The Open-Door Bailout

Re:The Open-Door Bailout by jacoblyles on Wednesday February 11, 2009 @01:45PM (#477383)

Power and responsibility are divorced in our political system. The quality "is supported by concentrated and active interest groups" is far more important to a bill's success than "benefits society as a whole".

This is an old problem. Democracy has always been non-rational.

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Re:The Open-Door Bailout by palish on Wednesday February 11, 2009 @06:22PM (#477737)

Power and responsibility are divorced in our political system.

This was not the case before the checks and balances were thrown out. The system used to work well, or at least better than previous systems.

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Re:The Open-Door Bailout by jacoblyles on Wednesday February 11, 2009 @07:03PM (#477777)

Checks and balances help, but I don't think they are a cure-all. Mancur Olson's observations about democracy's bias in favor of laws that serve a concentrated interest but have diffuse costs is valid even with more robust checks.

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Re:The Open-Door Bailout by homme on Wednesday February 11, 2009 @07:50PM (#477820)

Democracy has always been non-rational

Seeing the US House of Representatives in action recently seems to support this statement. What alternatives do you propose?

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Re:The Open-Door Bailout by jacoblyles on Wednesday February 11, 2009 @10:48PM (#477970)

It's obviously a hard problem and I don't have any good solutions. I am interested in Moldbug's Neocameralism and Friedman's Dynamic Geography at the moment.

If you email me, I can send you links.

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