Kid Nation

There's something that's been bothering me about the new reality show about 40 kids living on their own, without parents, in a ghost town, called Kid Nation: the kids compete to work in different "jobs" each week- laborer, merchant, cook, and "upper class." They are governed by a kid council. I've been wondering-- who thought up this arrangement? If it's truly supposed to be about kids living on their own, why couldn't they have thought up their own government-- like say, an egalitarian society with a system for proposing and selecting referenda that are voted on with full enfranchisement (any kid can vote, nothing can disqualify them from voting, and each kid has their vote counted each time) and full vote-equality (one person, one vote)? "Upper-class"?