About Conall Boyle:
Hi. That's me, Conall Boyle, outside the Bouleoterion in the Agora, Athens. This was the Council Chamber, supreme authority for all Athenians. To become a Councillor you had to be selected by the kleroterion, which was a lottery machine. This, and not elections, is what they meant by 'Democracy'

After many years teaching Economics to Building and Surveying students at UCE - University of Central England, Birmingham, I've now 'retired' to South Wales. As well as the usual travel, golfing, cycling, family history etcetera, I keep up my interest in Basic Income, the Housing Market, Land Value Taxation and Money Creation (more on Housing, Money and Land )

But my main activity is researching 'Who gets the prize: the case for random distribution in non-market allocation'. I am registered as a post-grad student at the Economics Department, University of Wales, Swansea. Click on one of the topics above to find out more about this simple yet revolutionary idea.

Conall Boyle: born 1942 in Dublin. Educated by Jesuits (Gonzaga) and Franciscans (Gormanston);
then at University College, Dublin – degree in Mechanical Engineering (1964).
Emigrated to Birmingham UK to work for four years in production engineering at the Lucas car parts factories.
Then for 34 years, lecturing in Statistics and Economics at what was eventually called University of Central England in Birmingham.
B Sc Economics (London external 1972), M Sc in Industrial Statistics (Aston 1980), M Soc Sci (by thesis, Birmingham 1991) on 'Housebuilding Quality'.
..

THE KLEROTERIANS: In the middle picture (above) is a 'Kleroterion' —– a randomising device used by the ancient Athenians. On its left would have been a funnel which fed out black or white balls at random. One ball is shown in the picture on the right. Name tags (righthand picture) from a stack would then either be inserted in a slot in the Kleroterion (white ball) or rejected. In this way the Athenian citizens were selected for a year of service to their 'polis'.

Using the name THE KLEROTERIANS, I've set up a mailing list of people who are interested in the idea of sometimes letting random chance decide. If you'd like to join in the discussion, please email me at the address below.

What do you think? To add your comments please email on the link below. Thanks for visiting!