The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies is a 2007 book written by Bryan Caplan challenging the notion that voters are reasonable people that society can trust to make laws. Rather, Caplan contends that voters are irrational in the political sphere and have systematically biased ideas concerning economics. ...
The book is notable in use of irrationality, a rare assumption in economics. Yet the work is also a challenge to conventional public choice, where voters are seen as rationally ignorant. Conventional public choice either emphasizes the efficiency of democracy (as in the case of Donald Wittman) or, more commonly, democratic failure due to the interaction between self-interested politicians or bureaucrats, well-organized, rent-seeking minority interests and a largely indifferent general public (as in the work of Gordon Tullock, James M. Buchanan, and many others). Caplan, however, emphasizes that democratic failure does exist and places the blame for it squarely on the general public. He makes special emphasis that politicians are often caught between a rock and a hard place: thanks to advisors, they know what policies would be generally beneficial, but they also know that those policies are not what people want. Thus they are balancing good economic policy (so they don’t get voted out of office due to slow growth) and bad economic policy (so they don’t get voted out of office due to unpopular policies).
The real problem with democracy is Parkinson's law of triviality, otherwise known as BikeShedding. Every executive on the board knows what color they want to paint the office bike shed. They argue about it for hours. How to build the plant or do something complicated is left to overpaid consultants or specialists who are given the hands-off treatment.
Same thing with legislation. Take an issue like gay marriage. Everyone can understand it at some level, so everyone has an opinion on it and it becomes a popular subject to talk about when discussing politics.
Now take something like financial regulation. The future of the country is riding on it, but it's too complicated for most people and thus people fall asleep after 5 minutes of talking about it, so it's handed off to specialists and consultants who work for the finance industry.
Totally right - the other astonishing thing is just how cheaply regulators and congress can be bought. A congressional race costs between 1-5 million for all but the most expensive media markets. That's all they need to raise, total. If you're a multi-billion industry player, what's a few million to set up a PAC? It's nothing, compared to the return you get. Run a few ads claiming that the non-bought person in the race is going to restrict your freedom or let terrorists into the country or some bombastic nonsense. Huge ROI.
The thing that discourages me about financial regulation is that it's going to be a huge, unreadable bill, written mostly by lobbyists, which disproportionately burdens small businesses and outlaws anything innovative, thereby eliminating competition and reinforcing the corporate oligarchy that exists.
So is deregulation the answer?
Well, no. When deregulation gets done, the bills are written mostly by lobbyists. The big corporations identify a few of their pain points and we happily eliminate those regulations, but we never worry about the things that are most burdensome to small businesses or the regulations that prohibit new companies from starting up at all. So deregulation tends to strengthen existing companies and reinforce the corporate oligarchy that already exists.
Basically, for the market to work better we need to increase competition, but Congress will never have any incentive to encourage increased competition. That proposition would pit the lobbying dollars of every existing company in an industry against the interests of companies that haven't been formed yet.
I don't think that's true at all. Not knowing much about economics does not cause people to have less strongly held opinions on it, it often causes them to have more. There are millions of people who don't even understand basic economic concepts who are vehemently opposed or in favor of government bailouts.
I think mostly its because of ideological difference (small government, national debt, non-republican government) over actual rational opinion on economics (This is not to say I support or disapprove of the bailout).
If this was a non-ideological/political position we would be having a civil war over bushes spending during his term.
In an effort to defuse any potential flames that may arise from a hot-button issue like gay marriage let me replace your example with "social issues".
You argue that financial regulation is important (and it is) but the problem with your statement is that the economy is all-important. I'm not going to argue that it isn't, rather I am merely goung to point out that people have very different ideas about what government is for.
For some there are many social issues that Are important to society as a whole. One could argue that freedom of religion is an unproductive distraction.
One can argue that we shouldn't legislate morality, which many clearly try to do, but we do that in many ways. Theft, murder, etc are all morality when it comes down to it.
If you approach democracy by saying "these people are irrational because issue X doesn't matter to the economy" you're not making any useful observation. In fact, it's a bit like arguing that the problem with democracy is that you don't get the outcome you want.
Suppose your personal stake in a presidential election is $50,000 (e.g., you make $500k/year, and Candidate 1 will raise or lower your taxes by 2.5%/year.) Your odds of swinging the election with your vote are 1 in 100 million (assuming 100 million voters).
Your expected gain from voting is $0.0005. Therefore, you will not rationally be willing to spend more than $0.0005 determining which candidate is best. Further, you might deliberately vote for the wrong candidate for expressive reasons. I.e., if you assign $0.25 worth of utility to supporting the guy you want to share a beer with [1], or to proving you aren't racist, you will vote for the worse candidate.
[1] Because the stakes are so low, most people didn't even bother learning that this candidate doesn't drink. That would take more than $0.25 worth of effort.
There are 100 million votes, one of which decided the election (the N+1'th vote on the winning side, assuming N votes on the losing side).
If you prefer, you can play with binomial distributions to calculate P(side X wins with N votes && side X wins with N-1 votes) [1]. Using the normal approximation and ignoring the normalization prefactor (an overestimate) exp[(n(p-0.5)^2 / 1(np(1-p))] odds of having your vote matter. For p=0.501 (i.e., voters are split 50.1%, 49.9%), that works out to about 10^{-87}. For p=0.51, double floats are incapable of representing a number that small.
I stand by my statement. Your vote doesn't matter.
[1] Conceptually, this is slightly different from computing the odds that you cast the deciding vote, but I realize it is more useful from a decision theoretic perspective.
I can't help you clean up the calculations because the entire premise that the probability of "your vote mattering" times your potential financial gain from one candidate over another gives any reasonable estimate of utility of a vote is absurd.
It doesn't have to be financial gain - it can be altruistic gain from policy choices. As I said in another post, if you personally would be willing to spend $50k to legalize gay marriage (for example), you can replace $50k of financial gain by $50k worth of utility derived from helping others.
The rational voter never votes. At best he spends his effort convincing other people to vote a certain way, persuading others that their vote does indeed count, all the while knowing his own vote doesn't. If he participates at all, he does so as demagogue and charlatan.
Maybe I'm looking at this analogy too hard, but ...
If I actually did have $50k riding on the election, I'd spend more than $0.0005 cents determining which candidate is best, because assessing risk is necessary to plan for the future.
Fine, but this doesn't change the main point. Even if you figured it was worth your time to determine the effect of each candidate on your future, it still wouldn't compel you to vote for the candidate which helps you most; the expected value would still only be a tiny fraction of a penny, and you'd be better off using your vote to signal allegiance, assuage your conscience, etc.
...unless you are alturistic, and you value the impact on the other 300 million citizens (and the rest of the world). Then it can make sense to vote for who you think is best.
I think assuming that the only value you derive from voting being tax rate is the major flaw here.
Altruistic value is usually very high in the issues that people seem to vote based on: gay marriage, government health care, military operations, etc. Many people do value these things much higher than their tax rate.
The problem arises when we treat dollars as the unit of value. Value is not possible to practically quantify, and using money as the common denominator pushes things that actually are money to the fore, and fails to expose the things that do matter to people.
I discussed a tax increase simply because it made things simple, but you can assign a dollar value to any of the items you've mentioned. How much would you, personally, pay to legalize gay marriage?
$50,000? If so, repeat my calculation. $100,000? If so, then voting is worth $0.001 to you. $100 million? Then voting is actually worth $1 to you.
A much simpler explanation of voting behavior is the expressive value of voting. People devote great effort to cheering for their team and signalling allegiance - just look at sales of $50 Yankees pinstripes or $80 Paquiao jackets. Most people don't wait in line for 10 minutes just to donate $1 to a good cause.
What I'm saying, though, is putting a dollar figure on things like gay marriage is disingenuous. We have this conception that "value" automatically means that it can be put in terms of money.
Money has value, and events like law changes have value. However, both money and events have wildly varying value to different people. What a dollar is worth to me is different than what a dollar is worth to you, and indeed, what the millionth dollar is worth to me is far different than what the first one is.
The problem is this assumption that money is an appropriate expression of value. This is what I reject. It is an abstraction parallel to the bundles of mortgages that American banks were brought down by - putting it into a unit the MBAs and politicians can understand meant losing essentially all the meaning of what was bought and sold, and ignored fundamental fallacies in assumptions made.
Or, like most people, you're not a rational machine.
The future that costs you $50,000 (or helps/hurts you via any of the mentioned surrogate currencies) is distasteful. Your irrational brain won't let you do nothing, and makes you go out and cast your vote, even though you may understand that it's a waste of time.
Alternative theory: Risk.
Highly publicized close elections create a scenario that looms large in your mind: The Bad Guy wins by one vote. (Or just a few). You would never forgive yourself. Even though you know it to be fantastically unlikely, you aren't willing to risk it.
For example, I consider time I spend reading on the toilet basically worthless. So when the voter guide comes in the mail, with the candidates' statements, text of propositions and submitted arguments for or against, it is less than $0.25 to multitask there.
Expected gain, though, is higher than just the tax cuts and beer-having. It can be fun to study that stuff. And, looking at the big picture, the collapse of our democracy by having an uninformed electorate would mean everyone loses everything that is based on the USD.
Aren't you assuming that all you can do to protect your 50k is vote? And that all votes are independent? What if you could spend 25k mobilizing your side in the election? Or running an issue ad? You gain it all back and then some.
Still seems like a low return on investment, especially when you multiply by the risk of failure. Yes you can increase your investment and reduce the risk, but the ceiling on gains make this unappetizing.
On the contrary, you currently get far more leverage out of your money by participating in the (US) political system and flashing cash than you do by apathy. And the more money you spend, the less risk there is.
Why is there no net neutrality bill? The rich are overrepresented in our system for a reason. Sad but true.
In democracy, the job of the "average voter" is to represent himself. Expecting the "average voter" to have an understanding of issues at the level of the person running for office is a misinterpretation of their role.
What a jerk I would be if I said: "The best argument against industrialization is a five-minute conversation with the average construction worker" or something similar.
Yes, that's inevitable. You can't help take away from others. Even if you're a Jain, sweeping the floor before you to avoid killing insects. Perfection is unattainable, but I dream of a system that takes people's motivations (both selfish and altruistic) into account.
> Caplan, however, emphasizes that democratic failure does exist and places the blame for it squarely on the general public. He makes special emphasis that politicians are often caught between a rock and a hard place: thanks to advisors, they know what policies would be generally beneficial, but they also know that those policies are not what people want
These three sources of failure (voters, politicians, lobbyists) don't have to be mutually exclusive. I'd say they're all broken, with the real problem resting in the idea that government is upwardly scalable. The inability of most people to understand actions and motivations other than their own (a requisite for computer security) leads them to thinking that affecting larger groups somehow solves more people's problems (while in fact the opposite is true).
I am not sure why people wants to burden the voters with the hard decisions in life.
Nobody in the world knows how to make all parts of the pencil. The graphite have to be mined. Somebody have to make coffee for the miners. Somebody have to truck the graphite to pencil making factory. Somebody have to chop down the wood.
Even programmers specialized. There's somebody who work on deploy tools, and there are some who are trying to make ruby faster.
Voters now have to decide between a wide range of policy stance that they probably don't know anything about. There are foreign policies, economic problems, etc. All of which are subjects that probably required lot of studying to get right. Than, those politicians, as generalist probably don't know these issue as well as they need to, or they are compromised by their own interests.
Programmers, doctors, etc are busy with their own profession trying to keep themselves competitive on the market and make decisions for their own lives. Sometime, they got it wrong.
If a lot of people can't make the right decisions for themselves, why do they expect them to make decisions concerning the leadership of a nation?
Better to have ignorant voters trying to make the decisions in the interests of the country, than a small group of rent-seeking special interests making decisions that benefit themselves to the detriment of the country.
When you're deciding about wars, financial crisies, decimation of the middle class, increasingly extreme wealth distribution, etc., the former probably is the lesser of two evils.
I believe that the main function of voting isn't putting politics in the government, but kicking them from it. "Candidates" is derived from "clean" in Latin. Time will make them dirty, people will end perceiving it and choosing the lesser evil.
The rules that prevent a president from too many reelections are similarly befeficial, and a lot cheaper even if not enough.
Actually, it's meant as "brilliant" or "brilliantly white", since candidates during the elections to public offices in Rome walked around with their different levels of entourage wearing togas that had been whitened to the extreme with chalk.
The voters have the voters' interests at heart. Businesses have their own interests at heart. But you're right: voters are often stupid, irrational, misinformed, etc.
I'll leave the last word to Churchill: democracy is the worst possible system for running a country, except for all the others.
> democracy is the worst possible system for running a country, except for all the others.
This is one of those chants that everyone keeps repeating for fear of looking at the alternatives, or to excuse the horrors. Keep repeating the chant, and you don't have to take a close look at the problem.
It's remarkable that this quote shows up on nearly every thread where somebody criticizes democracy on a non-specialist website. It's like the creationist assertion that life is too complex to arise by chance. The phrase short-circuits all discussion and protects the wielder from any doubt or any need to reconsider his beliefs.
Many people in history have thought their current way of doing things was pretty nifty and everything that came before was barbarism and idiocy. We have to be a little more open-minded than that to get at true or useful ideas. There is certainly something suboptimal about a government that can't pass a bill smaller than the size of a dictionary, or that in theory and practice protects concentrated interests at the expense of the broader good. I have my doubts that the American state is in a sustainable equilibrium given the astounding irrationality and paralysis of the legislative process.
On specialist websites, people might be familiar with the existence of an entire sub-discipline of economics dedicated to explaining the incentives facing voters and governments (Public Choice) and the historical lessons of hundreds of different governing forms in human history, so the discussion thankfully extends beyond Churchill's quote.
that appears to explain some phenomena that are not readily explained on other grounds. Public choice theory was a big part of the content of the course on legislation in the first year of law school, and had much to do with why I don't expect to solve all of my country's problems by passing new laws.
Yea. I agree with Churchill (at least for the correct quote: "It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried."), but I think these glib slogans are non-constructive or worse.
The version of the quote I've heard has "from time to time" at the end of it. With more context:
> Many forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.
I think this depends on what you define as "better". Certainly totalitarian regimes have lower economic growth. But if you measure economic growth as your measure of "better" then it seems that democracy is not as much a determinant as the economic system (eg: the more capitalist the faster the growth, higher the standard of living, the more powerful the central government and thus the more socialist, the lower the standard of living and the slower the growth.)
I wouldn't call China a democracy, but they have given up a lot of central power and are growing fast.
Certainly there are also example of successful societies that have lasted for very long periods of time that are not democracies, such as tribal communities. They don't exhibit significant economic growth, but they also are far less likely to make war, which would be a good candidate for being "Better" (it is bad to lose a generation of men every couple of generations.) Their lower economic growth may also be a result of their lower war making, but their higher standards of living of the populace relative to the overall standard of living, when compared to democracies, argues again for their form of government being superior.
My point being that it is very common for a culture to reinforce in its members a perception that the cultures way of doing things is "right" and that it produces a better outcome-- and it does it in such a way that people presume that this to be a fact, rather than a bias.
> I think this depends on what you define as "better".
I think by most standards that most people would agree on, democracies come out well.
For example, consider life expectancy -- this is IMO a good measure because nearly everyone wants to be alive, and someone who is alive is (usually) better off than someone who is dead. If you look at countries with the highest life expectancy ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_Expectancy_by_Country ) democracies seem to be over-represented at the top. This is particularly the case if you discount territories that aren't counties (such as Hong Kong).
Of if you go by UN Human Development Index, you get a similar story.
> Certainly there are also example of successful societies that have lasted for very long periods of time that are not democracies, such as tribal communities. They don't exhibit significant economic growth, but they also are far less likely to make war
I'm not sure this is the case. Are you familiar with the high rate of homicide among the Yanomamo?
> My point being that it is very common for a culture to reinforce in its members a perception that the cultures way of doing things is "right" and that it produces a better outcome-- and it does it in such a way that people presume that this to be a fact, rather than a bias.
You're right that this is a cognitive bias we should guard against.
When looking at statistics you must guard against differences in methods and political bias. The UN is not a neutral organization, and life expectancy is not measured in a consistent way (in my understanding.)
At any rate, I believe what you're seeing is the superiority of democracy as a form of tyranny, and I won't dispute that. Most of the comparisons, looking at those statistics are to other forms of tyranny. There are very few free countries, and few people who have been educated to respect human rights enough to take up arms to overthrow their government to defend them. When these people do this, though, as the somalis overthrew their dictator, they are visited by no end of warmaking from these so-called "peaceful" democracies. Somalia has been attacked without provocation by the US and UK many times since throwing off their dictator.
As for the Yanamamo, I'm not familiar with them, but it would be interesting to understand how many of these homicides are murders and how many are instances of the death penalty. (EG: crimes themselves or responses to crimes.) I, of course, can't say.
Other than people have a natural instinct for a form of morality, but this morality can be perverted by culture. (note americans propensity for supporting violence against the innocent in the forms of war and taxes.)
Immigration flows (which, indeed, involve people leaving one culture and entering another) do a lot to show that there probably are some genuine advantages to democracy over the other forms of government that have been tried from time to time. So far there isn't any fast-growing dictatorship that has achieved long-term prosperity greater than that of the various democratic countries around the world.
Switzerland is far more democratic than the US and the people are much more in control of their government. Proportional representation, no one person in charge as president and referendums on most significants actions of the legislature make for a much more decentralized system. Its very difficult for a vast industry special interests to insert itself into the process.
The key is not letting people decide everything for everybody, but preserving the individual's ability to decide their own fate.
The developing "democratic" disaster in the US is not what the founders wanted. They thought they had put things in place to prevent this, but they failed. And its looking like only a major crisis that our leaders cannot cover over will force us to reconsider how we operate.
It's important to recognize that the United States is version 1.0 of democracy. The U.S. system of governance hasn't changed significantly since its inception; the 12th, 17th and 22nd amendments are the only "bugfixes", and they're quite minor.
Other nations have had several advantages. Smaller populations, making experimenting and changes easier. Ability to see what the U.S. did wrong and learn from its mistakes. And so on. Democracy is at at least version 3 today, but the U.S. is stuck at version 1.0 and will be for the foreseeable future.
To put it another way, the U.S. Constitution is mostly from 1789, while the Swiss Constitution is from 1999. Does anyone think there might have been some advances in the science of democracy over those 210 years?
Ancient Athens was version 1.0. We're on something like 2.0.5, based on new scalability work and with some minor tweaks made over the last couple centuries.
The basis for the USA (ie the Constitution) has changed little in 200 years but the government has radically changed.
Look at the Supreme Court decision in the 20s that decided that constitutional limitations on the federal government also applied to the states and local government. Around that time an idea took hold among many that the constitution was a "living document", meaning that it's meaning changed with the times and it was OK to decide what the founders intended but never said.
Basically the constitution means whatever you want it to mean.
So the issue isn't that the US was an early iteration of democracy, it's that the judicial branch is out of control and the legislature has bought into the idea that's its ideas extend to things the constitution says nothing about (eg the federal Department of Education).
Excellent point. What I have never understood is that while the US constitution is relatively robust and, for the better part, has withstood the test of time, it is a document written to reflect the late 18th century, yet for some reason 21st century America seems to believe that it is a near immutable document and set of ideas. There is a need for a "refresh", or at least people should be willing to consider what aspects of the constitution have not aged as well as others.
Well, part of the cleverness built into the constitution is a meta-rule describing the process for changing the constitution. Every system accumulates cruft, but if we have a mechanism to apply patches, then we can (in theory) accomplish some refactoring without an upheaval.
The only issue is that modern politics in America is a lot more like trench warfare, with lines drawn and and fixed. Opinions on every issue fall along party lines, with a few exceptions.
I hope dearly that Lawrence Lessig succeeds in actually calling a constitutional convention (http://www.callaconvention.org), if for no other reason than to strike out your "in theory" qualifier.
While true, the problem is that our constitution also defines our civil rights and liberties. If you open the door to reexamining the Constitution, you open the door to butchering the Bill of Rights.
Given how dysfunctional our political system is, I'll take an outdated and flawed constitution before letting the clowns in power now try and write a better one. Sure, maybe it's not vitally important that the Constitution outlaw the government quartering troops in our houses, but I would not like to see the people behind the Patriot Act, Guantanamo Bay, "extraordinary rendition", and internet wiretapping get a shot at "revising" the fourth and fifth amendments.
Most of it is very, very good. But how we chose who represents us and the lack of approval we have of their actions are the big flaws. If we make a few changes, I think the ship can be put back on track.
As far as what century it applies to, the problems of government are pretty timeless. When one class of people is free to exploit another, the results are the same no matter what century is it.
I am not sure referendums are the answer. If you look at the California example, lobbyists still have a huge impact and the state is even more non functioning than the federal government. I am not sure more referendums would be a good thing.
Their tagline is 'making your interests special interests.' Their investors include Founders Fund, Conway, Dixon, McClure, Rabois, etc. And they are pretty clear that what they're pursuing is an 'unmatched opportunity to change representative democracy' (i.e. aiming high).
Wow. I've been thinking about this concept for a while. It'll either be the best or the worst thing to happen to democracy. This sort of thing would make our representative democracy function as more of a direct democracy, which would feel nice, but it has plenty of drawbacks (cf. California).
I'm interested, but their "about" page isn't detailed enough. What do they do? I guess they give you the contact info for your representatives and then provide verification for the representative that you are a voting constituent? What do they do to organize ("match") people?
For now, yeah. It's an extension of how the Startup Visa movement used gov2. Elected officials and their offices really only want to hear from their constituents; if you make it easier for them to verify that feedback is coming from their constituents while you simultaneously make it easier for constituents to engage, then (theoretically) through the size of the crowds, you can drown out highly motivated special interests. (Of course, lobbyists are free to use Votizen and are the short-term potential advertisers on the platform.)
Financial lobbying should be outlawed. It's very equivalent to the ability to buying votes and we know that buying power is very unequally spread across the country. I find it shocking that anyone would doubt that. BTW, financial lobbying is outlawed in most other democracies.
What I find more interesting is Schmidt's new interpretation of the Google motto "Don't be evil":
"The end of the interview turned to the future of technology. When Bennet asked about the possibility of a Google "implant," Schmidt invoked what the company calls the "creepy line."
"Google policy is to get right up to the creepy line and not cross it," he said. Google implants, he added, probably crosses that line.
At the same time, Schmidt envisions a future where we embrace a larger role for machines and technology. "With your permission you give us more information about you, about your friends, and we can improve the quality of our searches," he said. "We don't need you to type at all. We know where you are. We know where you've been. We can more or less now what you're thinking about."
From the First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law ... abridging ... the right of the people ... to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
Suppose we posited that corporations per se have no rights, only people do. Even so, the individuals who work for a corporation, or own shares in it, would still have that First Amendment right.
Corporations are not people - that's commons sense - and by allowing them the rights enjoyed by human beings, it gives shareholders a compounded right to influence government:
- through their own human vote,
- through the power lobbying, which allows them to not only influence votes in congress but even to initiate legislative cycles with laws which are usually written by a lobbyist or a former lobbyist in the staff of a congressman.
Excuse my tone, but please wake up people! I am ready to do something about it beyond voting (some sort of activism). Are you?
Try a thought experiment: Imagine that "Google Inc." had no legal meaning except as a convenient identifier for a collection of individuals -- viz., Google's stockholders -- acting in concert.
A) Should Congress be able to restrict the right of those people to hire professional advocates to petition Congress for the redress of their (real or imagined) grievances?
How would a "no" answer be reconciled with the First Amendment passage quoted above?
B) If yes, should the shareholders have the right to vote to designate some of their number -- viz., Google's board of directors -- to decide what specific policies will be advocated on behalf of the shareholders?
It's not just a collection of people, though - almost all of its power is concentrated in the hands of an extremely small number of people, who can force everyone to act in concert according to their own will.
So if a group of people have voluntarily agreed to incorporate, could that be called force, ever? I don't see how a "small number of people" can "force everyone to act in concert" when they have voluntarily incorporated i.e. allocated some of their capital or labor to some other party.
The executives determine the entire direction of the company. The people at the bottom are generally there to make a livelihood, not to endorse the political ideas of those at the top. A decision by those executives should not be considered the will of that entire company, for political purposes.
I agree 200%. If anyone thinks that corporate governance has anything of a democracy, they've missed the point.
I actually think that corporations must not be democracies. It's a good thing that they are somewhat authoritarian because modern democracies are not efficient enough and too bureaucratic for many economic activities.
On the other hand some societal issues are too morally essential to be run by authoritarian corporate rulers. That's exactly why I want these people out of politics. Right now they have way to much political clout through lobbying.
I could imagine a "yes" answer that still restricts what a specific legal organization can do. For example, the collection of individuals behind "Google, Inc." could hire a professional political advocate... but perhaps they wouldn't be allowed to do so via the specific legal vehicle "Google Inc.", which is only chartered by the state to serve particular commercial purposes. The individuals would remain free to take up collections for their lobbying efforts outside the framework of that specific legal entity.
So what? The supreme court sometimes doesn't agree with me. And sometimes the supreme court changes its mind. Do you take all the supreme court says for an absolute and intangible truth. The supreme court hears cases because it does think it needs to be consulted and it does think it desserves to keep building common law on the basis of new cases. I made mine above. My case, that is ;-)
Finnancial lobbying should be outlawed. It's very equivalent to the ability to buying votes and we know that buying power is very unequally spread across the country. I find it shocking that anyone would doubt that. BTW, financial lobbying is outlawed in most other democracies.
I am sure that there will be loopholes to exploit.
"America's research universities are the envy on the world," he said. "We have 90 percent of the top researchers in the world. We also have a bizarre policy to train people and then kick them out by not giving them visas, which makes no sense at all."
I think he has a very good point there. Even more so for graduate students. If they've been here for 4+ years, and are skilled it should be very easy for them to get permanent residency.
US immigration policy is particularly inept. As a citizen, I had only the vaguest sense that this was so, but having started a company with two immigrants, the depths of the stupidity have become manifestly clear.
Personally, I'm largely in favor of the free migration of labor, but regardless of one's beliefs w/r/t immigration -- and there are principled arguments for all sorts of positions on this issue, I feel -- nobody can defend the pig's breakfast that we currently have. And nobody's talking about fixing it, either -- all the public conversation about immigration is about Mexico, which is surely important, but hardly the only thing what needs fixing.
I wonder who still believe they live in a democracy (i.e. people rule). Modern democracies are supposed to represent 'the people', yet in practice people only get to vote once in ~4 years and large businesses (using lobby) can use their money to pressure every day.
Every political science prof will say lobbies are more powerful then votes. so why still call it a democracy? What would be a cover-up lie then isn't it?
I think businesses should not run coutnries because they are not creative -- they simply and soley try to maximize profit. People can make a nation friendly, homey and caring; business cannot.
Indeed, the statement is contingent, not necessarily true. The leaders of the autocracies need to be benevolent and think long term.
It all comes down to respect of property rights. Democracies respect property rights to a limited but non-zero extent. Chinese leaders now respect private property more than most Western democracies.
"As long as the problem of landownership is not solved, conflicts on unfair land seizure cannot be avoided. Since land is in the hand of the government, a developer can bribe an official and make the official claim that the land is seized for public use," said Liu Xiaobo, a leading political dissident. "If the developer could get the approval from the official, he is legally entitled to seize the land."
I agree China is far from perfect - central government, even with the best intentions, will always be inhuman and inefficient. However, sometimes less so than under mob rule.
A counter argument can be found in the book "The end of history and the last man". It puts forward the idea that technology improves at the greatest rate in a free market democracy because the professional classes are at their most effective.
China has a very different culture than Singapore. I do not think that just because they are in close proximity and are both Asian that it means the people are moving in the exact same direction. To me China seems much more blue collar heavy industry than Singapore, and Singapore seems much more western looking in a lot of ways than China.
In a democracy, politicians rent the country. In China, the leaders own it.
People care more about their property if they have a long term interest in it.
This may be true, but you're also classifying human beings as property with this statement. What happens when 1 billion people realize they're mere puppets of their leaders. Benevolent or not, Man typically rebels against his owner.
I also think the entire comparison of China to a large business is fascinating. A corporations primary duty is to generate wealth for its shareholders. Who are China's shareholders? The typical worker living off $1000 a year, or the far wealthier upper class? Running businesses like a business is great, but I have my doubts on how the strategies translate to running a country.
There's a big difference between being a subject and being owned. Only a really dysfunctional government would act as if they owned their citizens. Some ways to determine whether you're owned: do you-the-asset-itself appear on a balance sheet? Is your tax rate 100%? Might you get sold to a new owner?
Some heuristics to determine China's shareholders: who receives the government's income in cash or cash equivalents? Who decides who belongs in the politburo?
I don't believe I'm "owned", but I sometimes feel like one of the characters in an Ayn Rand novel(1)
"do you-the-asset-itself appear on a balance sheet? "
Er, yes, on the IRS equivalent (DGI)
"Is your tax rate 100%?"
Nope, about 60% (they don't want me to starve, they just want to relieve me of my "excess" wealth).
About my "owners", why, it's the Government itself, it's about 8% of the working population but about 50% of the population depends indirectly on it, so it has the voting power to perpetuate itself.
(1) I'm not an uncritical Ayn Rand reader, her ideas are too extreme and her characters were almost a parody, but I do agree with some parts
First time Iv'e heard the term 'creepy line' from Google:
"The end of the interview turned to the future of technology. When Bennet asked about the possibility of a Google "implant," Schmidt invoked what the company calls the "creepy line."
"Google policy is to get right up to the creepy line and not cross it," he said. Google implants, he added, probably crosses that line."
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury."
You only have to look and see what is happening to see that it is true.
...and one key body of lobbied law is called the Code of Federal Regulations or CFR. It is an Executive Branch body of law, "judicially noticed" and therefore unquestionable as to its legitimacy. Regulations are drafted by bureaucrats in federal agencies, published as draft in the Federal Register, and eventually accepted into law. Once published in the CFR, it is law. A few of the Executive Branch agencies include DEA, FTC, FCC, and DOT. Check it out.
The U.S. can maintain its dominant economic position indefinitely if we reform immigration to hoard the brightest minds and stick to the entrepreneurial model. If we agree to never hinder startup business creation cross-party, the China large-company model of government will not be able to adapt\innovate as quickly in the future once it's done catching up to what others have already done.
I find it amazing that Schmidt is highlighting the obvious flaws that are built into the political system by lobbying - which are pretty obvious to most people .. and is complaining that it's difficult to change the political system because of it, when Google is a major player in the lobbying game, a major player which is most probably in the game to win itself.
He mentions that incentives drive politics - which is true, but surely lobbying is just the visible vehicle of incentives driving politics? If he views incentives as a fact of life .. why is lobbying not accepted with a similar amount of cynical reasoning?
Maybe Google is trying to work out how they can affect politics in a more effective way, as something other than a lobbyist?
He talks about America's strengths in education, but that graduates (useful to Google) aren't able to be granted visas automatically.
He highlights how China's success is based around its shrewd use of business strategy and technology. He talks about how China has a top-down approach to orchestrating change, but he doesn't mention how censorship and control of information also features heavily in Chinese politics. Also, if his metaphor is extended .. what role do the citizens of a country run as a business have?
As a comparison, he also indicates how he feels that Google's omnipresence (power) is set to grow in the future, regardless. He also talks about the power that technology has as a disrupter, a couple of times. On one level, I think he's highlighting Google's clout.
The thrust of the conversation seems to be based around the concept of a what a tech company (e.g. 'Google') could offer a government, in terms of business strategy and enabling change through technology.
I'm not a Luddite, but on a couple of levels the interview worries me. He's professing that technology is good because it reduces what the human mind needs to be capable of - while at the same time, the technology that Google amasses is going to grow far more capable. All the while, he's insinuating that Google's in a unique position to shape the political landscape.
When it comes down to it, I don't trust his reasoning and I don't totally understand his incentives.
Schmidt compares China to a business but then shies away and says he doesn't mean it literally. This analogy/truth is far more important than he admits. Anyone interested might enjoy:
Spengler asserts that democracy is simply the political weapon of money, and the media is the means through which money operates a democratic political system. The thorough penetration of money's power throughout a society is yet another marker of the shift from Culture to Civilization.
I think that children at school should be given some money and learn to manage their education and hire their teachers, that should be a unique experience. They would learn to govern themselves and the value of honesty. That would be a great revolution.
The more you are able to control your surroundings the more you realize that your action is a crucial factor in your life. Errors are one way to learn, that is the lesson to remember.
I think most people actually do know how influential lobbyists are, as evidenced by candidates' perpetual battle to portray themselves as more resistant to special interests than their opponents.
But the mobile phone comment is even more indicative of how out of touch the guy is. We don't need to record Congress with mobile phones: we've had C-SPAN for years. In fact, you can get videos from it online from a number of sources.
Is not who wrote the law, but in which conditions laws should be applicable. United Nations and poor countries, you can write the law but poor countries will continue to be poor because they don't have the power to impose their reality. If you don't have power you are invisible.
Google has power, so he question who wrote the laws and he knows that power is a way to rewrite the law.
By adding in a typo like 'now what you are thinking about', the author of the article can also be pretty sure what we're thinking about .. sloppy journalism.
One thing that is missing from this discussion is the difference between the situation we find ourselves in and our country as designed. The US was designed to be a federation of states, in fact, it was created as a confederation. The constitutional congress did create a central federal government, but it created one with a strict limit on its powers in the enumerated powers clause, and was only passed with an additional 10 amendments, all of which explicitly removes powers from the federal government that it wasn't granted in the body of the document, but that the holdouts wanted to make absolutely sure where held for the states and the individuals.
In the time since the writing of the constitution, the federal government has grown in power, and now is in complete violation of the constitution. %99 of the activities, or more, are illegal under the constitution.
This is the massive centralization of power that the founders attempted to avoid.
Talking about lobbyists having too much power is like talking about the fleas on the dog that is menacing you. It is the dog that is the problem. IF the power were not illegally centralized in washington DC the lobbyists (and the politicians) would not have the inordinate power they have.
Decentralization- that is, state level power- is more democratic because state representatives are more attentive and easier to reach by voters. AT the state level, an individual vote has much more impact.
Are the states actually run better, though? They seem pretty inept to me overall when it comes to things like economics, and are even worse than the federal government when it comes to things like civil liberties (we'd be totally screwed if the Bill of Rights hadn't been incorporated against the states).
I have two comments about that, one idealistic and one pragmatic.
If I am not mistaken, the state-centric view taken by the founders was to afford the people a vote-by-shoe-leather system. It literally was: "if you don't like it here, leave" but without the bile.
Also, as was mentioned elsewhere in this thread, in order for your interests to "win" in a federally-scoped election, you have to convince a ton more people, who [as members of other states, natch] quite possibly have a very different life situation than you do. In order for your interests to prevail in a state-scoped election, you only have to convince a smaller set of voters who are very likely in your same situation.
I agree, however would point out that Senators were originally supposed to be appointed by each state, and were to represent the interests of the state (as a check on Federal power). That they are now popularly elected is a step backwards.
The whole concept of privacy being black and white - a line where you're fine on one side and creepy on the other is just a fantasy. Google needs to understand that it's a continuum. Every little creepy thing you do makes you a bit more creepy. They day they started remembering my search terms made them more creepy. They day they started analyzing my email made them even a bit more creepy. The day they started photographing me in the street made them more creepy again. There is no line. Even if there was nobody would agree on where it was. Google is going to destroy itself if they don't learn this.
Fortunately for Google Eric Schmidt seems to be the only one publicly stating this delusion so there is hope it is mainly in his head, but I'm not sure.
Google is too insulated to know exactly where the "creepy line" is. Take Latitude, for example, or the more intrusive (because it was made opt-out rather than opt-in) Buzz.
Instant is just an extention of what they have tried in Chrome or with Suggest. If Joe Average Consumer knew how these things worked (e.g., that every keystroke in Chrome's unibar ends up going to Google, often associated with his Google account, so that they know he frequents fatchicksinpartyhats.com), I think most people would be fairly creeped out.
Technology can be ‘creepy’ (I don't like that word, it can mean too many things) so by giving control to the user innovation is maintained and no lines get crossed.
The US system is closely based on the "democracy" as practiced in the city-state Athens. The following quote is from Lords of the Sea: The epic story of the Athenian navy and the birth of democracy; p.95
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The oar and rowing pad of the common citizen of Athens might seem less poetical and glorious than the hoplite's shield and spear, but all the world now knew that the city's power rested on swift triremes and strong crews.
Abroad, the Athenian commoner ruled the seas. At home, he was still a second-class citizen. The law allowed to him a vote in the Assembly, but he was barred from holding public office.
The pressure of his daily work often kept him away from Assembly meetings. Athens was in fact less a democracy than a commonwealth governed by the richest citizens.
All archons and generals came from the ranks of the wealthy, and the bar of property qualification was set so high that even the ten thousand hoplites were excluded. The common citizen could do no more than choose his leaders: leadership itself was denied him.
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I believe the state of the average voter has not changed since then. And the system is eternal; human life finite. It is a waste of time to try to change the system.
The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies is a 2007 book written by Bryan Caplan challenging the notion that voters are reasonable people that society can trust to make laws. Rather, Caplan contends that voters are irrational in the political sphere and have systematically biased ideas concerning economics. ...
The book is notable in use of irrationality, a rare assumption in economics. Yet the work is also a challenge to conventional public choice, where voters are seen as rationally ignorant. Conventional public choice either emphasizes the efficiency of democracy (as in the case of Donald Wittman) or, more commonly, democratic failure due to the interaction between self-interested politicians or bureaucrats, well-organized, rent-seeking minority interests and a largely indifferent general public (as in the work of Gordon Tullock, James M. Buchanan, and many others). Caplan, however, emphasizes that democratic failure does exist and places the blame for it squarely on the general public. He makes special emphasis that politicians are often caught between a rock and a hard place: thanks to advisors, they know what policies would be generally beneficial, but they also know that those policies are not what people want. Thus they are balancing good economic policy (so they don’t get voted out of office due to slow growth) and bad economic policy (so they don’t get voted out of office due to unpopular policies).
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/The_Myth_of_t...