As a background I have been involved with a number of DD movements over the years, in the past I have suggested similar changes as mentioned here. About 5 years ago I suggested to the leader of SOL (now ODD) if they were a DD party they should enact DD as an internal party decision making process.
I now lean in the direction that strong controlling leadership is beneficial. There are a number of reasons, I will try to explain a couple.
One is that DD is a long hard sell, if we believe in DD our goal should be to implement it, not control it or direct the discussion about it. The prize should be to get the population educated and supportive of DD and that should always be in the back of our minds.
It might feel like DD will happen organically as soon as the population are told about it, but it is not the case, it is a real battle and over the years I have seen little effective success.
My experience is the groups with the biggest success are well managed and well funded. By well managed I mean similar to business management, understanding marketing, resource management, etc., mixed with a lot of passion, not necessarily ethically managed (ethical in the nature of a cooperative etc..).
How do you get and maintain the type of person who could manage a DD movement effectively, in most cases you will have to offer them something so they will commit their energies for years and years, for Flux that reward would include the pride and ego boost of being a "leader", plus there is the opportunity to gain personally from the exposure, eg Max can gain a wide market for his intellectual skills which could create opportunities for him personally. These are not bad things, we shouldn't be jealous against people who invest a great deal and are successful in expanding DD in society.
If you take away their management role, their passion is likely to dissipate and what will remain is a group of people fighting about how the movement should be won rather than forging ahead, and ultimately little of value is achieved.
Another reason is for DD to function ethically it has to be inclusive of all people, impartial, non-policy focused. If you will only support a movement that adheres to certain policy or morals regardless of whether they reflect the will of the majority, then you are not really supporting DD.
In every DD movement I have watched the first group of supporters, and normally the founders, are technically minded, coming from computer programming background. These supporters are pragmatic in their support of an unbiased system, they don't get too emotional about politics as resulting policy is unrelated to what they are trying to achieve, they just see a broken system and a way to fix it.
The second group is passionately idealistic, normally on the progressive side. They are frustrated with the government not acting in a certain way and see DD as a method of imparting their morals on society, normally because they believe their opinions reflect majority opinion. This group is more interested in the policy results that genuine DD.
There are many groups in society not involved, for example the politically conservative.
If at this stage the movement opens itself up to being directed by its supporters you risk the core commitment to DD being compromised to appease certain political ideologies. The concept of the founding group of unbiased techs could be derailed.
It also creates an environment where whichever block of supporters is loudest redirects the flow of the movement, in a small group, and especially one with little verification of those involved such as the active supporters of Flux it would not take much for combative groups to hijack any decision making process.
I personally support many DD movements in any jurisdiction, and would like to see them all supportive of each other, the contributors can find the one that best suits them, its support will bloom and hopefully somewhere along the line the concept of DD will be accepted by enough people that it becomes a valid alternative to the failings of the current system. Any form of DD would be more representative that what we have now.
