Best political system (and how to get there).

[Worldtraveller]

Chris Hedges is not a Russian spy. He's a socialist, and socialists often feel the need to remind people that there is another end to the political spectrum, from which the difference between Democrats and Republicans is vanishingly small. It doesn't mean you shouldn't vote or that you shouldn't vote for the least bad candidate (or as may be required, vote against the worst candidate), but the problems of the American system of politics go far deeper than the differences between the two major political parties. Voting every two years between parties that are basically in agreement on most issues, even as they may differ in areas that have important consequences for millions of people, is no substitute for the actual democratic shaping of society by its citizens, which neither party has any interest in. So, while it's not as if the consequences of Republican and Democratic governance are the same in all respects, we should still constantly question the cultural framing of "get out and vote" as something noble and participatory. We need people like Hedges to remind us of what else might be possible if we don't assume that this system is the best possible one.

I actually agree with you here. Unfortunately, that wasn't how the discussion here was framed.

I would be interested, though, to hear what you mean with "what else might be possible if we don't assume that this system is the best possible one." Obviously, other countries have different political systems, so we could have a debate about the merits of each, but is that what you are talking about?

There are many ways of running a government and an economy that have not been thoroughly explored in our short history as a species. For some reason, the majority of people seem to think that the way we produce and distribute goods is just a natural reflection of human nature and is the best we'll ever come up with, despite the fact that the peculiar system of markets and property relations we have been using is actually only a few hundred years old. I don't want to derail the thread, but this tendency is another manifestation of the "righward shift" spoken of in another topic here, where as a society (in our media, our classrooms, our casual conversations) we imagine the scope of possibilities for humans living together on a single landmass as much narrower than it actually is, and right now that scope is hugely skewed toward market capitalist solutions to every problem. The arguments are over which kinds of regulations might soften the impact of the recurring downturns without scaring away investment or burdening businesses, but nobody seriously wonders whether recurring downturns that periodically decimate our livelihoods is something we should be trying to accommodate, something that must just be accepted as the way of things with no other option but to patch it up now and again. Trump and his administration are aware of a small contingency of people who are starting to question that assumption, which is why the disgusting little pamphlet about the "opportunity costs" of socialism is now making the rounds. But judging by the Democratic party's actions recently, if the shoe were on the other foot then Clinton might be circulating just such a pamphlet to dissuade people from considering anything to the left of Eisenhower.

I didn't want to derail the other thread with this discussion, but I think this point made by Pyramidhead is a good place to launch a discussion.

First, though we should probably agree on what the goal/purpose of a political system should be (and we may not get past this point, we'll see).

If we have a goal, then we can maybe think of what the best system would be to achieve that goal (democracy, dictatorship, fuedalism, whatever).

If we can agree even vaguely on what the best system would be, then maybe the best way to achieve that (various voting systems, arena combat, whatever....)

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

Some kind of change is needed.

Those who want change need to keep working at it, even it will require another 50 years to finally happen.

There are many ways of running a government and an economy that have not been thoroughly explored in our short history as a species. For some reason, the majority of people seem to think that the way we produce and distribute goods is just a natural reflection of human nature and is the best we'll ever come up with, despite the fact that the peculiar system of markets and property relations we have been using is actually only a few hundred years old. I don't want to derail the thread, but this tendency is another manifestation of the "rightward shift" spoken of in another topic here, where as a society (in our media, our classrooms, our casual conversations) we imagine the scope of possibilities for humans living together on a single landmass as much narrower than it actually is, and right now that scope is hugely skewed toward market capitalist solutions to every problem. The arguments are over which kinds of regulations might soften the impact of the recurring downturns without scaring away investment or burdening businesses, but nobody seriously wonders whether recurring downturns that periodically decimate our livelihoods is something we should be trying to accommodate, something that must just be accepted as the way of things with no other option but to patch it up now and again. Trump and his administration are aware of a small contingency of people who are starting to question that assumption, which is why the disgusting little pamphlet about the "opportunity costs" of socialism is now making the rounds. But judging by the Democratic party's actions recently, if the shoe were on the other foot then Clinton might be circulating just such a pamphlet to dissuade people from considering anything to the left of Eisenhower.

I didn't want to derail the other thread with this discussion, but I think this point made by Pyramidhead is a good place to launch a discussion.

First, though we should probably agree on what the goal/purpose of a political system should be (and we may not get past this point, we'll see).

If we have a goal, then we can maybe think of what the best system would be to achieve that goal (democracy, dictatorship, feudalism, whatever).

If we can agree even vaguely on what the best system would be, then maybe the best way to achieve that (various voting systems, arena combat, whatever....)

Some form of direct democracy. Where "voters" deal directly with issues rather than being forced to worship guru-demagogue-blowhard-speechmakers (candidates).

This doesn't mean holding a "referendum" vote on everything. There are many other possibilities.

 

[dismal]

First, though we should probably agree on what the goal/purpose of a political system should be (and we may not get past this point, we'll see).

Highly doubtful based on my experience. My view would be that the purpose of government is primarily to secure the rights of the individual.

Not an entirely original thought:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men

 

[untermensche]

The best system is a bottom up democracy.

A democracy where people get together and decide what needs to be done and representatives are selected for their ability to follow orders and get things done.

Corporations do this now.

They pay politicians who represent them and do not represent the needs of the people and they don't pay politicians who refuse to do this.

 

[Canard DuJour]

(Re)nationalise central banks and seriously restrict the ability of commercial banks to lend money into existence.

Money is a public good.

Shoot economists at random until they start devising realistic theories.

 

[Tigers!]

(Re)nationalise central banks and seriously restrict the ability of commercial banks to lend money into existence.

Money is a public good.

Shoot economists politicians at random until they start devising realistic theories representing their constituents.

FIFY

 

[Harry Bosch]

(Re)nationalise central banks and seriously restrict the ability of commercial banks to lend money into existence.

Money is a public good.

Shoot economists at random until they start devising realistic theories.

How would restricting the ability of a commercial bank to lend money help the economy? Restricting the money supply can be a good tactic to slow down inflation. But we don't have a lot of inflation today. Although it might be coming!

 

[dismal]

This discussion reinforces my belief that there is really only one hope for better government: federalism. I used to think "education" would help, but that was before the internet.

Votes at the polling place are too easily offset by all the crazy so let the people vote with their feet.

 

[untermensche]

This discussion reinforces my belief that there is really only one hope for better government: federalism. I used to think "education" would help, but that was before the internet.

Votes at the polling place are too easily offset by all the crazy so let the people vote with their feet.

So there is this vanguard elite that has a good understanding?

And an unwashed majority that is ignorant?

Trump is really a smart guy?

Sounds like dictatorship to me.

 

[Worldtraveller]

This discussion reinforces my belief that there is really only one hope for better government: federalism. I used to think "education" would help, but that was before the internet.

Can you clarify what your idea of federalism would look like? (I know the generic definition, but some people have their own personal take on how it should be implemented.)

Also, what about the voting system? I know this is something lpetrich has a lot of data on for various systems (and could really be a discussion all on its own).

I think the general idea of republic as we have in the US works ok, but some serious tweaks need to be made to the way the elections work.

More details later when I have time.

 

[PyramidHead]

The basic problem with the current system in most of the developed world is that the majority of people have very little say in the matters that directly impact their lives. In America, this is an intentionally crafted situation that can be traced back to the worry of James Madison that the landless majority would impose its will on the wealthy landowners, who were obviously better equipped to make all the decisions since they were so wealthy. The senate was originally created to "protect the minority of the opulent against the majority" (his words). The history of at least the United States has been this struggle between the rich everyone else, between democratizing the parts of society that are relevant to the broadest spectrum of people and entrusting its control to the hands of whoever has the most money. We are living through the results of that struggle being won in the opulent's favor.

What I'm talking about here is kind of like a paradox in our national conversation. On the one hand, everybody is super focused on the economy, and rightly so because it's something that affects every aspect of everybody's life in countless ways. But on the other hand, all of the proposed fixes to the recurring crises and catastrophes seem to operate under the unquestioned assumption that a small group of people deserve to dictate the future of the economy, and our job is simply to passively select who those people are from a short list of viable candidates in a deeply rigged electoral system, and then go back to our jobs where all the decisions are made independently of the bulk of those doing the actual work. It has never occurred to the majority of people that, even though we spend most of our lives in the workplace (and more of our time there than ever before), there is virtually no democratic representation in any private or public occupation. The direction of our government, in terms of which people are chosen to be our representatives in broad terms, is within our ability to influence once every two years. Yet, compared to the immediate and tangible consequences of what happens at our jobs (who gets laid off, what technologies are embraced and at what pace, what happens to the profits, how much do we care about the environment, safety, and sustainability, etc.) the operations conducted by our elected officials seem remote and unconnected to our daily lives. Even so, the democratic control of enterprise by the people who operate it is almost never entertained as a serious possibility.

It's like... we know we care a lot more about the decisions that are made on our behalf by bosses, directors, majority shareholders, and bankers regarding our imminent and long-term futures, but the desire to assert our right to have an equal voice in those decisions has been beaten out of us by decades of conditioning. In my mind, this is what needs to change first, and it seems to be changing here and there since the Occupy Wall Street movement sprang up, and in 2016 a serious contender for the Presidency felt comfortable enough to declare himself some kind of socialist without being laughed off the national stage. There is a long way to go, but people are starting to question what they have received over the years from the particular subset of the population who just so happens to be doing fabulously for themselves amid all this uncertainty.

 

[Worldtraveller]

Right. I'd like this thread to be about proposed (even if it's pie-in-the-sky) solutions, not how we got here or what's wrong with the current system. That part's easy.

 

[untermensche]

If you want to get to a good system you have to decide what is good?

Is democracy good?

 

[JohnG]

This should be easy. Let's make a list a list of things we think are bad:

1. - Poverty...um...well...it's only a problem if you're the one in poverty. I we decide to help them then it becomes a problem for those who are not.

I give up.

 

[PyramidHead]

Right. I'd like this thread to be about proposed (even if it's pie-in-the-sky) solutions, not how we got here or what's wrong with the current system. That part's easy.

The two can't really be separated, though. Someone who thinks our system has failed because of excessive regulations on the banking sector and the free market is not likely to agree with the proposed solutions of somebody like me.

But for what it's worth, I think Richard D. Wolff's idea of "workers' self-directed enterprises" being aggressively supported by state and federal governments is a good start. In such places, the workers would be identical to the board of directors, and all decisions about what to do with the value created through their work would be democratically made, in collaboration with democratic input from whatever community they are located in.

It would require such support because the existing business environment is largely hostile to the idea of a corporation whose purpose is not to maximize the profits of its shareholders. To keep from being crowded out, the state would have to provide assistance in the form of startup grants and other mechanisms; basically, whatever worries people about forming a fully cooperative business right now would have to be mostly mitigated by government policies, and probably a federal jobs program that specializes in these kind of arrangements. Hopefully, this would lead to democratically directed workplaces being regarded as a genuine alternative to the top-down management structure that dominates the entire world's economy. If so, and if self-directed enterprises emerge as a favorable way of producing things people want to buy and employing those same people, government assistance might eventually no longer be needed to keep them viable. At a certain point, there would be an actual choice for employees (who could either sell their labor to a company that is traditionally structured or one in which their voice would be as valid as anyone else's) and consumers (who could either support products made by corporations who only care about social issues when it helps marketing or one that cares about social issues exactly as much as the people who work there and live nearby).

Once the notion that only concentrated wealth pursued by an otherwise idle segment of the population can solve our problems is thoroughly stress-tested and hopefully put to shame, people might get used to having more control over other aspects of their lives. Education could become less about how to be competitive, ruthless, efficient, and manipulative and more about how to cooperate with like-minded and dissenting voices without compromising shared goals. It could cause people to wake up to the weirdness of our gigantic military and realize it only makes sense as a security blanket for the top-down model and doesn't actually contribute anything positive to the world. This is a stretch, but it may also start to reveal the way that the majority of us have so far been pitted against one another over exaggerated fears, to reinforce our complacency and prevent us from imagining we might know better than the fearmongering crowd.

Everything relates back to having a social kind of freedom, where instead of struggling against everybody else and trying to protect individual liberties above all, people start to acknowledge that nobody has much freedom unless they participate in a group with shared goals and fair representation. We need to get used to being able to depend upon each other instead of depending on the people who exploit us. Some kind of mass push toward democratic control of the workplace combined with strong participation from state and local governments could get us there.

 

[JohnG]

I don't think we're way off the mark - we just need to re-prioritize. For starters elections are way, way off the rails. I think we could solve a lot of problems right off the bat by restructuring the whole campaigning traditions.

Also, The whole mindset that an economy will take care of people is just a recipe for disaster. Suggesting that purchasing habits are the best decider in a country's future is a nightmare waiting to happen. In fact it's already happening in the US. It's no different than letting internet search habits dictate our moral compass. Rapey pornography and cat videos. People are more than what they buy.

If we want the competitive side of our nature to govern our politics, then screw statehood because it's a farce in that kind of system, Tribalism will disregard all borders anyway. That's not a prediction, that's an observation of our current situation.

No, a free market should exist within a much larger framework of ideals.

 

[Canard DuJour]

(Re)nationalise central banks and seriously restrict the ability of commercial banks to lend money into existence.

Money is a public good.

Shoot economists at random until they start devising realistic theories.

How would restricting the ability of a commercial bank to lend money help the economy?

I don't know, how would it? What I actually said was lend money into existence.

Restricting the money supply can be a good tactic to slow down inflation. But we don't have a lot of inflation today. Although it might be coming!

Indeed, hence I'm not suggesting restricting the money supply. I'm suggesting democratising it via public institutions which would spend money into existence, rather than lend it into existence with corresponding debt plus interest.

 

[Canard DuJour]

..in fact the institutions and mechanisms exist already, this would just make them explicit so that deficit-hysteria and bollocks about central banks being "private" are not used by ideologues and vested interests to prevent public spending.

 

[PyramidHead]

..in fact the institutions and mechanisms exist already, this would just make them explicit so that deficit-hysteria and bollocks about central banks being "private" are not used by ideologues and vested interests to prevent public spending.

Yeah, the degree to which the banks were propped up during and after the last crisis is already most of the way toward nationalizing them anyway.

 

[JohnG]

I'm suggesting democratising it via public institutions which would spend money into existence, rather than lend it into existence with corresponding debt plus interest.

You mean like through social programs?