Ep 11: Democratize political parties! | Parth Shah on populism, democracy, and the design of political parties

Parth Shah is the founder of the Centre for Civil Society and the Indian School of Public Policy. His career spans both academia and policy advocacy including teaching stints at GNU and the University of Michigan. When I was first introduced to Parth, he was contending with the modern unraveling of globalised liberal democracies and felt strongly that one of the reasons for this was how political parties were designed. He felt if political parties are a central lever to democratic life, should they not also be internally democratic? As usual, I try to push back on his intuition and I hope you enjoy listening. Hi Parth, welcome to the podcast. Thank you for having me Deepak. For listeners, who is Parth and proudly how have you come to this belief about political parties? I should say that my first real job was as a professor in the US and I have always remained a professor since then. I worked in think tanks, think tank earlier and now I am running in the school of public policy as a dean. My engagement has been with largely with ideas and we believe in the power of ideas basically. That is really what has been driving me all these years in terms of what I have been doing. I think part of that was what the recent phenomena of populism around the world left on the left and on the right. I have been hearing various theories around it. Why is it happening? There are, of course, what the theories are about that. Part of that sort of investigation, interrogation that I began to do in the last couple of years led me to this idea that somehow political parties are really at the center of how democracy is function. In my assessment, there are three different categories of theories for populism's rise. One is the economic theory. We say the globalization and the failure of globalization left many people out and therefore they are now risen up against the system and therefore this whole anti-globalization trend that you see in the world. The economic explanation for populism. Second is more identity based. There are racial or religious groups which are trying to assert their own majority, minority power and that has led to this kind of rise in populism. The third which largely I subscribe to in a way is the political theory or explanation for populism. Part of that is obviously the anti-elitism. Most populist groups around the world are very anti-elit, whatever the elites are or whoever they are in any given situation, any given country. That explains about the political part of it. Secondly, I think there's a lot of dissatisfaction with the working of the state. I see governments are trying to do good. They say they are trying to do good but what I actually observe in a day-to-day basis is exactly the opposite. My city gets flooded. The moment the first rain happens, the air pollution doesn't go away even after 10-20 years of efforts. I see that the state is failing in the basic functions that I expected to perform and that in my view is also a political explanation for populism that's failure of the largely the state will provide basic services. At least in India and in many other countries. We talk about the healthcare in the US, how big a disaster that is. Part of that is also in my view, the electoral system, the political system through which we elect our representatives who ultimately governed and make policies. That's how I came, understanding of the electoral systems. We have first passed the post system. There are primary systems. There's a border count and a rank choice. There's a lot of different systems which are being tried. Ranked choice has now become a lot more popular in many parts of the world. But you realize that the outcome of an election depends as much on the preferences of the voters as on the type of electoral system that you use. That begins to make you wonder that how much is the current state of democracy is a result of the electoral system that we have chosen. And the next step after that was that who is competing in the system at political parties. And that's how I came to the political parties as one of the key lever or fulcrum in how democracy is function. And I begin to think about what do we need to have in a political party for democracy to function well. And it's how we're broadly defined functioning well. And that became my area of focus in the last couple of years to think about understanding populism's rise and focusing on the political part of the dimension saying that that really is the crux of the problem. It's not so much economic. It's not as much as there's some value in the identity politics that is being played out. In my view is a more systemic problem. It is not something that happened recently. It's an ongoing problem that are finally surfaced in the way it has surfaced now. And that's my sort of focus on political parties as a key lever of democracies functionally. And it would help to add some additional context. So when we spoke, you of course mentioned this to me, but also that the possible remedy here is that political parties then have to behave more democratically. That is one of the challenges with how political parties are organized today is that they are not internally democratic despite operating in democracies themselves. So can you give me a little bit of context there? How do you want to do one is the identification that the political party as an institution is just a central important figure in the rise of populism. That's one claim. But then to go from there to say that what we want in an ideal world is for these parties to behave more democratically. How do you make that sort of inference? So I think one was very simple realization that if you want to have democracy working well, the people who are going to be running the democracy or democratic system of the government or governance should have some experience of behaving that way. When you see around the world, that's exactly what's not happening. So look at how Trump has come to power or being nominated as the presidential siege. And how many of the other leaders have been elected through the system. You realize that they have no experience in democracy, most political parties have become and even in Western countries, to some extent, a sort of family enterprises. There are fifthums run by families, generations and after generations in a way. So you realize that the whole structure of my life as a politician from beginning until I get to the seat of power in the government is really command and control. That's what I'm used to. That's what I may have suffered myself as I was rising up in the political party. And that's how I come on now that I'm in charge of the political party. And so how can you suddenly transform yourself from that experience and that mindset to suddenly become a democratic consultation with the public and larger sort of stakeholder groups and all of that that we expect a good policy process to work through. It's just not going to be possible. I wouldn't even think about those things. That's not my sort of everyday experience as a politician. Absolutely. The high modernism that you are subjected to within the party is what you will carry to the democracy when you are in a position of power. And that's exactly what your followers are expecting. They don't want to change something new. They have seen you in this way. They command their respect because this is how you are and that's how they want you to be. So you have come through that cycle all through your life and you are not going to change because otherwise you lose your followers also. Before I go a little bit down this rabbit hole, something you said at the outset was that explanations for populism and its recent rise are things like globalism, anti-illitism, the like defense of culture. So immigration ruins culture. So this is not a project we want to embark on. And the consensus that you bought into was simply poor governance that when you live in a city where your air is horrible or the streets flood, then as a populist you're broadly saying that clearly this is not working. This democratic enterprise we have embarked on is not working. And I'm wondering why you are somebody who has more classic liberal groups, which means that you broadly believe that the state should do less. Is one way of looking at this not just to say that the problem is not the political party or the parties or the electoral system, none of those things. The problem actually lies in how much the state does. That bit of the puzzle is actually fine. The thing to solve for is to reduce the number of things the state does so that capacity increases. So the things that we truly care about that should get done, do get done. I'm curious about how you ended up in some part assigning blame to this part of the structure, the design of the electoral system, the political party as opposed to or maybe it may not be opposed. You may say both things are important. But how did blame end up here and not so much on the what the state does side of the puzzle. Because I think what state does is not even of course God given. Right. Is a part of the social cultural process through which we decide what state is going to do or not do. Right. And therefore to change that is a very different kind of a ballgame to whom you change that kind of perception of what state should do or not do. Now of course many think tanks, including Center for Civil Society where I was one part of the project was precisely to educate people about proper role of the state. But my sense is that that is an ongoing battle that one were to fight. And that has been there from Malaynia in a way, right? The role of the state has been debated. And but if but that's not really what's causing the challenges now in a sense. So my sense is that the problem lies on the other side in how we are expecting democracy to work. So we are theory of democracy in one way, the ideal of democracy in our mind what it should be. And when you see what actually happens under the system is quite the opposite. And I think political scientists and others have not reconciled with the fact. So the idea of a Plato, for example, democracy of Plato, which is a philosopher king to the Rousseau's social contract and all of the theories that we talk about is very, very far removed from what actually the flashing of democracy looks like, feels like delivers for his citizens. And that's why I thought even though we made debate about the role of the state and of course there's a worthwhile debate to have, it would not even get solved. Unless we also work simultaneously on through the process through which we are trying to address the debate. So what is purely philosophical intellectual level argument that one can engage in as a think tank as a professor and a university. Second is how does that translate into day-to-day working of the state. And that's where in a sense we need both the larger case for proper role of government and at the same time how would government function. And how government functions is largely determined by the elected representatives. That's determined by the electoral system we have that we have chosen and not chosen. And of course what kind of political parties we have in the country and that all together decides who is going to run for the office, who is going to go elected to the office. And obviously what they're likely to do once they get into the office. And unless we focus on that part of it which is a day-to-day work of government which is done by the bureaucrats and the politicians. And that's really in my view is something that needs equal attention. And these are I'm focusing more on that is because I think the first part is already being addressed. That debate has been old debate and will continue to happen. This I think is a new in a sense is not as much talked about. So when I did some literature review I don't didn't find much that focuses on this part of working up political parties. Of course there's a literature on the electoral systems. But not only focusing on the way I'm focusing on the value of the electoral system and the choice that we are making and what it implies. Yeah, yeah. No, absolutely. Even when you first brought this to me in the context of this podcast I didn't find too much of it already written down in serious literature and had to go down a bunch of rabbit holes to really wrap my head around this as an idea. And the first question that presents itself which I would love your take on is what the heck is a political party. And I've asked this of other entrepreneurs where I ask the question what is the company. And it's a tricky one because everything about the company can change. You can change the board, the employees, the business itself, what you manufacture. Just the little name on a piece of paper somewhere persists as a record against some file that the state maintains. And under that sort of profit and loss header sits the company. And it's very hard to define what that company is. It may be harder still to define what a political party is. So do you have some sense of this? Is there like a short way to sort of describe what is a political party? What is that institution? When we describe that very similar to how you describe say ultimately a company, it's a voluntary association of people who believe in particular set of ideas, particular values of governance, who come together to present an alternative to larger public. And that could be a political party in a democracy, a political party even in a non-democratic system. So I think political party generally you can see as a voluntary organization of people who has certain set of values and ideas about how the larger society or a nation should be governed. So what values the nation should have? What are the processes through which we work towards achieving those values? Similarly a company for example is a voluntary association of people who are common interest to pursue a particular way of running a business or line of business. So I think broadly that would be a definition of a political party. It's very conception of an alternative. In the case of a company as those interests change, all those people change, the company mofs. So you can have work so I can start it as a different business but would you manufacture scars? And similarly political parties can also morph the Republican Party of the 1800s is not the Republican Party of 2005 clearly. Or actually the Republican Party of 2000 is not the Republican Party of the 25s. Even the last 25 years it seems so much in the US. That's a fair definition. But this seems like the intuitive answer. Usually in preparing for this I've been talking to other people also. And start quizzing them saying hey to you what is a political party? Just layman, common person, what is your intuitive sense of what a political party is. And usually they just say this is an aggregator of preference or an aggregator of ideology. So we think that this temple should stand versus they do not think this temple should stand. And this difference in ideology has produced two different political parties. But in practice just like you were saying that a political democracy in practice does not match the theory. I feel like in practice it does not match the theory. And the example for me because I live in Bangalore in Karnataka would be just horse trading in Karnataka elections. Famously anti incumbent state. And so you have horse trading consistently. And when an MLA jumps congress to BJP or BJP to congress nothing is happening in the brain chemistry. It's not like they're suddenly changing their minds about what they believe in. And so the impractice manifestation of a political party does not seem to be ideology aggregation as much as it seems to be vote maximization or power aggregation. Is it both have I missed the mark here? No, I think it's a great way to describe I think both diamonds and so on. This is a public choice theory which is part of economic theory in a sense which applies economic model to working of political systems. We sort of talk about that ultimately the purpose of a political party is to acquire power. If power is not your interest you shouldn't be in the business of running a political party you're being part of it. Now power doesn't mean that something is bad that you're trying to do. You need to be in power even if you want to do public good. Of course you want to make money for ourselves you still need to be in power. So power becomes an instrumental goal for a political party which is what you are pointing out that why the horse reading that happens and all of that is basically result of the ultimate goal they have which is to be in position of power. And if I can be powered by joining this party or that party or no party at all being independent I'm happy to do so as long as my purpose is served. So even though it may sound cynical in some ways fighting for power but in my view that's not really cynical at all it's just like a company fighting for profit. So yes I may have been Narayan Murthy as may other larger goals in his mind when he running enforces but one thing is very clear that to do anything he has to be profitable first and foremost. With whatever ultimate goal that he may be driving himself with or Mobiz Motivision is and therefore same is for a political party right ultimately the goal has to be to be in power. And therefore I think it explains a lot of behavior that you see in a day today political sort of systems right across the world. And I don't think it's wrong with that except for the fact that the rules of the game then have to define how do you then play that game of acquiring power right just like the rules of the game define how a company becomes profitable. Yeah. It remains profitable right and I think my sense is that those rules of the game are really the heart of the problem or is really where this sort of key challenge lies right. So for the last hundred and fifty years we began to sort of slowly figure out what rules of the game should apply to a company or a corporation right which serves their interest of maximizing profit right at the same time they are also serving a larger public interest right. So the Adam Smith's invisible hand so how do we reconcile the self interest of the board of directors or the CEO of a company or employees of a company broadly speaking right with a larger social interest and we found the answer in the invisible hand which says that as long as your private property rights and an open competition system right where there is no monopoly power granted by the state or any outside agency. You would create a system where the pursuit of self interest will ultimately to achieve mental public interest right and that's the whole idea of invisible hand. So my view is that invisible hand is missing in political system. So we have not yet figured out what system do we need to design right. Political system system do we need to design so that self interest of the politicians of the bureaucrats and of course of the voters. Call the air equally important in making democracy work or not work right. So how do we align the interests of those three main players with the larger social interest of good governance broadly defined right. And I think my sense is that what Smith was able to do more than two and fifty years ago in a sense right to figure out that when you have private property properly defined and forced your open competition you are creating a system where you cannot achieve your self interest unless you also fulfill at the same time larger public interest right and that in visible hand of politics is still something that we need to figure out. I understand. As you were speaking, especially in that first half, I was thinking about how frequently you have some stated ideology of a political party and then to retain power, which is like a very Machiavellian idea, right, that the goal of the state is to first be the state. Under no circumstance, can you lose power, is in power? If that were to happen, then you can no longer execute these ideological questions that you presumably want to bring into action. So you will have a political party who says something like, "We are anti-reservation." Or, we don't like to use taxpayer capital for public utilities beyond a certain point, strong positions. And then you will see that those positions will be strongly held in, let's say, the Carnatic election, but weekly held in the Bihar election. And clearly, these lines are transgressed, forgotten about, brushed under the carpet, in the name of holding onto power in that state. And then I'm still wondering, then what is this political party? Because you started with the ideology. You have brought in politicians, voters, broad consensus forming based on this ideological first principle. And then you selectively choose to disbar those principles. In those instances, where it helps you, continue to retain power. So not only is it, I'm going to engage in something like horse trading, but I bring in people who don't ideologically agree, but will vote in my favor as long as, so there's some amount of trading of power taking place. But also, we will need to brush some of these principles under the carpet, as in when required. So I mean, I don't think there's a clean answer, but it's a very nebulous thing, as is all politics. You're balancing this odd game of power on one side, ideology on the other. You still have to have a vote bank. So you can't entirely alienate them. And the vote bank is dis dispersed. Think of Trump in especially the 2015, 16 years, drawing both libertarians and classic conservatives. We disagree on so much, but both decide to vote for Trump. And so he has to appeal to two different vote bases and tread that narrow path. So I don't know if you have any comments on this, but to me, this seems like a hard one. The political party is not really a clear answer, what it is. That institution feels like one that by and large, we keep morphing here and there. Some tug of war between ideology and power to broadly be able to continue to enact as a group, some policy or the other. No, I think you're right. That is not that clear cut. And maybe you think about political parties, primary purpose being in power. Right. Then some of this thing, other thing will make sense. Ideology is simply an instrument that I'm using to get to power. Right. A vote bank is an instrument for me to get into power. So I think once you see that primary purpose is to be in power, right, without being even cynical, is a factual statement anyway. Right. Then I think many of the other thing may possibly would make sense that I'm not ideological in his own right. He respect you of what's going on around the world or what would bring me to power, right? Ideology actually is there to serve the purpose, which is to be in power. My vote bank is to serve that purpose. My policy positions are for that purpose, right? Which is why I can explain why people flip flop from time to time, right? Yes, to stay in power. Yeah, to stay in power. So I think one way to which is what I think public choice does very clearly and without any that they say politics without romance, right, that ultimately the purpose of politics is to be in power, right. So as you say Machiavellian way of thinking, which is actually a descriptive, accurate way of positive it. Now, as I said, it doesn't mean that you're going to do evil things, you could be also do good things by being in power. Right? Same thing we say about bureaucrats. What is their self-interest? We say that interest is to have a larger budget and larger turf to control the territory or the domain to control. It may sound cynical at one level, but of course it's also factually descriptive statement about what is it that sourds their purpose. The purpose may be to do public good or to acquire power or to make more money for themselves. But any of those purposes that you may have, one thing you do need is a large agency that you control, right, in a budget as well as in terms of turf. And if you control that, you can do more public good, say of the charge of Delhi with the Delhi Jalbot. Of course, the more money I have, hopefully more people I can serve and provide them 24 by seven water, right? But no. So it can work either way, but in a sense, the instrumental goal remains a larger budget and a larger domain to control. Similarly for politicians to be in power, to get elected or re-elected is the primary goal. And I think once you see it from that way, just like the way we describe consumers and businesses, right, we say consumers are trying to maximize their utility, right, however they define that. And businesses are trying to maximize their profits, right? So often that's seen as a negative connotation, hasn't, but it's not only doesn't have to be that way, right? It's a factual thing that no matter what you want to do, what ultimate motivation you may have, you have to be at the minimum profit table. Yeah, absolutely agree. Do you think that so you landed on the conclusion that we want political parties to be more democratic as one of the ways to solve for this? Why not landed the conclusion that we want to eliminate political parties? Is there a practical democracy that can be built that does not have this institution at all? Voters vote individuals into power. And ideally this is happening at fairly localized levels. And those individuals then as representatives go into parliament and then hopefully enact the will of the people. And here I want to I want to target the strings of your liberal heart, right? And say that group identities rarely define us well. So you and I may agree on foreign policy, but may disagree on farm laws. And in a world sans political parties, we have to form unions basis the subject, the idea at inquestion as opposed to having a whip and this being broad consensus building. So there is a YouTube there where you can have a non political party based democracy and have better results than one with political parties or democratic political parties. I think I don't really have an answer to that question which is a direct in that sense. But I think the point that you are using is very important point. They're almost the founding of every democratic system in the world, right? From Athenian democracy to Greek democracy or to the American one. So at all of these points in time, the founders who were there, right, have always asked this question, can we have a democratic system or governance system broadly defined? It does not require having political parties because most of them are quite skeptical, right? Of what the political parties would do, right? What kind of intermediary they would become, right? Between the people and the government or the governance system, right? So the large number of federally papers in the US, actually there's a whole discussion around can you design a system where you can function without a political political party, right? So I think that's really true. I don't think we have yet figured that out in terms of what, how that can be done. But that brings us to a thing other point which has been sort of playing in my mind from since I started this sort of inquiry myself. And one motivation for that also was the 75th anniversary of India's constitution. I was just sort of going through the history of it like many of us were at the point in time. And I came across by accident this website which had kept the documents of the other constitution that were offered by different groups of people in India, right? There's a one which was offered by the Communist Party of India, right? They had their own vision in a sense of what the free India should look like, right? Similarly, there's one offered by the followers of Ramonor or Luya, right? Very different way of thinking about the governance of free India, right? And of course, along with all of them, there's one offered by the followers of Gandhi, right? So Srimad Narayan, one of the Gandhiian economists puts together a document. Gandhi actually has a preface to the document saying that I, this idea that I've been discussed with me, I'm broadly in agreement with them though, of course, I cannot endorse everything which is in the document, right? So we can call it a Gandhiian sort of constitution in that sense. And the two thing, they sort of struck me the most and in our relative to what we are discussing. So one was, they also talked about politics without political parties. As you know, Gandhi was quite vehement and vocal about disbanding the Congress, right? Once we got the independence, right? Because Gandhi thought that couldn't be a political party. It was party to fight for freedom and that for once that goal was achieved, that should not continue as a political party. And one reason for that, one motivation for that also was he wanted to have more fragmentation, right? As opposed to having this memorial-ethic party, which is all India party to begin with, right? And therefore, he thought that by banning Congress, you will create that possibility of local parties sort of coming up or maybe no parties at all, right? That's really, so his idea of Graham Swaraj also sort of fits into that that if you had a govern only small localities, then maybe you don't really need political parties. There's nothing much to be done with the political parties that cannot do individually in that system, right? So that was one part of it they also discussed. The second one, which also relates to this one, which was in the Gandhi constitution, was that connect, do elections only at the one level. of governance, at the lowest level of governance, most local level. And so for example, you run the election for Grahpanchayat or city council whichever the local level is, right? People who get elected at that level, some of whom get elected from that body to represent at the district level, from district, some of those who are to the district level can get elected from that group of people to represent the state level and those who are the state level, some of whom get elected or selected for the national level, right? So the member of parliament in that structure is actually not representing a large parliamentary constituency as it does today, right? He's representing very small constituency locally, could be a small ward in a city or even a small Grahpanchayat, part of Grahpanchayat that he or she represents, right? So two things happen to be three things. One, there's a direct connection to the local citizens. I live in the same neighborhood even as an MP, as I would have lived as a Grahpanchayat member, right? So you are not coming from two different constituencies in that sense, you're all coming from the same constituency, right? So that builds huge connect with the grassroots in a sense. And of course that has a lot of advantages as we know, not just accountability but also getting to know what people really want, right? That has really become difficult in a current system that we have. So that was one big benefit of having that one single level of election and people are getting elected from that level onwards. Secondly and I think much more importantly for our discussion about political parties, the role parties play. So one of the important role for parties is to money. It takes huge sums of money as we know to run for for an office of any significance, right? It's very difficult for people to have individually have that kind of money, right? And therefore parties become the vehicle through which you would collect the funds, right? In one way or the other, which allows the parties then to fund the candidates that they want to run for the offices. Of course, candidate also put in their own money in the process. But that's really one reason why you need a political party organization to collect this money year after year after year, right? But if you have only local election, the Grahpanchayat or a common ward level, you do need that much money, right? Money demand for money just goes down so significantly, right? And therefore one less reason to have political party as intermediary in the process, right? And the third, which I think is probably in my view, we didn't they didn't talk about at the time, but now I think when you look at the skills, the aptitude, right? The persona that you need to get elected in the democracy today is quite different than the skills persona and aptitude and knowledge that you need to provide good governance, right? So you can see that Nehru can get elected and be a good governor, right? Of the system. But today it's very difficult to find that combination, right? It's usually divergence between the two because the skills required to get elected in today's system are so very different than Trump is a classic example of that, right? Then the skills required to be a good administrator, right? A good sort of manager of a governance system, right? And those skills are diverse getting more and more divergent. And one of the sort of benefits of having local elections is that you have people like Nehru and middle class citizens be able to compete in the political system, right? So those two things I think are very important to think about, right? Third thing that comes up and which is something that mentioned briefly in the Gandhian constitution and which I was very sort of surprised to see that there. I did not know until that point in time how important that point was. And that's what they talk about, random selection. So interestingly, even in India, in the Chola during Chola Empire, right? We know this because there are inscriptions on the temple walls in southern India Tamil Nadu particularly. You find the system they had for electing, selecting, say, Graham Pradhan. They also have somebody in charge of water bodies of the village, right? So they used to have these various positions of the village. And the way they chose people to fill those roles and responsibilities was not by campaigning, right? For those that position, they would say the minimum requirements that you must meet to qualify yourself to be considered for that position, whatever that may be, right? Graham Pradhan or person in charge of the water bodies of the village, right? And considering the fulfilled those positions, you basically put your name in a matka in a pot, right? And somebody will just draw a name, name randomly from that matka. And the name that comes out becomes the Graham Pradhan or the person in charge of the water bodies of the village, right? Again, turns out that this is not just an idea, practice in Indian history. It was how actually many of the senators in the Roman Empire got elected selected, right? So they actually, there's a whole machine that was created at the time. And you have no pictures of that available also on the website. Amazing. Something called Clare of T-Rone or T-Rone or something along those lines, where you can put a sort of coin with a name on it through one of these holes on the top, it just goes through randomly various, no zigzagging. And if it comes out on the right hand side, then you get elected, you're selected for the role. You come out on the other side, then you are denied. Completely random selections about who's going to become the senator, right? And when you begin to think about this, there's just so many advantages of this idea of random selection, right? And so there's a lot of now as I dig deeper into it, probably literature also on that. It's a very popular TED Talk given by some guy in Europe talking about random selection. The technical term is "Sotation." And it's a very powerful idea, right? It turns out that, what I find interesting in all of this discussion that we have about political parties and no political parties, right? Power of money, random selection. Is that most of these ideas I've been talked about at the birth of every democracy, right? And it's so interesting that people who were thinking about democratic governance realize that these are all the various tools and methods and techniques that we should be thinking of, right? And with some combination of that is a better way of governing ourselves than one single method as a universal method of governing, of choosing people who govern us. As you were telling me that story, I was thinking about, I'll try and find the book because it's not coming to mind. I'll try and link in the show notes and I'll share it with you as well. So it's just exploring, so the premise is that we have not explored the democracy is enough, right? Like by and large where we are in this democratic enterprise, especially liberal democracies, very early days, just a couple hundred years. And one proposition is that not everybody should be allowed to vote, right? And of course, this is automatic going to go into endless meaningful outrage because the whole point of the democratic enterprise is this universal franchise. And the way out of this, he proposes, it's like a little bit of a thought experiment, is every election cycle, you know, you pick, let's say a hundred people at random from across the country, right? It's an entirely random people that are simply picked and brought into a hotel room. And those hundred people are allowed a few days in the room, entirely blocked off from the rest of the world, like a jury in the US, to come up with a meaningful test, right? This is the test that the voter has to pass to be able to vote in that election cycle. The test can comprise of anything you want. You can say, what is the price of milk? You can say, you can ask, you know, how many articles are there in the constitution? Whatever this group of hundred people feel is a reasonable grounds for a test that allows us to do so, it isn't a vote is what. So now it's still democratic because ultimately the test that you have received is what everybody has received and is set by your peer, it is not set by the state or by some political enterprise, which means we distilled the total electric, electric base from it, let's say in India 1.6 billion people to maybe a hundred million people who are able to meaningfully pass the test and they then go ahead follow our existing democratic process and elect representatives. And the premise is that perhaps it leads to better results because this group of more enlightened citizens, enlightened by the definition of that test, which was set by their own peer group. So there's no universal test for this enlightenment, it changes every every cycle. So we don't do a better job at picking better representatives. And the base of the theory was something like, we may not be good at identifying, at knowing the answer to a problem. So what should we do with farm laws? You and I may not know the answer because we may just not have enough context about that problem. But we are very good at identifying competence that by and large, we can point it somewhere and say, this person is competent to resolve this problem. So if we're able to use that and just identify indicators of competence and that have competent people make it elected to the decisions we are better off. So I agree with you. I feel like this design problem is really interesting. And there are so many unique solutions. This is a terrible one. Just given how much work and effort it will take to execute. But as a thought experiment is still I thought like an interesting premise. On your point regarding money, yeah, that was something that I written down as definitely should be discussed as part of this, this podcast because we spoke about preference aggregation, we spoke of power aggregation. But capital seems to be one of the driving motivators behind the existence of political parties. And here I have two questions. The first is if you think about this gram level method of having having super localized representatives. Right? The hypothesis is that then you not only need too much capital because it's just a small space, it's not money on campaigning, etc. But you could also conclude that the richest person then wins. That is the most wealthy person in that little world is the one who's most likely to win because they have the highest amount of money to be able to execute a campaign that won't cost them too much, but they'll retain power. Detaining power in that local world means that is their whole universe, right? That little place is where they live, their family lives there, extended family, their business. And so it makes sense for them to hold political power as well. And we will need to spend quite a bit of money to hold political power there. And in that case, doesn't it not make sense for let's say you are in the adjacent world and both of us broadly agree on something. And you say, look, let's go to person C who's willing to finance us because he's she they agree with what we believe in. And let's set up an interim entity where we put this money and you get half and I get half, we spend it at actual base on what we have to print based on campaign. And then inevitably you end up in this world of, you know, so in that way like a political party as an aggregation tool for capital seems inevitable. If I want to embark in political enterprise and want to be successful, then I need to have as much money as the player who is the biggest player in my space, inevitably then I'm going to fundraise and then I'm going to have a political party. So that's point one, but let you respond. Like does this feel like an outcome that's obvious? - It's possible, right? So I think what you're describing is logically a possibility. My sense is that if you really follow what the Gandhian Constitution sort of talks about, right? As a very local level election, then you don't really need that much money to begin with. Of course, if you had more money, you can do more with it, right? I think more importantly, once you see that kind of structure of governance, right? Also, it becomes clear that there is not that much money to be made by being in position of power, right? So one reason why I think the demand for money keeps increasing every cycle after cycle. There's more and more money to be made, right? By being in that position of power, right? And therefore there's also an implicit oxygening going on, right? Who is going to get a chance to make that money? - Yeah. - Right? So we are all bidding for it by the amount of money we are spending each one individually to contest in the election, right? So it is in a sense basically a rent-seeking enterprise as a public choice defines it, right? And therefore I think there's a lot more pressure in raising money and fighting those elections. If you think of this point of view, that if much of the work, 80% of the work, 90% of the work was done by your grandpa Chayat, right? And your city council is very little done by the state or by the national parliament, right? Then even the possibility of making large sums of money, itself reduces because your control is over the gram and Chayat, right? Even you take everybody's money, how much money can you possibly make? So I think this takes become so low, right? Which is why the argument that all the people will be able to compete in this kind of system. You don't need that kind of resources, right? If you're a good person building, have good reputation in the neighborhood, of helping out people and all of that, you can rely on that kind of long term and good that you have done to run for the office and be elected, right? Which is impossible today even to think about, right? For the thing challenges most of the sort of social activist phase, that people are willing to die for them when as an activist, when they're activists, like Nabda Bacha, Andolan, Meda, Partka, right? People who stand in the water, even water goes about their head, right? They're willing to die for it. But they would not vote for her. So when she ran for the office, she got barely that many votes, right? So I think that link between good citizen, a public servant in a genuine way on your own right, and be able to become public representative, the link becomes a little tighter, or I can say possibly it becomes a little tighter in such a system, right? I mean, therefore the stakes are so low that you wouldn't need to make this kind of deals with the rich person to fund you so that you can run for the office and obviously rich person would demand his own pay, out at the end when you win the election, right? So all of that in a sense becomes so much smaller and also coming to our initial discussion about the role of the state, right? So Gandhi, obviously as you know, was an anarchist by heart, right? I mean, there are quotations after quotations in Gandhi's writings, right? Which defines states as the ultimate source of violence in society. So if you want to be non-violent society, the first thing you have to do according to him, - Eratic is the state. - Is control or you have to get the state, right? There's an organized form of violence, right? And therefore he was always very mindful of the fact that how can we reduce that power of the state and which is why the idea of Graham Swaraj, right? So people saw it as a model of a social sort of enterprise. I think it's equally in a political enterprise in Gandhi's mind, right? And from now, when you look back, that seems much more valuable as a political enterprise, right? If we had thought about those ideas at that point, when these ideas were presented. As you know, Gandhi obviously had a huge respect, I respected him in the Constitution assembly. But it turns out that none of these ideas were taken seriously in the assembly. I think there was some debate, I mean, I'll go through the assembly debates, some debate about it. There are a few people who kept talking about Graham Swaraj and all of that. And few of those things got into our direct principles of state policy part of the constitution, but not really the main structure or design, right? And Simon Narayan talks about, in the Gandhi and Constitution, that can we think of something which is completely new, or different from the Western model, right? So maybe Motivacan was being antivest in that sense. But I think it was a great way to think about our own history, right? And the history of other democracies, like in the Chora empire and all of that, we know a little bit about now. And for you, we don't know as much details of how those things worked. But it would have been so useful and important to debate those ideas out in the assembly at the time, then simply borrowing from 5, 10, 15 different constitutions and putting them together. - As you were talking, I just remembered, a deal, like somebody I know very closely, recently tried to get a driver's license and had to pay the bribes that are expected of an Indian citizen to get a driver's license. And when he was talking to the peon, said, you know, what's happening here? Why are we paying bribes to be able to get a license? And if you ask that, sir, it goes to the top, right? Like the guy right on top and it's an ROI question. So the chief minister and their team have spent so much money getting elected that now we have to make a return on that investment, which means from the person who gets upon to the RTO to every meaningful position of power that bureaucrats hold, they pay, you know, inward and then we collect from the citizens. So the whole thing is just money, right? Like we want to get an ROI on the investment to get into power. So on that money bit, you know, unfortunately, it seems like completely true. The second point I had at the time on the money question was use public funds. So countries like Germany don't allow you to raise money for a political party. So you can't go to another private person and borrow or take money from them. Instead, it is only public capital. So you'll be enlist as a political party. And I'm assuming there are some checks after which you get on the role. But once you do, then you are just given the same amount of capital and this is from public funds. And it's treated like a public utility, right? The idea is that a political party is a public utility. And so it makes sense to use taxpayer capital to finance these parties. There is a common sense premise that by and large, they need some amount of money to spend to campaign to get the message out. So you cannot operate on zero funds. But also we don't want to skew the playing field by some folks having significantly more capital than the other. Ideally, on the same amount of money, you should be able to have same amount of reach. And so the best idea of it. So the best politician means as opposed to the richest politician or the ones with the most money. How do you feel about this as an idea? Nothing, that's a very interesting argument. I have not gone too much in depth in assessing it. Though I know generally the liberals have been quite not so in favor of public funding of political campaigns or elections. So there's a apprehension around that. But I think given that apprehension that most liberals have, I think is worthwhile thinking through it. Because I think what technologies we had available in 1930s, '40s, '50s or '60s, are very different than what we have today. And therefore, in my view, some of these ideas have to be reassessed as technology changes, as social structures are changing. As the awareness generally in the society is different than what it was 50, 60 years ago. So I do agree that it's an important thing to think about. So if you are not able to reduce the constituency size and go really local, and thereby reduce the power of money in that way, you need some money. In that case, then you think about how much of that should come from private sources. Now how much of that should come from public sources. And that's, I think, a lot of countries have tried this. Germany, obviously, classic example of that. Though I suspect that one big hurdle in implementing that idea of public funding could be the state capacity to monitor and enforce that. So you can easily imagine in today's India. And most of those countries in our part of the world will be very difficult for any government to be able to enforce that. That you only take public money. And no private money will be utilized in running a campaign. And therefore, I see there's a challenge of state capacity there, even if the idea is generally acceptable of implementing the idea. And therefore, I think for a foreseeable future to be dependent on private funding. And in my view, if you sort of follow the argument of the Ghanjian constitution, that's how there are other solutions to the problem, which are even far more systemic and fundamental, right? Then just trying to figure out who funds the election cost. - Yeah, yes. I don't know this, this whole rabbit hole is very interesting to me. I never thought about it. And then when I went down, I'm realizing how many of my priors I have not questioned. On the question of funding, just as like an additional add-on. How do you feel about enforcing making funding public? That is, if you as a political party have raised money, you should be forced to disclose to the public who and how much you've raised, who from and how much you've raised. Do you think that's reasonable? And to push back, like if you do think that's reasonable, on the other side would simply be the liberal premise, right? I own my body, I own my private property. The wealth I have accumulated is a factor of my labor or inheritance and hence my private property. This concept of privacy applies to it, which means you are a private citizen, me a private citizen. Our transaction is not privy to the state. Now, if some of those funds were to be used for political purposes, that may so well be your prerogative and/or mine. None of the business of the state or the people. So that's the more libertarian, liberal way to push back and say, no, we shouldn't actually enforce making any of this public, how much money and who you've raised money from. But do we do all the time? Do you look at any public corporation? Yeah. Right? All the sources of revenue and of course, expenditures are all in public domain. So I don't think it's a really issue of libertarian rights to private property and privacy in that sense because where it should apply very directly is in the business world, right? And there, if you are a limited company or a public listed company, so many disclosers you are required to make, right? And the people who own shares in the public, it's also known what person shares who owns that, right? So there's a lot of, and that's how we actually do our end-general meetings where the votes are cast on specific resolutions, right? All of that. So go through that working of a private corporation, right? You see that is all about private money being transacted by private individuals, but most of the processes and outcomes are in public domain. Mm-hmm. I would think that, you know, if you, so for public listed companies, they've made this additional step. So you start off as a private listed company and then you say, I am looking to raise money on a stock market. And a term and condition of listing is that I will make public my revenue expenses, P&L, all of those statements. So there's still the element of consent that if you want to go public, these are terms and conditions, else don't go public. However, if I'm a fully privately held company, then I should be allowed to transact in the privacy, nobody has any business knowing my business. Now the exception case here may simply be filings because if you say that the state has to operate with taxes and the taxes are a result of income, which now then should become a question, should it be a person should be income? But let's say it is, as it is today, then you have to compulsively file. But there is no such equivalent on the political parties side, right? I can't make a meaningful argument for why the political party must be forced to make this public because there is no market, that additional, I mean, here the terms and conditions are, if you want to sell to the public and they want a bird's eye view before they make meaningful transactions, then we need you to otherwise, private company is perfectly fine. How can I be a private political party? You can be, but it won't be a political party in that sense, right? Yeah. It doesn't mean the definition. Yeah. Right. And so I think you can say is a political party similar to a private limited private company? Or a private company? Or is a public listed company, right? So one would, I mean, argument would be that is more similar to in a way or adjacent to the publicly listed corporation than a privately held company, right? And therefore similar rules would apply, right? Actually, I've been doing that exercise myself. So looking at how we regulate companies, particularly publicly listed companies, because I'm using that as a sort of parallel, right? And see the, I mean, you know, companies act. Yeah, it's like a, yeah, it's a Bible. It's a Bible, yeah. It's a huge, it's a tomb, right? So many rules and regulations and obviously court judgments on the top of that and you add them up, which is why, of course, all these lawyers and accountants make living out of it, right? And so I think compared to that, we have nothing for political parties, right? So the representatives of people's act, which is the only part which sort of, in a sense, regulates some part of the working of political parties, right? So as you pointed out, they are required to file their ordeal accounts every year to the election commission. But nothing happens if you don't. They just get a reminder from the election commission to be an account of the eye any year, right? Beyond that, nothing really is a penalty that election is about to impose, right? But imagine what would happen to a corporation if they did not submit their ordeal accounts, right? We now also hold the ordeal's accountable for the ordeal they do. Yeah. So because there are so many cases of that. Yeah. So I think if you look at the way we have, in a sense, one way to think about this, regulations also means of aligning self-interest with public interest. Now, of course, you can overdo regulation and many cases we do, right? But some parts of that is, I think, is part of well-functioning market economy, right? And of course, if you go back in the history, many libertarians and free market economy will point out that many of the rules that we currently have on the books are simply adopted after the fact by the government. So these are the rules that evolve, in a sense, spontaneously within the process of discovery and competition, right? So you have to compete with you as a corporation, then what can I offer to my investors that you are not offering? And slowly, some of these things that we currently do came about automatically, right? As a way of the competing between the companies. And therefore, what happened at the end was simply codification of that, which was already a market process in operation. One can argue that obviously by codifying we sort of stop the process from evolving further, possibly. So that's a downside of it. But in one way, this is what emerged, right? It's not somehow the very wise people of the government thought about all of these rules and regulations themselves. - At the outset. - At the outset and put them up in the books, right? It always has come about from the people and the market process itself, right? - Absolutely. - And same is to our farmer industry, for example, all the farmer copia of the world, or what the companies were doing on their own. And that got codified as a farmer copia and the purity of drugs and all of that, that sort of follows through it, right? So much of that is of course what we, in our own voluntary interactions and part of the process of discovery and competition that we figured government took that result of the process and say, okay, now we require everybody must follow this, right? And so in some ways, it's not so much anti-market, in many cases, of course. As I said, you rejudged the regulation in terms of the history as well as its impact. - Yeah, I think broadly this is how common law, so you have norms and the norms lead to some sort of common law outcomes. I hear the argument. And I mean, broadly what you're trying to say to still manage a position is that the regulatory maturity that we have seen on the company side, the company being an institution that is intersubjectively true, we've concocted as a way to transact, has not seemed to replicate on the political party side. Like that sort of regulatory maturity has still not been arrived at, let's say. - Yeah, I admit that I don't really know what it even means to say that a political party should be democratically governed. So I'm not very clear, right? Can what does it really, what does it actually mean? So I think that is a interesting question and there is not really much written on that, that the people may have talked about democratic governance of political parties, but in the long, in a sense, in details, what does it mean? So would we have the party members at like a shareholders, in a sense, no similar to that, and have rights and responsibilities of the party members, and who would then, in a sense, decide what the party does, so what's the role of party members then, and who becomes party member and how and all of that? - Yeah, I mean, Karika or Tazah, are their party members, are folks who hold office party members? In fact, there's exactly, I have actually one final question I want to ask, and then this that you've asked me is basically what I want to quiz you about. And if you don't have clear answers, then we can go back and forth a little bit, because I'm very curious about to think about this, and I think this is the second half of the podcast for sure, because in that problem statement, political parties must be internally democratic. We've spent some time on the political parties a bit, but the internally democratic bit is the one that we are yet to explore, but I'm just as curious. Maybe a final question before we head off on this short break, right? In your thinking around how the Gandhi in constitution or similar ideas advocate for hyper-local governance, and then that working its way up, right, so it's bottom up by design. One potential pitfall may simply be that it doesn't attract incredible talent, and to still man the argument for this, what I would say is something like, let's say you were to believe that a Donald Trump was a fantastic politician, right? You were the sort of conservative or Republican in the US today, who would vote for Trump no matter what, and think is a phenomenal outcome in that political environment. Donald Trump would never stand for election if all it meant was power in his local world, right? And I suspect many politicians today, who you and I may respect, maybe phenomenal politicians, would not even choose politics as a career, potentially. If what it meant is that the epitome of power for me is my local world, and then it's not even a game of popularity. It's not like I can go around, evangelizing my points of view and then be able to make Prime Minister or President or get a portfolio in a ministry At best I can get yeah, do you feel like this is a flaw in the design where then we just weed out great candidates potentially And what we left is fairly mediocre candidates because that degree of power is what suffices for them So interesting question I'm just thinking how how has that been discussed and debated in the past right So one one part of the argument that was made in the past was and what we discussed earlier about political parties right the whole discussion around Democracy without political parties one reason for not having political parties was precisely this That you will create career politicians people whose whole life would be in politics They would have done nothing else in the whole life right and people thought that was a bad thing Because somebody just doing politics is not a good idea And therefore the kind of money the political parties would generate and they're unable this kind of lifelong Sort of politicking right is not a good thing and there was one argument against political parties Reduce reduce more people becoming lifelong politicians right and there's a whole literature again in the federalist papers about career politicians But citizen politicians so the interesting contrast been drawn in the literature about people who serve in public life for some period of time But they have larger life outside that system right so that you are business person business person Whatever else you are doing in your economic life and you choose at some point in time that okay I want to serve as a gram Pradhan Or a guy in charge of water bodies of my town right whatever that may be I think that's very so people thought that was ideal politician for the community The person who takes time off from his regular life to devote some time to the public service right And therefore there's such a great deal about public service right is seen as such a great moral thing to do And it's true across societies not just in Western societies right and one reason for that is also that you are not curving career Public servant in that sense right right we are choosing to do this as part of your life among many things that you are doing and of course you can once you think along those lines You realize the advantages of citizen politician Right because you have done other things just like what we say about bureaucrats today right they have spent whole whole of their life adult life And a very different situation where they would have to stand in line to do anything Was done for them yeah given the position the occupy the moment they retire they're completely lost because now everything requires they do it themselves And therefore I think career politicians are in the same situation because when they get into power only thing they have done is politics Yeah, they have no idea what what it takes to run a business Even takes to run a nonprofit right not even a profit or corporation or any organization of value in that society And then political party I have to Like things to push back on here first it seems like the latest wave of populism Does favor the citizen politician Argentina, Canada, the US These seem to be the citizen politician and not the career politician who's come to the fore So perhaps my original question stands that even for the citizen politician to Shift track to politics if it means that my highest degree of power is going to be at the local level is simply not enticing enough So great citizens will never come into the fore probably and then second is One of the the meaningful Criticisms that citizen politicians get is that they don't get politics because when a Trump walks into the Oval Office Everything is going to likely be set on fire and break because this institutional knowledge of how this this large governance structure works Even if what you intend to do is append it you must have a meaningful understanding of why the fence is there before we pull it down And that is entirely absent So one I mean do we want to do we truly want to favor more citizen politicians perhaps at the world level because there there's not much to break But at at at The larger the number of things that you can potentially control More likely it is that we want somebody who is a career politician and then second if all the power I can get is you know at a world level Then why would great citizen politicians come into the fore I mean making sense like this this is in common My sense is that we are also assuming that the power would remain in the same structure or same hierarchy as we see today So if you are going to be a So if you are going to be a country called Gram Panchayah's century governance system then much of the power would be at the world level So 80% of work is getting done at the world level the Gram Panchayah level right there is very little that is getting done at the parliamentary level at the national level And therefore even though it may seem like a bigger title you're sitting in the national capital as opposed to your village capital right or district capital So I think but in terms of power you maybe have only two functions to perform we don't defense for the country right and foreign policy All is done by the state of the local governments right so power really is in the meaningful sense of the world right at the local level That's really how you structured the whole system right and therefore the guy who becomes the consular at the war or a Gram Panchayah Pradhan It's probably similar to the Prime Minister of India today in the current structure of hierarchy and power distribution right Super interesting okay as we wrap our brains around that we'll get into a quick break when we come back hopefully we talk about what it means for something to be democratic Hi Parth welcome back You believe in free markets and the question I have is why that does not apply to political parties so I want to phrase this is If I want to buy a certain type of good or service buy and large the free market delivers right It will identify that there is a need that I'm potentially a buyer and a sellable emerge who will meet that need If we go to just translate this political side if a need existed for a truly democratic political party and we can spend some time after this of course asking what does the word truly democratic mean but we also agree that by and large political party today are not democratic they're all central command top down control If that need existed then it would have emerged that is if as a populace we wanted or respected or cared about then this sort of political party is being democratic that would have happened And I feel like we do have a broadly free market for political parties that it's not hard for you to start a political party today so what's the gap here why do we not have democratic political parties in a potentially presumably free market for political parties Well you stumped me. It's a very good question to think about actually that you know if you generally have a free entry in exit which is what we do have in the political space. So what is I'm just trying to think about how we think about the market right the comparison that you are making so market for goods and services on one hand and the market for I don't know power I don't think we want to think about what political parties or right yeah I mean that was your original definition right there's Markovillian let's hold on to power mindset yeah. So how are those two markets different in terms of what the ultimate goals are and of course that defines what the processes are going to be like the process by that we mean the degree kind of competition that would happen and what are you competing on right. So I think through little bit of that that what's the difference between what a traditional market form does and compared to that what a traditional political party does can I offer a possible explanation yes. I think that democratic political parties are worse at meeting this end the end being the acquisition of power there are two potential reasons for this in my mind one that democracy means debate and that means a non unified front. So political party will seem to the public as a non unified front because internally there is debate on what they ought to do who they ought to elect who the face should be what the position should be even within a position there are shades of gray right versus a political party who's presenting a single unified front this is our position and we all agree this is not even a matter of debate or discussion. So we're unable to coalesce about base as well as a non democratic party and then second maybe democratic political parties bring to the front more radical members because to be able to win a democratic election even internally versus to be able to win a democratic election externally may not be the same set of criteria. But I read speaking very explicitly this right and it's a it's a quote so I'm quoting a link in the show notes as well. It says non democratic political parties may be better for democracy and the quote is a political party may be internally democratic or electorally successful but not both at the same time this is because active party members tend to be more radical than average voters empowering the rank and file can shift a party's ideology to an extreme that alienates middle of the road voters. And the mining the party's core function of winning elections to implement policy from this vantage internal democracy might hurt represented in the democracy paradoxically by producing choices that the majority of voters don't actually want end quote. So by and large, the idea is that the most radical members will win that democratic election, which makes the party radical, which means it alienates more voters who may be middle of the road. But an undemocratic party will present a middle of the road unified front, keeping quiet, the more radical voices within its organization. So there's two possible explanations. But you have back to going, do you feel like either of these makes sense? Let's take the second one about the radical elements getting elected or selected. The argument which is being made also for the primary system, right, for the presidential election in the US, right? In the US, right? In the first round of the primary, right, within the Democrats and Republicans on each side, the more extreme views and more extreme positions are being voted upon. That's really where the base is in a way, right? And therefore, you get a very extreme left wing view or like being person getting sort of nominated. That's why you have a Bernie, yeah, right? Bernie Sanders on one end and you get a Trump on the other, right? And therefore, but in the second round, right, in second round the election, they both have to somehow find a middle ground, come to the median voter, right? That's where the votes are for the larger public. And therefore, I think that argument makes an interesting, I'm just thinking through that, that does that have any salience to what we are discussing within the political party, right? So it's possible that in, I don't know how the, so that comes back to this question about what electoral mechanism are we using right within a political party, just like what we discussed about the democracy as a whole, whether we are using first pass the post or a rank choice system, right? So I think that will become interesting conversation even within a political party. That what system do we want to use to aggregate the preferences of the members so that we have an outcome which is looks more cohesive and moderate middle of the, aggregation of the preferences, right? And therefore, I think it's the same challenge we have for the electoral system for the country as a whole or for a democratic system with a national system as it is for political party. And that to be interesting conversation there. So I'm just thinking one way to think about that is okay, it would depend on the electoral system that they are using, right? Second, I'm just thinking out loud that what's about the private market that makes the competition positive in a way, right? It's a win-win proposition or double thank you moment, right? Well, that doesn't seem to be the case in the political market, the political party. So I'm just thinking through the differences between the two, what is that we are transacting, right? So in the public choice view, what is getting transacted in the political market, right? Is the vote. So ultimately my winning the election depends on how many votes I'm getting. So there's a buying and selling of votes as is buying and selling of goods and services in the private market, right? And the whole thing is structured around that, right? Which is why they're discussing around the power of money in all of the politics. The political election process could be viewed as a buying and selling of goods and services, right? But instead of using cash, I'm using my vote. Bind large, what you are saying is I'm good at delivering the goods or the services of defense infrastructure, whatever, all the things that we expect of our state. And in return, I would like your vote versus in return, I would like your cash. And I would also like your comments on the first point, which is that a democratic political party is a non unified front because they're internally debating. And the parallel would be the company, the private limited company is a unified front. There is a king effectively on top, right? A small group of shareholders, a CEO, a board of CXOs and those folks run the entire company. Even companies are not democratic. So maybe just as a flaw with the way institutions are arranged, better institutions are not democratic than democratic. I think the larger literature on terms of the working of various institutions in a society, right? So for example, the president or prime minister is elected person. While a Supreme Court judge is not elected person, right? A reserve bank of India or Federal Reserve Bank's chairperson is not elected person. So I think there's a huge literature on that then in what kind of arrangement or purpose of an arrangement, where you would want somebody getting elected democratically, meaning getting preferences while you want meritocracy, meritocracy, somehow define, right? Instead of other institutions like the Supreme Court or the chairman of chairperson of the Fed or reserve bank of India, right? And I think that's interesting conversation in terms of the political party, like that which one that which you are seeing that, okay, somebody who has a more direct control, command and control powers, when somebody gets elected through democratic process and who would then serve the purpose better, right? So is a political party similar to, I don't know, electoral, I mean democracy is a similar to running a Supreme Court, similar to running RBI. So it may be different way of thinking about the institutions and what kind of process of selecting, appointing, electing a person to the head of the system would know, yeah, in fact, the parallel here I'm thinking of is a king and a kingdom because, you know, we're talking, okay, let's say we go back to that first principle of a political party is ultimately a way to seize and hold on to power, right? Democracy is a verse at doing that than kings and kingdoms. So an oligarchic world would be a kingdom would be so much better at holding on to power because that is the end right. The end is having power and holding on to power. Then historically kings have been greater doing this. Democracy is not unified. We all, we said, we debate in every five years, we elect a new person who comes to the fold. It's so much more intricate and difficult, but we've, what we've agreed on, usually is that the end is not power. That's what we've agreed on. The end is actually freedom, individual liberty, better infrastructure. You know, all of we made a long list of things that are so much more important than absolute power, which is why we were agreed on sacrificing some of that. So if we don't have a king at the helm, but instead have these other other goals that we've accomplished. However, on the political party side, if the explicit goal is only power, then how could anything be better at accomplishing it than this sort of centralized command and control? We have to come up with a few additional goals that a political party must be able to meet the equivalent of what we do in our democracy. For then, as to be able to justify saying that, okay, then they should be democratic because it is better at accomplishing those goals. It's not only about power aggregation. I'm just going back to my economics background and see that has any relevance here. I think it's a very interesting person to discuss. I think it's really good to carry this forward even beyond our conversation here. So we say, what's the market? We define the market is that there are three piece of a market system. One is the property rights. So it's clear who owns what and therefore we know what the order in transaction looks like in that case. Second is the price system. The prices are free to fluctuate and reflect supply and demand of the very goods and services. And third is the profit and loss system. So the third one is of course important in terms of who wins the competition and who loses the competition. And it's very important that somebody, the profit loss system actually exercises his power in a sense to decide who wins and who loses. That's ultimately discipline on the system. And one way to think about that, the areas where markets don't do well are the areas where one of the three things or more is not really getting fulfilled. So air pollution market can't handle that because there are no property rights being defined. There's no way to enforce any property rights in the air. Very interesting. I've never thought about this way. So it's a clear example that how market would never be able to solve that problem. It's just not part of what market would be. Second, for example, many of these shoes related to pricing. So why prices of healthcare in the US is such and such versus other countries. So all of the prices that you think about, they're not free to move around. There are many obstacles being created either by minimum wage laws and control laws. Many such things that applies to many, many sectors. And you find that that's really one reason why the systems don't really work that well. The third is the profit and loss. An example that I use normally is the banking system. So the two big two fail idea, which has been the dominant idea in the sort of how we do the financial management says that, you know, if a bank is going to go under because they made sort of foolish choices, foolish investments, they would not be allowed to go under because it affects the whole financial system. And therefore, as we did in 2008, financial crisis and even before and after we build them out. So as a banker, I know that if I make risky investments, if they work out, all the profits are mine. If they happen to not work out, socialize, cost is all on the taxpayers. And therefore, you would never expect banking to do well, because it's outside the market discipline in a sense. So unless you have profit and loss discipline working on the firms, the firms will not behave the way we expect them to behave. So I think the three piece give you one way of thinking about where markets don't work well. Now I'm just trying to so now see okay, is there a way of thinking about political parties along this line that tells you why they don't work well. in the way we expect them to work well from free competition, right? Or maybe there's something completely different involved, which is what I know grapple with in the sense, what is it different about political parties that the free competition of the kind that we normally imagine is not creating or not at least furthering what democratic political parties versus more command and control political parties, right? There's a common common between the two why one is not winning that competition. Sometimes when we set up games, the restrictions we place on the game are very important to determining the potential outcomes within within that game itself. So if we think about let's say the Indian democracy, one of the rules that we have is that I cannot I cannot wield a sword or a gun and come and take your property away from you, right? Given that that is the rule of the game, we now have markets where you and I have to transact it as we voluntary, we have the rule. So we've set up a rule, it's like a chessboard, the bishop can only move diagonally and now we play within those rules. I'm I may even be willing to concede that if the rule that we set up is that political parties must be internally democratic. Once that rule is set up and all political parties are democratic, whatever that word means, then we'll start getting interesting results, right? It's a constraint that we place on the system because sans that constraint just like in let's say society, we will resort to immediate violence threat that will just be the immediate result. Nobody is going to sit and build the next great drug for cancer because there's no time to do that. Whereas this consistently worried about our safety or safety private property accumulation of wealth, those are things we're focused on and then we're able to relegate that to the state, give them one up on violence, then we get a peaceful society, free from incursion from foreign states or each other, then we're able to focus on quote unquote bigger things, more utility centric outcomes. And perhaps a paddle can be drawn here where on the political party side, they are in such an anarchic world, sans regulation that the only way to operate is this power grabbing mechanism. And if we go to alleviate them from the need to play the power game, then perhaps there are much more utility centric outcomes that can be accomplished. I'm trying a steel man of your idea, but maybe this is a way to go about it. Yeah, yeah, I think it makes sense. We talk about the wild west in the sense, where anything goes, then of course, we guy with a big gun wins in that case. So, in a sense, you are drawing the parallel here that currently in the political market is such that anything goes. And therefore, the guys with the bigger gun who have more command and control are going to win that fight. So you need to find some way of bringing the something similar to the three P's, which are in the private market, also working the political market, which also, I think, other way of thinking about the invisible hand of politics, just like we have one for economics. And so what would that imply? And maybe those constraints are the instruments, institutions through which we can align the self interest of political party with the larger social interest or better governance. Right. Yeah. Because like you mentioned, the regulatory oversight that seems to follow companies, individuals, etc, has not seemed to follow political parties. There's a scarce collection of like a couple dozen pages that govern how and why they should behave. And it's perhaps the lack of that. And so no restrictions on how much they can do that you want to try and find every crack and exploit it or the other person will as one does in markets. And so more regulation means better outcomes is one way to sort of steal man. Just adding quickly on that. So we, as you said, voluntary exchange and therefore double thank you moment. Right. I'm just thinking through the battle that the political parties are fighting for power is a zero sum battle. Unlike traditional capitalists. While in a market is a win-win proposition, we both can win. We both have a higher value than what we started with. Right. So the positive sum game at least potentially positive some game. Sometimes we may fail. While here is a completely zero sum game. But coalitions are probably non zero sum. That is if two political parties decide to align as a coalition. So in India today, given the political climate, there's so much value in like let's say the Congress allowing with other regional parties for state level elections. They may not agree on the fundamental policy, but ultimately because they want power and the BJP is so hard to overthrow, they may just and then it's non zero sum for those players. That is, you know, except for the BJP in this case, if they were to lose that election, the all parties within the alliance, it's non zero sum. But see, only one party can be one party meaning could be one. One coalition. One group can be in power. Other group cannot be by definition. So that's why I'm saying it's a zero sum game. Only one side can be and there is a one party or a coalition of parties or whatever that may be. But that side means that other side has to lose. I'm just thinking through is that nature zero sum nature of the political game that creates that problem. And if that is the case, then of course, there is no hope. You know, but when I think about change that nature of the game, when I think about your analogy on the private company side, right? So think about if I'm somebody who's manufacturing I wear. Okay. Now, I am in constant competition with the adjacent business who's also manufacturing I wear. And the non zero sum nature of that market is in relation to somebody who's not manufacturing I wear. So for example, the my suppliers who are giving me the glass, the plastic, the transporters, right? All the way to the base of the supply chain. The person who's handling my social media, whom you're doing marketing on my behalf, my distributors, for all of them and me, it is non zero sum. However, that ultimate purchase decision that you as a customer make to buy from my store of the adjacent store, that is still zero sum. So it there is a zero sum proposition in the in the traditional capitalist free market, which is two identical players selling an identical product, only one may win, given that a buyer will only buy one or two finite number of products. It is the non zero sum nature extends to those around me, my all of my partners, and all of that. What is the parallel on the, I mean, first, do you agree with this? What is the parallel on the political side? There is no extended network. It's not like the political party is relying on a supplier or a vendor, just like on the capitalist side, there are not secondary and tertiary political party players who seem to have non zero sum effects here. So then it, yeah, you're right. It has to be zero sum by definition. I think the example they were using for the market that when I buy from your I wear company as a customer, I think zero sum, the position applies to the transaction between two of us. From the customer in a show. So we are thinking that, okay, I also benefit by giving you the money and getting eye glasses from you. Of course, I exactly oppose it for you. But the translation is to political side, because the vote and the political party are in a non zero sum transaction. Yeah. So I'm just thinking that if that is the case that our relationship is between the producer and the consumer, then how does that apply to the political side, where the relation is between the political party and the voter. The voter is in a sense the consumer in that case, right? But that is not zero sum, right? Because if I make the right vote, I believe that the banning of beef is integral to where I live, it has to be banned. I cast my vote and then two years later, beef is banned, non zero sum. Like you have one, we have got power, I have got social outcome that I want. So then that may translate. Yeah, it's interesting. Yeah, yeah. And propositions you think about in terms of what's about the competition, the nature of competition and the nature of the product for which we are competing, how is that different in political market versus the private market? I'm thinking about strong men, you know, like, I don't know why, but if you told me that the puck, there is this political party where what they do is they internally have, you know, democratic discussion in debate and then they decide that feels so lackluster that I have to like cast my vote to this organization whose whose position is vague and left up to the internal debate and discussion because even on a spectrum, you could you could say that that eating meat on festivals and holidays is banned all the way to it is banned to even rear cattle for the purpose of yeah, even if you're exporting it. And I want that hard line position like I want somebody who's saying that, you know, this is my hard line position, then I've been in the summer long there, maybe politically they can't navigate that hard line outcome, but somewhere in the middle of the road is where they end up. So I vote for the strong man because the strong man is saying explicitly that this is my position and this is that. And I'm just wondering about the general appeal of strong man, it's not only in the recent populist rise, by and large throughout history, we've had a strong attraction towards people who have these strong positions, big personalities and, you know, so it's a coalesce around them as the symbol of what you want to believe in politically than an ebulous democratic group who are so unclear in their communication because they're being process oriented and debating that way to a conclusion. Well, let's let's I think the question that we ended the first previous round of discussion, right? What does it mean to be democratically governed for a political party? Right. So let's go deeper there. Yes, please. And maybe there is some link from that conversation to what we are discussing now in terms of the zero sum positive, some game. So what does it mean to be democratically governed? Right. So one point I was trying to make is that as a party member, what rights and response response response do you have? Right. So what are the rights that are crude to you as a party member? Now, if for example, the party manifests the promises I'm making as a political party came about through this messy conversations, discussion debate among the members and they came to conclusion that this is what is going to be party manifesto. Now that is the way that many first took him about versus the other command and control traditional political party where the top guy says these are the five things I want to put, you know this is what I'm promised to buy voters put that in the manifesto. What's the difference between the two? How is that being viewed by the potential voters who have to make choice between these two political parties? And then I'm going one step further that if the party once comes to power, right, who is responsible if at all to ensure that the manifesto has actually been followed, right? So if it was a command and control traditional political party, the boss decided these are five things which are on the manifesto comes to power and next day decides exactly the opposite to those five things he or she promised, right? Nothing really happens to that person or that political party they're in power anyway, yes, right? Until of course the next election cycle comes up and that's usually too far away for people to remember what I'm saying. If on the other hand, if the democratically run political party came to conclusion about the manifesto through a internal democratic process and if the members also had the power, I don't know how that would be organized, but also they had a power to then hold the party accountable for implementing what they promised in the manifesto, right? Because that came through all our conversations and debate and discussions and therefore we all equally believe that this is really what's good for us and of course good for society at large, right? And I want to make sure that my party that has come to power through this promise, I want to hold them to account that they implement the promise and not really change once they are in power. Then I think that will have a lot more credibility, right? So as the water outside, I see these two political parties, one looks like very clear cut, you know, big, big boss deciding exactly what the party is going to do. But I also know that tomorrow I can decide exactly the opposite, nothing to no control over that. I see the massive process of democracy here, right? Know that okay, whatever they come to conclusion with, even though how messy that may be, I have some confidence that once they get to power, these guys are going to hold their own, in a sense, representatives accountable to fulfill the promise. Then maybe I have more faith in voting for these guys. So, interesting, I can see this manifesting. So on the manifesto point, I, I don't know, the last chronological action cycle, I had a friend who lives in Chandigarh and I sent her a copy of the BJP manifesto and the Congress manifesto, all logos removed. Okay. And then said, please guess which is which, right? So which do you think was written by whom? And they were virtually identical in almost every way and no way to really distinguish one from the other. And let's a point about how like the publicly stated manifesto is just like a rubbish document that no one really reads says vague things that you know, approximately make you feel good, not really concrete presentations. But I feel like what you are advocating for is not that manifesto, but rather an internal manifesto, right? It's an internal agreement among party members as to concrete things that they will certainly have accomplished and sans that concrete promise, it's not possible to get elected. If you make a concrete promise and you will be accountable a few a few years later when that comes around. So that's possibly something that that I can see coming to power. In a traditional democracy, we have, we have citizens who would qualify as a citizen to a party, as in this universal franchise, I'm assuming one person one vote. Is it? So for example, let's say you are an elected member, okay? And you are currently part of the party. Do you are disproportionately higher vote than somebody who's not an elected member or somebody who just is a caricart. How do we split this? You know, I know you don't clear answer, but intuitively, who really is? I think your background in sort of startup ecosystem, right? Isn't that's what happens? So when I have a new idea, a new company, I want to build that our investors coming in. So in the first round, right? shareholders. It's the various ways of dividing up the future. But what will be the minute to capital? So here we exchange capital for equity on the political parties said what would you exchange for a vote? So two things possibly, right? One, of course, how much power I have through my vote to get my ideas into the manifesto. So my, I say, preferential, right? So I'm elected representative. So my vote has a three time that's much power than the right or even a member of the party. Right? So therefore my vote will count three times more because I have different positions acquired within the party or president would have 10 times more vote. I don't know, right? So one can think of some way of giving them little more power in the final say what party stands for. Right? So that's certainly one very important sort of contribution that one would make as a party member as opposed to ordinary member versus the elected member or elected office batter. Right. Yeah. Yeah. This I can actually see as a as a true possible outcome. I like this idea of having an internal manifesto because that's the way ideally party members feel most slighted when stated party goals are not met. As a public, we may sort of like let them go. But internally, they're quite irate because their entire life is, you know, being a part of this party. And I'm also thinking about what it means to be part of an opposition in this sort of a world, right? So if you're a political party who is playing the role of an opposition because you've not gone into votes to be in power. And I'm not thinking about this ground level, you Graham sort of set up but more the way the Indian democracy presents today, then could it not just be that that the opposition says my manifesto has promises only implementable based on the acquisition of power. Right. And so I'm clearly going to miss my mark every time we come back to vote, I would not have been able to accomplish it because I simply don't have anything to do. I don't have a way to write these bills, pass through parliament. None of this is possible. So what do you think happens with an opposition? Like a political party plays role of opposition. What is the democracy making this decision on now? Is it the reacquisition of power or is it playing the role of a meaningful opposition? Because we want that. Ideally, we want the opposition to play the role of a meaningful opposition, not just as putting a spoke, putting a stick in the wheel of democracy. I'm just thinking through that maybe we could take a concrete example of a policy and see how that would play out. The farm laws are a good example. So clearly something that the Congress had advocated for internally for many years, then the BJ brought to the front and the result was simply we will hold strikes and we will prevent the passing of the bills and no real consistency about the fact that in the past, I'd advocate for the same thing. And we've seen this on both sides. Right. Like both political parties will happily forget about what they had said just a few years ago if it means that power acquisition is the goal. So maybe that's an example of where the opposition to play the more nuanced role of saying these are things we actually agree with you on in terms of reform. And these are things we disagree with you on. And a more nuanced opposition is one that we want in a democracy like ours as opposed to just a blanket note everything that the ruling party does. So I think many of the people in the Congress did support, no? Individually. And I think there are a lot of people who wrote also in public spaces about why those reforms are required. Of course, party as a whole did not really stood by those ideas. So my sense is that in that case, there was no pressure from the members. So the leadership is pretty much without consequence in some sense of taking exactly opposite position than what they have taken only. If you had a more democratic governance of the party, then maybe those leaders would have no confidence vote themselves when we recalled from the position of power that they had. If the members generally were in favor of making those farm laws, I mean passing those farm laws while leadership was taking opportunistic position to oppose them, just for the sake of opposing them even though they know that most members of my party actually have voted for the same ideas a few years ago. So I think maybe that explains also the democratic governance could bring some of the more direct accountability of the leadership vis-à-vis the party members. And that could be one way to think about how this would have played out. I'm just thinking another example, for example, one party stands for say free market in alcohol, while other party has advocated a particular position of prohibition, like what happened in Bihar. Now say the prohibition party has won the election, they come to power. Of course, they're going to pass a law to fulfill their campaign promise in a sense. So what's the role of the opposition in that case, which in this case, of course, actually opposite to what the other party has said, right? So you can think of ways in which the opposition can dilute or find ways of compromising the strict limit that the rooting party may want to put on the consensual or use of alcohol, right? And there are many ways you can sort of make it a little looser than what it could be. And I think that's where the battle would then finally be played out, right? You can have find ways of diluting the absolute power that this guy's absolute restriction of prohibition they want to put in place, right? So can I make exceptions for, they say there's a Durga Mata temple and they are being Mata Ji always always served with alcohol as a prophet. Yeah. And so it's a case for, I mean my example is effectively a case for him or Democratic political party, not less. And how do you think about representation? One part of Indian democracy has been, you know, we want to have adequate representation across the board. That's been something that we've put into our constitution and representation of form of caste, but you could also be gender, to be, you know, I don't know, age, any of the other distinctions that typically focus on the left draw. Do you think that they should carry through to a political party? Or again, in this, I mean, the board I'm painting now is one way broadly we are setting up regulation that coerces political parties into more democratic structures such that better utility outcomes are a result of that democracy. That is the anarchy reduces and they spend more time on good governance, good results as opposed to internal, you know, power struggles. In that world, do we also want to, in that regulation, have boundaries around representation. And so, for example, recently we've had women representation in parliament be like a central point, but caste, of course, being one that the countries historically had. Do you have any thoughts on the representative side? I think when you use a word regulation, obviously that's a red heading for a liberal person, right? We are generally skeptical of regulation. To our personal. I'm, of course, at the same time, we also as we discussed in established that there is some boundaries required around the working of the political parties. And that's an interesting question to ask is how, what kind of boundaries and what are the boundaries required? How strict the boundaries need to be for the political parties to function in the way we are discussing in a more democratic manner, right? I mean, maybe just to not make, because I don't know if we can arrive at a meaningful answer to should it be first pass the post, should it be rank order? We may not be able to arrive at an objective answer here, but I'm thinking more like, let's say the election commission had the broad responsibility of signing off once a year that the political party has met the adequate definition of democracy internally. They may internally figure out multiple ways to do this, but from a layman standpoint, right, we should be able to broadly agree that this political party has met the definition internally of being democratic. Would that suffice as like a way for this conversation to do? Yeah, I think that's the easy way to figure out how that can be implemented. So election commission has the same power over democratic, what political party is at it does over the larger election that happens, right? Which I think, which makes sense that they would be the one responsible to enforce and monitor whether the elections were free and fair within the political party itself. Yeah. So that's a very minimal regulation in a sense. And that may be just good enough to get us on the path that we want to go. And I think I'm just thinking through in terms of money, that power that we talked about earlier, right? If somehow it was possible that only money the political party can have is given by the members. Right. And therefore, obviously there are lots of accountability mechanisms that will come in place because members would have to declare that a member of the political party, right? And give the money, which parties would have to declare where the money came from. So it may also reduce to some extent. I'm just thinking out loud that no, currently businesses give money to multiple political parties, because they don't know in many cases who's going to come to power and they want to, of course, make sure that no, they're not putting all eggs in one basket, right? And if you requirement was that you only can give money to the party of which you are a member, right? So then automatically that also aligns some of the ideological preferences, right? You know, what this feels very nightmare-ish to me. Like one thing I can think of is how prominent businessmen from Gujarat will be a member of political party A and his son will be a member of political party B. And so by and large, they are in both political parties. And because I'm the one providing the capital, I have the biggest say in the functioning of the political parties since they are shareholders in proportion, which means that suddenly we have like that crony capitalist directing state policy, which is like that crazy nightmare outcome that we try to avoid. Right? We want a minimal state that cannot even enable cronism that's a more like a liberal dream is that sort of a setup. So maybe that's that's something that maybe a gap here. Yeah. Yeah. No, but back to the representation question. Maybe we leave this a political party like in this world. I'm wondering if we're co-using democracy. Do we want to co-use representation? That's the question. No, I don't think so. And I think if the competition works, the way we expect the way it works in the marketplace, right? Then obviously some of those issues get sorted out through the competitive research themselves. Right. So if a political party feels that by having putting more women members on the ballot is a good way to win elections, then of course they would put more women on the ballot, right? And my sense is that we were to see how that possible workout. We don't work out the way we imagine it to be a workout, right? And then we have to figure out what are the hurdles in that process and therefore may require even further thinking through the board needs to change so that there is a more equal or proportionate or more fair representation within the political party. Got it. I mean, my usual last question is I asked the guest to steal man the opposing side, right? So that is to let our democracy and its political parties function as they currently do without any interference in that process. But before I allow you to get to that, the business I'm in as an entrepreneur involves working with resident welfare associations, RWA's, right? And I've had so much, it's been so exciting or interesting, let's say, to watch how an RWA functions, right? They've had to solve this problem internally and every apartment complex has to individually solve this problem by themselves. Okay, how do we govern this limited space, this half an acre, one acre that we have, this finance and apartment apartments in the complex and then solve for all public utilities? What does the RWA do? What do they not do? In almost all RWA's, they're not paid members. These are all voluntary members. So this is the citizen type who's entering because they care about the space and who is allowed to vote, who's not allowed to vote. So for example, like a tough question is, are tenants allowed to vote, right? The tenant will say, of course, I should vote, I live here. The owner will say, you don't even own the building, I own the building, I should vote because the property value depends on the quality of the space and it's like a tough, you know, so it's very interesting, mind. And the question I have is if we were to like look and this is similar problem, right? So political party that's not the entire country, everybody's citizen, some people are citizens. But unlike in a typical democracy where we all have similar value from a separate standpoint equal, here it may be unequal, right? Like a company you're saying shareholders, it may be unequal representation by person. So the question I've written down is that and I'm going to try and read it out because I don't want to miss anything. We can think of parties as split into three phases, right? Party on ground, which is the members, the cardiac cathartis. Central office. So this is managers, strategists, people who are broadly thinking through strategy of the party, including things like how do we say on social media, do we attend this event or not, right? Strategists. And then the party in public office, which are the elected politicians, right? Is a democratic vote the best way to align interests between these three groups? Do they have different goals and some of them may not bring in any money, some of them may be getting paid, right? Because I'm part of the party, but because my full time job, I'm earning money from the party. And just as like a parting thought before you attempt to steal man to this, to the opposing side, if we were to build a democracy with non-equal players, what would that even look like? It could be shareholding, but is that an adequate, you know, parallel here or is there some other way we can think of structuring this? I do not, I don't know how. It's interesting to think about what are the different ways one can structure this, right? And one thing comes easy to my mind is the company structure, shareholders, and how that is being done. But that may not be the right way to think about the political parties and roles of the members in that party. So I'm not sure how would that work? One can argue as we discuss earlier that those elected members of the party or office parents of the party can have multiple votes in a sense compared to the audacity members of the party. But beyond that, I don't know if there's any way of giving more power to particular individuals within the party. Would that be linked to like what you said about people who, how much money has been given by who? So would that be a proportionate to the money that you give, right? Which probably would not make sense. Can I suspect that if that ruling came to vote, most members would not vote for it. And therefore, we would fail its own test here. Part of the constitution of any political party for that matter. So as far as we know, I mean, as far as I thought about this thing, it seems that you would have to go by currently how we think about the RWA in a sense, more so along those lines than along the lines of a sort of public listed corporation. So I think between the two, it looks to be more on this side. It seems like that. Yeah. But if you're making money out of it, most people have volunteers and the party members are not getting paid by the party for the work they do. So it's not like a company which, where everybody getting paid one way or the other. You're a shell holder, you're getting a profit setting, your employee, you're getting a salary. So it's interesting to think, think what is it that we are doing today, which is similar to how the democratic government political parties are likely to function. Yeah. I have, I'm okay. So what's the steel man? And especially because you have more liberal roots, you are the non-interference type. So what is the case for? don't touch this, let it be any amount of interference here. I may just be, you know, me yield in consequence, so we don't want to or roads we don't want to go down. If you were in my shoes and I were in yours, what would you say as the counter to all of this? - I think counter could be very simple that this is how the political systems are structured. This is not a unique thing in any one particular country, right? This is how democracy seems to function as we know it. And therefore, maybe too many interventions in how systems are working, you're going to create many more problems than we currently have, right? So once argument about unintended consequences, then you talk about in the market intervention. I mean, applies also to, I guess, to some extent to the political markets as much. So that certainly is a very, you know, because in a very note that before you redesign something that has evolved over a millennia in some sense, right, you really want to think through the harder about what the consequences would be to change the structure of how political parties are governed, how the electoral systems are functioning, right? Whether you want to have power at the local level or central, the national level, so all of those are, no, very important, yeah, and serious issues. - All like, presidential versus parliamentary. I didn't question that because it was not related, but I think all these are interesting questions. For me, privately, this has been wonderful to think about because I feel like this democracy project that we're on is very new in early days. And we're still continuing the same questions, most people who set out to build democracies have continued historically. And we're unlikely to find good results, but feels like the journey's not over. And clearly, there will be edits to the structure itself over time. So I had not a chance to think about it. Now I have, I'm very grateful that you brought it to my notice. Thank you very much for coming on the podcast. - And thank you Deepak for inviting me. I think as I told you earlier, this conversation also allowed me to think a little more and more deeply about issues that I've been thinking about. I think just like any conversation over coffee or beer, gets you a little further on the path. I think this really has been that experience for me. - Absolutely. - So thank you so much for, no, thank you for coming on. I tell every guest this, it's a pleasure to capture you as a snapshot in time. Two years ago, this may not have been forefront for you in terms of your lecture thinking. Two years from now, you may have results so many of these things that you're still deliberating through. And to go to capture somebody in a moment in time, both for my own thinking and for yours is a pleasure. Thank you for coming on. Thank you.