Systems of Government

[Graycochea]

So, at Myth's behest, which I am happy to oblige, I'm creating this thread to talk about systems of government. Feel free to speak your mind here. If you think Communism is a glorious system don't be afraid to say so, but at least give a few reasons as to why you think that. I'm carrying over a conversation from another thread that I sort of got off topic. This is for everyone. Thanks, so let the conversations commence:

the reason why I think that Democratic systems of government are inefficient.

Could you explain why you think Democracy is inefficient? I'm not trying to be belligerent or instigate a political fight. I just like hearing peoples views on politics so that maybe someone can finally invent a system that will work.

I'm pretty sure a true democracy is where every one person gets a vote on every matter, whereas in the US it's actually a Republic, where the governing body is full of elected officials whom make decisions for the governed. The US apparently likes the idea of being a democracy, so they call our form of government a "Representative Democracy" in high school history class. All the while, the US is actually a Republic and no one will admit it. If we were a true democracy, Joe the Plumber and Rosie the Riveter would get a vote on every bill that passed through the legislative branch of our government. Although it would be hella time consuming, I would rather be a true democracy than a "Representative Democracy".

[iFurrious]

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[Silko]

So, at Myth's behest, which I am happy to oblige, I'm creating this thread to talk about systems of government. Feel free to speak your mind here. If you think Communism is a glorious system don't be afraid to say so, but at least give a few reasons as to why you think that. I'm carrying over a conversation from another thread that I sort of got off topic. This is for everyone. Thanks, so let the conversations commence:



Could you explain why you think Democracy is inefficient? I'm not trying to be belligerent or instigate a political fight. I just like hearing peoples views on politics so that maybe someone can finally invent a system that will work.

I'm pretty sure a true democracy is where every one person gets a vote on every matter, whereas in the US it's actually a Republic, where the governing body is full of elected officials whom make decisions for the governed. The US apparently likes the idea of being a democracy, so they call our form of government a "Representative Democracy" in high school history class. All the while, the US is actually a Republic and no one will admit it. If we were a true democracy, Joe the Plumber and Rosie the Riveter would get a vote on every bill that passed through the legislative branch of our government. Although it would be hella time consuming, I would rather be a true democracy than a "Representative Democracy".

Problem with a true democracy: the common man does not have the time nor the intelligence to take part of daily politics. What people will often over look is the fact that only the wealthy would take part of politics back in Greece. Every day people like me and you have to work for a living and do not the time to focus into our every day policy. 2nd we already get very little done in the first place, this would make our turtle pace government into a snail or a dead sloth. We need experts to handle policy so we can do things like work so we can live.

I personally like Germany's version of government. In Germany you don't have a dominating 2 party system. You have major parties that are forced to work with smaller parties. The German congress is split into two houses like ours. 1 house is filled with people they elect but its not that simple. 2/3s is directly elected the other 3rd is voted as a party. So you have parties A, B and C for example. Party A got 50% of the votes so they get half of the 3rd of the seats. B got 25% and C got the other 25%, you get the idea. So you vote for a person and a party so 3rd parties, such as the green party or the libertarian party for example, do get a say. There are rules that are known as the Anti Hitler rules (Not the actual name but the reason why they have them) Your party must have at least 3% of the vote to get a spot (the Nazi's had less then 3%) and of course the Head of Parliament aka the Supreme Chancellor can not dismantle parliament (how Hitler became Hitler). This system forces the parties to work together. Now for the 2nd House of the German Parliament. This is made up of nothing but experts of a field aka science, engineering etc. Now what happens is the 1st house handles everything that isn't domestic policy. the minute it becomes domestic the 2nd house steps in. These experts are sent by the parliaments that govern the districts, similar to say the state governments in the US. The 2nd house does nothing but map out the logistics, determine the best way to do it and how much its going to cost.

Like the US Germany has 3 branches of government but its pretty simple. The other two branches are the Judicial and the Executive. Their Judicial is similar to ours, they have a supreme court that is the highest court in the land and their Executive branch has very little power and in fact their President is like the queen of England. He/she doesn't do dick and is a figure head more then anything. Over all its a better democracy in my opinion and it was created as a marriage of the United States Government and the British Parliament. It gets shit done a hell of a lot faster then our system and their economy is a hell of a lot stronger then ours atm.

[Graycochea]

I believe I could get behind that. What I hate is the two party system we have. The two parties are 100% either/or elected into office. No one ever votes for a third party. The closest a third party candidate ever came to becoming President was Theodore Roosevelt when he created the Bull Moose party. Third parties aren't ever at the forefront of anything. We don't see them in the news, we barely see ad campaigns for them, and they don't take part in the Presidential Debate.

Frankly, I don't like how the President in our country is more or less a figure head. Congress has all the power. The Senate makes all the final say, so if the President is Democratic, but the Senate is Republican controlled, shits not gonna get done. And if anything does get done, it will be undone by the next President if he's a Republican. Those bastards can't work together to save their lives... or this damned country.

Then there's lobbyists. Lobbying which is now called "Special Interest Funding" is a stones throw from outright Bribery. Lobbying is legal, but the only reason why is because they gave the decision as to whether or not lobbying should be legal to the people that benefit from lobbying. Why would you give people who benefit from something the decision on whether or not it's right? That's like saying, "Hey, Mr. Senator guy, do you think it's legal for us to give you 3 million dollars and then you can bury a burgeoning phone company with low prices in litigation? Thanks, your friend Verizon." It's basically the reason Marijuana hasn't become legal yet.

Meh, I'm rambling by now.

[Silko]

we did have a 3rd party that was successful. It was the progressive party and it was the party of president Wilson. He was the last 3rd party president we have had to date. I can't stand lobbyist. It's one thing in congress but in the Supreme Court too? Come the fuck on

[Nocte]

we did have a 3rd party that was successful. It was the progressive party and it was the party of president Wilson. He was the last 3rd party president we have had to date. I can't stand lobbyist. It's one thing in congress but in the Supreme Court too? Come the fuck on

Don't forget Teddy! Teddy was a progressive.

Anyways we currently have no perfect government system, because you have to add the human variable to the equation and that's where things start to become fucked up.

[Graycochea]

because you have to add the human variable

Yeah. And humans are greedy, selfish, little fucks. I hate how anyone can do anything as long as they're rich.

[Rokkman X]

My dad said to me a long time ago, that Democracy in America is like 2 wolves and a lamb voting on what to eat.

What we need is a government reform, put the best interests of the people into the goals of the government and take the 'big business' and bureaucracy out.

[Mythonian]

There's a variety of different ways to consider systems of governments and compare them. The criterion you use to compare them, though, varies widely.

You can neglect the human aspect of it, and assuming that people are ants or robots can come up with super-efficient systems of government that would work well in an idealistic situation. (ones like Communism or Utopias)

However, those don't work in reality. Instead, we have to do some more complicated reasoning.



Understanding the best system of government first requires that you understand the purpose of government.

So, why do governments exist? What purpose do they serve? Why did we create one?

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My opinion on the purpose of government:

Governments exists for a single purpose: to protect the rights of its citizenry.

That means ensuring that other members of society do not infringe on your rights, as well as preventing another country from infringing on your rights, etc.


For instance, look at how the USA got started. Why did we rebel against Britain? Because we thought our rights were being violated. In the Declaration of Independence, the entire thing is focused on the rights, and the Constitution was structured to ensure the rights were protected.

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So, if government's only responsibility is to protect rights, then what's the best system?

Well, obviously it'd be the system that did the best job protecting rights. But in order to do that, you need to understand what rights you have.

The Declaration of Independence mentioned "certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Also, the Bill of Rights lists a lot of them, but several of them are often irrelevant. I want the true, universal rights; basically, human rights. The UN has a good list.


Okay, so what are some qualities of a system of government which would be able to guarantee protection of those rights?

• Clear and effective law structure (system of accountability)
• Strong law enforcement (to protect rights domestically)
• Strong and capable military (to protect rights from foreign powers)
• Non-corrupt government and governing officials (to ensure the above remain as they are)

So, let's compare that to our current system of government in the USA:

• Law structure is pretty bad. 4/10
• Law enforcement is decent. 8/10
• Military is pretty good. 9/10
• Government is rather corrupt. 3/10

So, I rate our government with 24/40, or about 60% of what it should be.

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So, what I indirectly tried to show in the above is that it's not entirely dependent on the "system" of government (i.e., democracy, republic, aristocracy, etc.), but more on the way it's set up and managed.

In other words, there's a lot of ways to get to the same place. No single form of government is ultimately superior to all others. This is true because of the "human variable" someone mentioned earlier.


So, what systems of government are the hardest to screw up and the easiest to get right?

First of all, there are a variety of ways to categorize the types of governments. Here are some categories:

• Aristarchic (Aristocracy, Geniocracy, Kratocracy, Meritocracy, Technocracy)
• Autocratic (Authoritarian, Autocracy, Despotism, Dictatorship, Fascism, Totalitarian)
• Democratic (Democracy, Direct Democracy, Representative Democracy, Social Democracy)
• Monarchic (Absolute Monarchy, Constitutional Monarchy, Elective Monarchy, Emirate, Monarchy)
• Oligarchic (Bureaucracy, Ergatocracy, Kritarchy, Netocracy, Oligarchy, Plutocracy, Stratocracy, Timocracy, Theocracy)
• Pejorative (Bankoccracy, Corporatocracy, Nepotocracy, Kakistrocracy, Kleptocracy, Ochlocracy)
• Other (Adhocracy, Anarchism, Band Society, Chiefdom/Tribal, Constitutional Republic, Cybersynacy, Nomocracy, Republic)

There's a lot of them. Most of them are bad and stupid to even consider, though, but for the sake of simplicity we'll keep them grouped together. For the "other" group I'm only going to use Republic.

So let's consider how the groups relate to having the criterion to work as a good governmental system:

• Aristarchic - Effective, hard to corrupt
• Autocratic - Moderately effective, easy to corrupt
• Democratic - Ineffective, hard to corrupt
• Monarchic - Moderately effective, moderately easy to corrupt
• Oligarchic - Moderate effective, moderately easy to corrupt
• Pejorative - Effective, easy to corrupt
• Other (Republic only) - Moderately effective, moderately hard to corrupt

So, personally, as should be able to be seen from the above, I personally think Aristarchic systems are the best. Here's a brief description of each one:

• Aristocracy - Rule by the "best" people (i.e., the ones most fit to do the job)
• Geniocracy - Rule by the intelligent
• Kratocracy - Rule by the strong (used in less-developed countries, and also by wild animals)
• Meritocracy - Rule by the meritorious (i.e., the ones with the best abilities, knowledge, or contributions)
• Technocracy - Rule by the educated (i.e., doctors, engineers, scientists, professionals, etc.)

Out of the above, it's obvious that Kratocracy seems out of place. For the rest of this spiel, I'm getting rid of it.

Basically, what these do is replace Politicians by people with legitimate reason to be the governing body: because they actually have the skills needed to do the job.

You should also be able to tell that most of them overlap. In general, you can simply call it a "Aristocracy" and it means all of them (except the Kratocracy one, which I said earlier is out of place).

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However, it can be seen that it might be rather easy to corrupt, if that group of people get together and decide that they want to change things. However, that is from a perspective of a politician.

If someone has been trained to become an engineer, and in an Aristocracy ends up being the lucky person to be able to make a decision, what do you think they'll do? They'd obvious try to not make a fool of themselves and choose the best option, since otherwise they'd immediately be replaced by one of the many other engineers.

That's one of the biggest advantages to these systems. They are able to maintain efficiency through competition between the participants.

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Okay, so with that part done, let's get back to the actual question: why is democracy inefficient? I originally made this claim in that other thread, and I also said it again earlier in this post.

A democracy (well, representative democracy) is inefficient because it has too many people involved in the decision-making. They do this to make corruption less likely (i.e., checks and balances), which is good, but it ends up slowing down everything, and makes the government a bit less effective at it's job.

One feature of democracies is that they give power to the people. This is another part that makes it more difficult for it to become corrupt. However, the people themselves are corrupt, and thus cause issues. The people only care about themselves, and therefore will not make good decisions about the country, so this ends up making things even less efficient, and also causes division within the country between political parties on issues.

Hope that explains why it's inefficient!

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So yeah, that's my basic spiel on the subject. Keep in mind it might be slightly idealistic, but I believe Aristocracies would work out better in the long run.

I hope that all made sense as I explained it. If I jumped around or forgot to include some detail which ends up making it confusing, let me know and I'll clarify what I meant.

[Silko]

To me a aristocracy is extremely idealistic. Humans are by nature greedy and these trained experts will in time realize they can get away with shit and slowly create a system that will benefit them selves over others. Thus leading to revolt. While I agree that's the mentality of a politician, over time the mentality will become more political. Its human nature. Also the process of choosing the future elite few will be decided by who? The elite. Over all I believe a form of democracy is the best way to go. I personally am a fan of a parliamentary system with our "checks and balances" installed with it. Is it perfect? Hell no but striving for perfection isn't always the best course.