Stalin and the Struggle for Democratic Reform

[Az]

but backdoor alliances are good.

no they're not.

Thats what makes possible tradeoffs, and makes it possible to weigh intensity of preferences.

And that's good because?

You want people to vote on whether to rebuild ward ten in New Orleans based on ten minutes consideration? With no technical info - with no lobbying by the former residents? you want them to pick what kind of transportation system to build? How to regulate the internet? By ideology?

Not ten, but an hour or so - yes definetly, with different proposals to choose from. I don't see how lobbying is going to be good for anything in such a case.

[lord of the mark]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by Az

but backdoor alliances are good.

no they're not.

Thats what makes possible tradeoffs, and makes it possible to weigh intensity of preferences.

And that's good because?

Policy A provide 10 units of benefit to person X.

Policy B provides 1 unit of benefit to person Y, person Z and person Q.

Up and down vote, assuming nobody votes altruistically (not an unfair assumption on most policy issues, I think) Policy B wins 3 to 1.

Introduce trade offs, and Person X will try to buy votes by exchanging his vote on things he doesnt care about. Since he cares so much about this, and thus is willing to trade more, he will probably manage to pass Policy A. Which is, of course, the "right" policy.


Or suppose that policy A benefits Person X by 10 units, and policy B benefitts Person Y by 5 units, and that persons P, Q, and R are not affected by either policy but vote altruistically. In a "pure system" with no backroom alliances, etc Person X and Person Y will compete to convince P, Q, and R how much benefit each policy will do. Whoever has the better propaganda machine will win. But allow tradeoffs - person X is likely to offer much greater ones than Person Y, and again the "right" policy wins. Intensity of preference is expressed.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Az
Not ten, but an hour or so - yes definetly, with different proposals to choose from. I don't see how lobbying is going to be good for anything in such a case.

again to express intensity of preference. A few people are impacted in a large way by the policy. that should be weighed.

google on "voting intensity of preference"

[Odin]

Originally posted by lord of the mark

Look we use referenda extensively in certain American states esp California. The problem isnt only lack of info and consequent reliance on paid propanda - its ALSO the absence of deliberation, and the need to give an up and down vote. Which puts incredible power into the hands of whoever frames the issue - words the referendum.

This is why I don't like populist politics, it's too easy to manipulate the sheeple. Also, in many countries populist demogoges have an annoying tendency of becoming dictators.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
see this also (Less technical than the piece on Ken Arrow)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_choice

Public Choice is crap pseudoscience. It barely explains voter behaviour.

[Spiffor]

Direct democracy on a large scale is not easy, even with modern communication technologies. You have to ponder that there are many, MANY issues in our complex societies, and that it takes a very long time to adress them. Heck, deciding on issues is an MP's full-time job, and no MP has the time to get informed on all those issues (which is why there are Parliamentary committees, and committees within each party). Just imagine how much energy an ordinary citizen will devote to get informed on the some 100 issues that are waiting in his mailbox once he comes back from work

I personally have occasionally to vote on matters which don't interest me, and in which I don't want to take the time to become informed (for example, when I had to vote on the health-insurance I was gonna leave anyways). And still I'm quite politically involved. When it happens, I vote according to the party lines, or to what looks like party lines. I feel very relieved to know that's what the MPs do on all matters they're uninformed about

Even under capitalism, you can't imagine how many people have a job that could deserve to be accountable before the people. In my hometown (a city of 30,000), there are more than 20 positions that are to be occupied by local politicians (like the city's representative at the tri-city graveyard, the city's envoy at some local conglomerate of cities, the city's envoy at another conglomerate etc.), and there is plenty of administrative staff that isn't elected. Considering that most of the city's inhabitants don't come to City Councils (heck, even I don't , though that's gonna change), you can imagine how extremely prone they are of voting about who'll represent us at the graveyard.

[Az]

This is why I don't like populist politics, it's too easy to manipulate the sheeple.

The people are sheep - when they're not used to making decisions.

Public Choice is crap pseudoscience. It barely explains voter behaviour.

Well it is a part of economics.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Az

Public Choice is crap pseudoscience. It barely explains voter behaviour.

Well it is a part of economics.

Liberal economics are crap pseudoscience as well. Unfortunately, the liberal economists have infected the field so decisively that it is taught as gospel in uni

[Az]

Seriously, economics is a legitimate field of science. However, this very much reminds of chemistry - if you teach people the most simplistic of theories, or the most fundamental ones, they'll get certain basics, but their ability to predict stuff in complex systems will be nil.

The cure for the ailment in my opinion comes from the departments of industrial engineering.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Az

If you think by randomizing you are going to dilute this, then you are mistaken. All that will happen is the major groupings will continue to vote for their own power and probably be told the best way by special interest groups engaging in secret deals with groups of people.

Not if the decision on who votes or doesn't is made instantly, and the person has a relatively short time to vote, i.e. gets an e-mail on their palm of the proposition, reads it, has 10 minutes to confirm it, otherwise, another person is selected, again, at random. from confirmation, they have an hour to vote. Will people vote ideologically? yes, probably, even most certainly. But that's not a problem. I'd rather have them vote ideologically, than have politicians that vote on shady deals, pork etc.

With people voting, personally, after looking through relevant material on the web, for example, they'll be able to vote. They aren't bound by lobbying and backdoor alliances nearly as much as the people in parliament.

10 minutes? For complex political issues?! That will only make it more likely that people will be controlled by their political parties. They may not know all the specifics, so they'll go to their party's website, who, of course, will know what the referendum is (through members posting it on their message boards) and will have a quick answer for those not knowing the complexities.

It opens up MORE oppertunities for pork, however, but just in a different guise. If you only give them 10 minutes and say something which will benefit them specifically, the people will probably say yes. And in fact those that propose the laws will know this and exploit it, especially the short time frame to vote.

In fact, who proposes the laws will be a very big battleground, because how you word something can make an immense difference.

This plan will make it more likely that pork and voting thoughtlessly by party position will triumph.

[Az]

10 minutes to confirm that they're, indeed, voting - otherwise another voter is chosen, randomly. They'll have a larger timeframe to deliberate - Something like an hour, or two. They'll be modestly paid if they choose to accept their role, and a letter to their employer will be dispatched.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Az

This is why I don't like populist politics, it's too easy to manipulate the sheeple.

The people are sheep - when they're not used to making decisions.

They are sheep WHEN being used to make decisions as well. "Used" is the operative word. And make no mistake, in your theorized world, they'll be used just as much, if not more, when called upon to make a decision on a very complex of difficult issue.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Az
10 minutes to confirm that they're, indeed, voting - otherwise another voter is chosen, randomly. They'll have a larger timeframe to deliberate - Something like an hour, or two. They'll be modestly paid if they choose to accept their role, and a letter to their employer will be dispatched.

An hour is not nearly enough! As Spiffor has said, these issues are so complex that representatives, who have this as a full time job need large staffs to make sense of it all!

[Odin]

Not everyone can be experts on public policy, I'm of the "delegate" school of political thought, that we should elect people who use thier judgement in decisions, not listen strictly to polls.

[binTravkin]

However, a centrally planned ( as in "the entire economy is planned by a single organization" ) organization of the economy can and will work as long as customer feedback and quality control exist.

Az, are you serious?

As a citizen of one of the only three self-sufficent former Soviet republics (the other two being Estonia and Lithuania) I wonder what's your point here.

There existed both customer feedback and quality 'control', BUT everything was centralised.

You realise 'successful planned economy' and 'centralised planning' are antonymes?
Plus police state = disaster (and that's what happened in USSR)

1.Look at Israeli planned economy, their little 'kibuces' - they decide most things themselves.

2.Consider following facts:
- centralised planning means bureaucracy
- bureaucracy means almost zero customer feedback (it gets lost)
- bureaucracy means almost zero quality control (one is able to bribe needed instances)
- centralised planning + planned economy means almost zero competition
- etc etc

If you know anything about USSR economical history you'd never have said that.
In fact situation in most republics and districts, but Moscow, Leningrad and Baltic states, was so bad people had nowhere to spend their earned money, but vodka, second class bread and some other not-so-deficite products.
Even in the exceptions I mentioned the situation was such that the small agriculture (and I mean little farmsteads not bigger than 2ha, which people were allowed to have as private) was supplying:

68% of countries' vegetables, in that count
- 76% of countries potatoes, which made up ~1/4 of daily diet
47% of countries' milk products
36% of countries' meat products

while occupying
~11-12% (variable at times) of arable land.


In fact, the Baltic states were actually making up most of Moscow's and Leningrad's food supplies.
My own father was growing cabbage in our ~1ha field and one time a month during winter shipping them to Leningrad and selling with crazy prices. Sometimes people were already waiting for him and his companions (likewise cabbage-growers) to arrive and forming queues measurable in dozens of people, when the supply arrived.
He was able to buy himself an average car (VAZ 2106 if you're interested) for one winter's intake and a car in USSR was something really expensive, a flat was approximately on the same price.

My granny was taking me, my cousin and a couple of neighbour kids with her each time she went to buy milk products, because mothers had priority in queue, and even then she was barely able to get 1l of cream for week or so.
The situation was so bad that the home-made milk was often used to produce cream and butter by medieval methods (with spoon and pot).

The story could go on and on, as I've lived through the end of all that.

And consider it was in 80's, people who remembered 50's were saying that we live in paradise compared to that.
People who had been in Mother Russia never wondered why so much russian people come to Latvia (currently 2/5 of pop here are russians, compared to 1/10 before WW2), Estonia and Lithuania - the situation in it (Russia) was worse, and the further away from Moscow and Leningrad, the harsher it got.

Not a long time ago I watched a movie by latvian geographical movie company 'Environment Facts' - two guys traveled to Karelia, y2001, it was still in the soviet era, apart from some Playboy literature, Marlboro cigarettes and Red Bull drinks available on rare occassions.
Still the same empty shops - almost no first-need products like bread, milk products, meat, vegetables, fruits etc.


So, before saying that centralised planned economy can be effective, lookup Soviet economical figures.