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Comment by michaelt | Hacker News Reader

> It’s not even that democracy is bad; it’s just that it’s very weak. And the fact that it’s very weak is easily seen by the fact that very unpopular policies [...] persist despite strong majorities being against them.

Is this a sign democracy is weak? Or is it a sign that the political process has to choose between mutually exclusive popular policies?

In my country, the average voter wants their trash hauled away, but don't want any dumps or incinerators built. They want responsive public services, but they don't want tax increases, cuts to other services, or a deficit. They want good care for the elderly, but they don't want to spend more on care workers, or to give the jobs to poorly paid immigrants.

The US political system has a bunch of problems (deadlock and corruption for example) but when voters want to have their cake and eat it too, which is impossible, no political system is going to make it possible.

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> In my country, the average voter wants their trash hauled away, but don't want any dumps or incinerators built. They want responsive public services, but they don't want tax increases, cuts to other services, or a deficit. They want good care for the elderly,

Many "undemocratic" nations have functioning public services, clean streets, low to virtually no-crime and good universities.

> but they don't want to spend more on care workers, or to give the jobs to poorly paid immigrants.

In a capitalist economy part of a global marketplace, you are not "owed" jobs.

>They want good care for the elderly, but they don't want to spend more on care workers, or to give the jobs to poorly paid immigrants.

The voters aren't a homogeneous group. Older voters, i.e. the baby boomers, the biggest voting block, want stability and extensive pension spending. Young people want economic opportunity and to avoid worse quality of life than their parents' generation, as evidenced by recent election results in the US and Europe, where under 30s, especially young men, voted for radical right-wing parties more than any other demographic. Due to the number of working people shrinking relative to the number of retirees, there's a fundamental conflict of interest between the older generation, and the young generation facing greater and greater financial burden to support them. The relatively greater number of voters in the older block is causing society to prioritise their needs over those of the youth, inverting the traditional structure where the old make sacrifices to support the young.

> Due to the number of working people shrinking relative to the number of retirees, there's a fundamental conflict of interest between the older generation, and the young generation facing greater and greater financial burden to support them.

The older generation's burden on the younger generation has always existed. It was paid by labor, usually uncompensated by women of earlier generations. Now, the burden is paid by money from tax revenue and/or personal savings.

We need to expand the financial base for many social services, including elder care. It is long past time that we tax wealth, as the wealthy extract their money from our pockets through various rent-seeking schemes.

> Is this a sign democracy is weak? Or is it a sign that the political process has to choose between mutually exclusive popular policies?

It is a sign democracy is fake. Democracy only exists at the grace of someone/something else that decides these very large (in terms of cost) and unpopular policies. And the only thing that really matters is whether people advance economically. This works in democracies because, in a democracy, it's very, very easy to prevent change, so the institutions and policies that existed before democracy was introduced (or before it was real democracy) persist almost everywhere.

Authoritarian changes, and eventually war, is what happens when you have a sustained economic deterioration in a country. The form of governance matters on an individual level, but not on a country level. We're in the first stages of that now, and it's hard to see anything happen but it getting worse from this point forward.

One application of this: if you want to defeat MAGA, you need to pay middle America. MAGA voters vote MAGA because their economic situation has been deteriorating since, well, really since 2008 (with local areas, like Detroit, further back), and accelerated since COVID. A very, very visible part of this deterioration on a household level, sorry, is the increase in household medical spending that is the result of ACA. Yes, it's a very good deal in terms of "how much medical care do I get for $x" (esp. if you're poor), but a pretty bad deal in terms of "if I don't care about medical anything, how much $ can I spend right now?" (especially if you work for those $, and what especially matters if it's more or less than last month/last year/last ... it's less)

More generally, medical and pension costs for the aging population are reducing everyone's standards of living ... and this will keep getting worse for at least 2 decades. We need a solution for this. Republicans' solution is to throw everyone to the curb (less medical care, less pensions, less public transport, even less education, less universities, ...). Can we do better? How?

> only thing that really matters is whether people advance economically.

This is such an incomplete understanding of governance and state it could only appear under already degenerate conditions of poor political education and non-participation.

I would argue it has a very great deal of historical support. And yes, it's a simplification, it's not like it's the only factor (e.g. Ukraine was rapidly improving since the fall of the Soviet union and now they're at war. We all know what happened, and I don't consider that a counterexample)

It's not only a simplification, it's a bias, your bias views all governance solely on the matters of economic improvements, how do you even define what's economic improvement? If it's in terms of a singular macroeconomic metric like GDP then it will grow if you strip out all public services, privatise those and make people pay for it, it will also grow if shoddy products are made so when they inevitably break people will buy more of it: shoddy houses needing constant repairs, cars breaking down and generating economic activity when they get sorted out by mechanics, etc.

What even means to improve economically? Buy more stuff? Buy bigger stuff? It's a great mirage to look at, it's absurdly simplistic to equate that being able to purchase more things will translate into a better society... It doesn't really follow, of course people want to buy stuff they think will improve their lives but there's a breaking point to that. If that was the case the USA should be the most fulfilled and happiest population to ever exist, and we know it isn't the case.

> I would argue it has a very great deal of historical support.

Yup, while a society is in the stages of scarcity it does have historical support, after the point of scarcity into abundance... We need new models, it's clear this model doesn't hold after this transition.

> GDP then it will grow if you strip out all public services, privatise those and make people pay for it

No it won't, because people won't pay for it. They can't, so to get ahead of your next argument: it doesn't matter how necessary those services are, they can't pay. If doing without means a city dies economically or even if it means people start actually dying then that's what it will mean, not more GDP.

Read about the century before and after Irish potato famine to see an example of just how bad it can get, while still not resulting in GDP growth.

> What even means to improve economically?

Having the ability to do more, on a bigger scale. Think of it this way: there isn't a city on the planet that wouldn't benefit from rebuilding itself (in practice increasing the rate at which it rebuilds itself). Lots of houses, businesses, ... are old and have huge problems that need fixing. Most places could use a lot more houses. And then, there's no shortage of ideas for improvements. Wouldn't you agree it would be great if the London metro had the same density all the way to Birmingham as it has in the center of London? If the New York metro extended into the state? If medical care really was universal, cheap, fast and thorough? If there was a vaguely usable train network in Europe (by which I mean that it would be realistic, and cheap, to use European trains to go from, say, London to Rome)? To say nothing of the fact that in 90% of the world, if you brought people's living standards to Eastern European levels, that would be increasing them. That certainly seems worth doing and requires more economy.

These are extreme and perhaps unrealistic examples, but, yes, that would be economic improvement. And yes, these things would improve nearly everyone's lives.

>> Having the ability to do more, on a bigger scale.

Even waste , inefficiencies ? That is setting yourself up for a big collapse too. One needs to look at it from a more resilient, sustainable perspective, like a biological system.

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