Out of plain boredom while I sit her at 2 in the mornign trying to finish an IR essay I have due tomorrow ( I know, don't judge me!) I've come to the realizatoin tha I really, REALLY don't like democracy all that much. Why? Because to me, the average human being is an idiot, and I am likely one as well, making who has political power a popularity contest with the idiotic masses assumes that the will of a million idiots will somehow turn out an intelligent leader.
Am I the only one who sees a problem with that thought process?
Now, to me, the BEST form of government in an idea world would be a benevolent dictatorship. One leader, who make decisions for the greater good of all, without any biases. Of course, in this world that's not going to happen any time soon. In this world, I continue to view the best form of government as meritocracy, government by those who are able. What does it matter if the people love you if you can't do the job? And will the people really hate you if you keep them fed, entertained and content?
I doubt it.
So what does everyone else think? Do you think that democracy is truly the greatest form of government, or do you think that we can do better?
On a more serious note, its not that democracy is the best, or the worst, its that it functions well in societies that have had the historical experiences that enable democracy to succeed. The Chinese permutation of communism, or whatever they want to call it, has worked phenomenally well for them. Would it work well in most western countries, more than likely not. But China has experienced outstanding growth and progress (though there's obviously still much to be desired), but for them, it works.
Of course we can do better, but until we evolve into beings of pure thought that can manipulate the very universe itself, whatever government we'll have in the future will be flawed in one way or another, because human beings - the cells that comprise the organism that is government - are inherently flawed.
Man I can see this thread opening up a whole load of "debate".
First off I suppose much would depend on what one would consider "Best",a society in which one was free to lounge about unhindered by "The Man"?..or uber efficient where everyone knew "their role"?..somewhere in between perhaps?...
A benevolent dictatorship may have it's upsides...but it's still a dictatorship...then again,the "freedom" of "democracy" can often times seem like one chaotic mess.
As we have now, in the US, is the flaw. Democracy grinds to a screeching halt and the entire system begins to bitch about everything when the Two opposite factions have equal say. Basically, Democracy is a fail-safe ridden mess with nutjobs everywhere that throw themselves at the gears of the system because one single idea of the opposition is wrong, and they must take their unbreakable hammer and swing it at an unbreakable rock until they either give up or they all get fired after their terms.
But that's me, the crazy Buddhist Idealist Commie.
ChrisWWII wrote:Now, to me, the BEST form of government in an idea world would be a benevolent dictatorship. One leader, who make decisions for the greater good of all, without any biases. Of course, in this world that's not going to happen any time soon. In this world, I continue to view the best form of government as meritocracy, government by those who are able. What does it matter if the people love you if you can't do the job? And will the people really hate you if you keep them fed, entertained and content?
From Reinhold Niebuhr's simply wonderful The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness;
"Humanity's capacity for justice makes democracy possible; but humanity's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary. In all non-democratic political theories the state or the rules is invested with uncontrolled power for the sake of achieving order and unity in the community. But the pessimism which prompts and justifies this policy is not consistent, for it is not applied, as it should be, to the ruler. If humans are inclined to deal unjustly with others, the possession of power aggravates this inclination. That is why irresponsible and uncontrolled power is the greatest source of injustice.
The democratic techniques of a free society place checks upon the power of the ruler and administrator and thus prevent it from becoming vexatious. The perils of uncontrolled power are perennial reminders of the virtues of a democratic society; particularly if a society should become inclined to impatience with the dangers of freedom and should be tempted to choose the advantages of coerced unity at the price of freedom.
The consistent optimism of our liberal culture has prevented modern democratic societies both from gauging the perils of freedom accurately and from appreciating democracy fully as the only alternative to injustice and oppression. When this optimism is not qualified to accord with the real and complex facts of human nature and history, there is always a danger that sentimentality will give way to despair and that a too consistent optimism will alternate with a too consistent pessimism."
So what does everyone else think? Do you think that democracy is truly the greatest form of government, or do you think that we can do better?
Discuss.
Representative democracy, with a constitution that gives full protection to fundamental rights, is the best system. It's allowed us to create nations of incredible wealth and capabilities, that were entirely unthinkable under any other form of government.
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Blacksails wrote:On a more serious note, its not that democracy is the best, or the worst, its that it functions well in societies that have had the historical experiences that enable democracy to succeed. The Chinese permutation of communism, or whatever they want to call it, has worked phenomenally well for them. Would it work well in most western countries, more than likely not. But China has experienced outstanding growth and progress (though there's obviously still much to be desired), but for them, it works.
Does China's system work for them, though? They're as inefficient, wasteful and corrupt as anyone, and far more than any developed, democratic country.
They've had considerable economic success, but their entire means of competition comes from cheap labour, which is only achievable when you keep living standards very low. This is by no means a measure of success.
Moreover, the growth of their economy is almost entirely in resources consumed, not efficiency. More labour taken from the country and put into factories in the city, more resources imported for their manufacturing. More factories. This does wonders for growing GDP in country that has been primarily subsistance agriculture... but what happens when everyone is working in factories, where then does the growth come from?
In the West we've gone through all of that, and now we're looking towards efficiency for any possible growth. We've found open, free societies are best capable of producing the new ideas that will drive future growth. What happens when China can't reach that point, will their system be able to start creating ideas of their own?
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Chowderhead wrote:Democracy is flawed.
As we have now, in the US, is the flaw. Democracy grinds to a screeching halt and the entire system begins to bitch about everything when the Two opposite factions have equal say.
You're seeing two factions come to differ so much on basic ideological points that they are no longer capable of reaching a compromised middle ground. This isn't good in any system, but consider how these problems tend to get resolved in non-democratic systems.
As Niebuhr says above, I think people in politically stable democratic countries tend to lose track of how good they have it in their democracies, and they develop a kind of optimism where they think alternative systems will be as stable... but at the same time they develop a kind of pessimism where they see only the bad parts of their own government. This leads them to the false conclusion that another form of government will replace the worts parts of democracy, the political in-fighting and the inefficiency, and keep the best parts, the stability and the freedom.
The plain fact is that the worst parts won't get better, they'll likely get worse, and that you'll lose the best parts.
I once had a proffessor who talked about ideal governments should address needs and allow for an evolution of sorts
in a time of turmoil, with a small population, when resources are scarce and the overriding mindset is to secure basic needs like food shelter and clothing, protect yourself from enemies etc... a basic government where one guy is the leader will work and work well. matriarchal/patriarchal communities are proto-governments where decisions are meted out by the eldest.
when the basic needs are addressed, the human being then 'evolves" and now has other needs to fill. expansion. infrastructure. agriculture. the government has to adapt because otherwise revolt will happen. The eldest may not be able to address the new needs so people now look towards the most capable. Monarchies and the like evolved from here.
now that most folks dont have to worry about shelter and food or wild animals and cannibals outside of the city walls, we have more time to educate ourselves, create and again 'evolve'. the community is no longer more important as the focus now shifts to the individual. Individuals have a need to be heard and to contribute and a democracy or equivalent government fits that need. But of course if a great threat arises some democracies willingly let that freedom go to allow a capable leader to get them out of the crisis (rome comes to mind, presidential emergency powers are created for such an occasion as well)
the tricky part is getting stuck in the mindset that democracy is superior to all other styles of government. We think that this small island country will benefit from the gift of democracy when really all they want is to survive
its an overly simplistic view and a long hand way of saying "whatever serves the needs at the time" is the best type of government
How come that ancient civilisations always came and dissapeared?
To understand why this happens we have to make a difference between Politics and the politic. The politic is our social atmosphere, its how we interact with each other. While Politics is something that builds further on the politic.
To give an example: Ancient greece: Citizins lived in polis with eachother. They conversed with each other and so forth. But every day they went to the Agora. (Center square in the middle of the polis( =city)) Where they would discuss what ever happend in the the social atmosphere. Should we go to war, ....
So politics have there foundations in the politic. But ofcourse the politic changes. This time we're talking about this, the next time about this. This is why civilisations have failed throughout the centuries. Because they were rigid. They didn't listen to the politics. But instead made one thruth shine out most. And ignored the other thruths.
So one thruth, but people change their minds often.....This would eventually lead to discomfort, and people would revolt, toppeling the civilisation. And placing a new idea in its place. Wich at that time felt the most right.
Thats why Democracy is the best choice. It doesn't has one truth, every few years the truth of the society, chances based on what happens in the politcs. The only danger to democracy is when we once again draw a truth and make it the sole thruth. (Example: NSDAP in germany)
Hope this made sense. First time explaining a philosopher in English.
Government types are, ultimately, only viable in a situational sense. Certain conditions produce effective democracies, and others produce effective authoritarian states; often time the distinction isn't all that clear (places like Singapore, or Mexico).
Rep. Democracy is vastly superior than any direct democracy. You can see that in California or Switzerland.
A benevolent dictator may look tempting, but the first problem is: Where do you get those? Even the few of them in history were products of a system of monarchies that had an output of 99% crazy, lazy or even evil at least stupid dictators.
And If anyone says China fares well, you dont see the siutation as it is. 60% of the Chinese have to live wiht less than $5 a day, and that aint much in China either (it costs $15 to feed a small family in Bejjing a day with simple meals). Not to speak of the murderes of the system, corruption, health problems.
You want a second child? Not in China, all your life belongs to us.
I did acknowledge that a benevolent dictatorship is impossible in this world for the very reasons you just outlined. It's impossible to find someone selfless and perfect enough to do the job.
My preferred form of government is meritocracy, as opposed to represenetative democracy, but that opens up its own can of worms as well, and my mind is not currently in the state where I can write a thesis defending my position.
Dark Scipio wrote:
And If anyone says China fares well, you dont see the siutation as it is. 60% of the Chinese have to live wiht less than $5 a day, and that aint much in China either (it costs $15 to feed a small family in Bejjing a day with simple meals). Not to speak of the murderes of the system, corruption, health problems.
Beijing is an expensive city to live in compared to the rest of China so that doesnt help much. I will tell ya that in certain places it can take less than a dollar to have a family of four eat a meal. Heck I can do that where I am and I live in the capital.
my point here is that you may see the situation but may not have the experience to put it in the proper context.
ChrisWWII wrote:Out of plain boredom while I sit her at 2 in the mornign trying to finish an IR essay I have due tomorrow ( I know, don't judge me!) I've come to the realizatoin tha I really, REALLY don't like democracy all that much. Why? Because to me, the average human being is an idiot, and I am likely one as well, making who has political power a popularity contest with the idiotic masses assumes that the will of a million idiots will somehow turn out an intelligent leader.
Am I the only one who sees a problem with that thought process?
Now, to me, the BEST form of government in an idea world would be a benevolent dictatorship. One leader, who make decisions for the greater good of all, without any biases. Of course, in this world that's not going to happen any time soon. In this world, I continue to view the best form of government as meritocracy, government by those who are able. What does it matter if the people love you if you can't do the job? And will the people really hate you if you keep them fed, entertained and content?
I doubt it.
So what does everyone else think? Do you think that democracy is truly the greatest form of government, or do you think that we can do better?
Discuss.
Your question is one that the ancient Greeks and 19th centurry English agonised over.
The dilemma
The ancient Greeks got the philosophy spot on first time.
A monarchy is the superior form of government:
A true monarchy is 'one man ruling for the benefit of all' the flipside is the reality may well be 'one man ruling for himself'
Then we move to an oligarchy:
A few ruling for the benefit of all or the more frequent flipside of 'the few ruling for the benefit of themselves'
Democracy is the least harmful form of government.
This is because the ideal of democracy is 'each man ruling for the benefit of all' the reality is 'each man ruling for the benefit of himself'.
Note that the more people you share power with the greater the change that the system will be corrupted, the benign dictator or philosopher king can exist and has been recorded in history, an enlightened democracy is much more difficult.
On Democracy
Though that this means real democracy, the US is not a true democracy. A democracy has no government per se but everything is decided by popular mandate. An elected government is a representative democracy normally existing as a republic (or constitutional monarchy). The kicker is that democracy begins to fall apart one the electorate rises over about 1000 members.
Now with modern information infrastructure a true democracy on a large scale is possible but fraught with difficulties due to the widening ability for such a ballot to be interfered with.
An 'Age of Reason' solution
Late in the age of reason, particularly the mid-late 19th century there was a strong movement in the UK to create an educated electorate and omit the ability to vote by right alone. The movement was ultimately defeated mostly on the principle that the educated could be corrupted no less readily than the uneducated and that the proletariat would not stand for the emergent caste system that would be implied. This was due to twin lessons learned. The UK had as comparatively large educated elite due to high quality middle class education, so it could have had a workable sizable educated electorate. The educated classes had a classical eduction and were well versed particularly in roman history. The lessons of Gracchi and Marius were not beyond them, how the Roman republic fell due to growing exploitation of the system by demagogues, they understood how reserving the vote for the educated would head off demagoguery.
Government of the time agreed (and likely still does) but used land-ownership based electoral registry to eliminate the uneducated classes from the electoral role rather than an educational threshold for full citizenship.
It could be argued this would not have worked anyway as a direct disenfranchisement of the lower classes would have fueled the new and growing anarchist and communist movements and class divisions would have been cemented. The Uk's biggest asset of the time was the inclusion of a strong if not total measure of social mobility, someone born working class might not live or die as one. This again comes from the Roman principle that 'civility' is something to aspire to. This plus the strong inherent class based culture, particularly between the rural gentry and rural freeholder working class by which the two classes would get on culturally and see more in common with each other than with the urban man.
The US went a different direction. Utilising the vast open space and an unfettered economy there are two paths to democratic 'freedom' the first is to disappear west and make your own destiny, the second, to make money. Lucre is a great equaliser and a tool of social darwinism combined. A good 'rags to riches' story helped inspire because it could happen to you too. This combined with the ability to sink into a very large resource pan and be yourself without touching sides.
To a great extent this remains, but the demagoguery that eventually destroyed the Roman republic can already be seen in the US, its headed off mostly because there is still growing room left and will be for some time. However taken on a regional basis the US has been a very poor example of democracy, were the states all independent nations many would collapse societally other would exist only as reflections of South Africa old or new, with the problem inherent to both.
The danger
Simply put the most effective means of establishing a dictatorship is not with tanks or guns but with a combination of democracy and ignorance.
China is not faring well by our standards of living, which is obviously true. However, the point is, would a democracy have emerged naturally and not devolved into a dictatorship or one party 'democracy'? One could argue the ROC, but, well...no. The PRC may not be an ideal government, but as has been pointed out, neither is American democracy, or Canadian constitutional monarchy, or any other western democratic government. They're arguably better than the Chinese system, but that argument presents flaws in and of itself. You have to define success, is it in economic might? Welfare of the people? Military strength? International political clout? Sure, the average Chinese is still a backwater farmer making a living on subsistence farming, but the fact remains that China has experienced significant economic growth, which does trickle down to the masses, albeit more slowly than we, western societies, would expect.
Orlanth's post is excellent. Its all flawed in the end, and its impossible to compare governments in different cultures. Would a democracy be effective in the Middle-East? We'll check on this thread 10 years from now after looking at Iraq and make that call.
China is considered a statistical aberrance, it is not. china is communism as it should have been.
Marx's big strategic mistake was riling against capitalism, capitalism can flourish in any society, and did so under the soviet Union, in its own form. However the communist propaganda machine targeted capitalists where it should have limited its target to free political expression and unwanted (to communist elite) social classes.
Had the Soviet Union learned that lesson they could have kept an economy, even kept a figurehead Tzar, or not. Either way the Soviet Union would have worked, as it happened it was doomed since Lenin. Had it not been it would have eclipsed all known powers long ago, possibly evn before the Great Patriotic War, just as China is destined to do.
Capitalist-communism is NOT an oxymoron, it just sounds like one to a Marxist. Its 'evil', thoroughly so in my opinion, but its also mighty.
So wait, if China is communism at its best, doe that mean that ideologically speaking communism supports an even greater difference between the poor and elite than capitalism does?
Melissia wrote:So wait, if China is communism at its best, doe that mean that ideologically speaking communism supports an even greater difference between the poor and elite than capitalism does?
Because that doesn't sound right to me.
When has right and totalitarianism come together.
What matters is that it works, not that it is morally consistent. Besides a neo-communist can argue that under the new communism any able person can succeed on merit alone. This is potentially true but in reality highly unlikely as neo-communism relies on having an abundent supply of people from the socialist state labour force to drive a high tech, high capacity and yet ultracompetetive market. Its the ability for communism to provide the induisrtruial benefits of both first and third world infrastructure that makes them so powerful.
We should beware, China has the answer, but what a dark and insipid answer it is. If anything Chinese communism is closest to feudalism, we have a new capitalist-communist elite as 'lords' and a socialist community as 'peasantry' who work hard due to the lack of social provision with any standard of living and do as they are told due to the thinly veiled Maoism at the heart of the internal security policy.
Melissia wrote:So wait, if China is communism at its best, doe that mean that ideologically speaking communism supports an even greater difference between the poor and elite than capitalism does?
Because that doesn't sound right to me.
Agreed, although it oculd be argued that in a sense, it is doing its best to eliminate classes by creatin only two, the ruling elite and the working class....but that doesn't hold much water for me.
Mannahnin wrote:Chris- got Heinlein on the brain?
Having never read his work, I can't say that I have! But, his ideas didn't seem too horrible....especially the whole tying together of rights and responsibility, that you can't have rights without having responsibility.
Blacksails wrote:China is not faring well by our standards of living, which is obviously true. However, the point is, would a democracy have emerged naturally and not devolved into a dictatorship or one party 'democracy'? One could argue the ROC, but, well...no. The PRC may not be an ideal government, but as has been pointed out, neither is American democracy, or Canadian constitutional monarchy, or any other western democratic government.
The idea that the failings of any developed country could be measureable to the failings of the Chinese system is pretty out there.
They're arguably better than the Chinese system, but that argument presents flaws in and of itself. You have to define success, is it in economic might? Welfare of the people? Military strength? International political clout?
China loses on all those measures. When you consider its place as the most populous nation in the world it should have been dominating the globe for a long time. It hasn't, and this is in part due to the failings of a state planned economy and non-democratic government.
Sure, the average Chinese is still a backwater farmer making a living on subsistence farming, but the fact remains that China has experienced significant economic growth, which does trickle down to the masses, albeit more slowly than we, western societies, would expect.
As I said earlier in this thead;
"They've had considerable economic success, but their entire means of competition comes from cheap labour, which is only achievable when you keep living standards very low. This is by no means a measure of success.
Moreover, the growth of their economy is almost entirely in resources consumed, not efficiency. More labour taken from the country and put into factories in the city, more resources imported for their manufacturing. More factories. This does wonders for growing GDP in country that has been primarily subsistance agriculture... but what happens when everyone is working in factories, where then does the growth come from?
In the West we've gone through all of that, and now we're looking towards efficiency for any possible growth. We've found open, free societies are best capable of producing the new ideas that will drive future growth. What happens when China can't reach that point, will their system be able to start creating ideas of their own?"
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ChrisWWII wrote:My preferred form of government is meritocracy, as opposed to represenetative democracy, but that opens up its own can of worms as well, and my mind is not currently in the state where I can write a thesis defending my position.
But the issue then is how you decide who merits each position in your government. Do you have a panel of experts decide who warrants selection - if so then how is this different to oligarchy, and therefore exposed to the nepotism and corruption inherent in that form? Do you leave it open to selection by the majority, if so how is that different to representative democracy?
China's example is "State Capitalism", but just try to do anything without their asking.
Democracy in it's purest form is just mob rule, who ever has the biggest and best organized mob wins. This is exactly what the Founders of the US wanted to get away from as it allows demagougery and simplistic messages to win out of proper principles. Hence why we were established as a Republic of united states. Ever since the 17th Amendment was passed our states have had no real representation in DC and the Senate has served as a another form of the House of Representatives, which is exactly what they shouldn't have been.
The rights of the individual are paramount, the government should be there to guarantee the rights of said individuals and nothing more.
They're arguably better than the Chinese system, but that argument presents flaws in and of itself. You have to define success, is it in economic might? Welfare of the people? Military strength? International political clout?
China loses on all those measures. When you consider its place as the most populous nation in the world it should have been dominating the globe for a long time. It hasn't, and this is in part due to the failings of a state planned economy and non-democratic government.
Short term thinking I am afraid. China was fethed over by Maoism because Maoism is based on Marxism. When they abandoned Maoism for the capitalist-communist state they began to claw back impressively quickly. This year they overtook Japan to be the second biggest economy in the world. They will overtake the US by about 2030, possibly a lot sooner.
China doesn't appear powerful because China doesn't like to throw its weight around. Their leaders follow their ancestral philosophy closely after decades of trying to destroy it in favour of a little red book. They are consumate social analysts and part of that analysis is that their rivals are better off asleep than riled, especially the USA; which is especially panicky when its illusions of untouchability are shaken. The Cuban missile crisis being a good example of that.
sebster wrote:
But the issue then is how you decide who merits each position in your government. Do you have a panel of experts decide who warrants selection - if so then how is this different to oligarchy, and therefore exposed to the nepotism and corruption inherent in that form? Do you leave it open to selection by the majority, if so how is that different to representative democracy?
That is indeed one of the big problems with establishing a meritocracy in the first place, and a question I've spent a lot of time thinking about myself. The best asnwer I've been able to come up with is that, like the ancient Chinese, there would be civil service exams anyone who wanted to be in government would have to take. These would be standardized tests on an understanding of how the government works, and the actual system is run. If they show a high enough understanding of the mechanics of government, they are given a job doing something. Once they are in that position, they will be promoted based on merit...meaning they'd have to show some reason why they deserve more seniority.
THere are flaws in this, I know...but it's still an idea I'm thinking about.
sebster wrote:
But the issue then is how you decide who merits each position in your government. Do you have a panel of experts decide who warrants selection - if so then how is this different to oligarchy, and therefore exposed to the nepotism and corruption inherent in that form? Do you leave it open to selection by the majority, if so how is that different to representative democracy?
That is indeed one of the big problems with establishing a meritocracy in the first place, and a question I've spent a lot of time thinking about myself. The best asnwer I've been able to come up with is that, like the ancient Chinese, there would be civil service exams anyone who wanted to be in government would have to take. These would be standardized tests on an understanding of how the government works, and the actual system is run. If they show a high enough understanding of the mechanics of government, they are given a job doing something. Once they are in that position, they will be promoted based on merit...meaning they'd have to show some reason why they deserve more seniority.
THere are flaws in this, I know...but it's still an idea I'm thinking about.
And again you run into the problem of selection. Who administers the tests?
Personally, I would favor a corporate governance, where the 'product' sold by the corporation is strictly limited to votes. Every election you can 'buy' as many votes as you want. That money goes into the treasury and has to be spent for the public welfare (no 'rolling over' funds).
Add in a Supreme Court that is appointed at creation, with each Justice selecting his or her replacement (to be approved by the remaining justices), and you've got a pretty decent system, IMO.
Yes, I understand this means that this will result in the "golden rule" - whoever has the gold makes the rules - but I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing.
Besides, if it doesn't work, you can always have a revolution. Which is the nice thing about government.
unless you can come up with a scientifically reliable scorecard for characteristics like creativity, innovation and passion then theres no way youre going to get a functional meritocracy
the Chinese scholars who had to pass an exam to get a place in the government generally suffered from stagnant ideas and irrational dogma. the revolutionary thinkers were the exception. Dynasties fell because they couldnt get past themselves
another concern for meritocracy is in order for it to be scientific and irrefutable you will have to measure thelimits of a human being. How stupid can someone be and what is the limit that the human brain can be pushed?
only with determining those limits can you come up with an objective and reliable scorecard.
say you decide on a limit, what happens when someone exceeds that? and again?
youre going to be denying perfectly functional and valuable people the chance to contribute just because they dont hit a bracket.
They've had to move away from communism to make it work, so what does that say about communism?
Have they moved away from communism though? I think they have redefined it instead. North Korea it is not.
If your not going to use the traditional definitions for things then how can you even have a conversation? It's like redefining the word is every time you talk.
China more of a Capitalist dictatorship now which is SO not the same thing as Communism.
Our governments change. The next one up apparently for governments to go into is Communism believe it or not but Communism is considered to be the perfect government. As everyone is equal. And USSR was Totalitarian society not a true communistic government.
Democracy is great but it still has its flaws. Communism however does as well, human error.
Communism and beneveloent dictatorship are those government types that seem great on paper, but just don't work in practice simply due to the fact that humans are flawed creatures.
To an ideologue any form of government they choose is going to be seen as perfect whether it be an anarcho-primativist, a free-market capitalist, or a radical communist.
Asherian Command wrote:Communism is considered to be the perfect government. As everyone is equal. And USSR was Totalitarian society not a true communistic government.
Who says that everyone should be equal? Or even that we want everyone to be equal? Not everyone is equally talented. Not everyone works equally as hard. The communist/socialist obsession with equality of results is baffling to me.
Asherian Command wrote:Communism is considered to be the perfect government. As everyone is equal. And USSR was Totalitarian society not a true communistic government.
Who says that everyone should be equal? Or even that we want everyone to be equal? Not everyone is equally talented. Not everyone works equally as hard. The communist/socialist obsession with equality of results is baffling to me.
Humanity goes through government systems. And People SHOULD BE EQUAL.
it even says in our US Constitution, All men are created equal.
Orlanth wrote:
Have they moved away from communism though? I think they have redefined it instead. North Korea it is not.
I don't see much of anything in China that I would consider to be communist, outside of political rhetoric. I've heard it described in a number of different ways, but the most popular seems to some variation on "authoritarian state capitalism". Hell, even on a rhetorical level the Chinese are well beyond claiming to be moving towards a workers paradise, most often they talk about generic development.
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Asherian Command wrote:
Humanity goes through government systems. And People SHOULD BE EQUAL.
it even says in our US Constitution, All men are created equal.
I think the questions of whether or not people are equal, or can be equal, are more important than the question of whether or not they should be.
Asherian Command wrote:Communism is considered to be the perfect government. As everyone is equal. And USSR was Totalitarian society not a true communistic government.
Who says that everyone should be equal? Or even that we want everyone to be equal? Not everyone is equally talented. Not everyone works equally as hard. The communist/socialist obsession with equality of results is baffling to me.
Humanity goes through government systems. And People SHOULD BE EQUAL.
it even says in our US Constitution, All men are created equal.
Equality before the law is not the same as equality of economic result. We are all equal in our right to a speedy trial, our right not to self incriminate, our right the speak, etc. We are not all equal in our right to own a home. Some of us work to pay for our homes, some of us sacrificed greatly to save up for our homes, some us still sacrifice so that we can stay in our homes. Some of us don’t do those things. To try and create economic equality is to violate the real freedoms and rights of the hardworking and successful citizens to benefit those who for whatever reason (often self created reasons) were not able to achieve. It backwards and creates less freedom and equality, not more.
Asherian Command wrote:Communism is considered to be the perfect government. As everyone is equal. And USSR was Totalitarian society not a true communistic government.
Who says that everyone should be equal? Or even that we want everyone to be equal? Not everyone is equally talented. Not everyone works equally as hard. The communist/socialist obsession with equality of results is baffling to me.
I don't think equality of outcomes is ever going to be possible. No theatrical producer would allow me to become a chorus line dancer even if I wanted to.
That doesn't mean that inequality of opportunity and massive inequality of outcomes is automatically tolerable.
biccat wrote:
Personally, I would favor a corporate governance, where the 'product' sold by the corporation is strictly limited to votes. Every election you can 'buy' as many votes as you want. That money goes into the treasury and has to be spent for the public welfare (no 'rolling over' funds).
Add in a Supreme Court that is appointed at creation, with each Justice selecting his or her replacement (to be approved by the remaining justices), and you've got a pretty decent system, IMO.
Yes, I understand this means that this will result in the "golden rule" - whoever has the gold makes the rules - but I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing.
I don't see how that's especially different from a nominal democracy. A few exceptions aside, the guy who spends more money is going to get more votes. Hell, that's how you get single party democracies like Mexico up until 15-20 years ago. And what almost always follows from a single party democracy is industrial clientelism where overall economic performance is less important than ensuring your pet industries remain the dominant sources of wealth, and therefore votes.
Asherian Command wrote:Humanity goes through government systems. And People SHOULD BE EQUAL.
it even says in our US Constitution, All men are created equal.
The key word there is created.
Let's say that there are two men who start out with an equal amount of money. One invests it in an emerging technology, one invests it in a failing technology. The same facts are available to both.
One fails, one prospers.
Why should the return on investment be divided in half and shared between them?
dogma wrote:I don't see how that's especially different from a nominal democracy. A few exceptions aside, the guy who spends more money is going to get more votes. Hell, that's how you get single party democracies like Mexico up until 15-20 years ago. And what almost always follows from a single party democracy is industrial clientelism where overall economic performance is less important than ensuring your pet industries remain the dominant sources of wealth, and therefore votes.
Well, it's more honest than a nominal democracy. It also has the added advantage of limiting how much government can spend.
"Congrats, no one cares about politics this year, you win the presidency for $10! Bad news: you have a $10 budget."
The problem of specific grants of government money to individuals or companies is solved by a truly independent judiciary. No more court stacking plans, no filibusters of judicial nominees, an independent judiciary that (nominally) answers to the founding documents, not the will of the people.
Personally, I would favor a corporate governance, where the 'product' sold by the corporation is strictly limited to votes. Every election you can 'buy' as many votes as you want. That money goes into the treasury and has to be spent for the public welfare (no 'rolling over' funds).
Asherian Command wrote:
Humanity goes through government systems. And People SHOULD BE EQUAL.
it even says in our US Constitution, All men are created equal.
Emphasis on the word 'created'. You have the same chance to succeed or fail as anyone else. You and everyone else start off from the same point, and work your way forward from there. If one person works harder, and pulls ahead of someone who doesn't work as hard, should we reign in his success so he's in line with the lowest common denominator?
I believe in equality of opportunity. I do not believe that everyone should be equal. Some people are better at certain things than others, and we have to recognize that.
Asherian Command wrote:Communism is considered to be the perfect government. As everyone is equal. And USSR was Totalitarian society not a true communistic government.
Who says that everyone should be equal? Or even that we want everyone to be equal? Not everyone is equally talented. Not everyone works equally as hard. The communist/socialist obsession with equality of results is baffling to me.
I don't think equality of outcomes is ever going to be possible. No theatrical producer would allow me to become a chorus line dancer even if I wanted to.
That doesn't mean that inequality of opportunity and massive inequality of outcomes is automatically tolerable.
That comment is based on a couple of assumptions I do not agree with.
1. The US has serious inequality of opportunity. This could not be further from the truth. There are so many programs, and so many ways for disadvantaged minorities to get a heads up I almost think it is beginning to turn the other direction where people who don’t have access to those programs are being put at a disadvantage. The US has by leaps and bounds the most class mobility and equality of opportunity in the world.
2. Massive inequality of results is always illegitimate. There or plenty of fair and right reasons one person is massively successful and the next person is desperately poor. The massively successful person may have had a billion dollar idea and executed it. They may have worked hard and sacrificed family, friends, and health to achieve their goals. The poor person may have made a series of easy or poor decisions. They may be addicted to drugs. They may just be lazy. I think the vast majority of the inequality in our nation is morally correct. The hard working are prospering, the non hard working aren’t. To try and fix the rest, like I said, only creates equal or more inequality in different forms, discourages success, and generally decreases the wealth and opportunity of the society. The US isn’t perfect, but we have it figured out better than virtually any other place on earth. Give credit where credit is due.
ArtfcllyFlvrd wrote:2. Massive inequality of results is always illegitimate. There or plenty of fair and right reasons one person is massively successful and the next person is desperately poor. The massively successful person may have had a billion dollar idea and executed it. They may have worked hard and sacrificed family, friends, and health to achieve their goals.
Or they inherited it.
In fact, this is far more likely. The majority of the rich people in the world inherited their way there. Either directly or indirectly, through having family connections with which to find investors and such.
ArtfcllyFlvrd wrote:2. Massive inequality of results is always illegitimate. There or plenty of fair and right reasons one person is massively successful and the next person is desperately poor. The massively successful person may have had a billion dollar idea and executed it. They may have worked hard and sacrificed family, friends, and health to achieve their goals.
Or they inherited it.
In fact, this is far more likely. The majority of the rich people in the world inherited their way there. Either directly or indirectly, through having family connections with which to find investors and such.
In the world maybe, in the US absolutely not. I just heard it a couple months ago, give me some time to find it but something like 70% of the millionares in the US are 1st generation millionares. I think I have the book with me... I'll brb.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Ah! I don't have it with me. But the book is called The Millionare Next Door, very enlightening.
Automatically Appended Next Post: And I also disagree with the assumption that inheriting wealth is automatically bad. I’m not going to inherit any, but maybe someday I would like to pass some on to my kids. If that is what gets me up every day keeps me working hard and creating economic activity and jobs for other people then I say live and let live. That’s the kind of behavior we should be encouraging.
Democracy sucks, but its the only way that works. Its the best way.
I mean, I would place it third after Monarch and benevolent dictator in this fictional way because then I get to say a good monarch, and a good dictator. The issue with those two is that your totally screwed when you get a bad one.
So yeah, in the real world, our system is the only way to go. But in an ideal world, seriously.. the BD is the way forward. "Freedom" is just a ridiculous notion because non of us are actually "free" theres a gak load of rules to worry about, and we get forced into all sorts of stuff we arent keen on! An awesome dictator would be cool because people couldnt play the system anymore, like he would go "ok freedom of speech, but I dont like you dirty beardy terrorist types burning those poppies because thats taking the piss so im going to hang you"
And all politicians seem to be unversally slime. So, If the current charming lovely queen could abolish parliament and just start making all the rules I would be more than happy with it over our current system. Maybe not so much when she shuffles off the mortal coil though...
biccat wrote:
Well, it's more honest than a nominal democracy. It also has the added advantage of limiting how much government can spend.
"Congrats, no one cares about politics this year, you win the presidency for $10! Bad news: you have a $10 budget."
Honesty isn't always a good thing. Even being forced to maintain the pretense of equality serves to expand the number of constituents that have to be cared for, and therefore forces their issues into the spotlight.
I'm also not convinced that limiting the state's ability to spend is a good thing; especially when it isn't permitted to maintain any sort of cash reserve, a fact that basically just encourages corruption.
"Its not my fault that my primary contributors got back 75% of what they spent on the election, I'm required to spend all of the government's money before my term is up, and was left with no clearly superior alternative."
biccat wrote:
The problem of specific grants of government money to individuals or companies is solved by a truly independent judiciary. No more court stacking plans, no filibusters of judicial nominees, an independent judiciary that (nominally) answers to the founding documents, not the will of the people.
Unless the government in question is going to maintain a fixed body of public servants in order to attend to its functional needs, which seems unlikely given a large potential degree of budgetary fluctuation, there will be no choice but to allow state grants to individuals or companies. Just off the top of my head, you're left with the need to outsource defense, diplomacy, and state administration, all of which will have to be accounted for by spending directed to the private sector. Of course, you could account for this with some sort of low-level taxation that establishes a basic level of funding for these services, but I'm guessing that's what you're trying to avoid.
There's also a lot of scholarship that seems to indicate that the confluence of economic and political power tends to produce negative outcomes for the state in question, except where the economic interests within the state are relatively narrow.
ArtfcllyFlvrd wrote:2. Massive inequality of results is always illegitimate. There or plenty of fair and right reasons one person is massively successful and the next person is desperately poor. The massively successful person may have had a billion dollar idea and executed it. They may have worked hard and sacrificed family, friends, and health to achieve their goals.
Or they inherited it.
In fact, this is far more likely. The majority of the rich people in the world inherited their way there. Either directly or indirectly, through having family connections with which to find investors and such.
In the world maybe, in the US absolutely not. I just heard it a couple months ago, give me some time to find it but something like 70% of the millionares in the US are 1st generation millionares. I think I have the book with me... I'll brb.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Ah! I don't have it with me. But the book is called The Millionare Next Door, very enlightening.
Millionaires. Pfah, that's chump change. Look at the billionaires and up.
ArtfcllyFlvrd wrote:Automatically Appended Next Post: And I also disagree with the assumption that inheriting wealth is automatically bad. I’m not going to inherit any, but maybe someday I would like to pass some on to my kids. If that is what gets me up every day keeps me working hard and creating economic activity and jobs for other people then I say live and let live. That’s the kind of behavior we should be encouraging.
There's nothing inherently wrong with inheritance, just with the way it works in practice. Let's say that you become a trillionaire somehow. Your kids will never have to work, through no effort of their own. Is that equality in action?
biccat wrote:
Well, it's more honest than a nominal democracy. It also has the added advantage of limiting how much government can spend.
"Congrats, no one cares about politics this year, you win the presidency for $10! Bad news: you have a $10 budget."
Honesty isn't always a good thing. Even being forced to maintain the pretense of equality serves to expand the number of constituents that have to be cared for, and therefore forces their issues into the spotlight.
Well then the question is, what makes a government 'good'?
You can have a 'happy' society by selective oppression. You can have a 'productive' society by enslaving people. You can make a 'free' society by abolishing government completely. And you can have a 'compliant' society by heavy-handed oppression.
I think honesty is a good because it allows people to know how the game is played, and therefore allows for social mobility by 'playing the game.' Modern politics isn't about success, it's about knowing the right people. A capitalistcracy would overcome that problem, at least in some fashion.
dogma wrote:I'm also not convinced that limiting the state's ability to spend is a good thing; especially when it isn't permitted to maintain any sort of cash reserve, a fact that basically just encourages corruption.
"Its not my fault that my primary contributors got back 75% of what they spent on the election, I'm required to spend all of the government's money before my term is up, and was left with no clearly superior alternative."
Maybe, maybe not. The US doesn't have the ability to carry over cash from one fiscal year to another and doesn't have a huge corruption problem.
dogma wrote:
biccat wrote:The problem of specific grants of government money to individuals or companies is solved by a truly independent judiciary. No more court stacking plans, no filibusters of judicial nominees, an independent judiciary that (nominally) answers to the founding documents, not the will of the people.
Unless the government in question is going to maintain a fixed body of public servants in order to attend to its functional needs, which seems unlikely given a large potential degree of budgetary fluctuation, there will be no choice but to allow state grants to individuals or companies. Just off the top of my head, you're left with the need to outsource defense, diplomacy, and state administration, all of which will have to be accounted for by spending directed to the private sector. Of course, you could account for this with some sort of low-level taxation that establishes a basic level of funding for these services, but I'm guessing that's what you're trying to avoid.
If people think defense, diplomacy, and state administration are a good thing, then they can pay for it buy buying votes and donating them to candidate X.
If not, then it's not something the people want, and they shouldn't be forced to pay for it.
WARBOSS TZOO wrote: Millionaires. Pfah, that's chump change. Look at the billionaires and up...
There's nothing inherently wrong with inheritance, just with the way it works in practice. Let's say that you become a trillionaire somehow. Your kids will never have to work, through no effort of their own. Is that equality in action?
I can only think of five American Billionares, Bill Gates, Oprah, Mark Zuckerberg, Warren Buffet, and Donald Trump. I'm sure there are more but those are some of the richest people in the country. Trump and Buffet are the only two with notable backgrounds and their backgrounds aren't even that notable. There just isn't a lot of old money in our country, it's too easy to lose and relatively easy to gain.
And yes I do think leaving trillions to a child is equality, because all of us right now have the same opportunity to go out and find a way to collect those trillions for our children. As I said, if that is what keeps you working (and millions, much less billionares, work A LOT) and producing and making jobs and opportunities for other people, more power to you.
ArtfcllyFlvrd wrote:And yes I do think leaving trillions to a child is equality, but all of us right now have the same opportunity to go out and find a way to collect those trillions for our children.
No, we don't. If you are the son of a millionaire, and I am the son of a pauper, then you will have family connections that I don't have as well as an immense amount of capital to begin your enterprises with that I don't have anything approaching access to.
ArtfcllyFlvrd wrote:And yes I do think leaving trillions to a child is equality, but all of us right now have the same opportunity to go out and find a way to collect those trillions for our children.
No, we don't. If you are the son of a millionaire, and I am the son of a pauper, then you will have family connections that I don't have as well as an immense amount of capital to begin your enterprises with that I don't have anything approaching access to.
I know rich people in my town with family connections like that. And I have competed against them for jobs. And you know what, if you are going to let people like that take your dreams from you then there’s nothing that can be done for you. You may need to be better than those people to get a job, so be better. You may need to work harder, so work harder. But no one is limiting what you choose to do or the dreams you choose to pursue. Everyone in our country has that freedom, and that is as much freedom as you can give someone. If we tried to level the playing field by giving you capital or giving you connections we would be penalizing that person’s father who had to work for all of those things. That’s as good as it gets, and it is a heck of a lot better than most of the rest of the world.
Automatically Appended Next Post: The person's parent succeded against the rich kids of his day, you have that same opportunity now.
The competition is rarely poor versus rich. Life isn't a movie where you are played by Leonardo Decaprio and Billy Zane playing the rich kid. A person can do well in business without ever having to compete in such a way. It is more likely that person will work with a rich person in some capacity (either as an investor or client) than to heads up compete with them. You have to have new ideas. If a persons idea is to try and make the same drugs as Eli Lilly they will get smashed, but if they create a new drug they can succeed and possibly prosper.
ArtfcllyFlvrd wrote:And yes I do think leaving trillions to a child is equality, but all of us right now have the same opportunity to go out and find a way to collect those trillions for our children.
No, we don't. If you are the son of a millionaire, and I am the son of a pauper, then you will have family connections that I don't have as well as an immense amount of capital to begin your enterprises with that I don't have anything approaching access to.
I know rich people in my town with family connections like that. And I have competed against them for jobs. And you know what, if you are going to let people like that take your dreams from you then there’s nothing that can be done for you. You may need to be better than those people to get a job, so be better. You may need to work harder, so work harder. But no one is limiting what you choose to do or the dreams you choose to pursue. Everyone in our country has that freedom, and that is as much freedom as you can give someone. If we tried to level the playing field by giving you capital or giving you connections we would be penalizing that person’s father who had to work for all of those things. That’s as good as it gets, and it is a heck of a lot better than most of the rest of the world.
Automatically Appended Next Post: The person's parent succeded against the rich kids of his day, you have that same opportunity now.
So you agree that those two hypothetical people don't have the same opportunities? That the amount of effort one had to put in was less than the other? That all men are not created equal?
WARBOSS TZOO wrote:So you agree that those two hypothetical people don't have the same opportunities? That the amount of effort one had to put in was less than the other? That all men are not created equal?
Thanks for making my point.
Some people are also born ugly. Is this a problem that needs to be rectified?
WARBOSS TZOO wrote:So you agree that those two hypothetical people don't have the same opportunities? That the amount of effort one had to put in was less than the other? That all men are not created equal?
Thanks for making my point.
Some people are also born ugly. Is this a problem that needs to be rectified?
biccat wrote:
I think honesty is a good because it allows people to know how the game is played, and therefore allows for social mobility by 'playing the game.' Modern politics isn't about success, it's about knowing the right people. A capitalistcracy would overcome that problem, at least in some fashion.
I don't think you can divorce success from knowing the right people. Despite what many will say to the contrary, hard work is itself nearly meaningless in any social system that doesn't have massive amounts of space in which to expand. You have to work hard, towards the right ends, while the right people are watching if you want to get anywhere. This sort of process still applies to the system you've posited here, except that the right people are almost exclusively the wealthy people, as opposed to those who might simply be skilled politicians. That sort of contraction of relevant actors goes a long way towards making the state's interests narrower, but it also basically leaves the majority of population out in the cold when it comes to political power.
Moreover, I'm not necessarily convinced that anyone is really at a loss as to what democracy entails vis a vis income inequality. The rich are always going to be taken care of by the state because they will always have the money to influence people, and the power to direct large chunks of the national GDP. So if you want to get ahead politically you appeal to corporate interests, or develop a populist platform in order to generate funding that way. Of course, given how little funding is ever raised that way, its a much less likely means of succeeding. A fact that, ultimately, should give you pause when considering your own system. After all, if the majority of people cannot contribute to an effective political campaign now, the idea that their votes will be necessarily negated by purchase doesn't lend much credence to the idea that such a state will take any more interests in its people than it already does.
Looked at differently, saying something like "you can always buy more votes" isn't really anymore transparent than "you can always contribute to a political campaign" as both fundamentally ignore the actual forces determining the outcomes of elections.
biccat wrote:
Maybe, maybe not. The US doesn't have the ability to carry over cash from one fiscal year to another and doesn't have a huge corruption problem.
The issue isn't corruption, per se, but the allocation of budgetary resources by the largest contributors to that budget.
biccat wrote:
If people think defense, diplomacy, and state administration are a good thing, then they can pay for it buy buying votes and donating them to candidate X.
If not, then it's not something the people want, and they shouldn't be forced to pay for it.
They have to pay for state administration, even if doing so is only related to the judiciary that you've posited, and the electoral process. The other institutions must similarly be funded in any feasible nation given the current state of the world, and certainly cannot be permitted to suffer massive budget fluctuations.
This is another one of those things that really has nothing to do with what the people want, and everything to do with what is necessary for the state.
WARBOSS TZOO wrote:So you agree that those two hypothetical people don't have the same opportunities? That the amount of effort one had to put in was less than the other? That all men are not created equal?
Thanks for making my point.
Some people are also born ugly. Is this a problem that needs to be rectified?
WARBOSS TZOO wrote:So you agree that those two hypothetical people don't have the same opportunities? That the amount of effort one had to put in was less than the other? That all men are not created equal?
Thanks for making my point.
Some people are also born ugly. Is this a problem that needs to be rectified?
That's what alcholol is for.
I try but I'm not getting any prettier!
Maybe I need more alcohol.
No, see, you're supposed to dose other people with it. You're trying to affect their perception, not your own.
biccat wrote:
Maybe, maybe not. The US doesn't have the ability to carry over cash from one fiscal year to another and doesn't have a huge corruption problem.
The issue isn't corruption, per se, but the allocation of budgetary resources by the largest contributors to that budget.
That's why there's a judiciary, to deal with corruption.
Yes, the administration could say "no" to the judiciary, but that's a problem with any system.
An administration may be able to do this for a little while, but only until he loses an election because someone else was able to raise more money.
dogma wrote:They have to pay for state administration, even if doing so is only related to the judiciary that you've posited, and the electoral process. The other institutions must similarly be funded in any feasible nation given the current state of the world, and certainly cannot be permitted to suffer massive budget fluctuations.
There's no obligation to fund the judiciary, it's merely a check on the abuses of power of the elected government. It can be funded or not according to the whims of the present administration/electorate. As for elections, they do need to be funded, but it could likely be done by a private "electoral college" corporation that administers the election.
I don't see why some government agencies can't suffer "massive budget fluctuations."
dogma wrote:This is another one of those things that really has nothing to do with what the people want, and everything to do with what is necessary for the state.
The state has no authority except what the people give it. Why should the state be able to do something that the people don't want?
ArtfcllyFlvrd wrote:And yes I do think leaving trillions to a child is equality, but all of us right now have the same opportunity to go out and find a way to collect those trillions for our children.
No, we don't. If you are the son of a millionaire, and I am the son of a pauper, then you will have family connections that I don't have as well as an immense amount of capital to begin your enterprises with that I don't have anything approaching access to.
I know rich people in my town with family connections like that. And I have competed against them for jobs. And you know what, if you are going to let people like that take your dreams from you then there’s nothing that can be done for you. You may need to be better than those people to get a job, so be better. You may need to work harder, so work harder. But no one is limiting what you choose to do or the dreams you choose to pursue. Everyone in our country has that freedom, and that is as much freedom as you can give someone. If we tried to level the playing field by giving you capital or giving you connections we would be penalizing that person’s father who had to work for all of those things. That’s as good as it gets, and it is a heck of a lot better than most of the rest of the world.
Automatically Appended Next Post: The person's parent succeded against the rich kids of his day, you have that same opportunity now.
So you agree that those two hypothetical people don't have the same opportunities? That the amount of effort one had to put in was less than the other? That all men are not created equal?
Thanks for making my point.
You have the same opportunity to give your kid the life that kid’s dad gave him.
And I already said we are equal before the law, and we are equal in opportunity to the extent that no one is going to tell you what to do with your life. Make something of yourself, make nothing. Plenty of rich kids make nothing end their lives poor. But equality of results is not something that can be done or should be done. All that can be done is to leave you alone to make the most of the situation you were born into. That’s real freedom, and real opportunity, and we have that here. No one is going to stop you just that same as they won’t stop anyone else. You are mistaking ease with opportunity, and they are most certainly not the same thing.
ArtfcllyFlvrd wrote:You are mistaking ease with opportunity, and they are most certainly not the same thing.
And you're mistaking opportunity for something that I'm not exactly sure what it is, really. Could you give me a definition so that I know what I'm arguing against?
You have the ability to do whatever you want with your life here. No one is going to artificially keep you down because of your race, your class, your heritage or whatever. I know those things have happened here in the past, and they were wrong, and we as a people have fixed them. That is the best opportunity you are going to find in the entire world. An entire nation where if you work hard enough you can achieve to whatever level you want. Yes it is harder for some, math is harder for some, running is harder for some, that's just life and there isn't anything that can be done. But not only is it better here than anywhere else, it is pretty close to as good as it can be.
ArtfcllyFlvrd wrote:You have the ability to do whatever you want with your life here. No one is going to artificially keep you down because of your race, your class, your heritage or whatever. I know those things have happened here in the past, and they were wrong, and we as a people have fixed them. That is the best opportunity you are going to find in the entire world. An entire nation where if you work hard enough you can achieve to whatever level you want. Yes it is harder for some, math is harder for some, running is harder for some, that's just life and there isn't anything that can be done. But not only is it better here than anywhere else, it is pretty close to as good as it can be.
Ah.
You're not using it in the same way that I am. If person A has a million dollars and person B has a thousand dollars, A has a thousand times the opportunities that B does, because he has a thousand times the capital.
I like Sweden's Constitutional Monarchy system, which I assume is the same as Englands.
I go there most summers, and used to live there as a child, and I really don't understand why the west is so afraid of "socialism". I would love if this country was more Socialist.
biccat wrote:
That's why there's a judiciary, to deal with corruption.
Yes, the administration could say "no" to the judiciary, but that's a problem with any system.
An administration may be able to do this for a little while, but only until he loses an election because someone else was able to raise more money.
Who's paying for the judiciary?
biccat wrote:
There's no obligation to fund the judiciary, it's merely a check on the abuses of power of the elected government. It can be funded or not according to the whims of the present administration/electorate.
So the judiciary isn't independent, and in fact has almost no power at all. All it would take to destroy that institution would be the decision of any given administration to stop funding it, meaning that any succeeding administration that wanted to reestablish the court would have to do so from the ground up.
biccat wrote:
As for elections, they do need to be funded, but it could likely be done by a private "electoral college" corporation that administers the election.
And therefore has absolute control over who can run. who has the opportunity to buy votes, and at what price those votes can be bought; presumably outside of any significant constitutional controls. If its controlled by the Constitution, then its not a private corporation.
biccat wrote:
I don't see why some government agencies can't suffer "massive budget fluctuations."
How you maintain a military when it might have 50% of its year A budget in the year B, and 150% of its year A budget in year C? Even before considering the basic infrastructural costs inherent in running an institution as large as a state military, you have to consider the need to maintain sufficient continuity in order to have a professional staff to support it.
biccat wrote:
The state has no authority except what the people give it. Why should the state be able to do something that the people don't want?
Even if you want to believe that type of moralistic principle, you ultimately have to recognize that the state is an institution with a robust structure, and the ability to exert violent force in an organized manner. That alone grants it power, and from power comes authority. This isn't a question of what the state should do, that's exactly the same sort of idyllic reasoning that makes people believe that Communism is a viable system. This is about what the state can do, and what the state will do. Moreover, it isn't as though the state is composed of aliens. Its nothing more than a body of people with the capacity to maintain a degree of power that grants them de facto (and often de jure) authority. Therefore, minimally, the state derives its authority from the people that constitute it, and the authority over those can easily be exercised over others just as in any other competitive system.
Even your hypothesized state will have to secure its own existence, and would likely find it more pressing a concern then most given that the means of voting described would likely ignore huge swathes of the population.
Orlanth wrote:Short term thinking I am afraid. China was fethed over by Maoism because Maoism is based on Marxism. When they abandoned Maoism for the capitalist-communist state they began to claw back impressively quickly.
As I've explained twice now, the growth we're seeing is entirely based on increasing the number of inputs. Expanding industry and bringing more labour in from the country, it's entirely input based. There's no innovation, no improvement in processes, and where there is it's really only mimicking Western developments.
The USSR posted incredible rates of growth in the 50s and early 60s, by increasing the inputs into their system by putting a lot of their farm labour into industry. But they ran out of labour to call in off the farms, and the system stagnated. Meanwhile the capitalist economies of the world innovated and developed better ways of doing things, and left the Soviets far behind.
China, by sheer weight of population will be one of the world's largest producers. But to actually do the thing that matters - match GDP/capita with capitalist countries, the Chinese cannot do it with a state planned economy.
This year they overtook Japan to be the second biggest economy in the world. They will overtake the US by about 2030, possibly a lot sooner.
They have a billion people. They have five times the population of Japan, but they've only just passed Japan in total production. Good systems don't have one fifth the productivity per capita of other nations.
Their leaders follow their ancestral philosophy closely after decades of trying to destroy it in favour of a little red book.
You've never read about how confucianism and communism merged in China to form Maoism?
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ArtfcllyFlvrd wrote:@ Sebster. Will you move to the US? We need more people like you here! You sound more American than most Americans.
Wait until I start talking about how we you could have a much better health system, then watch some folk accuse me of hating America
And yeah, I've always wanted to go to the US, hoping to get there in a couple of years. Couldn't live there, though, too comfortable here.
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Asherian Command wrote:Our governments change. The next one up apparently for governments to go into is Communism believe it or not but Communism is considered to be the perfect government. As everyone is equal. And USSR was Totalitarian society not a true communistic government.
Democracy is great but it still has its flaws. Communism however does as well, human error.
Communism doesn't claim everyone is equal. Doctors did earn more than street sweepers. Not as much as in capitalist societies, mind you, but certainly they earned more money. What communism looks to do is to put capital in the hands of the state, to take it away from the wealthy.
Oh, and communism and democracy aren't opposed. You can have a democratic, communist state as long as the people vote for it (and therein lies the actual, true and complete problem with communism, no electorate has ever actually wanted it enough to vote it into government, except maybe the UK in the 40s, but they backed away from that very quickly).
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Amaya wrote:Benevolent Dictator is the best.
No seriously, that thing where you assume 'benevolent' is just crazy. You can't answer a question by saying 'this is best if we pretend an impossible thing will just magically happen'.
"An anarchist state where we all want only the best for society and all agree on what that should be is best because we share a hive mind"
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ArtfcllyFlvrd wrote:That comment is based on a couple of assumptions I do not agree with.
1. The US has serious inequality of opportunity. This could not be further from the truth. There are so many programs, and so many ways for disadvantaged minorities to get a heads up I almost think it is beginning to turn the other direction where people who don’t have access to those programs are being put at a disadvantage. The US has by leaps and bounds the most class mobility and equality of opportunity in the world.
This assumption common among so many US citizens is absolutely wrong. US class mobility is the worst of almost all developed nations.
"By international standards, the United States has an unusually low level of intergenerational mobility: our parents’ income is highly predictive of our incomes as adults. Intergenerational mobility in the United States is lower than in France, Germany, Sweden, Canada, Finland, Norway and Denmark. Among high-income countries for which comparable estimates are available, only the United Kingdom had a lower rate of mobility than the United States."
Kilkrazy wrote:China has 10 times the population of Japan, 1.3 billion to about 127 million, plus tons more natural resources (Japan has basically none).
Ah, I thought the population was over 200 million. Teach me for not double checking, cheers for the correction.
Good to see we agree on the overall point though, that China has a much, much bigger population, so looking at total GDP and declaring therefore the Chinese system is working is quite dubious.
biccat wrote:
That's why there's a judiciary, to deal with corruption.
Yes, the administration could say "no" to the judiciary, but that's a problem with any system.
An administration may be able to do this for a little while, but only until he loses an election because someone else was able to raise more money.
Who's paying for the judiciary?
Why does it have to be paid for? The judiciary has no expenses. There's no 'right' to a salary as a judge, you get paid or not depending on whether the government wants to pay you.
dogma wrote:
biccat wrote:
There's no obligation to fund the judiciary, it's merely a check on the abuses of power of the elected government. It can be funded or not according to the whims of the present administration/electorate.
So the judiciary isn't independent, and in fact has almost no power at all. All it would take to destroy that institution would be the decision of any given administration to stop funding it, meaning that any succeeding administration that wanted to reestablish the court would have to do so from the ground up.
There's no obligation for the U.S. Congress to fund the Supreme Court, yet somehow it does continue to be effective. There's also no requirement (beyond the judiciary) for Congress or the President to follow the rulings of the Judicial Branch. See Andrew Jackson's famous (and probably false) quote regarding Justice Marshall. Or see the current administration's actions regarding Judge Vinson's ruling regarding the HCRA (or whatever the technical acronym for Obamacare is).
dogma wrote:
biccat wrote:
As for elections, they do need to be funded, but it could likely be done by a private "electoral college" corporation that administers the election.
And therefore has absolute control over who can run. who has the opportunity to buy votes, and at what price those votes can be bought; presumably outside of any significant constitutional controls. If its controlled by the Constitution, then its not a private corporation.
No controls. It's a wholly private corporation that gets paid by the winner for some minor profit margin. It can set the price of votes, but like any profit-minded corporation would set them not at a high rate, but at a rate to generate the most profit.
Like any other corporation, they would have an enforceable fiduciary duty to their shareholders (the American people).
dogma wrote:
biccat wrote:I don't see why some government agencies can't suffer "massive budget fluctuations."
How you maintain a military when it might have 50% of its year A budget in the year B, and 150% of its year A budget in year C? Even before considering the basic infrastructural costs inherent in running an institution as large as a state military, you have to consider the need to maintain sufficient continuity in order to have a professional staff to support it.
The benefit of this system is that I don't need to figure out all of the specifics. People will spend their money to 'purchase' the benefits that they think their country will have. If the military is believed to be underfunded, then people will support it. If they don't like the military, well you don't have to spend money on it.
There is the same basic issue in most countries. Taxes aren't constitutionally mandated, so hypothetically a new legislature could cut or balloon spending for pet projects. But it doesn't happen.
dogma wrote:
biccat wrote:
The state has no authority except what the people give it. Why should the state be able to do something that the people don't want?
Even if you want to believe that type of moralistic principle
Do you not accept this moralistic principle, that the state is the servant of the people?
dogma wrote:you ultimately have to recognize that the state is an institution with a robust structure, and the ability to exert violent force in an organized manner. That alone grants it power, and from power comes authority.
The authority isn't inherent in the "state," it comes from the people who support the state, be they voters, military members, or simply workers.
dogma wrote:Even your hypothesized state will have to secure its own existence, and would likely find it more pressing a concern then most given that the means of voting described would likely ignore huge swathes of the population.
I think you mean "swaths," not "swathes."
It wouldn't ignore any more of the population than the benevolent dictatorship suggested by other posters.
Orlanth wrote:Short term thinking I am afraid. China was fethed over by Maoism because Maoism is based on Marxism. When they abandoned Maoism for the capitalist-communist state they began to claw back impressively quickly.
As I've explained twice now, the growth we're seeing is entirely based on increasing the number of inputs. Expanding industry and bringing more labour in from the country, it's entirely input based. There's no innovation, no improvement in processes, and where there is it's really only mimicking Western developments.
The USSR posted incredible rates of growth in the 50s and early 60s, by increasing the inputs into their system by putting a lot of their farm labour into industry. But they ran out of labour to call in off the farms, and the system stagnated. Meanwhile the capitalist economies of the world innovated and developed better ways of doing things, and left the Soviets far behind.
After the Great Leap Forward China was essentially still a medieval society, it had regressed in many ways due to Maoism. From the seventies a claw back occured, China has caught up and is overtaking other economies.
also there is innovation in China, plenty of it in fact. What China lacked until recently was a technological infrastructure, this is why they have been purchasing design methodologies above all else. China took over Leryland cars not the the factories or the name, but for the production methodologies. Once China knew how to build modern cars, forge modern steel etc they were able to level the field.
Meanwhile Chinese science is making advances of its own, they have learned, they are now as advanced as western technology is. Now they are trying thier own hand at next generation armaments, space technology, stealth, rocketry, advanced manufacturing.
Saying there is no innovation or improvement of process is a gross misunderstan ding of what China is doing.
This is why cheap plastic goods come from all over the far east, but China now makes cheap version of high tech goods. The infrastructure is there to make whatever the world wants, along with the know how to do it.
sebster wrote:
China, by sheer weight of population will be one of the world's largest producers. But to actually do the thing that matters - match GDP/capita with capitalist countries, the Chinese cannot do it with a state planned economy.
They already have, wake up and smell the dragon.
sebster wrote:
This year they overtook Japan to be the second biggest economy in the world. They will overtake the US by about 2030, possibly a lot sooner.
They have a billion people. They have five times the population of Japan, but they've only just passed Japan in total production. Good systems don't have one fifth the productivity per capita of other nations.
Already explained, a clawback after old communism changed to new communism.
sebster wrote:
Their leaders follow their ancestral philosophy closely after decades of trying to destroy it in favour of a little red book.
You've never read about how confucianism and communism merged in China to form Maoism?
Yes a placeholder to give Maoism a veneer of Chinese culture, you have only demonstrated your ability to receive propaganda as intended for the masses, not to analyse it. Maoism practically destroyed Chinese culture in whatever form it contacted.
The new China embraces many things that Communist doctrine would only hijack or consider a threat, even including controlled amounts of western culture and religion. Once the only Marx based dogma is gone communism can proceed to eliminate genuine threats to its supremacy while leaving other inherently non-communistic but not anti-communistic ideals intact.
sebster wrote:
ArtfcllyFlvrd wrote:That comment is based on a couple of assumptions I do not agree with.
1. The US has serious inequality of opportunity. This could not be further from the truth. There are so many programs, and so many ways for disadvantaged minorities to get a heads up I almost think it is beginning to turn the other direction where people who don’t have access to those programs are being put at a disadvantage. The US has by leaps and bounds the most class mobility and equality of opportunity in the world.
This assumption common among so many US citizens is absolutely wrong. US class mobility is the worst of almost all developed nations.
"By international standards, the United States has an unusually low level of intergenerational mobility: our parents’ income is highly predictive of our incomes as adults. Intergenerational mobility in the United States is lower than in France, Germany, Sweden, Canada, Finland, Norway and Denmark. Among high-income countries for which comparable estimates are available, only the United Kingdom had a lower rate of mobility than the United States."
I entirely agree with this. The USA allows social mobility but does make it incredibly difficult. This means anyone can claw up to the American dream, but to maintain the exclusivity of the dream and to restrict resource sharing at the top the US has more ways to pull up the ladder behind you than European nations with a class structure and social mobility between classes. There is an adage I find very helpful here: If all the rich men in the world were to share their money between them, there would not be enough to go around. The advantage of the class structure is that it forms natural stepping stones, the fact that most people do not change their social class doesn't in any way prohibit them from doing so. You can always make the jump to the next stone, and you can stay on your stone with a much wider variety of financial circumstances than the US monetary equivalent to a social class will stand. This also means the US is the capital of capitalism and greed as those at the top hoard resources as inherited wealth more vehemently than a noble will. A gentleman who inherits less is still a gentleman, a rich American who inherits less loses his status and 75% of American millionaires are based on inherited wealth.
US social climbing is entirely on bank balance or perceived achievement. This may appear to be more of a meritocracy, but it is actually less of one as those at the top do not want to share.
It doesn't help that a disproportionate percentage of US wealth and industry is held by people groups which are a small percentage of the whole and prefer to prioritise opportunity to others of their own kind.
biccat wrote:
Why does it have to be paid for? The judiciary has no expenses. There's no 'right' to a salary as a judge, you get paid or not depending on whether the government wants to pay you.
Of course the judiciary has an expense, unless you're talking about a national network of part-time judges whose interests are necessarily compromised by direct involvement in other industries; not to mention the issue of time constraints when taking the bench in any nation of even moderate size. And even then you have to employ all the various officials of the court and administrative staff that allow it to function.
biccat wrote:
There's no obligation for the U.S. Congress to fund the Supreme Court, yet somehow it does continue to be effective.
Article 3 Section 1 US Constituion wrote:
The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behavior, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services a Compensation which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office.
Because of the way the appointment of judges works, it effectively means that Congress is obligated to pay, if nothing else, the salaries of judges. If anyone attempted to pull funding from the federal judiciary it is likely that suit would be brought, and that it would be argued that this obligation indicates a further obligation to fund the judiciary as a whole. Moreover, as Congress has the ability to abolish courts, there's not reason to really attack their funding. There's also the matter of the US being a system of split partisan governance at all material times, whereas you're effectively positing single party governance (as I understand it).
biccat wrote:
There's also no requirement (beyond the judiciary) for Congress or the President to follow the rulings of the Judicial Branch. See Andrew Jackson's famous (and probably false) quote regarding Justice Marshall.
There is no explicit requirement, but there is (arguably) sufficient evidence for judicial review in the Constitution itself that it doesn't matter. Though the court is, by its nature, a poor check of executive power.
biccat wrote:
Or see the current administration's actions regarding Judge Vinson's ruling regarding the HCRA (or whatever the technical acronym for Obamacare is).
Vinson explicitly allowed the HCRA to remain law during the appellate process, and later issued a stay on his ruling.
biccat wrote:
No controls. It's a wholly private corporation that gets paid by the winner for some minor profit margin. It can set the price of votes, but like any profit-minded corporation would set them not at a high rate, but at a rate to generate the most profit.
Like any other corporation, they would have an enforceable fiduciary duty to their shareholders (the American people).
If the American people are, collectively shareholders, then it isn't a private corporation. You're basically just talking about an autocratic state institution that is, ultimately, encouraged to decide elections according to who offers them the largest fiscal incentive; especially given that this is a corporation that will receive income, at most, once annually.
biccat wrote:
The benefit of this system is that I don't need to figure out all of the specifics. People will spend their money to 'purchase' the benefits that they think their country will have. If the military is believed to be underfunded, then people will support it. If they don't like the military, well you don't have to spend money on it.
There is the same basic issue in most countries. Taxes aren't constitutionally mandated, so hypothetically a new legislature could cut or balloon spending for pet projects. But it doesn't happen.
Sure, but that's often because legislatures possess mixed representation, and because there's a direct fiscal incentive for law makers to spend money on political institutions of all sorts as they act as a form of financial aid to the districts in which they're located. Note, I'm not saying that you need to figure out the specifics, I'm saying that if you cannot figure out one specific way in which the system will function, then it probably isn't very good.
biccat wrote:
Do you not accept this moralistic principle, that the state is the servant of the people?
It doesn't matter if I do, what matters is that it isn't something which must be accepted. Moreover, I'm not interested in the morality of governance, I'm interested in the reality of governance, and that pays no heed to moral principles except in the sense that they can be used to control people.
biccat wrote:
The authority isn't inherent in the "state," it comes from the people who support the state, be they voters, military members, or simply workers.
Of course its inherent to the state. That's what makes it the state, the functional ability to control the actions of others, and itself, by force of arms; its an extension of the monopoly on legitimate violence.
dogma wrote:
It wouldn't ignore any more of the population than the benevolent dictatorship suggested by other posters.
So you're arguing from the position of "Johnny did it too?"
Either way, I'm not sure "benevolent dictatorship" is the best thing to compare any system too. Its like claiming that your state is no worse than Communist Russia, only slightly less interesting given the absence of a materially comparable system of historical governance (barring third world countries like Uganda).
dogma wrote:So you're arguing from the position of "Johnny did it too?"
Either way, I'm not sure "benevolent dictatorship" is the best thing to compare any system too. Its like claiming that your state is no worse than Communist Russia, only slightly less interesting given the absence of a materially comparable system of historical governance (barring third world countries like Uganda).
No, I'm arguing from the position of "why the hell are you arguing against my proposed system when others have proposed systems which are significantly worse."
You're not attempting to debate the idea, you're just coming up with excuses why it won't work.
Say I come up with a proposition: "one guy is in charge, he makes the rules." Anyone can come up with a lot of reasons why this system wouldn't work. But it did, for a few centuries in England.
Or "everyone has an equal say in choosing who the leaders are." There are a lot of reasons why this system wouldn't work either. What is "everyone?" How do they choose? Who chooses who is eligible for leadership? But the system has worked for a couple hundred years in the U.S.
I'm proposing a system, not saying that it's perfect, and I have no interest in writing a 6000+ word academic thesis on how exactly it would work. I'm suggesting that strong economic actors should have a stronger voice than the average person on the street. Additionally, money (economic success) should translate to a stronger voice in government.
Limitations on expendatures, an independent judiciary, and a constitution based on anti-corruption are mere safeguards against the types of corruption you're saying are inherent.
On the U.S. side of things, you apparently don't realize that the 'glue' holding the government together is cooperation between the executive, legislative, and judicial branches. Without cooperation, the Constitution is meaningless. The executive has no reason to abide the rulings of the SCOTUS except for the fact that they agree to. Even FDR, with his court packing plan, was willing to abide by the rulings of the court, as much as he disliked them, because he realized the downward spiral that would result from outright war between the branches.
The same glue would hold a corporatocracy together.
You're wrong on the Obamacare (HCRRA? AHCAA?) decision, but that's another topic, all together.
A constitutional republic is the best form of government. Whereby the power of government is limited solely to protecting us from bomb-toting bolsheviks, and people who infringe our rights to life, liberty, and property. This enshrines doctrines of human rights, and ensures that entrepreneurial progress isn't stifled.
ArtfcllyFlvrd wrote:And yes I do think leaving trillions to a child is equality, but all of us right now have the same opportunity to go out and find a way to collect those trillions for our children.
No, we don't. If you are the son of a millionaire, and I am the son of a pauper, then you will have family connections that I don't have as well as an immense amount of capital to begin your enterprises with that I don't have anything approaching access to.
I know rich people in my town with family connections like that. And I have competed against them for jobs. And you know what, if you are going to let people like that take your dreams from you then there’s nothing that can be done for you. You may need to be better than those people to get a job, so be better. You may need to work harder, so work harder. But no one is limiting what you choose to do or the dreams you choose to pursue. Everyone in our country has that freedom, and that is as much freedom as you can give someone. If we tried to level the playing field by giving you capital or giving you connections we would be penalizing that person’s father who had to work for all of those things. That’s as good as it gets, and it is a heck of a lot better than most of the rest of the world.
Automatically Appended Next Post: The person's parent succeded against the rich kids of his day, you have that same opportunity now.
Exactly.
WARBOSS TZOO wrote:
biccat wrote:
WARBOSS TZOO wrote:So you agree that those two hypothetical people don't have the same opportunities? That the amount of effort one had to put in was less than the other? That all men are not created equal?
Thanks for making my point.
Some people are also born ugly. Is this a problem that needs to be rectified?
That's what alcholol is for.
I like the way you think.
ArtfcllyFlvrd wrote:
WARBOSS TZOO wrote:
ArtfcllyFlvrd wrote:
WARBOSS TZOO wrote:
ArtfcllyFlvrd wrote:And yes I do think leaving trillions to a child is equality, but all of us right now have the same opportunity to go out and find a way to collect those trillions for our children.
No, we don't. If you are the son of a millionaire, and I am the son of a pauper, then you will have family connections that I don't have as well as an immense amount of capital to begin your enterprises with that I don't have anything approaching access to.
I know rich people in my town with family connections like that. And I have competed against them for jobs. And you know what, if you are going to let people like that take your dreams from you then there’s nothing that can be done for you. You may need to be better than those people to get a job, so be better. You may need to work harder, so work harder. But no one is limiting what you choose to do or the dreams you choose to pursue. Everyone in our country has that freedom, and that is as much freedom as you can give someone. If we tried to level the playing field by giving you capital or giving you connections we would be penalizing that person’s father who had to work for all of those things. That’s as good as it gets, and it is a heck of a lot better than most of the rest of the world.
Automatically Appended Next Post: The person's parent succeded against the rich kids of his day, you have that same opportunity now.
So you agree that those two hypothetical people don't have the same opportunities? That the amount of effort one had to put in was less than the other? That all men are not created equal?
Thanks for making my point.
You have the same opportunity to give your kid the life that kid’s dad gave him.
And I already said we are equal before the law, and we are equal in opportunity to the extent that no one is going to tell you what to do with your life. Make something of yourself, make nothing. Plenty of rich kids make nothing end their lives poor. But equality of results is not something that can be done or should be done. All that can be done is to leave you alone to make the most of the situation you were born into. That’s real freedom, and real opportunity, and we have that here. No one is going to stop you just that same as they won’t stop anyone else. You are mistaking ease with opportunity, and they are most certainly not the same thing.
Yes, equal before the Law. However, whoever has the highest-paid legal team usually has an advantage.
biccat wrote:Do you not accept this moralistic principle, that the state is the servant of the people?
The state is the servant of the people in that it exists to protect them and serve their interests, not that it listens to every little whim they have, as those tend to frequently contradict its actual obligations to protect them and serve their interests. The state is given the authority to act in the best interests of its people, as determined by people who actually know how to go about doing that; if people could just sit back and say "I live in a safe neighborhood, why should I pay for cops?", "I don't have kids, why should I pay for schools?", or "I'm not sick at the moment, why should I pay for public healthcare?" then society falls apart. People are generally greedy and shortsighted, and don't understand the complexities of keeping a state running, so all of that gets delegated to people who at least should know how.
Thus you run into the problem of democracy: the average layman knows exactly nothing about how to run a state, most don't particularly care, and both of the above are easily swayed by flashy rhetoric, the emptier the better. And so conmen and charismatic ideologues get into power more often than people who actually know what they're doing. The problem with dictatorships (in this day and age, at least) is that the sort who generally manage to seize power for themselves are just worse varieties of the above, with an added dose of axe-crazy thug more often than not.
There seems to be a bit of confusion here about what communism actually is: it was a theoretical path from the sort of unbridled industrial capitalism that plagued the nineteenth century to an anarchist society, with a "tyranny of the proletariat" following a workers' revolution to restructure society so that it could keep working without a central authority to run things. Obviously, that doesn't work for a number of reasons, chiefly that anarchism doesn't work in societies larger than a few hundred, and that people who have gotten a hold of power tend to not want to give it up again.
Command economies, however, have nothing to do with democracy or dictatorships, only state control over economic matters. Likewise, modern socialist policies don't either, revolving around the state fulfilling its obligation to take care of its people rather than any sort of method of determination of leadership.
Orlanth wrote:After the Great Leap Forward China was essentially still a medieval society, it had regressed in many ways due to Maoism. From the seventies a claw back occured, China has caught up and is overtaking other economies.
You keep pointing out that China is recovering from Maoism, as if people weren't aware of this. And you keep pointing out that their economy is growing rapidly, as if people weren't aware of this.
But you keep failing to understand that one reflects the other. That high rate of growth is just playing catch up. China is hardly the first country to go through this, look at Germany in the second half of the 19th century. Look at Soviet Russia.
Then compare the two, once they'd gone through that initial burst from making use of existing resources, then they had to rely on making more efficient use of existing resources for future growth. Germany was able to match UK economic growth in this phase, because they had an underlying capitalist model. The Soviet Union stagnated, because there was nothing to drive growth.
Once China can't drag anyone else off the farms it will hit the same problem the USSR did.
[quoteMeanwhile Chinese science is making advances of its own, they have learned, they are now as advanced as western technology is. Now they are trying thier own hand at next generation armaments, space technology, stealth, rocketry, advanced manufacturing.
Saying there is no innovation or improvement of process is a gross misunderstan ding of what China is doing.
This is why cheap plastic goods come from all over the far east, but China now makes cheap version of high tech goods. The infrastructure is there to make whatever the world wants, along with the know how to do it.
Yes, the Chinese are capable of flagship research, just like the Russians were. And yes, they're capable of playing catch up by copying manufacturing methods developed elsewhere in the world, just like the USSR did.
But that system is not capable of being among the best in the world, because it will always be dependant on innovation created elsewhere.
To actually have the best living standards in the world you need to have the most productive citizens, and that means you need a business sector with constant innovation. State planned economies have never achieved that, they are incapable of it.
[quoteThey already have, wake up and smell the dragon.
No, they're not even close.
The US had a GDP per capita in 2010 of $47,000. China manages a GDP per capita of $7,500. The US produces more than six times as much per person as China.
The US is the sixth best in the world, basically behind a list of small countries with single resources that produce immense wealth. China is 93rd in the world, behind the likes of Columbia and Mexico.
When your system can't produce as much wealth per person as the likes of Columbia and Mexico, you have a gak system.
Yes a placeholder to give Maoism a veneer of Chinese culture, you have only demonstrated your ability to receive propaganda as intended for the masses, not to analyse it. Maoism practically destroyed Chinese culture in whatever form it contacted.
So you've never read about the differences between the Russian and Chinese approaches to communism?
You're right that traditional cultural values were targeted by the communists, but any reading at all on the subject will teach you that the communist system was just as changed by Chinese cultural values.
There were important ideological reasons that the Chinese and Soviets fell out, you know.
The USA allows social mobility but does make it incredibly difficult. This means anyone can claw up to the American dream, but to maintain the exclusivity of the dream and to restrict resource sharing at the top the US has more ways to pull up the ladder behind you than European nations with a class structure and social mobility between classes.
I think it has more to do with the woefully low minimum wage in the US, the wildly varying standards of public schooling and access to tertiary education than anything else, to be honest.
US social climbing is entirely on bank balance or perceived achievement. This may appear to be more of a meritocracy, but it is actually less of one as those at the top do not want to share.
It's interesting that when the US talk about class they talk about income level and nothing else, while the rest of us seem to get that class is about a lot more.
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biccat wrote:Say I come up with a proposition: "one guy is in charge, he makes the rules." Anyone can come up with a lot of reasons why this system wouldn't work. But it did, for a few centuries in England.
You really need to think about your definition of the word 'work' there. There was a series of very bloody wars created by the simple fact that the system didn't always work. There economic stagnation produced by the political system. There were incrediblet injustices doled out to much of the population.
People in this thread keep forgetting that what we have right now in our liberal democracies delivers a vastly better standard of living than anything that has come before, or anything delivered in any other system out there today, excepting a handful of small countries with immense oil reserves. This doesn't mean the system is perfect, but it makes claims of other systems 'working' a bit of a nonsense.
sebster wrote:You really need to think about your definition of the word 'work' there. There was a series of very bloody wars created by the simple fact that the system didn't always work. There economic stagnation produced by the political system. There were incrediblet injustices doled out to much of the population.
Then we'll have to define the purpose of a government, or what makes it "work."
Monarchies and dictatorships 'worked' in that they protected the people from outside invasion, secured a line of succession, protected the social structure, enforced a system of taxation, and completed government projects.
Maybe they weren't efficient, and sometimes there were violent revolutions (between ruling classes), but for the most part, yes, they did "work."
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Sir Pseudonymous wrote:
biccat wrote:Do you not accept this moralistic principle, that the state is the servant of the people?
The state is the servant of the people in that it exists to protect them and serve their interests, not that it listens to every little whim they have, as those tend to frequently contradict its actual obligations to protect them and serve their interests.
It doesn't have to listen to every little whim, but neither should a state develope into a tyrannical state where the population is ignored in order to do what the ruling class thinks is 'best' for the people.
If the people don't want something, they should have the authority to demand their government not act.
Sir Pseudonymous wrote:The state is given the authority to act in the best interests of its people, as determined by people who actually know how to go about doing that;
What on earth makes you think that there are people who actually know how to act in the best interests of its people? People aren't selected for political positions based on their knowledge, they're selected based on patronage. There's no requirement that they actually do a good job, besides getting reelected, which is more about putting on a good show than issues.
Sir Pseudonymous wrote:if people could just sit back and say "I live in a safe neighborhood, why should I pay for cops?", "I don't have kids, why should I pay for schools?", or "I'm not sick at the moment, why should I pay for public healthcare?" then society falls apart.
Public schools and publicly provided health care are pretty recent innovations. Society didn't fall apart without these institutions. Ditto for welfare, food and drug regulation, and building inspectors.
You can argue that these provide a benefit, but I hardly think they're necessary for keeping society whole.
Sir Pseudonymous wrote:People are generally greedy and shortsighted, and don't understand the complexities of keeping a state running, so all of that gets delegated to people who at least should know how.
Except, especially in democracies, the complexities of keeping the state running aren't delegated to people who actually know what they're doing. Politics aside, Barack Obama had no experience as an executive (for example running a state or a company, and for that matter, neither did John McCain). The rationale to put him into the highest political executive slot in the land wasn't based on experience or qualifications, it was based on ideology and showmanship.
Obviously we hope that such an inexperienced executive will surround himself with quality staff to help him manage and make appropriate executive decisions, but there's really no guarantee that anything like that will actually happen.
biccat wrote:Then we'll have to define the purpose of a government, or what makes it "work."
Monarchies and dictatorships 'worked' in that they protected the people from outside invasion, secured a line of succession, protected the social structure, enforced a system of taxation, and completed government projects.
Maybe they weren't efficient, and sometimes there were violent revolutions (between ruling classes), but for the most part, yes, they did "work."
First up, they didn't secure a line of succession. You've read about the War of the Roses, yeah? A hundred thousand people died in the course of deciding who should rule.
Second up, Iran would fit the criteria you listed. Any list of criteria that gives Iran a tick for it's form of government is a bad list.
Any decent criteria would include a system that provided as decent a standard of living for the majority of its citizens as was practical for the time, and included systems to ensure that the rights most valued by most of its citizens were protected.
And yes, this means that most governments throughout history didn't work. That's kind of the point. You can observe this by the vanishingly small number of people attempting to return to absolute monarchy or serfdom.
biccat wrote:
No, I'm arguing from the position of "why the hell are you arguing against my proposed system when others have proposed systems which are significantly worse."
Because the system you have proposed appears deficient for novel reasons, whereas the deficiencies of a benevolent dictatorship are obvious, and can be covered in about a paragraph. Sebster already stated the most blatant one.
biccat wrote:
You're not attempting to debate the idea, you're just coming up with excuses why it won't work.
The essence of constructive debate is criticism, and criticism involves pointing out the shortcomings of a given idea, among other things. These objections can come in the form of arguments from pragmatism, from principle, from logic, and any number of other sources.
If you want to debate in the sense of swaying a third party observer, then I'm not really interested in continuing this conversation.
biccat wrote:
I'm proposing a system, not saying that it's perfect, and I have no interest in writing a 6000+ word academic thesis on how exactly it would work. I'm suggesting that strong economic actors should have a stronger voice than the average person on the street. Additionally, money (economic success) should translate to a stronger voice in government.
Yes, and I'm criticizing that idea; primarily because, in a representative democracy, strong economic actors already have a greater say than the average person on the street. In fact, its generally my view that democracy isn't designed to ensure an equal voice for all members, but rather to mitigate the power of strong economic actors; at least in the modern world.
I'm not expecting your system to be perfect either, I'm simply pointing out its shortcomings; largely as relative to a representative democracy. As Sebster said, simply saying that something "works" is meaningless. Anything can be made to work given the proper social conditions , and distribution of power. I mean, North Korea "works", and is actually one of the most stable states in the world, the same goes for Saudi Arabia.
biccat wrote:
On the U.S. side of things, you apparently don't realize that the 'glue' holding the government together is cooperation between the executive, legislative, and judicial branches. Without cooperation, the Constitution is meaningless. The executive has no reason to abide the rulings of the SCOTUS except for the fact that they agree to. Even FDR, with his court packing plan, was willing to abide by the rulings of the court, as much as he disliked them, because he realized the downward spiral that would result from outright war between the branches.
Well, obviously, that sort of thing is true of any institution. My point is that you're system provides no realistic reason for that cooperation to occur, particularly to an extent that would meaningfully differentiate it from either an oligarchy or an autocracy.
biccat wrote:
You're wrong on the Obamacare (HCRRA? AHCAA?) decision, but that's another topic, all together.
biccat wrote:Then we'll have to define the purpose of a government, or what makes it "work."
Monarchies and dictatorships 'worked' in that they protected the people from outside invasion, secured a line of succession, protected the social structure, enforced a system of taxation, and completed government projects.
Maybe they weren't efficient, and sometimes there were violent revolutions (between ruling classes), but for the most part, yes, they did "work."
First up, they didn't secure a line of succession. You've read about the War of the Roses, yeah? A hundred thousand people died in the course of deciding who should rule.
Second up, Iran would fit the criteria you listed. Any list of criteria that gives Iran a tick for it's form of government is a bad list.
Any decent criteria would include a system that provided as decent a standard of living for the majority of its citizens as was practical for the time, and included systems to ensure that the rights most valued by most of its citizens were protected.
And yes, this means that most governments throughout history didn't work. That's kind of the point. You can observe this by the vanishingly small number of people attempting to return to absolute monarchy or serfdom.
If those are your criteria, then you're right, almost all governments throughout history haven't "worked." But a government has to be perfect or fair to work. It just has to provide a basis for internal social order and external safety from foreign threats.
Under my criteria, yes, monarchies and dictatorships "worked." They didn't work well or provide equality in any meaningful sense of the word, but they did work as an institution of government.
And you're right, there really isn't anything good about Iran's system of government. But it does keep social order and maintain the sovereignty and safety of the Iranian people against outside threats. In that sense, it is a working government.
Any government that fails to provide equality can still be a government, any government that fails to provide/enforce social order or defend against external threats won't be around for very long, either overthrown or overrun.
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dogma wrote:
biccat wrote:
You're wrong on the Obamacare (HCRRA? AHCAA?) decision, but that's another topic, all together.
The administration lawyers agreed to abide by the Judge's ruling on the motion for summary judgment.
The Judge ruled against the administration, declaring the entire bill unconstitutional. Note at this point the entire bill is void.
The administration continued to implement the bill. Since the whole thing had been declared void as unconstitutional, this raised some eyebrows.
The administration then filed a motion for further clarification of the Judge's ruling.
The Judge saw this and said "what the hell?" He treated it as a motion to stay pending appeal, which is a motion that is usually granted in these cases. It makes sense that the Feds shouldn't have to dismantle the whole system only to have to build it up again if they win on appeal, then dismantle it if the SCOTUS rules against them.
The Judge issued the stay as well as further clarifying his ruling that declared the bill unconstitutional. However, given the fact that the administration didn't play by the rules last time, he gave them 7 days to file an appeal or he would lift the stay.
There are basically two reasons why the administration lawyer did what they did. Either they were stalling for time or they are inexperienced and don't know what they're doing (an experienced attorney would have had his Notice of Appeal and Motion to Stay Pending Appeal already written, just in case the trial didn't go as expected).
I'm being generous and assuming that they were doing these actions for strategic reasons, and not out of incompetence. But I could be persuaded.
biccat wrote:If those are your criteria, then you're right, almost all governments throughout history haven't "worked." But a government has to be perfect or fair to work. It just has to provide a basis for internal social order and external safety from foreign threats.
Under my criteria, yes, monarchies and dictatorships "worked." They didn't work well or provide equality in any meaningful sense of the word, but they did work as an institution of government.
And you're right, there really isn't anything good about Iran's system of government. But it does keep social order and maintain the sovereignty and safety of the Iranian people against outside threats. In that sense, it is a working government.
Any government that fails to provide equality can still be a government, any government that fails to provide/enforce social order or defend against external threats won't be around for very long, either overthrown or overrun.
But then all that's needed for a system to 'work' is for there to be no alternative. I mean, you referred to the English monarchy working, but they had plenty of political unrest, it's just that when successful they replaced one king with another, because that's the only system that could be considered. It took a long time to basically stumble upon the ideas of liberal democracy.
And really, in the end what does it matter if you have stability if that stability requires the violent oppression of your people? It really comes back to my point earlier in the thread, that people considerably underestimate how good life is in our liberal democracy. You can say English monarchy 'worked' but only because you can treat the oppression, injutice, social stagnation and poverty as hypothetical concerns.
Thing is, even in the dodgiest of regimes today are generally better than life was then. Well, maybe not for the folk in North Korea.
biccat wrote:If those are your criteria, then you're right, almost all governments throughout history haven't "worked." But a government has to be perfect or fair to work. It just has to provide a basis for internal social order and external safety from foreign threats.
Under my criteria, yes, monarchies and dictatorships "worked." They didn't work well or provide equality in any meaningful sense of the word, but they did work as an institution of government.
And you're right, there really isn't anything good about Iran's system of government. But it does keep social order and maintain the sovereignty and safety of the Iranian people against outside threats. In that sense, it is a working government.
Any government that fails to provide equality can still be a government, any government that fails to provide/enforce social order or defend against external threats won't be around for very long, either overthrown or overrun.
But then all that's needed for a system to 'work' is for there to be no alternative. I mean, you referred to the English monarchy working, but they had plenty of political unrest, it's just that when successful they replaced one king with another, because that's the only system that could be considered. It took a long time to basically stumble upon the ideas of liberal democracy.
And really, in the end what does it matter if you have stability if that stability requires the violent oppression of your people? It really comes back to my point earlier in the thread, that people considerably underestimate how good life is in our liberal democracy. You can say English monarchy 'worked' but only because you can treat the oppression, injutice, social stagnation and poverty as hypothetical concerns.
Thing is, even in the dodgiest of regimes today are generally better than life was then. Well, maybe not for the folk in North Korea.
Like many things on dakka, couldnt this argument descend into simply what "best" means? I mean.. i remember when i went to Sierra Leone one of the officers told me during the country brief that SL was bottom of the index the UN uses to measure human life quality, i think he said the average age at the time was 17?
Who determines who has the "better" life?
And whats the average life expectancy in NK anyway? Maybe its not as bad as we think?
Ive been on ops in Africa twice, its a proper full on gak hole. I think NK will have to be going some to beat it! And i know its hard to get any information about the place.. maybe they keep it secret because its just THAT awesome!
Automatically Appended Next Post: I got a mate of mine who is SPEC OPS to send me this photo, he said its a satellite image of the hospital in Pyonyang.
sebster wrote:
First up, they didn't secure a line of succession. You've read about the War of the Roses, yeah? A hundred thousand people died in the course of deciding who should rule.
I question that figure. I know twenty five thousand or so died at the Battle of Towton, but that was the largest battle of the lot by a mile. I would be curious to see where the figure of a hundred thousand casualties total comes from.
sebster wrote:But then all that's needed for a system to 'work' is for there to be no alternative. I mean, you referred to the English monarchy working, but they had plenty of political unrest, it's just that when successful they replaced one king with another, because that's the only system that could be considered. It took a long time to basically stumble upon the ideas of liberal democracy.
Yes.
Do you dispute that there was a sovereign nation called "England" from the 1400's through to the 20th century? Do you dispute that they had a government?
Probably not. The fact that we can talk about the British Monarchy for that entire period means that there was a functional government in place.
It's not good, it's not "the best." But it worked to keep the country together.
Also Ketara, most histories of the War of the Roses put the death toll around 100,000. Unless you're a Tudor apologist. Then the death toll was probably more like 7.
Also Ketara, most histories of the War of the Roses put the death toll around 100,000. Unless you're a Tudor apologist. Then the death toll was probably more like 7.
Top tip: Always question a casualty figure that's incredibly easily divisible by ten. It's probably invented.
I have no idea what your comments about Tudor apologists are about, but a quick scan online tells me that a current train of thought is that the hundred thousand figure is invented by Tudor historians as propaganda. Considering Henry VII went around painting humps on portraits of Richard III, that doesn't seem so farfetched a notion.
Also Ketara, most histories of the War of the Roses put the death toll around 100,000. Unless you're a Tudor apologist. Then the death toll was probably more like 7.
Top tip: Always question a casualty figure that's incredibly easily divisible by ten. It's probably invented.
The best you're going to get for a war that long ago is two significant digits. The histories I've read about the time put it around 100k. They could be wrong.
Ketara wrote:I have no idea what your comments about Tudor apologists are about, but a quick scan online tells me that a current train of thought is that the hundred thousand figure is invented by Tudor historians as propaganda. Considering Henry VII went around painting humps on portraits of Richard III, that doesn't seem so farfetched a notion.
Just a lighthearted suggestion that the Tudors wouldn't want their ascendency to the English Throne to be built on a pile of skulls.
"No no no, it was totally a peaceful transition. Only 7 guys died, and they were all bad. Nothing to see here, move along."
mattyrm wrote: Like many things on dakka, couldnt this argument descend into simply what "best" means? I mean.. i remember when i went to Sierra Leone one of the officers told me during the country brief that SL was bottom of the index the UN uses to measure human life quality, i think he said the average age at the time was 17?
Who determines who has the "better" life?
I'm not sure what you're getting at here, I just threw out North Korea to stop people pointing out that not every part of Earth is completely wonderful right now. Because that wasn't really my point.
My point is that how most of us live right now is much, much better than how most people lived throughout history.
The places we look at as hellholes right now, like some of Africa, are fairly close to how many people in history lived. Their whole lives in one town, suffering poverty and the threat of random violence, with sudden outbursts of political violence always just around the corner.
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Ketara wrote:I question that figure. I know twenty five thousand or so died at the Battle of Towton, but that was the largest battle of the lot by a mile. I would be curious to see where the figure of a hundred thousand casualties total comes from.
There were a lot of engagements in the war, it spanned thirty years. If the overall figure is exagerated, and I know there are claims that it was, then Towton was likely exagerated as well.
I honestly don't know enough to enter into any debate on the of the total bodycount, and it doesn't really impact my overall point, which is that claiming a political system as 'working' when it produced a thirty year civil war is a pretty loose definition of the word 'work'.
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biccat wrote:Yes.
Do you dispute that there was a sovereign nation called "England" from the 1400's through to the 20th century? Do you dispute that they had a government?
Probably not. The fact that we can talk about the British Monarchy for that entire period means that there was a functional government in place.
It's not good, it's not "the best." But it worked to keep the country together.
At which point you've defined 'working' as 'existing', which is a very strange approach indeed. A ship launched to sea that immediately tips over, and proceeds to float off upside down would still exist as an identfiable object floating in the ocean, so it would meet your definition of 'working'. But it would be useless for carrying people or goods, and most people would consider it a complete disaster, even if it kept floating about in the harbour for the next 400 years.
In deciding if a ship is working or not, it's important to decide if that design is actually doing people any good, not just if the ship has managed to exist for a long time.
There were a lot of engagements in the war, it spanned thirty years. If the overall figure is exagerated, and I know there are claims that it was, then Towton was likely exagerated as well.
I honestly don't know enough to enter into any debate on the of the total bodycount, and it doesn't really impact my overall point, which is that claiming a political system as 'working' when it produced a thirty year civil war is a pretty loose definition of the word 'work'.
Fair enough. I was just curious as a student of history(as opposed to a point on the debate).
I always respect someone more for being capable of admitting they don't really know the topic area.
sebster wrote:At which point you've defined 'working' as 'existing', which is a very strange approach indeed. A ship launched to sea that immediately tips over, and proceeds to float off upside down would still exist as an identfiable object floating in the ocean, so it would meet your definition of 'working'. But it would be useless for carrying people or goods, and most people would consider it a complete disaster, even if it kept floating about in the harbour for the next 400 years.
In deciding if a ship is working or not, it's important to decide if that design is actually doing people any good, not just if the ship has managed to exist for a long time.
Government is no different.
Then I'll have to bow to your superior definition of what constitutes a "working" government.
Obviously there were no working governments anywhere in the world before the French started chopping people's heads off in 1789.
I would argue that a working government is a government that manages to posess internal sovereignity. That is, it is recognized by its people as the 'government', in a slightly harsher terms, it has a monopoly on the legal use of violence within its territory.
That would be my definition of a working government.
biccat wrote:
There are basically two reasons why the administration lawyer did what they did. Either they were stalling for time or they are inexperienced and don't know what they're doing (an experienced attorney would have had his Notice of Appeal and Motion to Stay Pending Appeal already written, just in case the trial didn't go as expected).
Yeah, that's nice, but the competence of a given attorney has no bearing on the reality of whether or not the state violated the initial ruling; particularly given that, as you've noted, there are certain precedents in place that establish a conventional sort of treatment for government action.
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biccat wrote:
Obviously there were no working governments anywhere in the world before the French started chopping people's heads off in 1789.
That argument has been made by people that have likely studied the issue more intently than you, so I wouldn't be so flippant.
In any case, even if we accept the sort of minimal definition of "work" that you are proffering, we still have to answer other questions regarding a proposed system of government. These questions can be moral (Is it good?), practical (Is it stable?), ideological (Is it capitalist?), or metaphysical (Is it as God wills?), among many, many other things.
biccat wrote:Then I'll have to bow to your superior definition of what constitutes a "working" government.
Obviously there were no working governments anywhere in the world before the French started chopping people's heads off in 1789.
It works a fair bit better than your definition, which was so minimal that every government ever meets it up until the point where it stopped existing.
biccat wrote:
There are basically two reasons why the administration lawyer did what they did. Either they were stalling for time or they are inexperienced and don't know what they're doing (an experienced attorney would have had his Notice of Appeal and Motion to Stay Pending Appeal already written, just in case the trial didn't go as expected).
Yeah, that's nice, but the competence of a given attorney has no bearing on the reality of whether or not the state violated the initial ruling; particularly given that, as you've noted, there are certain precedents in place that establish a conventional sort of treatment for government action.
Yes, there are certain precedents in place. They say that when the law is struck down, the administration doesn't try to enforce the law unless it gets a stay. Here, they didn't.
You first said:
Vinson explicitly allowed the HCRA to remain law during the appellate process, and later issued a stay on his ruling.
This was incorrect. He did not explicitly allow the HCRA to remain law during the appellate process. His ruling was that the law is unconstitutional, void, and could no longer be implemented. He later issued a stay of his ruling.
dogma wrote:
biccat wrote:
Obviously there were no working governments anywhere in the world before the French started chopping people's heads off in 1789.
That argument has been made by people that have likely studied the issue more intently than you, so I wouldn't be so flippant.
What argument? That government can't work unless it is benevolent? I would love to see a source on that, because honestly, I don't think any scholar or serious person would make such a patently oblivious claim.
dogma wrote:In any case, even if we accept the sort of minimal definition of "work" that you are proffering, we still have to answer other questions regarding a proposed system of government. These questions can be moral (Is it good?), practical (Is it stable?), ideological (Is it capitalist?), or metaphysical (Is it as God wills?), among many, many other things.
Yes. I agree. There is more to government than "does it 'work.'" I recall making that point several posts ago.
sebster wrote:It works a fair bit better than your definition, which was so minimal that every government ever meets it up until the point where it stopped existing.
Except it's not better, because your definition ignores centuries of history and denies the legitimacy of a significant portion of the world's countries.
Monarchies produced prosperity as often as they did ruin, and managed to be solidly mediocre the majority of the time. Democracy doesn't have nearly so solid a track record, having been nothing but a front for de facto dictatorships far more often than not, while the only countries seeing any benefits from it are so wealthy they'd prosper just as much under a competent dictatorship, if not more. Style of choosing one's leaders is mostly procedural, with just about every other factor carrying far more weight in determining quality of life. At it's best, democracy leaves you with a competent leader, though more often with a terrible one, and still more often with a solidly mediocre one. Of course, in this day and age, dictatorships have a worse track record, but they only crop up with any regularity in embattled, impoverished countries that are already screwed anyways.
biccat wrote:Except it's not better, because your definition ignores centuries of history and denies the legitimacy of a significant portion of the world's countries.
It doesn't ignore it, it places it in the proper context of what life was like and what it is like now.
It doesn't deny legitimacy, that's complete piffle. Stating that something isn't working doesn't mean it isn't legitimate, because the two words have totally different meanings and they're meanings you should become familiar with before you try and have these kinds of conversations.
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Sir Pseudonymous wrote:Monarchies produced prosperity as often as they did ruin, and managed to be solidly mediocre the majority of the time. Democracy doesn't have nearly so solid a track record, having been nothing but a front for de facto dictatorships far more often than not, while the only countries seeing any benefits from it are so wealthy they'd prosper just as much under a competent dictatorship, if not more. Style of choosing one's leaders is mostly procedural, with just about every other factor carrying far more weight in determining quality of life. At it's best, democracy leaves you with a competent leader, though more often with a terrible one, and still more often with a solidly mediocre one. Of course, in this day and age, dictatorships have a worse track record, but they only crop up with any regularity in embattled, impoverished countries that are already screwed anyways.
Again, when I posted very early on in this thread about the common problem of people criticising democracy by having both too pessimistic a view of life in a democracy, and too optimistic a view of life outside of one, it's your thinking like yours above that I referring to.
The idea that monarchies promoted the growth in wealth we see in the modern world is nonsense, exhibited by the plain reality that when mercanitlism and early indutrialisation began to produce real wealth, most monarchies were the immediate casualties. Inheritance based divisions of power don't work well when wealth (and therefore status) can be created through other means.
That somethings called themselves democracies when they are dictatorships makes no sense as a criticism of actual dictatorships.
The idea that modern democracies are so wealthy they'd be wealthy anyway ignore the fact that there are benefits to a system beyond wealth, and that it was because they were democracies that they became so wealthy.
And in every day and age, alternative forms of government were more likely to produce terrible leaders.
biccat wrote:
What argument? That government can't work unless it is benevolent? I would love to see a source on that, because honestly, I don't think any scholar or serious person would make such a patently oblivious claim.
No, that there did not exist functioning governments prior to the French Revolution in 1789 (or roughly that period). Its not even an obscure idea, both Nietzsche and Weber advocated it in some sense or another.
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biccat wrote:
Except it's not better, because your definition ignores centuries of history and denies the legitimacy of a significant portion of the world's countries.
I don't see why the latter is a problem, and I don't see why the former should be inferred.
one thing i would like to ask is, why do "proponents of democracy" like to shove their hand fully and totally into other countries electoral process, whilst alot of the time the people they are dealing with at the moment aRE a result of the last 100 years of colonialism.
To me, just coz you helped fekk up a country 80 years ago, why are you trying to pressure them/intervene now?
In my mind britain and the US owe the middle east a LOOOONG hand of policy non-intervention.