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Comment by asdf88990 | Hacker News Reader

The self-interest for the bureaucrat and representative is supposed to end at their remuneration including their handsome retirement options not shady side hustles and market manipulation at the cost of the collective.

In matters of collective concern fair and just rarely aligns with personal self-interest. Because no matter how good the outcome of any endeavour for the collective given a budget, it will be even better for select few than the entire collective. It is simple economics.

If you look at the outcome of highly corrupt states, you will see proliferation of Private Security, Collapsed education system, failed financial services and markets, not highly efficient systems in service of “self-interest of the administration”.

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> not shady side hustles and market manipulation at the cost of the collective

To be clear, I'm not describing this as legitimate self-interested conduct. Elections are an alignment mechanism. Stiff penalties for corruption another. We don't have the latter in America.

This is a true Scotsman’s fallacy. “Legitimacy” of self-interest is fluid and subjective.

Which means self-interest and collective interests are often at tension rather than alignment.

> This is a true Scotsman’s fallacy. “Legitimacy” of self-interest is fluid and subjective

Legitimacy is the "alignment" question. We can't objectrively judge it, fundamentally, because it's an expression of values: to what degree do the society's system of incentives align with the greater good?

That isn't a No True Scotsman's fallacy, because there are true Scotsmen. Literally Scotsmen. And every other member of a complex society. Including, in all likelihood, you, a person who subjects themselves to laws and employment and fielty for reasons that are a mix of duty and self interest.

You seem to fail to grasp that just because people answer the call to duty it does not mean the duty is aligned with their self interest. The most stark example is joining armed forces.

Another straw man. Nobody argued self interest is the only motivation.

Sounds like a failure to align interests. In general, politicians should want to be elected by the public, rewarded for acting in the public interest, and punished for not doing so.

A system that does none of those things and just hopes it will all work out is a recipe for disaster. Why bother even having elections in that case?

Good question. But data shows that elections maybe entirely unrelated to policy making.

http://piketty.pse.ens.fr/files/GilensPage2014.pdf

That study has been roundly criticised. In part for misunderstanding how a republic is supposed to work. It's not a majoritarian system by design–direct democracy doesn't work.

That is a lot of bold assertions without substance.

> That is a lot of bold assertions without substance

Versus this comment?

Here's one: attention is a finite resource. Most people adjudicate their political attention precisely. Survey folks on whether Twizzlers or Red Vines should be banned and you'll get an answer. The fact that nobody acts on that impulse doesn't mean your republic is broken. It means that isn't a priority issue.

The practical example of this dilemma is foreign policy. Poll Americans about any foreign-policy issue and you'll see sharp divides. Put candidates in front of them that run on that issue and, nine times out of ten, outside I think twenty Congressional districts, it has no effect.

If you aren't weighting by issue magnitude, you're conducting propaganda. Pickety's research isn't total crap. But it isn't instructive for changing our system of government.

Obviously you didn’t read the linked research otherwise you wouldn’t entertain a red herring like foreign policy.

But it appears that you think Slavery and all sort of exploitation and gun-powder diplomacy has been a choice for reasons other than self-interest which makes any rational discourse unlikely, so best of luck to you.

> it appears that you think Slavery

This is a hyperbolic form of argument. (I'm also noticing this is a new account...)

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