> Town mayors usually try to cover up and deny any evidence of lead poisoning
After moving to the West from a developing country was surprised to discover that things our politicians do for a big bribe western politicians sometimes do for free.
After moving to the West from a developing country was surprised to discover that things our politicians do for a big bribe western politicians sometimes do for free.
In Roman times, decision making, power, etc was in large part done through systems of explicit patronage. We now -- in public at least -- consider patronage to be a corrupt and awful thing, but then having a powerful patron was a sign of virtue and goodness. Having a wealthy famous patron literally made you a better person, "not-guilty" in various crimes, etc.
I am not convinced that that ethic has ever really gone away. Just maybe more hidden.
This is mostly comforting nonsense.
The average American has more say, potential and actual, in their government than the average Iranian. (And the average Iranian more than the Saudis.) What in a bribe economy one pays for with cash in a civil society takes effort. The tragedy in American civics is far too many are too poor, tired and/or uneducated to fully engage.
And one of these states is preferable to the other. My Indian family used to speak similarly. Yet when they have the chance, they vote against corruption. To the degree India has become less corrupt over the last decade, it's been celebrated by them out of both pride and personal interest.
Sure, if you know the right people or can buy a lobbyist. Otherwise all you can do is complain to a wall. Even lawsuits don't generally have net positive effects on society—nothing changes, we just do the same things at greater expense.
Most of our society is privatized and well out of the reach of democratic output. If you're lucky, the market in question might have some limited competition and you can choose the slightly lesser poison. That's about it.
This is cynical nonsense.
If you can get to a polling station you have more influence than the average Iranian. If you can write a coherent letter to an elected or maintain emotional composure on a call, you have more than anyone in their non-elite class. If you can attend local government meetings, join an advocacy group or travel to canvas or protest you have more power than their minor elites. (If you are in the leadership of those groups, you have more power—in most cases—than donors who give thousands a cycle.)
One of the major elements of the uneducated pillar I cited is Americans who were never taught or shown how to civically engage getting cynical out of a lack of education.
Have you not been watching the news? Iran has proven itself to be at least better at performing like a democracy than most of our allies in the region, excepting maybe Turkey.
Regardless, it's extremely difficult to wield real influence with a vote (or via advocating for any sort of elected official) as most problems are directly avoided during campaigning, and citizens can be safely ignored when reelection isn't under threat. And anyway, most of our society is owned privately and outside the reach of democratic oversight.
Anyway, lip service to democratic processes is not the same thing as actual democratic will. Just because you're performing the aesthetics of what you're taught democracy is doesn't demonstrate any actual influence. For the most part, problems are decided long before they hit the ballot box and you can only really weigh in on certain wedge issues.
Sure. That wasn't the question. The comparison was between Iran and America, and whether being able to bribe people gives Iranians more power than Americans. It doesn't.
> it's extremely difficult to wield real influence with a vote (or via advocating for any sort of elected official) as most problems are directly avoided during campaigning
You're focussing on Presidential elections. Of course in a national vote the individual will be diluted. That's the point. Go more local (and earlier, to primaries) and you see massive questions resolved with tens of votes, even in New York.
> problems are decided long before they hit the ballot box and you can only really weigh in on certain wedge issues
Correct. Most of what I described above is before the ballot box. That said, even the multiple-choice power exerted at the ballot box is more power than the average Iranian has. (There is an argument to be made that if someone doesn't believe this, they shouldn't vote.)
You have influence over local issues in dictatorships. Putin does not care or engage in zoning and other minor issues. They are open to influence by both residents and bribery.
Engage with whom?
First Past The Post voting ensures I have no viable political party to vote for that would reasonably represent me.
Nobody does. In any system. There is always error in any heterogenous group. That isn't an exoneration of our two-party system. Just pointing out that not having a party that perfectly represents you is inherent to civilisation.
What issue do you care most about? Engage on that. With others who think similarly. That’s what engagement means. And due to the shocking lack of civic engagement, it’s ridiculously powerful. I have personally swung judicial elections in New York City by taking some tenant association heads to dinner. I’ve gotten language into state bills because nobody else called and it wasn’t one of my rep’s core issues. I did this before I made any money to speak of; in some sense, I had the time to engage for lack of money.
This is just denial of reality. Proportional representation gives you diverse representation.
In fact you have to address the growing evidence that voter preferences have no effect on American policy and lawmaking, you have to make a positive case that civil engagement is working.
They've mostly stripped themselves of the ability to do anything they could be bribed over.
According to this [0] Uncle Sam is obligated to spend 6.3T this year. That's 500B per month. Compare to the market cap of mammoth companies [1]. ExxonMobil, UnitedHealth, and Mastercard are all in the top 20 US companies and worth around one month of government spending.
How can a whale be beholden to a flea?
[0]: https://www.usaspending.gov/explorer/budget_function [1]: https://companiesmarketcap.com/
A bulk of that spending is to keep the market going, and to protect business interests.
US elections are some of the most expensive in the world and politicians rely on donations to win their campaigns. The connections between business and government are a spider web. Business also isn't a set of individual companies, they in fact cooperate on public policy through think tanks such as the chamber of commerce and the business round table.
Furthermore, since business controls the commodities and processes that sustain life, business holds a veto over economic policy with "capital strikes". Government could seize these properties, but our left wing is very weak.
Think about it another way, why do you assume that elected officials have any obligation to the public when there is essentially no recourse except through elections and elections generally require oodles of money to win?
It would only take the top three House fundraisers to outstrip this number: https://www.opensecrets.org/elections-overview/fundraising-t...
The other bit is that the Parliament has more constituencies than the US House despite the House representing more people, so the number of people per House member is quite high. And that's not actually specified in the Constitution but a law that could be changed by Congress at any time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reapportionment_Act_of_1929
I was thinking of the total, not the per-seat amount, for this reason.
The wildest thing, to me, is just how cheap it is to buy a politician. Senator Menendez [1] made it a bit too overt and ended up getting convicted so there's no speculation involved there. International/country level corruption of a senior Senator, who was also the head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, including getting him to directly interfere in criminal cases? Less than a million bucks. I guess it's more of a buyer's market, which is pretty 'funny' in and of itself.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Menendez#Allegations_of_co...
Where things get more complicated is typically with the unelected administration. Basically you can view most political decision making as an administration working out action plans and presenting them to politicians. Which is a good concept, until people stop participating in things like public hearings. Because the officials who work in the administration are professional and politicians in cities are often… well you or me. This means that it’s sort of easy for officials to influence decision making by writing and presenting the different action plans in ways where they know which are more likely to be selected. This is sometimes influenced by corruption, and usually that gets caught eventually around here. It’s much more often that it’s simply influenced by the different silos protecting themselves. Which will lead to bad decision making.
Now, I mentioned things like public hearings earlier and these are actually immensely influential because most politicians are actually very open to hear from the public. The big issue is that most of the people who attend or respond to public hearings are either fanatics or crackpots. When regular people actually participate in their local democracy they can have a huge influence, much more so than both administration and business, but people don’t. I’m not a saint myself, it’s been more than a decade since I even bothered to read the proposals which are sent to me. To make things even worse, fewer and fewer people register as members of political parties which means they give up their influence on selecting candidates and when it’s time to vote, many simply vote on a party, not on a specific candidate. So we’re gradually giving over power to anyone who actually does participate, which is often going to be business.