Re:The Rent Seeking Economy
by zanny on Monday April 15, 2013 @01:35PM
(#5552807)
I have another viewpoint and solution proposition - I think the vast majority of the reason politicians can sanely get away with completely fucking over the many for the interests of the powerful few is because the power and influence is so far disconnected from the people themselves.
On this topic though, people should have very specific direct election of one representative, per 500 - 1500 people, who would represent them in local voting and selecting higher representatives from their elected peers (ie, a local council of 10 would select one to go to the state, the state would select maybe 3 to go federal), and higher tiers of government can't impose laws not adopted by the lower branches (1/4 of local governments can't actively oppose in legislation something proposed in the state, 1/4 of states can't oppose something federal, etc).
That way, to corrupt the whole, you need to corrupt a majority of the people to elect from themselves (because in a pool of 1500, preferably with 1 2 - 4 year office term per official, so career politicians are harder to come by) corrupt politicians to work against the publics interest. Sadly, I think the modern American public would probably do just that and fuck themselves over. It would require an independently minded, free thinking populace that can understand the world to understand forces are working against them. They aren't there now, though.
I wrote a stupidly long copy paste here: http://zannyland.blogspot.com/2012/10/political-ranting-part...
On this topic though, people should have very specific direct election of one representative, per 500 - 1500 people, who would represent them in local voting and selecting higher representatives from their elected peers (ie, a local council of 10 would select one to go to the state, the state would select maybe 3 to go federal), and higher tiers of government can't impose laws not adopted by the lower branches (1/4 of local governments can't actively oppose in legislation something proposed in the state, 1/4 of states can't oppose something federal, etc).
That way, to corrupt the whole, you need to corrupt a majority of the people to elect from themselves (because in a pool of 1500, preferably with 1 2 - 4 year office term per official, so career politicians are harder to come by) corrupt politicians to work against the publics interest. Sadly, I think the modern American public would probably do just that and fuck themselves over. It would require an independently minded, free thinking populace that can understand the world to understand forces are working against them. They aren't there now, though.