Comment by kevingadd | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kevingadd | Hacker News Reader

Aside from the other arguments in the article:

"The chair of the CMA, its chief executive and the rest of the board are appointed by the business secretary of the elected government" if I'm reading this correctly, UK citizens elect a government, the government appoints a business secretary, and then the business secretary appoints the entire CMA? So that would be two layers of disconnect from the voter.

AFAIK most US agencies are similarly disconnected or worse.

Whether "unelected" is a meaningful criticism to level at government systems is a separate question though. I feel like most roles are not ones where the voter could realistically have enough knowledge or education to actually make good decisions about who to appoint to roles with obscure or complex mandates. We seem to take democracy as an absolute good in all cases sometimes even though uninformed decisions can have catastrophic effects.

EDIT: I really shouldn't have to clarify this but apparently we're at the point where "this article poorly argues its thesis" is interpreted by some readers as "I love monopolies and/or activision"? So to be explicit: I think we need more antitrust enforcement, not less, but the article seems to make this case in a clumsy if not deceptive way

> If I'm reading this correctly, UK citizens elect a government, the government appoints a business secretary, and then the business secretary appoints the entire CMA? So that would be two layers of disconnect from the voter.

The business secretary would typically be an elected as a member of parliament (MP, equivalent to a congress person). The leader of the majority party in parliament will form a government, mostly appointing elected MPs to government roles. So the business secretary has been elected, but not as business secretary.

This is ignoring the absurdly anachronistic House of Lords, the upper chamber of parliament, who are mostly life appointments by various governments over the years (but also includes some hereditary peers, and an assortment of senior Church of England bishops). Lords can also be appointed to ministerial positions, although typically not the biggest jobs.

Direct democracy is not a good idea, unfortunately.

Yeah, implicit in his complaint is that it is the ideal and would somehow "fix" this ruling. I wish the article confronted that assumption directly instead of attempting to discredit his complaint.

Citation?

- dingledork, 2023-05-01

Take a look at Switzerland. Universal suffrage only became universally applied when courts forced the last holdout cantons, in the 1990s. They also recently refused decarbonision efforts because those would result in higher taxes.

Masses of common people are fundamentally unprepared for voting and compromising on important and complex legislation. That's why (supposedly expert) agencies and lawmakers exist, to handle that with some higher level goals and objectives and strategic thinking.

Switzerland seems to be doing pretty well? Why do you think they have to vote for the policies you want for it to be a good idea?

Are you unironically arguing against universal suffrage as a policy?

Brexit and whichever is your least favourite California ballot proposition

That’s not the example you think it is.

> not only unelected but unaccountable

Well direct democracy for everything is a consistent position but I doubt that Microsoft unironically thinks that all appointed government posts are unaccountable.

The UK elects a parliament, and parliament appoints a government. So there's an extra layer.

what would you propose as an alternative?

I'm not convinced we need an alternative in this case. The article proposes that Smith's complaint is uninformed, but it seems more likely that his alternative might just not be any better.

Not the parent. But maybe the courts are an alternative model for making these kind of decisions. Let the different parties make a case and then have an independent judge decide it as a question of law.

This was the right decision

My comment does not express even light disagreement with the decision.

>"The chair of the CMA, its chief executive and the rest of the board are appointed by the business secretary of the elected government" if I'm reading this correctly, UK citizens elect a government, the government appoints a business secretary, and then the business secretary appoints the entire CMA? So that would be two layers of disconnect from the voter.

You should see the European Commission.

In what sense? I'm not complaining about it, just observing that the article appears to defend it as elected when it is unelected. Smith's complaint potentially being factually true doesn't make it a valid criticism.

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