Comment by Loughla
Comment by Loughla 9 days ago
This is why I always have and always will prefer community colleges. Their boards are elected officials. Not perfect, but 1000 times better than just having wealth.
Comment by Loughla 9 days ago
This is why I always have and always will prefer community colleges. Their boards are elected officials. Not perfect, but 1000 times better than just having wealth.
> Election is a bad way to choose almost anything.
Except the alternatives! No form of government is more effective, competent, just, or free of corruption.
That's false. Everything comes down to good leadership. Monarchies with good leadership very well might have incredibly effective anti-corruption techniques and competency. China is managing a billion people and their infrastructure and tech is incredible.
The problems are two fold. The first is vetoing of bad ideas. No leader is right 100% of the time, and when they are wrong, someone must have the power to veto. There must be some way for reason to triumph over power, and a leader who chooses to be responsible is capable of deferring to expertise.
The second is succession. A good leader today may be succeeded by rotten leader tomorrow, but both have the same legitimacy, because the legitimacy comes from power alone and not reason.
> effective, competent, just, or free of corruption.
These things are a result of culture, not a result of the government itself. The government influences culture, but they are first and foremost functions of culture, specifically a culture of tolerating speaking truth to power, dissent, critical thinking, tolerance, and solidarity.
I think people get confused into thinking that democracy is about voting when it is should be about reducing prolonged concentrations of power, because of the innate tendency for it to be abused and hoarded. So to support your point, if your culture does not support the concept of good "democratic" governance, and no one strives for the institutions and constitutions to support it, you might be better off with a benevolent dictator, for as long as they last before a not-so-benevolent one.
> That's false. Everything comes down to good leadership. Monarchies with good leadership very well might have incredibly effective anti-corruption techniques and competency. China is managing a billion people and their infrastructure and tech is incredible.
Can you name a monarchy that is nearly as free, safe, and prosperous as advanced democracies? That is less corrupt? Is China? (No.)
> These things are a result of culture, not a result of the government itself.
How do you explain all the cultures around the world with successful democracies that meet my descriptions? How about Taiwan and (formerly) Hong Kong - same cultures as communist China, far more free, prosperous, non-corrupt, safe ....
There is also the issue of rights. What right does someone have to rule me without my consent? Who the heck are they, other than thugs with guns?
That's the point the parent made. Elections are suitable for political officers.
Once you start electing other jobs, like judges or plumbers, then you get whoever you elected, rather than necessarily a person able to do the job.
In other words, getting elected is a specific skill set. Doing the job is a different skill set. In most fields those skill sets do not overlap.
Even in govt the overlap is marginal. Which is why some elected officials are pretty useless at actually "governing".
To my American friends all I can say is "you voted for this".
You're offering two choices which prove the point that electing is a poor way to fill a post.
"popularity" does not imply competence. Popularity is easily gamed and bought. Given that unlimited business money can be spent on elections, it's mostly bought.
I'm not sure what you mean by market, or highest price, but I assume you mean the above?
The opposite of elections is appointment. Based on competence. So, for example, in my company I want job x done well, so I appoint a person based on their ability to do x.
Of course this assumes I want x done well. If I'm elected, and I want x done badly, then I can appoint someone based on other factors, like ideology or loyalty etc.
democracy is bad but its still better than more autocratic systems because it encourages change which keeps succession well-oiled and also acts as a vent for tyranny to curtail its worst excesses. This applies as much to politics as it does a school board.
Democracy doesn’t entail having tons of minor roles being elected. That’s actually completely unique to the US, as far as I know. A lot of the positions that are elected in the US would be neutral civil servants in any other democratic country I can think of.
Being super rich != merit. This is what seems to be happening in practice.
If you ask five people who can't speak French to tell me which French-language essay deserves a higher grade, you'll quickly discover that their merit-finding abilities are a coin flip.
The whole purpose of elections is tangential to merit. There's important reasons to have them, but finding the 'best' candidate isn't one of them.
It's the whole theological foundation of northern european and american protestantism = being rich means good loves you, so you're a good person.
How they got there from jesus saying rich people can't go to heaven is one of those theological acrobacies they criticise so much in catholics, but don't disregard doing themselves when suits them.
I prefer the way it used to be in Finland (and still mostly is). Board members are elected by the people affiliated with the university. Votes might be split 4:3:3 or 5:4:4 between professors, other staff, and students. Some board positions are representatives of the three internal groups, while the rest are outsiders. You get all kinds of interesting people from business leaders to activists to former national presidents in the board, while avoiding politruks elected or appointed by random outsiders.
Election is a bad way to choose almost anything. The enthusiasm of Americans for adding yet more elected roles rather than, say, having anything done by anybody competent is part of how they got here. The only place elections are even a plausible choice is political office - with an election and as close as you can to universal suffrage now the idiots running things are everybody's fault, although Americans even managed to screw that up pretty good. Sortition would probably be cheaper, but elections are fine for this purpose.