject.
  • The Books section this week features Bradley Smith’s review of John McGinnis’ Accelerating Democracy: Transforming Governance Through Technology.
  • Betting on the effects of homeschooling, Art Carden puts his money down at Econ Lib.
  • So the future is predictable, boring even. A respected Seattle florist refuses to create a wedding floral arrangement for a same-sex ceremony, and, of course,  she’s being sued by the Washington Attorney General’s office for allegedly violating that state’s Consumer Protection Act.

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April 7, 2013|Accelerating Democracy, Administrative State, Campaign Finance, Friedrich Hayek, Prediction Markets, Progressivism

Achieving Democracy with Technological Change

by Bradley A. Smith|

Accelerating Democracy: Transforming Governance Through Technology (John O. McGinnis)

John McGinnis certainly doesn’t underestimate the importance of his task in Accelerating Democracy: Transforming Governance Through Technology. By page 4, he makes clear that “mass disorientation” caused by rapid technological change “can become the source of both national aggression and non-state terrorism… the dynamic of modern technology could as easily lead to a nightfall of civilization as to the dawn of a far better world.” With that bold statement of the stakes, McGinnis, the George C. Dix Professor of Constitutional Law at Northwestern University, takes on the very Madisonian task of considering the design of a government for the twenty-first century…

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Book Reviews

A Mirror of the 20th-Century Congress

by Joseph Postell

Wright undermined the very basis of his local popularity—the decentralized nature of the House—by supporting reforms that gave power to the party leaders.

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The Graces of Flannery O'Connor

by Henry T. Edmondson III

O'Connor's correspondence is a goldmine of piercing insight and startling reflections on everything from literature to philosophy to raising peacocks.

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Liberty Classics

Rereading Politica in the Post-Liberal Moment

by Glenn A. Moots

Althusius offers a rich constitutionalism that empowers persons to thrive alongside one another in deliberate communities.

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James Fenimore Cooper and the American Experiment

by Melissa Matthes

In The American Democrat, James Fenimore Cooper defended democracy against both mob rule and majority tyranny.

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Podcasts

Stuck With Decadence

A discussion with Ross Douthat

Ross Douthat discusses with Richard Reinsch his new book The Decadent Society.

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Can the Postmodern Natural Law Remedy Our Failing Humanism?

A discussion with Graham McAleer

Graham McAleer discusses how postmodern natural law can help us think more coherently about human beings and our actions.

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Did the Civil Rights Constitution Distort American Politics?

A discussion with Christopher Caldwell

Christopher Caldwell discusses his new book, The Age of Entitlement.

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America, Land of Deformed Institutions

A discussion with Yuval Levin

Yuval Levin pinpoints that American alienation and anger emerges from our weak political, social, and religious institutions.

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About

Law & Liberty’s focus is on the classical liberal tradition of law and political thought and how it shapes a society of free and responsible persons. This site brings together serious debate, commentary, essays, book reviews, interviews, and educational material in a commitment to the first principles of law in a free society. Law & Liberty considers a range of foundational and contemporary legal issues, legal philosophy, and pedagogy.

The opinions expressed on Law & Liberty are solely those of the contributors to the site and do not reflect the opinions of Liberty Fund.
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