Is democracy dying?(news.mit.edu)
news.mit.edu
Is democracy dying?
http://news.mit.edu/2018/starr-forum-democracy-dying-0227
69 comments
This only sounds like it would work if each state had some kind of physical and cultural separation. We already see in Illinois how state level gun control is failing. It doesn’t matter how strict Illinois sets its gun laws, they still pour in from the lax neighbors.
If we want to let human rights choices be set at the state level, we need to provide some kind of subsidized “get out of dodge” program for the people negatively affected by the state level decisions, as those people are usually the poorest and least mobile. Can you imagine trying to sell “your taxes are going to pay for moving gay people to California/NY” to the constituents in dark red states?
If we want to let human rights choices be set at the state level, we need to provide some kind of subsidized “get out of dodge” program for the people negatively affected by the state level decisions, as those people are usually the poorest and least mobile. Can you imagine trying to sell “your taxes are going to pay for moving gay people to California/NY” to the constituents in dark red states?
Democracy with universal suffrage has barely been around a century. In South Africa, it is just over 2 decades old. It's new, it's messy, it doesn't always go our way. What amazes me is that the USA can swing from one side of the political spectrum to the other and the country holds together and happily repeats the process every few years.
Sorry to break it to you buy Democrats are not left, if anything they are center right by western European standards, the Republicans on the other hand are going right off the cliff https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/03/politics/trump-maralago-remar...
aside: Last time Europe had politics like above it ended badly for millions of people worldwide, except this time nuclear weapons abound
aside: Last time Europe had politics like above it ended badly for millions of people worldwide, except this time nuclear weapons abound
And the US’ right would be considered quite far left compared to many Asian and Middle Eastern countries. I’m not quite sure what point you’re trying to make or how it’s relevant to GP’s. It’s quite clear GP was referring to the US’ policies spectrum, not that of the entire world.
The point I am trying to make is that the US is not oscillating happily between left and right as the OP claims, but is veering further and further into authoritarian right territory.
I doubt many people in US would like their country to become a "shithole country" to quote their current president, but yet here we are watching history unfold
I doubt many people in US would like their country to become a "shithole country" to quote their current president, but yet here we are watching history unfold
A hundred years ago Americans were being sent off to war to die en masse against their will, and it was a crime to speak out against the war effort. America's still nowhere near as authoritarian as it was.
I think maybe the point is that the swing isn't really that big, so no real surprise that things keep on working
Indeed. Gore Vidal put it best:
“There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party … and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat.”
“There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party … and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat.”
Not really. Trump is a third gen immigrant with an immigrant wife. If he were in Europe, he would talk about bloodline heritage, and how his people were French for centuries. There is a level of protectionism, homognity, and xenophobia that Europeans simply take for granted.
> how his people were French for centuries
Wikipedia:
Sarkozy is the son of Pál István Ernő Sárközy de Nagy-Bócsa (Hungarian: nagybócsai Sárközy Pál; [ˈnɒɟboːt͡ʃɒi ˈʃaːrkøzi ˈpaːl] —in some sources Nagy-Bócsay Sárközy Pál István Ernő), a Protestant Hungarian aristocrat, and Andrée Jeanne "Dadu" Mallah (12 October 1925 – 12 December 2017) whose Greek Jewish father converted to Catholicism to marry Sarkozy's French Catholic maternal grandmother.
Wikipedia:
Sarkozy is the son of Pál István Ernő Sárközy de Nagy-Bócsa (Hungarian: nagybócsai Sárközy Pál; [ˈnɒɟboːt͡ʃɒi ˈʃaːrkøzi ˈpaːl] —in some sources Nagy-Bócsay Sárközy Pál István Ernő), a Protestant Hungarian aristocrat, and Andrée Jeanne "Dadu" Mallah (12 October 1925 – 12 December 2017) whose Greek Jewish father converted to Catholicism to marry Sarkozy's French Catholic maternal grandmother.
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> What amazes me is that the USA can swing from one side of the political spectrum to the other and the country holds together and happily repeats the process every few years.
This is actually an interesting observation/fact. My assumption is that the sort of political life which hits the media is a thing of the (US) cities while daily life in rural areas remains largely unaffected and is defined by long-term evolved social relationships.
And in the US there are many more people living in rural areas than cities (although if agglomerations or "urban areas" are counted in, it's very concentrated)
https://www.citylab.com/equity/2012/03/us-urban-population-w...
http://www.theusaonline.com/people/urbanization.htm
This is actually an interesting observation/fact. My assumption is that the sort of political life which hits the media is a thing of the (US) cities while daily life in rural areas remains largely unaffected and is defined by long-term evolved social relationships.
And in the US there are many more people living in rural areas than cities (although if agglomerations or "urban areas" are counted in, it's very concentrated)
https://www.citylab.com/equity/2012/03/us-urban-population-w...
http://www.theusaonline.com/people/urbanization.htm
The prospect facing democracy might be not death but mitosis.
In the US, the EU, India, and elsewhere, trust in the national-level institutions necessary to sustain any regime from democracy to dictatorship has been eroding. This seems to be part of a deliberate strategy, but that's less important than the result. In most of these places, there are moves toward fragmentation and separatism. In the US it hasn't quite gotten that far, but there sure is plenty of sniping between "red" and "blue" states. (It doesn't seem to matter that most states are really "purple" in actual elections because they still tend to identify one way or the other.) "States' rights" has been a theme on the conservative side forever, but now even liberal governors and state legislatures seem to be more inclined to defy the federal government on various policies. The sense of common purpose that others have pointed out seems to be missing at the national level. Maybe it can't be sustained at population levels of 300M or more. In the US, that might mean more decisions delegated to the states and a more limited federal government (which AFAICT is what the US founders actually intended even with their second attempt). Or maybe it will mean actual separate states with EU-like arrangements to facilitate migration and trade, and likewise elsewhere.
In the US, the EU, India, and elsewhere, trust in the national-level institutions necessary to sustain any regime from democracy to dictatorship has been eroding. This seems to be part of a deliberate strategy, but that's less important than the result. In most of these places, there are moves toward fragmentation and separatism. In the US it hasn't quite gotten that far, but there sure is plenty of sniping between "red" and "blue" states. (It doesn't seem to matter that most states are really "purple" in actual elections because they still tend to identify one way or the other.) "States' rights" has been a theme on the conservative side forever, but now even liberal governors and state legislatures seem to be more inclined to defy the federal government on various policies. The sense of common purpose that others have pointed out seems to be missing at the national level. Maybe it can't be sustained at population levels of 300M or more. In the US, that might mean more decisions delegated to the states and a more limited federal government (which AFAICT is what the US founders actually intended even with their second attempt). Or maybe it will mean actual separate states with EU-like arrangements to facilitate migration and trade, and likewise elsewhere.
I may be naive but I think this is a tech problem.
The vast majority of us share a common set of ethical norms. We are also relatively savvy. If we know someone has acted against our interests before we wont be keen on working with them again. Eg. A dodgy Mechanic. And this goes for everyone, regardless of education level or armchair-economist status.
There is a technical solution out there that combats misinformation and riling people up against each other. And promotes educated decision making. So that we can approximate an optimal policy that complies with ethical norms and shared longer-term goals. And evaluate the impact of policy as best we can.
This probably wouldn't mean direct democracy (as there are very few experts in a given field), but rather in built in validation of expert opinion and evaluation of consequences of decision making. A little less prone to abuse than our current systems.
You can even see hints of how it could be done in online communities such as HN, where despite a relatively diverse community the shared goals of learning is still optimised.
I dont think this is head in the clouds, technology impacts governance all the time, from printing presses to pamphlets to socmed. And we have done some pretty impactful things with it recently, governance could be next.
The vast majority of us share a common set of ethical norms. We are also relatively savvy. If we know someone has acted against our interests before we wont be keen on working with them again. Eg. A dodgy Mechanic. And this goes for everyone, regardless of education level or armchair-economist status.
There is a technical solution out there that combats misinformation and riling people up against each other. And promotes educated decision making. So that we can approximate an optimal policy that complies with ethical norms and shared longer-term goals. And evaluate the impact of policy as best we can.
This probably wouldn't mean direct democracy (as there are very few experts in a given field), but rather in built in validation of expert opinion and evaluation of consequences of decision making. A little less prone to abuse than our current systems.
You can even see hints of how it could be done in online communities such as HN, where despite a relatively diverse community the shared goals of learning is still optimised.
I dont think this is head in the clouds, technology impacts governance all the time, from printing presses to pamphlets to socmed. And we have done some pretty impactful things with it recently, governance could be next.
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First, I think it'd be good to separate the Western world from the rest of the world. The West has been meddling with other countries' governments for centuries, such that it's impossible to say that true democracy ever existed outside the West. Is it better or worse today than it was 50 years ago? Hard to say... What seems to be the case though is that more countries are escaping the West's sphere of influence than 20 years ago (after the collapse the USSR, only the West remained).
In Western countries, I think it's an issue to link the rise of national sentiment to a decline in democracy. Disinformation is certainly a thing, but for it to work, I believe there needs to be a general discontent with current politics such that people are using the urns for exactly what democracy has been designed to do: change government when people are unhappy with it.
US democracy will be in danger the day when access to some information is prohibited or some parties are forbidden, which is far from being the case.
These people at MIT forget that most republicans are fairly moderate, and a good chunk of Trump voters would have voted for Bernie Sanders if he had been nominated.
In Western countries, I think it's an issue to link the rise of national sentiment to a decline in democracy. Disinformation is certainly a thing, but for it to work, I believe there needs to be a general discontent with current politics such that people are using the urns for exactly what democracy has been designed to do: change government when people are unhappy with it.
US democracy will be in danger the day when access to some information is prohibited or some parties are forbidden, which is far from being the case.
These people at MIT forget that most republicans are fairly moderate, and a good chunk of Trump voters would have voted for Bernie Sanders if he had been nominated.
I'm not sure if democracy is necessarily dying everywhere, I—hopefully not too naïvely—think there's a little more diversity in worldwide politics than that.
Reading the article though, this seems to be US-centric. Perhaps the title could be changed to "Is US democracy dying?", in which case, at least to an outsider looking in, it seems that death happened quite a long time ago. I'm not sure if Buckley v. Valeo was as big a turning point as some make out, or if it was really that different before that, but certainly modern US political decision-making seems quite disconnected from constituent concerns.
Reading the article though, this seems to be US-centric. Perhaps the title could be changed to "Is US democracy dying?", in which case, at least to an outsider looking in, it seems that death happened quite a long time ago. I'm not sure if Buckley v. Valeo was as big a turning point as some make out, or if it was really that different before that, but certainly modern US political decision-making seems quite disconnected from constituent concerns.
I’m in Italy, we’re voting in our first national elections in five years today (despite having three/four governments in the intervening years, depending on how you count). Democracy definitely seems dead or at least mute here. As I made my way to the polling station, I was reminded of my favourite quote from Thomas Pynchon: “If they can keep you asking the wrong questions, they don’t need to worry about the answers”. I don’t mean it in the sense a conspiracy theorist might, but in some other ineffable or inexpressible sense whereby parliamentary politics has simply become to weak and ineffectual to contrast and compensate for other forces that act on societies (economic and financial ones, particularly). That might be why strident or extremist viewpoints of various kinds are more prevalent now than they used to be: because faced with a body politic that cannot effect change or even visibly affect the trajectory, many people just choose what they perceive to be a bigger rudder to steer with.
This question is explored in detail in the book "The Retreat of Western Liberalism" by Edward Luce (2017); it is one of the best books of the year according to The Economist.
I haven't finished reading it yet, never mind digesting it, but it is fascinating and though-provoking. The following paragraph should wet your appetite:
In Moscow’s view, history is back and nothing is inevitable, least of all liberal democracy. Others, in Beijing, Ankara, Cairo, Caracas, and even Budapest, share Russia’s hostility to Western notions of progress, as do growing numbers of apostates in the West. Are they wrong?
This book is my attempt to answer that question. Let me declare now that nothing is pre-ordained. To a person whose life has coincided with the rise of democracy, the spread of market economics and signs that the world had finally subscribed to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (even if much of it is paid only in lip service – hypocrisy, as they say, being the compliment vice pays to virtue), merely to pose the question is troubling enough. Wasn’t that debate settled a long time ago? Isn’t the march of human freedom unstoppable? Doesn’t the whole world crave to be Western? We can no longer have any confidence in that. It was remarkably arrogant to believe the rest of the world would passively adopt our script. Those who still believe in the inevitable triumph of the Western model might ask themselves whether it is faith, rather than facts, that fuels their worldview. We must cast a sceptical eye on what we have learned never to question.
I haven't finished reading it yet, never mind digesting it, but it is fascinating and though-provoking. The following paragraph should wet your appetite:
In Moscow’s view, history is back and nothing is inevitable, least of all liberal democracy. Others, in Beijing, Ankara, Cairo, Caracas, and even Budapest, share Russia’s hostility to Western notions of progress, as do growing numbers of apostates in the West. Are they wrong?
This book is my attempt to answer that question. Let me declare now that nothing is pre-ordained. To a person whose life has coincided with the rise of democracy, the spread of market economics and signs that the world had finally subscribed to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (even if much of it is paid only in lip service – hypocrisy, as they say, being the compliment vice pays to virtue), merely to pose the question is troubling enough. Wasn’t that debate settled a long time ago? Isn’t the march of human freedom unstoppable? Doesn’t the whole world crave to be Western? We can no longer have any confidence in that. It was remarkably arrogant to believe the rest of the world would passively adopt our script. Those who still believe in the inevitable triumph of the Western model might ask themselves whether it is faith, rather than facts, that fuels their worldview. We must cast a sceptical eye on what we have learned never to question.
I think Western-style liberal market capitalism is a lot more compelling than Western defeatists believe.
https://www.nsfwcorp.com/dispatch/jihad-hyperpanda/
> The truth about the clash of civilizations you hear people discussing is that it’s all the other way: The Mall is invading Islam, the Mall is taking over. There isn't any Sharia Law in North Carolina, but there damn well are US-style malls in even the most conservative Islamic countries.
> In Najran, in the most remote corner of Saudi Arabia, a state so afraid of Western contamination that it doesn’t even issue tourist visas, there is a mall. And, when I lived there, you could watch —literally watch—the conflict between Sharia Law and Mall culture, five times a day.
https://www.nsfwcorp.com/dispatch/jihad-hyperpanda/
> The truth about the clash of civilizations you hear people discussing is that it’s all the other way: The Mall is invading Islam, the Mall is taking over. There isn't any Sharia Law in North Carolina, but there damn well are US-style malls in even the most conservative Islamic countries.
> In Najran, in the most remote corner of Saudi Arabia, a state so afraid of Western contamination that it doesn’t even issue tourist visas, there is a mall. And, when I lived there, you could watch —literally watch—the conflict between Sharia Law and Mall culture, five times a day.
Think about this:
Looking at the past few years it's becoming more and more clear that data has an enormous value and grants a lot of power to the entities that are able to extract knowledge out of it. In turn, this knowledge could shape a policy that will yield the desired outcome much more reliably.
Up until now, democracy, with its distributed governance system has had a significant advantage over more concentrated forms of governance systems. Simply since making decisions involved more people, and therefore, the decision process was much more controlled.
Now, it seems like dictatorships is on the verge of getting the upper hand. In democracies, there are limitations on data accumulation (privacy laws) and data is distributed across government entities in a way that is (sometimes even intentionally) hard to consolidate. In dictatorships, data for all entities could be concentrated in one location, granting the government a lot of power if it will use the data to its full extent. China is a great such example, they are working towards this goal as we speak, by putting cameras everywhere, monitoring all Internet traffic, and more...
Now, it seems like dictatorships is on the verge of getting the upper hand. In democracies, there are limitations on data accumulation (privacy laws) and data is distributed across government entities in a way that is (sometimes even intentionally) hard to consolidate. In dictatorships, data for all entities could be concentrated in one location, granting the government a lot of power if it will use the data to its full extent. China is a great such example, they are working towards this goal as we speak, by putting cameras everywhere, monitoring all Internet traffic, and more...
It's easy to view the past as some romantic fairy tale.
In reality the world has probably never been more democratic than it is today. The current political trends might flip in a few years. Things might be moving backwards, but the US might still have stronger oversight of it's intelligence agencies than it did in the 70'ties?
As long as people aren't silently outraged we'll be okay :)
In reality the world has probably never been more democratic than it is today. The current political trends might flip in a few years. Things might be moving backwards, but the US might still have stronger oversight of it's intelligence agencies than it did in the 70'ties?
As long as people aren't silently outraged we'll be okay :)
I've always wondered: is there a paper/thesis somewhere suggesting a better alternative to democracy? I don't mean the usual (monarchy, dictatorship, etc), but rather something entirely new.
I imagine there must be at least one political sciences/philosophy student somewhere who gave this a thought, but I never found anything.
I imagine there must be at least one political sciences/philosophy student somewhere who gave this a thought, but I never found anything.
There's demarchy - a random sampling of the population. Like democracy, it ensures that people have a way to change laws they don't like.
Unlike democracy, it doesn't suffer from the fact that the corrupt or power hungry rise to the top. Lobbyists would have less power.
There are also some suggestions that a random sampling of a population will lead to a better selection mechanism - similar to suggestions that promoting randomly would be better for organisations.https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/education...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition
Unlike democracy, it doesn't suffer from the fact that the corrupt or power hungry rise to the top. Lobbyists would have less power.
There are also some suggestions that a random sampling of a population will lead to a better selection mechanism - similar to suggestions that promoting randomly would be better for organisations.https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/education...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition
> Unlike democracy, it doesn't suffer from the fact that the corrupt or power hungry rise to the top.
I don't see any reason to believe that is true in any substantive way. Most of the corrupting and influence mechanisms that work in democracy work in demarchy, and some are cheaper. OTOH, there's an entirely new corruption mechanism introduced, corrupting the “random” selection mechanism (either at the source or between the notional mechanism and the public reporting of results, which is ultimately what really matters).
I don't see any reason to believe that is true in any substantive way. Most of the corrupting and influence mechanisms that work in democracy work in demarchy, and some are cheaper. OTOH, there's an entirely new corruption mechanism introduced, corrupting the “random” selection mechanism (either at the source or between the notional mechanism and the public reporting of results, which is ultimately what really matters).
The idea is that the funding mechanisms at the heart of democracy comes with strings attached - people who are pretty much required to accept donations to get elected. These donations often have strings attached.
Besides that 'The desire to be a politician should be enough to ban you from ever becoming one' (Bill Connolly), those who don't accept dubious donations will suffer in advertising dollars compared to those who do.
Additionally it has been noted that psychopaths often rise to the top - a problem that isn't presented with demarchy.
Besides that 'The desire to be a politician should be enough to ban you from ever becoming one' (Bill Connolly), those who don't accept dubious donations will suffer in advertising dollars compared to those who do.
Additionally it has been noted that psychopaths often rise to the top - a problem that isn't presented with demarchy.
Can't you just bribe them when they're selected?
Presumably ordinary people selected at random are harder to bribe than people who are pretty much required to accept donations to get elected. These donations often have strings attached.
Besides that 'The desire to be a politician should be enough to ban you from ever becoming one' (Bill Connolly), those who don't accept dubious donations will suffer in advertising dollars compared to those who do.
Besides that 'The desire to be a politician should be enough to ban you from ever becoming one' (Bill Connolly), those who don't accept dubious donations will suffer in advertising dollars compared to those who do.
I am big believer of AnCap and we should see few successful ancap societies in 10yrs. French Polynesian Floating Island may even be completed before 2020.
https://wiki.mises.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism
https://www.seasteading.org/floating-islands-project-in-fren...
https://wiki.mises.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism
https://www.seasteading.org/floating-islands-project-in-fren...
The Sovereign Individual and Atlas Shrugged have interesting alternatives to democracy. Just work in ones rational self interest and watch the world collapse as you rebuild your own.
Not saying that’s a good alternative to democracy, but it sure is interesting
Not saying that’s a good alternative to democracy, but it sure is interesting
I liked the idea of "true democracy", in that everyone can vote on all questions all the time. Not just once every four years on blue vs red.
i dont endorse this, but there is also ”futarchy”
http://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson/futarchy.html
it would probably not work because of Goodhart's law, and be generally rejected for being too weird. something for vulkans to try out, maybe.
http://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson/futarchy.html
it would probably not work because of Goodhart's law, and be generally rejected for being too weird. something for vulkans to try out, maybe.
In government? Yes. On the internet? It's coming back.
Really though, in government it died with Athens.
Really though, in government it died with Athens.
Yes, democracy is dying, assuming it was ever "alive" - barring small, token movements, the rich ruling classes have always been that. We, the people, are often presented with unpalatable choices and little hope of changing the actual status quo. Looking over a significant timeline, say the past 50 years, we see a trend of the rich getting richer, the poor remaining poor, and the middle classes sliding into poverty. The only relevant skillset most politicians are bringing to the table is "getting elected", so essentially democracy's leaders are the winners of a popularity contest.
As a species, we are ruled by special interest groups, greed, and lust for power. This has always been the case, and will remain to case for a long time to come. The only difference is that the ruling classes have learned that the best way to stave off violent revolution is to provide the masses with some creature comforts and the vision of "working hard (for them) to make more money (controlled by them) so you can buy more stuff (sold by them)". We live in a post-scarcity environment that is artificially kept under the thumb. The real problems we face - such as a rapidly approaching fresh water shortage, environmental calamity, and a rapidly changing production environment (robots and AI will eat the jobs) - are being ignored in preference to ever increasing profits.
As a species, we are ruled by special interest groups, greed, and lust for power. This has always been the case, and will remain to case for a long time to come. The only difference is that the ruling classes have learned that the best way to stave off violent revolution is to provide the masses with some creature comforts and the vision of "working hard (for them) to make more money (controlled by them) so you can buy more stuff (sold by them)". We live in a post-scarcity environment that is artificially kept under the thumb. The real problems we face - such as a rapidly approaching fresh water shortage, environmental calamity, and a rapidly changing production environment (robots and AI will eat the jobs) - are being ignored in preference to ever increasing profits.
“Being too cynical and pleasantly surprised is not more sophisticated than being too idealistic and disappointed.”
https://mobile.twitter.com/jonlovett/status/8899319641442467...
https://mobile.twitter.com/jonlovett/status/8899319641442467...
Having a truthful model of the world is important to me, whether that is labeled as optimism or cynicism. The history of the world does show that small numbers of people have wielded huge power for a long time, and that has fact hasn't changed.
If you have “little hope of changing the actual status quo” why would you even bother trying to affect change? Therefore you’re maintaining the status quo through cycnicism.
Your “truthful model” is another person’s abandonment of any hope of improving the world.
Your “truthful model” is another person’s abandonment of any hope of improving the world.
I'm not the OP, but they did say "often" not "always" - i would agree with that. Blind hope is of little use just like uninformed cynicism. Seeing a tough fight does not preclude one from fighting.
Thank you for the quote, but unfortunately I am too slow-witted to see the relevance.
> We, the people,
Reminds me of Animal Farm
Reminds me of Animal Farm
It bums me out when I see articles and online discussions about democracy in the US (the article mentions both the US and the world) and I CTRL+F "republic," only to find instances of the word "Republican" and zero mentions of the fact that the United States of America is NOT and has never been a "democracy," but rather a federal republic.
No. It's true that democracy was weakened when the early "wild west" internet interfered with broadcast media's ability to steer public conversation. The temporary result was a rise of anti-democratic populism in the west.
However, democracy is already reasserting itself, as governments and capital learn how to shape consensus formation on the internet.
However, democracy is already reasserting itself, as governments and capital learn how to shape consensus formation on the internet.
Just take a look at this image http://english.ahram.org.eg/Media/News/2014/9/26/2014-635473...
I think there are some real problems. Some constitutional, some cultural. Applicable to many countries, not just the US:
- We like to think that we keep our representatives accountable through transparency. Now we can no longer claim the information is too hard to get. Now tell me how often your rep voted in a way that suited your preference. Or tell me how many times he voted at all. Or tell me his name.
- Your representatives represent you on everything. Even things they didn't talk about in the election. And those things might actually matter to you.
- The space of politics has gotten huge. In the early days of democracy the state did not reach into every walk of life. Now of course there are political ideas about the size of government, but you can't deny the scope of it has massively increased. We're asking a lot of ordinary people to decide on things that they aren't experts on, that don't affect them because they are removed from that particular part of life.
- If you live in a country with multiple parties in parliament, your reps need to horse-trade issues they like for things they don't care so much about. Often this leads to them not being able to deliver on their program, with the excuse permanently being that they aren't a majority.
- Politics has become a career in most countries I follow. Especially in the European countries, it's almost like athletics: you have to have joined a party from a young age. Who makes it and who doesn't depends not on experience in the rest of society, but position within the party hierarchy. An old boy from my school was a UK MP, but he never made it to the front bench because he'd spent his whole working life doing an actual job in industry (rather than a job in media, which is a job in politics).
- Politics/career 2: once you're invested in a political career, the option to do a real life job is both closed and unappealing. There's some ordinary exits/sabbaticals: you get sent to Europe where you can hide from the media and spend lots of taxpayer's money without even showing up to work (they cheat and send their entry passes for one guy to scan), or you can work for a pseudo-government organisation like an NGO. But mainly you really, really want to just stay in your current position. Especially if you're a minister and you collect a lifetime pension after some threshold.
- Messiah Politics: If we elect Obama, a smart, educated guy who is a great speaker, everything will be better. He's so smart he'll know what to do about every issue. I don't have to do anything, he'll take care of it. And lets make the whole election campaign into a heartwarming movie.
- Organized interests: they're organized, and they know how to influence career politicians. Corporations that want to sell guns/butter, pollute the environment, and cheat the consumer. Trade unions who want unreasonable concessions. And so on. What can we do about this? And organized, specific interest group can win stuff because that interest is weighed against the diffuse interests of all other interests. To start with, we should probably make it completely clear who is doing the talking. Where is money coming from, and who have our reps been meeting with? I think the state of transparency varies a fair bit across countries, but I've never seen anywhere where it's completely clear and easy to discover this kind of information.
- Media culture: everything is sensational. Force the guy to say yes or no. Flip side of that, never say yes or no, just explain your position in a long winded way. Or talk around the question. Everything is myopic, there is no holistic impression, despite what I said about your rep being your rep on everything. Constant crisis: is this the issue that forces rep X to resign? Nothing is ever said that puts things into perspective, like the history of some topic (minimum wage, marijuana, gambling, everything...).
Potential improvements:
- Term limits. Ideas about how to govern, like liberalism or socialism don't die. But there's no reason a single person would have to stay in power to explain such ideas.
- Pay people what they made before. You don't discourage high earners from serving, and you don't encourage people for whom parliament is a huge salary increase.
- Complete transparency. Rep X will meet these people on these days. They represent XYZ organization, which is funded in these amounts by these people. Have an independent body review this, like the doping agency in sports.
- We like to think that we keep our representatives accountable through transparency. Now we can no longer claim the information is too hard to get. Now tell me how often your rep voted in a way that suited your preference. Or tell me how many times he voted at all. Or tell me his name.
- Your representatives represent you on everything. Even things they didn't talk about in the election. And those things might actually matter to you.
- The space of politics has gotten huge. In the early days of democracy the state did not reach into every walk of life. Now of course there are political ideas about the size of government, but you can't deny the scope of it has massively increased. We're asking a lot of ordinary people to decide on things that they aren't experts on, that don't affect them because they are removed from that particular part of life.
- If you live in a country with multiple parties in parliament, your reps need to horse-trade issues they like for things they don't care so much about. Often this leads to them not being able to deliver on their program, with the excuse permanently being that they aren't a majority.
- Politics has become a career in most countries I follow. Especially in the European countries, it's almost like athletics: you have to have joined a party from a young age. Who makes it and who doesn't depends not on experience in the rest of society, but position within the party hierarchy. An old boy from my school was a UK MP, but he never made it to the front bench because he'd spent his whole working life doing an actual job in industry (rather than a job in media, which is a job in politics).
- Politics/career 2: once you're invested in a political career, the option to do a real life job is both closed and unappealing. There's some ordinary exits/sabbaticals: you get sent to Europe where you can hide from the media and spend lots of taxpayer's money without even showing up to work (they cheat and send their entry passes for one guy to scan), or you can work for a pseudo-government organisation like an NGO. But mainly you really, really want to just stay in your current position. Especially if you're a minister and you collect a lifetime pension after some threshold.
- Messiah Politics: If we elect Obama, a smart, educated guy who is a great speaker, everything will be better. He's so smart he'll know what to do about every issue. I don't have to do anything, he'll take care of it. And lets make the whole election campaign into a heartwarming movie.
- Organized interests: they're organized, and they know how to influence career politicians. Corporations that want to sell guns/butter, pollute the environment, and cheat the consumer. Trade unions who want unreasonable concessions. And so on. What can we do about this? And organized, specific interest group can win stuff because that interest is weighed against the diffuse interests of all other interests. To start with, we should probably make it completely clear who is doing the talking. Where is money coming from, and who have our reps been meeting with? I think the state of transparency varies a fair bit across countries, but I've never seen anywhere where it's completely clear and easy to discover this kind of information.
- Media culture: everything is sensational. Force the guy to say yes or no. Flip side of that, never say yes or no, just explain your position in a long winded way. Or talk around the question. Everything is myopic, there is no holistic impression, despite what I said about your rep being your rep on everything. Constant crisis: is this the issue that forces rep X to resign? Nothing is ever said that puts things into perspective, like the history of some topic (minimum wage, marijuana, gambling, everything...).
Potential improvements:
- Term limits. Ideas about how to govern, like liberalism or socialism don't die. But there's no reason a single person would have to stay in power to explain such ideas.
- Pay people what they made before. You don't discourage high earners from serving, and you don't encourage people for whom parliament is a huge salary increase.
- Complete transparency. Rep X will meet these people on these days. They represent XYZ organization, which is funded in these amounts by these people. Have an independent body review this, like the doping agency in sports.
Term limits tend to hand power to the beureaucracy because the newly elected official doesn't know enough policy to be effective.
Democracy needs:
Democracy needs smaller states and districts. Citizens per representative as a ratio is higher than ever, and we lose representation responsive to local concerns.
Media now focuses on national politics. State and local politics suffer because of it.
Increased State/Decreased Federal power provides a way for ideological divisions to be resolved at the local level , and thus lose potency as political red meat.
Move to a weekly news cycle so policy can be worked out and digested before being reported.
Foreign state powers ( especially geopolitical advesaries) should have very limited access to manipulate hearts and minds of citizens.
Mass microtargetting of citizens with personalized propoganda tailored to their personality and weaknesses should not be permitted or heavily regulated.
Democracy needs:
Democracy needs smaller states and districts. Citizens per representative as a ratio is higher than ever, and we lose representation responsive to local concerns.
Media now focuses on national politics. State and local politics suffer because of it.
Increased State/Decreased Federal power provides a way for ideological divisions to be resolved at the local level , and thus lose potency as political red meat.
Move to a weekly news cycle so policy can be worked out and digested before being reported.
Foreign state powers ( especially geopolitical advesaries) should have very limited access to manipulate hearts and minds of citizens.
Mass microtargetting of citizens with personalized propoganda tailored to their personality and weaknesses should not be permitted or heavily regulated.
Personally I've thought government and democracy both work best the more the local they get. The problem with that is there's just more inherent power when you have power over larger groups of people. If you have a fix or even a "fix" for a problem or even a "problem" then the temptation to implement it over the greatest number of people you can is extremely high. If it's a good idea (and why would do it if it wasn't?) why do it just for the city? Why not do it for the state or the country? And once you're doing something for (or to) everyone, how can you test to see if stopping that is a good idea?
I think that yes, democracy is dying, and popular 'for all' democracy with universal suffrage has been a bad idea from the very beginning. People who don't own significant amount of property (say, sufficient to provide rent above poverty threshold), shouldn't vote, because their votes are irresponsible by definition, and they are too easy to manipulate. Worst case it leads to 'bread and circuses' mode of societal collapse.
Democracy isn't necessarily about voting responsibly. It's about giving people power over their government. When the government isn't serving the people, it needs to face some sort of consequence.
If democracy is failing, it's because this feedback loop is broken: people don't understand how their government works, or they don't feel able to make any meaningful change. It's not the people in poverty you should be blaming. In the last presidential election, for example, people at the lowest income level swung more toward Clinton than the average voter (https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/polls/us-elections/how-group...)
If democracy is failing, it's because this feedback loop is broken: people don't understand how their government works, or they don't feel able to make any meaningful change. It's not the people in poverty you should be blaming. In the last presidential election, for example, people at the lowest income level swung more toward Clinton than the average voter (https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/polls/us-elections/how-group...)
As a counter to your federalism revivalism, taxing land heavily would be the very beneficial to citizens and cities as you would incentivize the most valuable use of land in addition to providing a straight forward source of rent from the earth itself to "we the people".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax
People who don't own significant amount of property (say, sufficient to provide rent above poverty threshold), shouldn't vote, because their votes are irresponsible by definition, and they are too easy to manipulate
Can you back that statement up with data?
Can you back that statement up with data?
I’m hoping I read that wrong because it sure sounds tyrannical.
Sure sounds like late 18th century America to me. https://a.s.kqed.net/pdf/education/digitalmedia/us-voting-ri...
(Which is terrible, to be clear. I support making Election Day a national holiday and probably enfranchising 16 year olds.)
Edit: anovikov, you keep getting flagged and I have a question for you: I am genuinely curious as to whether you actually believe this, or if you’re trying to make a Swiftian ‘eat the poor’ commentary. I cannot tell and would love to know.
(Which is terrible, to be clear. I support making Election Day a national holiday and probably enfranchising 16 year olds.)
Edit: anovikov, you keep getting flagged and I have a question for you: I am genuinely curious as to whether you actually believe this, or if you’re trying to make a Swiftian ‘eat the poor’ commentary. I cannot tell and would love to know.
Don't get me wrong: i won't be happy with 0.001% ruling over me. This is the case in Russia, and i left it.
But i am fine with anywhere from 1% to 10% ruling over me. These will be better voters than the average Joes. It's not OK that propaganda trickery, playing on people's instincts and knowledge of psychological crowd behavior laws is what defines election outcomes. Elections should not be like clicking on Facebook ads. Or only ways to save Western societies would be adopting some like of Putinism when elections are kept but made irrelevant.
Just imagine that Zuck may just decide who will the next President be, by slight adjustments to Facebook feed algorithms? Who can blame him, it is a private business after all right? With people with no property and nothing to lose, who kill their time on nonsense jobs browsing facebook, voting (and they actively vote!), this may very well be possible.
50 years ago when the U.S. was a wide middle class society with most people having something like a career and some property, and feeling that they have a good future which can be optimised by choosing their leaders wisely, and technology of TV manipulation was in its infancy, it may have worked better. But today in the world of mass precariat, who have no good future and know it (and any politician promising them one is a liar), and with whole generation of best engineers and data scientists spent years perfecting mass manipulation through mining people brains, i just can't see it working anymore. It is a threat to itself.
But i am fine with anywhere from 1% to 10% ruling over me. These will be better voters than the average Joes. It's not OK that propaganda trickery, playing on people's instincts and knowledge of psychological crowd behavior laws is what defines election outcomes. Elections should not be like clicking on Facebook ads. Or only ways to save Western societies would be adopting some like of Putinism when elections are kept but made irrelevant.
Just imagine that Zuck may just decide who will the next President be, by slight adjustments to Facebook feed algorithms? Who can blame him, it is a private business after all right? With people with no property and nothing to lose, who kill their time on nonsense jobs browsing facebook, voting (and they actively vote!), this may very well be possible.
50 years ago when the U.S. was a wide middle class society with most people having something like a career and some property, and feeling that they have a good future which can be optimised by choosing their leaders wisely, and technology of TV manipulation was in its infancy, it may have worked better. But today in the world of mass precariat, who have no good future and know it (and any politician promising them one is a liar), and with whole generation of best engineers and data scientists spent years perfecting mass manipulation through mining people brains, i just can't see it working anymore. It is a threat to itself.
Election day on a Tuesday is INSANE.
It almost seems like that is designed to prevent the working class from voting.
It almost seems like that is designed to prevent the working class from voting.
It is insane. You would think with our technical advancement as a country that we would be able to vote remotely and also obtain good information about candidates and their policies.
Washington state has figured this out. I think Oregon has too.
I don’t know if that’s the explicit aim, but it certainly has that effect. I’m grateful that I live in Washington, where we get our ballots a couple weeks before Election Day, which gives us a chance to do proper due diligence and return our ballots via mail.
Return rates still aren’t high enough, but at least it’s not because people are prevented from making it to their polling place because of other obligations. One step at a time...
Return rates still aren’t high enough, but at least it’s not because people are prevented from making it to their polling place because of other obligations. One step at a time...
Yes late 18th century America sounds about right. Of course i don't mean slavery or racism, i just mean that people who don't own property, shouldn't vote. Universal suffrage is a Commie invention, they invented it exactly to crush capitalist societies, because they knew a democratic society with universal suffrage is doomed. Only way to make it survive long term is something like Putinism: keep the elections, but make them irrelevant, and let the wealthy people still decide things in the close circle.
Agreed. OP is probably talking about the Chinese model
It is so hard to see that people who are dependent on social assistance will vote for nothing but more social assistance, dragging whole society into the hole?
To me, Chinese model sounds optimal: make strict, public, rarely changing rules of who can get suffrage, which may be a combination of education, income, wealth, and some other (say criminal record) requirements, in part replaceable by one another. 6% of adult population being voters, like in China, is quite enough. People who are funding the government (bulk of taxes are paid by a few percent of people), people who are moving the society forward, should vote - average people who don't have either capacity, or need to see the big picture and who are totally dependent on institutions they don't even understand, on their well-being, are at best a clutter, at worst a tool in the hands of enemies.
To me, Chinese model sounds optimal: make strict, public, rarely changing rules of who can get suffrage, which may be a combination of education, income, wealth, and some other (say criminal record) requirements, in part replaceable by one another. 6% of adult population being voters, like in China, is quite enough. People who are funding the government (bulk of taxes are paid by a few percent of people), people who are moving the society forward, should vote - average people who don't have either capacity, or need to see the big picture and who are totally dependent on institutions they don't even understand, on their well-being, are at best a clutter, at worst a tool in the hands of enemies.
China is a kleptocracy. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/oct/26/wen-jiabao-wea...
China slipped from Autocracy to Dictatorship last weekend:
https://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21737517-it-bet-china...
https://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21737517-it-bet-china...
We should be careful, or the United States will too. https://twitter.com/brianstelter/status/970090357441613824
Wow, could people who are flagging and deading @anovikov's posts please stop. You may _disagree_ with what they have to say but they are not being impolite or abusive. I get that their position is extremely illeberal in these times but that is no grounds whatsoever to pile on and and flag and downvote. Doing so means it is hard to reply to them.
If you disagree, reply, and give your reasons.
Reserve downvoting and flagging for Reddit type meme humour, abusive comments, comments which spread fake news or conspiracies, pointless humour, off-topic comments, those sorts of things. Just because you disagree with someone is no grounds to downvote them. Think about what that means, please. Let's keep the level of discourse on HN elevated. Thank you.
@dang or another moderator: would it be possible to unflag anovikov's posts here to allow discourse to happen or is that sort of thing not done?
If you disagree, reply, and give your reasons.
Reserve downvoting and flagging for Reddit type meme humour, abusive comments, comments which spread fake news or conspiracies, pointless humour, off-topic comments, those sorts of things. Just because you disagree with someone is no grounds to downvote them. Think about what that means, please. Let's keep the level of discourse on HN elevated. Thank you.
@dang or another moderator: would it be possible to unflag anovikov's posts here to allow discourse to happen or is that sort of thing not done?
I am slightly concerned HN seem to just downvote anovikov instead of bringing back the counter-arguments that were made centuries ago when democracy and universal suffrage was being fought for.
Socrates would be happy.
For the US specifically, I think we should be going back to letting states take the lead on social issues like wellfare, gay marriage, abortion, drug decriminalization/legalization, gun control and whatnot instead of trying to do everything at the federal level - especially via ever more contorted constitutional interpretation.
The benefits from this kind of approach would be the ability to do quicker, more focused policy iterations with less controversy at the state level for the willing states before getting locked in federally and difficult to change as opposed to the opaque backroom deals and guessing games of today.