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elected leaders There's your problem. Why are you electing people? That's completely backwards. Electing people is allocating labor and incurring production co

elected leaders There's your problem. Why are you electing people? That's completely backwards. Electing people is allocating labor and incurring production costs without evaluating demand signals. It is ideas that must be debated and voted on, and have people fill in to execute them. Only by having information on what policy is desired will you able to properly apportion the production costs and allocate the representative labor in fulfilling said policy. Otherwise you suffer from principal-agent problems in having to trust proxies to execute their ideas, with the proxies you are capable of electing being highly limited in their ideological diversity by result of optimizing for the wrong information.

mywittyname 11y ago
We each can only elect two people to represent our interest in Congress.
alistproducer2 11y ago
So direct democracy then? That presents it's own problems like the majority being in favor of something horrible, like the internment of muslim citizens after a terrorist attack.
- vezzy-fnord 11y ago
  That's a misrepresentation of what direct democracy is. You're still bound by a framework of statutory and common law, along with oversight from the various branches of government. It's not mob rule. Not to mention unjust internment already occurred despite representative democracy (in fact directly emanating from elected executive power), that of Italians, Germans and Japanese during WWII. Let's also not discount land law acts and a host of other attacks on civil liberties.
- joncrocks 11y ago
  But if the majority are in favour of horrible things, then will they not elect horrible leaders as well? And are we not just relying on elected leaders not doing horrible things anyway?
  - linkregister 11y ago
    The essence of a representative republic is that these horrible leaders would still be checked by the minority of non-horrible leaders. In a direct democracy, the mob only needs 51% of the referendum. In representative government, a minority of representatives can prevent disastrous legislation from happening, through the threat of filibuster or by holding a more valuable (to the opposition) bill hostage. In 2009 when Democrats held a Congressional majority, they didn't get everything they wanted. Now in 2015, Republicans hold a Congressional majority, they still don't get everything they wanted. Whichever side you're on, you must admit that these checks prevented the "bad guys" from prevailing.
- marcosdumay 11y ago
  Please, get some downsides that are not shared with representative democracy. Because, you know, people are comparing those two.

mywittyname 11y ago

We each can only elect two people to represent our interest in Congress.

alistproducer2 11y ago

So direct democracy then? That presents it's own problems like the majority being in favor of something horrible, like the internment of muslim citizens after a terrorist attack.

vezzy-fnord 11y ago
That's a misrepresentation of what direct democracy is. You're still bound by a framework of statutory and common law, along with oversight from the various branches of government. It's not mob rule. Not to mention unjust internment already occurred despite representative democracy (in fact directly emanating from elected executive power), that of Italians, Germans and Japanese during WWII. Let's also not discount land law acts and a host of other attacks on civil liberties.
joncrocks 11y ago
But if the majority are in favour of horrible things, then will they not elect horrible leaders as well? And are we not just relying on elected leaders not doing horrible things anyway?
- linkregister 11y ago
  The essence of a representative republic is that these horrible leaders would still be checked by the minority of non-horrible leaders. In a direct democracy, the mob only needs 51% of the referendum. In representative government, a minority of representatives can prevent disastrous legislation from happening, through the threat of filibuster or by holding a more valuable (to the opposition) bill hostage. In 2009 when Democrats held a Congressional majority, they didn't get everything they wanted. Now in 2015, Republicans hold a Congressional majority, they still don't get everything they wanted. Whichever side you're on, you must admit that these checks prevented the "bad guys" from prevailing.
marcosdumay 11y ago
Please, get some downsides that are not shared with representative democracy. Because, you know, people are comparing those two.