My impression is that all systems fail long term and need to break down and be renewed after crisis. Once it becomes entrenched, I think odds are heavily against being able to try social systems.
Have you seen a system like you describe, where a structure to continue change and experimentation is built in? To me capitalism with strong controls seems the most stable and successful (assuming your benchmark is population qualify of life not just GDP), e.g. some European systems.
Your sentiment is why I don’t consider myself a communist. Capitalism can work well but it requires extraordinarily powerful regulations. Communism is maybe a bit better but still requires the same amount of regulation we’re failing to implement now.
We need to fix capitalism before we make the move to communism.
Term limits for everything. If the morons are going to pick an idiot to run their village at least there’s a chance they’ll elect a smart man, if only by mistake.
Okay, so how do we get everyone to actually bother to vote? In the US we’ve been having problems trying to get equal representation at the polls and so far haven’t really done a great job of fixing it.
Having a team of lawyers to draft and submit legal terms is a great idea, in fact it’s kind of the point of lawyers. The issue is having the people who vote on them be able to both understand them, and to check both the writer and the representative check each other for corruption. If you give the representative the ability to remove the lawyer then the representative holds the real power, if you don’t, you give the lawyer more power. We need a balance in there somewhere.
Let’s also not forget that direct democracy has lead to the reversal of Roe v. Wade and the election of theocratic and fascistic leaders. How do we balance that?
Capping terms at 1 or 2 prevents people from being able to consolidate and exploit their power. But we’ll still need leaders to vote on our behalf so how do we prevent corruption? What if we had a new institution whose sole job was to check the government and maintain an open forum where all opinions can be shared and argued.
More than any of this, I really think the rich just need to be scared of the poor again.
I disagree that people would somehow be more compelled to vote for issues they care about. Most people care about who the president is but that still doesn’t get everyone to the polls. Forcing states to have more reasonable access to mail in ballots would be a step in the right direction but the problem in my opinion is really a out getting people to see it more as a duty than a chore. Say we used a tax credit to incentivize voting?
As for the idea of just letting political parties do what they want, they kind of already do, see DNC primaries 2016. That system already exists and is being actively exploited by the ruling class. I don’t think that’s a fix.
Again, we come back to term limits, people who are elected to office need to be forced out of politics after a set amount of time to prevent career politicians. And more specifically we need to make it so they cannot accept a job offer or payment for services from anyone who could have benefited from their decisions while in office. Maybe we have a pension for ex-representatives to live on for 8 years after leaving office, and make it illegal for them to have any other income? It should be a service to our country, not our country serving them.
Thanks for the thought provoking reply!
My impression is that all systems fail long term and need to break down and be renewed after crisis. Once it becomes entrenched, I think odds are heavily against being able to try social systems.
Have you seen a system like you describe, where a structure to continue change and experimentation is built in? To me capitalism with strong controls seems the most stable and successful (assuming your benchmark is population qualify of life not just GDP), e.g. some European systems.
Removed by mod
Your sentiment is why I don’t consider myself a communist. Capitalism can work well but it requires extraordinarily powerful regulations. Communism is maybe a bit better but still requires the same amount of regulation we’re failing to implement now.
We need to fix capitalism before we make the move to communism.
Removed by mod
Term limits for everything. If the morons are going to pick an idiot to run their village at least there’s a chance they’ll elect a smart man, if only by mistake.
Removed by mod
Okay, so how do we get everyone to actually bother to vote? In the US we’ve been having problems trying to get equal representation at the polls and so far haven’t really done a great job of fixing it.
Having a team of lawyers to draft and submit legal terms is a great idea, in fact it’s kind of the point of lawyers. The issue is having the people who vote on them be able to both understand them, and to check both the writer and the representative check each other for corruption. If you give the representative the ability to remove the lawyer then the representative holds the real power, if you don’t, you give the lawyer more power. We need a balance in there somewhere.
Let’s also not forget that direct democracy has lead to the reversal of Roe v. Wade and the election of theocratic and fascistic leaders. How do we balance that?
Capping terms at 1 or 2 prevents people from being able to consolidate and exploit their power. But we’ll still need leaders to vote on our behalf so how do we prevent corruption? What if we had a new institution whose sole job was to check the government and maintain an open forum where all opinions can be shared and argued.
More than any of this, I really think the rich just need to be scared of the poor again.
Removed by mod
I disagree that people would somehow be more compelled to vote for issues they care about. Most people care about who the president is but that still doesn’t get everyone to the polls. Forcing states to have more reasonable access to mail in ballots would be a step in the right direction but the problem in my opinion is really a out getting people to see it more as a duty than a chore. Say we used a tax credit to incentivize voting?
As for the idea of just letting political parties do what they want, they kind of already do, see DNC primaries 2016. That system already exists and is being actively exploited by the ruling class. I don’t think that’s a fix.
Again, we come back to term limits, people who are elected to office need to be forced out of politics after a set amount of time to prevent career politicians. And more specifically we need to make it so they cannot accept a job offer or payment for services from anyone who could have benefited from their decisions while in office. Maybe we have a pension for ex-representatives to live on for 8 years after leaving office, and make it illegal for them to have any other income? It should be a service to our country, not our country serving them.