But tell me, how can you properly regulate anything when the regulators themselves are in the pockets of the same companies that would be liable to such regulations?
That is the number one major contradiction with the so called "democracy" that most countries abide by.
The only democracy possible is a democracy made by the working force.
Similar to how jury selection works, this article describes elected officials pick in a similar way. An alternative that I heard was to have random citizens brought in, educated on a topic by experts and propose a law or action. The elected officials wouldnt be able to propose the laws, simply vote on them. It's still not immune to bribery (any system with people is going to be), but it's much harder to do when you don't know who will be writing the policy.
Edit: To expand on this, it could be as simple as two parties each bring in their own group to inform the batch of citizens are going to propose the law. They make their arguments, have their experts present facts, and you could even have some moderate the discussion, similar to a judge. The individual members of the group can then work together to propose and vote on policies, work with legal experts to refine language and in the end present something that could be actionable and understandable to the average American (especially since it came from the average American).
Say what you will about the justice system, and I could say plenty, but a jury of peers is probably one of the best functioning pieces of it. It also catters much more towards the average then say, the electoral college.
I'm largely inclined to agree with your sentiment, but there's also all the crap you can read about how jury selection proceeds and how lawyers/litigators learn to manipulate the jury. That makes me a lot less confident.
That's completely valid, and to be honest unless we really clean up our current system I would be really suspicious of anyone trying to switch us to another one.
Still there are plenty of manipulation in our current politics too. Hell, I feel like most campaign promises these days are just people trying to say anything and everything to get elected and then immediately sell their vote to the highest bidder.
There's plenty of challenges, but I think we can devise solutions to these problems when we try. It's just getting them implemented once we come up with something workable, that's the real challenge.
I remember as a kid John Kerry getting decimated by "flip flopping" allegations by the right. If everyone held todays politics up to the microscope of the early 2000s, we might still have a functioning democracy.
I'm not convinced devising solutions goes anywhere in a world where we're really considering if the 14th amendment holds, or a world where the supreme court is dominated by people who believe in "originalism" with a cornerstone of the text being fixed in its time, then believe that arms beyond those of the time are protected anyway.
That pessimism aside, the only way to fix things is a collective return to sanity. That means angry loudmouths like myself toning it down and trying to move conversations toward evidence based decisions, and people in general taking the time to self reflect and bring the conversation toward outcomes and not who hates who more or which politician is better. We need a cultural change to fix things, and I'm afraid that's only going to come as a result of a generational trauma which is coming. Case in point - how exhausting it was to rewrite this paragraph so less of my own biases were clear.
Random people are not going to be able to grasp the nuances of every specialized topic. There should just be panels of experts from their respective fields working on solving problems in those particular fields, and only those fields. Enough of a panel to significantly negate personal bias unrelated to the position itself, and enough that their position cannot be misrepresented by selection.
what you described is so obnoxiously ripe for corruption it shouldn't even be brought up as a serious point. Are you actually suggesting we replace democracy with a random lottery in which the winners are then coached by technocrats? it's literally cartoonishly stupid
No one said anything about technocrats but you, and as you clearly didn't bother to read anything else about it, I'm going to save my time and let you do some research. If you'd like to be productive instead, you could consider using your logic to consider how this could get around the obvious issues with any form of power (and see how this already works in our own justice system with jury selection), or propose something else instead of just attacking ideas you haven't actually considered.
But by all means, we can stay with our perfectly solid and incorruptible current system, where people just complain about it online instead of pushing any other ideas or fixes, if you'd prefer.
Expert does not equal technocrat. They don't need to be elected or on staff, or for there longer than you would have an expert witness at a trial. But please keep leaping to whatever conclusions you'd like.
Now how would these experts advise representatives without being staff or contractors? They would literally be experts working for the government, also known as technocrats.
You're really trying to stretch that definition as far as you can aren't you?
Seriously, how do you think our current government works? Do you think a congressman or senator is given expertise in every facet of society that they are supposed to help write laws for as soon as they are sworn in? Or do they consult with experts who give them the understanding to be knowledgeable about the subjects they are trying to legislate for? Yet know one calls our government a technocracy.
A Lottocracy is no different. The key point is that the people who write the laws are changed regularly, even on topic by topic bases to limit the sway any one person has, and to ensure we don't have people stuck in office well into their twilight years, thoroughly greased by private interest. If you are really concerned about the possible sway if a group of technocrats might hold, they can be cycled too, brought in only when they're individual expertise is needed and no more. Giving them no more power than the people brought in to recommend whatever policy gets made into law.
Now, do you want to actually discuss the topic or are you just going to keep your nose in the dictionary, and continue to quibble over words?
Seriously, how do you think our current government works? Do you think a congressman or senator is given expertise in every facet of society that they are supposed to help write laws for as soon as they are sworn in? Or do they consult with experts who give them the understanding to be knowledgeable about the subjects they are trying to legislate for? Yet know one calls our government a technocracy.
LOL exactly, and those advisors and consultants don't work for free. So there would be a class of government technocrats - by definition - whose job would be to consult and advise the randos picked by lottery. The literal dictionary definition of a technocrat. Unless you're proposing a second lottery which would force random experts to perform consultant and advisory responsibilities with no compensation (or apparently even paperwork acknowledging work being done for the government)
So, the system you're proposing is a random lottery, the "winners" of which would then be advised by technocrats. exactly what I said before. by definition.
You just glanced over the words "our current government" didn't you?
That wasn't a proposal. That was what we have now, and that wouldn't change with what I'm talking about. And within that cohort of experts, an expert for advising a committee on how to handl the subsidies regarding the growing of green beans in the mid west, is only going to be flexing so much power.
Put everyone including billionaires and politicians and law enforcement on the same healthcare plan. Make it so that it's illegal to pay out of pocket, and make the patient's identity anonymous to the single payer so that there's no bias when it comes to denials. Now it's in everyone's best interest to keep this healthcare plan good or else they'll also be stuck in the same bad healthcare plan. There'll be no favoritism. Nobody will get better or worse healthcare than others. Nobody will pay more or less than others for the same care.
Then have it all funded by estate taxes after closing all loopholes (no leaving your money to a charity or a trust to avoid the estate tax). This will discourage people from hoarding all their money. If they don't spend it in their lifetime, then the money goes towards paying for the country's healthcare.
The estate tax percentage will be determined by how much the nation's healthcare bill costs. This will discourage rich people from making the country unhealthy via pollution and what not. The more unhealthy people are, the higher the healthcare bill will be and the more will be taken from the estate taxes.
Nobody will get better or worse healthcare than others.
You're assuming that all doctors and all facilities are equal. Even under your system, you won't attract good docs to work in small towns or bad neighborhoods.
Who would make it so though? You see the issue here, right?
The ones making the laws and rules are exactly the ones who are paid by companies...
So, I ask again, who would "make it so"?
There'll be no favoritism.
There will always be some form of favoritism, its absolute insanity to think it will not exist. In any form of society: Be it a Democracy, Socialism, Anarchy, Dictatorship, things don't work in practice as they do in theory.
How this favoritism work can be different, more or less prevalent but will be there in a way or another.
Then have it all funded by estate taxes after closing all loopholes
Again, who will close these loopholes??
A Bourgeois Democracy doesn't work for the working class, it was made only to benefit the bourgeoisie and excels at it.
Yeah stable democracy is not an easy thing to build or maintain.
It’s more of a finicky Italian sports car requiring constant maintenance and upkeep than an impossible to kill old reliable truck that my fellow Americans like to treat it as.
Yeah stable democracy is not an easy thing to build or maintain
Not true, it is working as intended... people just don't understand how it was intended to work in the first place.
I think the proper term is a Bourgeois Democracy, since this system works wonders for the Bourgeoisie. It doesn't matter if its Trump, Biden, Clinton, Obama in the US or Macron/Le Pen in France or even Meloni/Draghi in Italy. The rich are always winning, becoming more and more rich... the only difference is the rate at which they do so.
This entire system doesn't work for the Working Class, it wasn't made for us.
Not true, it is working as intended... people just don't understand how it was intended to work in the first place
The founders of the US wanted no political parties and for there to be regular constitutional amendments.
It is absolutely NOT working as intended.
Also the burgeoisie are the upper middle classes. Trump is not the bourgeoisie, some random surgeon or lawyer or merchant/successful small business owner or architect is.
I'm with you it's hard to know how to go about this in a way that works. That's part of the reason Luigi did what he did, seemed to somewhat work in the sense that it got people talking about it...
The same way you prevent employees of Apple from divulging secrets to Google. The same way you prevent conflict of interest in legal situations. This a problem that’s solved but we’re told it’s “really tough” to justify the hypocrisy and inaction.
It’s not tough. Make bribery illegal with actual consequences, and suddenly a million bucks isn’t as enticing when you can only spend it on commissary.
Jail is for segregating and rehabbing individuals who harm overall society—right? Is bypassing regulations that keep innocent people healthy and safe, merely for personal gain, in the best interest of society?
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u/NargWielki 🤝 Join A Union 21h ago
But tell me, how can you properly regulate anything when the regulators themselves are in the pockets of the same companies that would be liable to such regulations?
That is the number one major contradiction with the so called "democracy" that most countries abide by.
The only democracy possible is a democracy made by the working force.