Written by Max:
- What is Flux?
Flux is a platform for the redistribution of political power: it moves us towards issue based politics. You can think of it like an app that runs in parliament. Normal apps let you do something with your phone you couldn’t do before; Flux lets us do things in parliament we couldn’t do before. Particularly it puts a direct impact on policy within an arm’s reach of all Australians, even if that will be small at first.
- How is it different to other parties?
Other parties come from a top-down, authoritarian point of view: “We think this, these are our policies, this is how government should work, this is who should rule.” Even parties which are pro-democracy can’t help but provide an authoritarian answer to “Who should rule?” We come at it from a very different angle: we ask “How do we can consistently produce better and better policy?” Flux is our answer, and is centered around removing bad policy, instead of focusing on what is Right from the outset. Our answer means we don’t have policies of our own, but want to help Australians combine all their opinions and political efforts in a different way to get better results. Particularly, Flux helps produce higher quality policy, helps undo bad policy or amend it, gives every Australian a direct way to influence parliament, and increases accountability for decision makers - even if they aren’t part of Flux (like the Government). Without all of these mechanisms we can’t consistently improve policy.
- Why did you start Flux?
We both believe Flux has an incredible potential to help humanity. Not only is good democracy hard to implement (evidenced by many of the less stable democracies around the world), even the highly regarded democracies suffer from low approval ratings and constant dissatisfaction. We want to create a democracy that doesn’t suffer from the same diseases. Because of the potential for good Flux presents, it is a challenge we are unwilling to postpone.
- What is Flux's platform, (as it's very different to most parties platforms)?
Flux’s platform is to change how decisions are made, and, for each issue, to help put the comparatively best people in a position to solve it. There is no way to know who the best person is for a given issue, so we use a market system which allows voters to reorganise themselves. This allows communities, specialists, activists, and other voters to directly influence the policy we pass in parliament, and to stand in the way of unjust, badly formed, or arbitrary policy.
- What do you see as the most influential ideologies for Flux?
The biggest influence is David Deutsch and his breathtakingly profound book, The Beginning of Infinity. Other influences include Bernard Lietaer and his work on complementary currencies, Satoshi Nakamoto and his work on Bitcoin and Blockchains, and Karl Popper and his work in political philosophy. The guiding philosophies behind Flux are fallibilism and realism.
- What issues have Flux members so far identified as important?
We’ve had an incredibly diverse response from our members. Some are disenfranchised LNP voters (at least one of whom is interested in an NDIS), some are far left and express concerns about human rights and refugees, some are IT specialists and are dismayed at the quality of legislation around the internet and cryptography. We really have had an incredibly diverse set of people respond. There is one thing they all have in common though: the current system isn’t good enough.
- What are your backgrounds? (career backgrounds)
I’ve been working all my professional life in IT, starting in support and now working in software development and blockchain consulting.
- So called microparties are a big thing in Australian politics and since the 2013 federal election especially, have become very influential. Why do you think that these smaller parties are becoming more popular in Australian politics
I think minor parties, since the early 90s, have always been viewed in the negative light they’re portrayed in now: Keating famously referred to them as ‘unrepresentative swill’. The difference now, I suspect, is our system is struggling to produce good policy, either because we have more criticism of policy, or because the agendas that are being pushed are themselves not resistant to criticism. This results in the lashing out at minor parties we see. Despite this, minor parties play a very important role in preventing tyranny (in the same way that a proportion of randomly elected parliamentarians would play an important role).
Australians can sense the lack of good governance, and minor parties are becoming increasingly popular (among some voters) because none of the major parties (LNP, ALP, Greens) are able to represent those voters. When you think about it, a system of democracy that isn’t able to deal with a diverse votership can’t be that good at the end of the day.
The problem of their unrepresentative power is, of course, the same as the ‘third largest party problem’ in the UK, whereby the decision lies with whomever finds themselves on the margin. This isn’t in and of itself a bad thing, though is often abused.
- Australian politics has been quite turbulent over the past 6-7 years. Do you think that is a problem and if so what does Flux want to do to remedy it.
Yes, it is a problem, though it is a symptom of something larger. Volatility in itself isn’t a problem in the same way as, say, CFCs and the ozone layer were a problem. Rather it is a problem in the same way that UV rays are: it’s harmful but simply making it go away isn’t how we can solve the problem. The problem of bad governance has never been solved before, and thus we need a solution that hasn’t been tried before: Flux is that solution.
- Flux advertises itself as new kind of democracy. What in particular is new and why?
The main difference is not engaging with the ‘who should rule?’ question. Particularly there is an emphasis on a lack of permission: anyone is able to contribute, and provided their policy is uncontested it should pass with relative ease. (This is not exactly how it will go when Flux has less than a critical mass of parliament, since all other parliamentarians will vote on proposed legislation too.)
A secondary difference, that is also philosophically significant, is the jump to universality: Flux is able to host a democracy of any size, with any makeup of voters, across any distance without losing the ability to produce good policy. In other words: it scales really well. (NB: there are a few technical issues that arise currently simply due to the constraints of technology, so there are practical limits at the moment, however, I suspect within 5 or 10 years the state of technology will mean Flux can support all 7-8 billion people on Earth.)
- Flux allows members of other political parties to join, which is very different! Why is that - and what do other political parties think about that?
We haven’t really talked to any other parties about our multi-party policy, but really it comes down to the AEC rules for registration. As long as someone hasn’t helped another party register recently we’re happy to have their support.
I don’t really see it as anything different to, say, dual citizenship.
- Flux seems to be marketed mainly at youth. How do you think young people and students see politics these days?
We’re trying to market across the board as much as possible, though the site does certainly have a younger feel to it. Most of our members are Gen X or older (we have more than a few retirees in our ranks), so if anything this (slightly) confirms the myth that millennials and students are largely apathetic and disenfranchised. This also lines up with my personal experience. We hope that Flux can offer them an outlet to help reinvigorate real political interaction instead of sideline activism (which was, at least, my experience at uni).
That said, there’s also a lot of emotion in student political groups, as if political motivations are really unevenly distributed. This leads to a dichotomy which either promotes apathy or almost extremism to the point of violence, neither of which are healthy in the long run. I really hope that means both groups are just looking for a way to express themselves, and so far haven’t found it.
- What do you ultimately hope to achieve?
Our ultimate purpose is to bring real democratic potential to every hand. Because Flux can deal with a democracy of any size without straining -- unlike Direct Democracy, Representative Democracy, or Liquid Democracy -- we hope to provide the beginning of a framework to unify every person in one productive, accessible, and just system of governance (without coercion).
- Is there anything either of you want to add or elaborate on?
If anyone is looking for more details our website is voteflux.org, and my personal email is max.kaye@voteflux.org. Anyone with questions can email me directly, or chat with us on twitter (@voteflux) or facebook. I’d also like to recommend everyone read The Beginning of Infinity; it truly is the most significant book I’ve ever read.