Sneaking laws in when no one's looking, without a public discussion is pretty much standard practice in all democracies. It's clear they know the masses would object to those laws, but our representatives pass them anyway. Maybe that tells you something about "the system".
I come more and more to the conclusion, that democracy -- at least, how we practice it today -- is not working. At least with this level of commitment of the people, it is just a hide and seek game between politicians and the masses and the masses loose, because they are bored away from the political game.
The big winners are the big corporations world-wide, because they know how to play the game or at least how to pay the people who know.
> The big winners are the big corporations world-wide, because they know how to play the game or at least how to pay the people who know.
It even goes beyond that. The corporations use policies that benefit them to enrich themselves. Some of that enrichment can then be paid out to the politician. What do ordinary citizens do with policies that benefit them? For the most part, they just live their lives in peace. Even when those policies make the people wealthier, it is much harder for the politician to get paid because the new wealth is so disbursed.
Really, it's just the market interacting with the politics. I have come to believe that, far from being natural allies (as is commonly held), democracy and market economics are actually quite incompatible for this reason.
Think of it this way: there's a market for favours given through the use of political power. The problem isn't the existence of "market economics", but rather the existence of this particular market.
But as long as the political system and the market economic system exist side-by-side, this particular market will always exist! It's a feedback loop. The favor generates a return, the return allows acquisition of power, and the power allows more favors.
It's like Rod Blagojevich said, to paraphrase, if you've got this incredibly valuable thing (the ability to make policy), why would you ever give it away for free?! You sell it to the highest bidder. And the highest bidder will always be a "special" interest, because, as I pointed out in my last comment, they are the only ones who can afford it (because they will use the policies to make the money back).
The Koch brothers understand this, they came right out and said that they view campaign contributions as investments. As long as we delude ourselves into believing that the system can be made to work with just the right combination of rules and checks (in other words, as long as we delude ourselves into thinking that markets aren't dynamic and don't route around damage), nothing will change.
> As long as we delude ourselves into believing that the system can be made to work with just the right combination of rules and checks (in other words, as long as we delude ourselves into thinking that markets aren't dynamic and don't route around damage), nothing will change.
You could replace "markets" with "people pursuing their personal gain" there. Of course they will adapt to changes, much like a businessman will just leave the country if he gets tax-raped too hard.
We all pursue our personal gain all the time, and there's nothing wrong with that per se. That's just the way we're biologically programmed to operate.
But go back to what Rod said and take it to its logical conclusion: as long as there is political power, people with it will always be bribed.
But then again, that's pretty much the point of having political power. We're all pursuing our personal gain, and political power is just another means of doing that. The solution, then, is for no one to have political power to begin with.
You make a good point, but I think getting rid of political power is at least as difficult as changing the economic system to provide better incentives. It's like companies that claim to have flat corporate structures. There are bosses, they just aren't identified as such on the org chart.
To look at it another way, in a market economy (at least a capitalist one), the possession of money and property is a form of political power. "If you do what I say, I'll give you a bunch of money", the "Prank Monkey" episode of The Simpsons comes to mind, etc.
My ultimate point is that there are conflicts between the market economy and the democratic political structure. This is contrary to "conventional" wisdom, and I think it is important to start recognizing these conflicts openly (recognizing that they are fundamental) and coming up with some kind of solution (whatever it looks like).
Better incentives? An incentive is just something that drives you towards a certain course of action. How can one be better than another? Isn't the act what matters?
The choices we make can be moral, amoral, or immoral. Incentives aren't really relevant there.
For example, imagine you're walking out alone at night, and for some mysterious reason come across a little old lady on the street. She'll probably have a purse with her, and that's your incentive for robbing her.
But assuming you're not a psychopath, you won't even think of doing that. Even a psycho would be more likely to just mind his own business than rob her.
> the possession of money and property is a form of political power
Why would it be? Political authority is the perceived right to impose your will on others by force. Political power is the position to do that. Asking someone to do something in exchange for money is a potential trade.
There's nothing immoral about offering a woman $500k for a blowjob. She'll probably do it too. But it's her choice - she'll have to figure out if the $500k would be worth any loss of dignity she would experience as a result of selling you that blowjob. As long as it's voluntary, there's no problem. It's just a choice she'll make, and be responsible for.
> My ultimate point is that there are conflicts between the market economy and the democratic political structure.
I'm not sure what that means. But again, as long as there's political power, people with it will be bribed, regardless of what else happens in the economy. The solution is to abolish political power. You might note that coercion is immoral anyway, and perhaps start a line of questioning from that premise.
Yep, incentives that lead to better outcomes, from my perspective. For example, less incentive toward corruption. Chinese emperors supposedly used eunuchs as court officials so that they wouldn't be tempted to favor their children in official dealings. I don't know if that was such a great idea, but it certainly improved the incentives of the public officials from the point of view of the emperor (and possibly the people who had official dealings with the government).
> Political power is the position to do that.
Great wealth is functionally equivalent to political power.
> Asking someone to do something in exchange for money is [always] a potential trade.
I disagree vehemently with this statement. Asking someone who is dangling from a cliff for all their money in exchange for pulling them up, for example, is not a trade I am interested in promoting. Yet this is precisely the kind of trade upon which capitalism is built. It is clear to me that we will never agree, we have completely different moral codes and outlooks on the world.
> As long as it's voluntary...
This is the entire problem. Under capitalism, many / most exchanges are not voluntary. Check out the Center for a Stateless Society (C4SS) and the writings of Kevin Carson if you would like to learn more. Regardless, I never said anything about morality.
> But again, as long as there's political power, people with it will be bribed...
There is always power, regardless of whether you consider it strictly "political" (you can define away almost any problem if you try hard enough). If I'm rich and I hire a private army to coerce you into doing something, does it really make any difference whether I call myself a king? From your standpoint we haven't really "abolished" political power. In fact, the idea of abolishing (political) power is actually rather absurd to me, I would sooner expect us all to join hands and implement full communism...
> Great wealth is functionally equivalent to political power.
You're still behaving as if you didn't understand that it is very much possible to refrain from accepting trades, even if your counterparty is stinking rich. If you don't consider five million dollars worth the loss of dignity from a blowjob, then you won't do it. I can imagine someone choosing to not accept that trade. Maybe they're doing just fine and don't need the money that bad?
> Asking someone who is dangling from a cliff for all their money in exchange for pulling them up, for example, is not a trade I am interested in promoting.
Sure, that would be highly scumbaggy of you, but that's not the kind of deal I was suggesting either.
> Yet this is precisely the kind of trade upon which capitalism is built.
Now there's a claim that requires backing.
> Under capitalism, many / most exchanges are not voluntary.
Complete nonsense. We all go through voluntary exchanges every day, any time you go shopping for groceries for example.
> If I'm rich and I hire a private army to coerce you into doing something, does it really make any difference whether I call myself a king? From your standpoint we haven't really "abolished" political power.
Coercion is immoral, and what you'd be doing is irrelevant to capitalism. But yeah, political power is basically thuggery - it's just that people don't see that from underneath their brainwashing.
Surely democracy starts out as an alternative to war, rather than be the solution to all our problems. We need a Parliament because we are so divided and would come to blows without it.
Of course that assumes that people can be corralled together into groups. The experience of the last ten years suggests that society is dividing into small sub-cultures that don't understand each other, or talk to each other.
> The big winners are the big corporations world-wide, because they know how to play the game or at least how to pay the people who know.
This isn't true equally across democracies, its most true in "democracies" that feature political systems that structurally limit practical choices for the electorate, because that mitigates the ability of the public to effectively check influence peddling. And, unsurprisingly, these limited-choice features also correspond to systems, among established democracies, in which the public has the least satisfaction with their government.
(Note that among the worst systems in this regard among modern, first-world democracies here are those in the United States, United Kingdom, and France.)
As tempting as it is to blame the corporations, due to the ease of blaming a faceless, shapeless enemy, the real problem is powerful people. Corporations do not act autonomously, and you will literally never take powerful people out of politics. Any sort of actual fix will need to take that reality into account.
We're told governments are of the people and for the people and so on, but the reality is that they keep doing things they know are against our interests, and any time the people resist, the government's response is always teargas and batons.
How could this system be anything but bad for us?
The problem isn't big evil corporations - it's the fact that there are people in positions to hand out favours in exchange for bribes.
