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Comment by xerophyte12932 | Hacker News Reader

This is a good illustration for why I feel democracy is fundamentally broken.

Democracy requires a large number of people to agree on on party/person and to reach these people and to convince them to vote for your candidate, you have to spend tons of money. Either:

A) You use your own money. Which means you fall under "the financial elite".

B) You take money from financial elites, which means you will owe them and pay back in some form. Why else would they give you their precious money?

Thus the power remains restricted to the the financial elite. The elected candidate represents the elites more than the common person because while the common person just gave the candidate a singular vote, the investor gave the candidate much needed money that helped gather all those votes

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you have to spend tons of money

This was what campaign finance reform was supposed to be about. It can be done differently: in the UK, the parties are not allowed to buy TV advertising! Instead there are a few fixed, free slots for the parties.

The Scottish Independence referendum had a spend limit of a few million £ for each side. Much less than a lot of California ballot propositions: http://time.com/3532419/ballot-measures-corporations/

The free slot thing is brilliant. Levels the playing field to some extent and removes the need for candidates for relying on outside investors

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/group/p02mbgy3 (not sure whether that's available outside UK, you may have to hunt for "party political broadcast" on youtube)

The way they're all introduced by a BBC continuity announcer saying "This is a party political broadcast on behalf of the Whatever party", and the fact that most of the people doing the electoral groundwork are volunteers, lends the whole thing a very British dignity.

Doesn't get money out of politics entirely though. We're still beholden to the finance industry and the landlord industry.

By the way, Germany does the same – and parties get money relative to votes and the engagement of their supporters retroactively for their election campaign, so no campaign has to be paid by sponsors.

parties not allowed to buy tv advertising? That would take about 5 minutes to work around. just have a big party official retire, and become the head of a public organization which carefully avoids colluding with the party, while funnelling private donations into privately funded ads which merely explain why one candidate is better than the other.

This doesn't happen in the UK, because the advertising standards body would spot it. I have never seen a paid political ad on UK television. They occasionally appear in newspapers.

The UK press doesn't pretend to be independent though, and is very big on telling voters who to support.

In NZ we have a similar system, but similar laws apply to non-party broadcasts, where unregistered groups or individuals an spend a small amount of money (~10k) and registered groups can spend something like 250k (the three largest parties get more then that each and the rest get less)

If the ECC thinks you breached that they can take you to court, but the results will almost certainly stand.

" to reach these people and to convince them to vote for your candidate, you have to spend tons of money"

I recall reading from freakonomics that (according to them) inverse is actually true: candidates do not do better because they have bigger budgets, but they're likely to receive more financial support if they are more likely to get elected. Truth probably lies somewhere in between, but stating that "democracy is fundamentally broken" is just too naive.

Having worked in federal politics, I can confirm that the notion that "democracy is fundamentally broken" is something far more frequently heard from those who have little-to-no experience in politics, than those who have seen the good and bad of politics' inner workings. In fact, I've never heard it from somebody who works in politics, and those are some of the most jaded people I've ever come across.

IMHO, democracy is definitely not broken, and it's biggest threat stems from those who peddle in FUD relating to government & democracy. Essentially, things aren't as bad as most would like you to believe, and individuals getting involved in politics are the ones with the biggest influence in politics. It's far more accessible than many would have you believe, especially because politics runs on the hard work of young people, who then become insiders, write policy, and affect change.

Perhaps you have never heard this from people who works in politics precisely because they are part of the cozy system they are in and being fed from it.

Perhaps, but like I said, they're extremely jaded people. Nobody in politics has a rose-colored view of democracy, thinking it's a perfect form of governance. But at the same time, you can see the value it has and you can actually see change occur. Democracy isn't broken because getting involved actually has a tremendous affect on the inner workings of politics. Telling people democracy is broken actually works to break it, because people stay home and don't get involved, which is the lifeblood of democracy.

Well, it makes sense that successful people working in a legal field would not think that field is broken - otherwise how would they rationalise dedicating their life to it?

I'd expect cosmetic plastic surgeons, patent lawyers, payday loan providers, NSA employees, beauty magazine writers, oil company execs, planned parenthood employees, NRA employees, parking wardens and censorship software writers to believe their work had a genuine positive impact on society too.

The question of whether a field is broken (not working how people would like it to work) is different from the question of whether it's valuable.

There's a question of whether lawyers are a net good for society, and I would expect a lawyer to think 'yes' whether or not that's true. But there's also a question of, how much of a lawyer's job involves being friendly with the judge?

I'd expect a lawyer to know the true answer to that, independently of whether or not [she thinks] lawyers are a net good.

(At least, I'd trust the lawyer more than I'd trust a randomer.)

> But there's also a question of, how much of a lawyer's job involves being friendly with the judge?

> I'd expect a lawyer to know the true answer to that, independently of whether or not [she thinks] lawyers are a net good.

A lot depends on your relationship with that lawyer. If they're your brother or wife, or your long-time friend, then you'd probably get the true answer. If they're just a colleague, you'd probably get the official answer.

Well said.

People working in politics, in my experience, usually understand the strengths and weaknesses of democracy quite well. If they don't, and just have an idealistic view of a utopian version of democracy, then they're likely to fail and quickly get pushed out.

So, is the politicking of democracy perfect? No. But the view that democracy is fundamentally broken misses the good aspects that it can and does provide, and seems like naive radicalism.

What's that quote? ~"it's impossible to get a man to understand something when his income depends on not understanding it."

That seems like an aphorism, but it's just overly simplistic and naive. People in politics depend upon understanding the system. If they don't they then quickly get forced out of influential circles.

There are two issues I still have with this.

1. Obviously, people working in politics believe in it as a vehicle of change, by means of self-selection. A person who doesn't believe in politics will go somewhere else.

2. I wonder just how much real influence can an individual have, especially as they gain more power. Power is gained through deals and friendships, and the more you entangle yourself in the exchange of favours, the more autonomy you lose. I theorize that the people at the top positions are mostly just puppets with no real power and autonomy - because a person that looks uncontrollable will not be allowed by their party to reach higher positions.

1: And it's a shame when people don't "believe in politics", because if one isn't a lunatic, then that individual, if involved, can and will make a difference. There's a saying that's especially true in politics - half the battle is just showing up. Well, it's commonly known that if one wants to be influential, it starts with staying later than the other people and stacking chairs, stuffing envelopes, and knocking on doors. Now, that's not sufficient to obtain success, but it is necessary. However, when we tell people that they can't make a difference because they don't have money, we're lying to citizens and suppressing their democratic influence. Can we criticize aspects of democracy? Absolutely. Should we say it's fundamentally broken? Absolutely not.

2: That's theorizing without experience or evidence.

I think you are missing the point. The financial support is cozying up to whoever will win. Obviously its not a free donation. The investor will eventually seek payback by having a higher voice in legislative matters.

For example, motorcycle driven rickshaws were recently banned in Pakistan. The official statement says they were unsafe and a menace to society. But it doesn't take a genius to see that other forms of public transport (such as buses) stand to gain from this decision and must have had something to do with it.

PS: Public transport is largely owned by private parties in Pakistan.

You may find the book "Democracy, the God that failed" from Herman Hoppe interesting (or you may find him too weird). Although cronyism is one of the main culprit, he gives other reasons for the inferiority of the Democracy. Bare in mind that he is an anti-statist and anarcho-capitalist. His proposed practical solution is de-centralization of governments to as small as possible pieces.

He has a related shorter variation here:

https://mises.org/library/aristocracy-monarchy-democracy

Thanks, seems like an interesting read. Will look into it.

Also this video: (If you do not have time, see after min 48.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIUSctVPCCU

Well, representative democracy requires that a large number of people agree on a party/person.

Democracy by itself only requires that a large number of people agree on something. And not all "somethings" are party/people.

What do you think would fix that?

Benevolent Dictator For Life

Demarchy.

The government will be selected randomly from all citizens.

This could be improved with quotas like 50% have to be selected from the female citizens, 14% from the african american citizens, etc.

The massive speedup in the election could then be invested in the time those random people need to form a government.

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