ROBERT MCNEIL

‘Crowdocracy’ leads the way in showing benefit of concensus

ICELAND’S spectacular banking crisis of 2008-11 focused minds in the volcanic island, and that was no bad thing. One thing of particular interest, in the land that invented the Thing or parliament, was the way they drew up a new constitution, which started with a random assembly of 1,000 citizens who came together in a sports complex for a day and were asked, in the words of activist and human rights lawyer Katrin Oddsdottir: “What sort of a society do we want to live in in the future and what values should a future constitution have?”

According to Ms Oddsdottir, they came up with a “beautiful outline” that a specialist committee took as the will of the meeting. Twenty-five people were then elected to a constitutional council which, every week, put its deliberations online and invited everyone to participate with feedback.

Thus came about “the world’s first crowdsourced constitution”, which Ms Oddsdottir describes as a miracle for such an argumentative nation.

The constitution was put to a referendum in 2012 and backed by two-thirds of voters on a relatively low, by Icelandic standards, turnout of just under 50 per cent.

Despite being written “for the people by the people”, it has still not been ratified by the Icelandic parliament.

According to my research, however, parliaments are full of politicians, and the point is that they could become obsolete if this “wisdom of the crowd” approach catches on.

Ms Oddsdottir herself says: “I thought, before participating in all of this, that the wisdom of the crowd was maybe overpraised. But, after this experiment, I totally believe the way forward is seriously to outsource many big decisions … to the people.” She said the wisdom of the crowd was “immense” and added that, when you give people trust, they repay it by being respectful and responsible.

Readers’ minds may have wandered to the recent EU referendum here, which engendered a frighteningly intolerant liberal backlash whose subtext was that the people were too stupid to be entrusted with such decisions.

It might even be claimed that crowdocracy only works in small communities of highly educated people such as Icelanders. However, as a highly educated Icelander, Ms

‘‘ Parliaments are full of politicians, and the point is that they could become obsolete if this ‘wisdom of the crowd’ approach catches on

Oddsdottir has averred that Scotland could thrive outside the UK and the EU, and should consider alternative alliances with Nordic countries.

Quoted in The Guardian after a lecture in Ireland last weekend, she said she’d have voted against Iceland joining the “bullying” EU, adding: “Scotland could be very progressive and say we will follow the path of Iceland and Norway, which are countries that trade with the EU but are not part of the Brussels camp.

“I think an independent Scotland should look further north towards Reykjavik and Oslo rather than Brussels.”

That’s exactly what I think, but have been too frightened to say. But let’s change the subject quickly before I get one of those “how very dare you” protests at the window. Let’s get back to the principle of the mob deciding how things are done.

Ms Oddsdottir sees it as fundamental to the future of the human race: “If we want to survive on this planet, we obviously have to change the society that we have structured. There is no future in the way things are done now. We can, of course, as a herd, change the whole thing.”

Well, there’s a lot of eggs on that pudding, and I must say my hoof paws the ground at the thought of being thought part of a herd. Maybe she meant “whole”, or I misherd, as it were, but at any rate I still think she’s on to something. Here’s what she said at Princeton University: “[We’re] always told we can just take decisions as individuals, and we have to think about ourselves as individuals. But actually when we make decisions as a group they’re much better, for us as a group but also as individuals.”

One is reminded of Monty Python’s Life of Brian where the group shouts: “We’re all individuals”, and one lone voice replies: “I’m not!” I’m not, however, dismissing this crowdocratic idea.

As things stand, we conduct our political reasoning privately, often festering with hatreds and “othering” people of different beliefs.

Perhaps, if we came together to make decisions, they’d be grounded more on common sense and less on ideology and market-pleasing. Then again, despite Icelanders’ propensity for argument, they also have a Scandinavian talent for eventual consensus.

That’s never really been the British way. But maybe we Scots could learn it.