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Nonsense. The feedback mechanisms are very, very weak. "Choose between X candidates every 4 years" is a ridiculously weak feedback mechanism. Compare a market,

Nonsense. The feedback mechanisms are very, very weak. "Choose between X candidates every 4 years" is a ridiculously weak feedback mechanism. Compare a market, where the feedback mechanism is: - passive (consumer doesn't spend money) - fluid (trillions of transactions)

sirkneeland 7y ago
also, feedback is more granular by several orders of magnitude. In a political democracy we roll up every single issue (including mutually contradictory ones) into a bundle of policies, multiply that by an uncertainty factor of the personality of the person you are voting for, and then a fraction of us actually turn out to make the decision. Meanwhile in the market I can decide down to the level of "no, these oranges aren't sufficiently orange-y for me". I'm no market fundamentalist, mind you. I'd rather find ways to make the public sector more responsive to public feedback than through occasional elections.
ben_w 7y ago
There are other feedback mechanisms in governments besides elections, which are pretty much the same as those you get in businesses. Shareholders ~= party donors (varies by country, certainly in UK and US, my German is nowhere near enough to follow politics); opinion polls ~= customers surveys; exchange rates (yes, I know the Euro is shared by many nations) ~= share prices; tax base ~= business-to-business (not B2C!) customer base; EU-internal migration ~= B2C customer base. For much the same reasons as in the private sector, anyone who can demonstrate a way to save 20% — heck, even 5% — of a national budget would have their idea taken up by any party: a big-government party has more national improvements to spend on (e.g. “let’s put half the country through university!”); a small-government party would want to pay off the national debt.
- justinmk 7y ago
  You have convinced yourself with a "~=". It doesn't address passive feedback as I mentioned, and the volume of transactions matters quite a lot, and is not even close to comparable. Companies like Amazon, Walmart, and many more, solve problems at a scale and difficulty far exceeding any government, without a compulsory 42% draw against the population.
  - ben_w 7y ago
    What do you even mean by “passive feedback”? The only things I would (grudgingly) give that description to are available to governments and businesses alike. > volume of transactions matters quite a lot Why? I only see a reason to divide between “lots” and “not much” (a spreadsheet vs a census) rather than anything more fine-grained, otherwise fridge manufacturers would be meaningfully different to Amazon because they sell so much less. > Companies like Amazon, Walmart, and many more, solve problems at a scale and difficulty far exceeding any government I think you’re radically underestimating the scale and difficulty of government. For one thing, governments have to balance the interests of all the businesses which operate in their jurisdiction against not only each other, not only against national security, but also against the interests of those working for those businesses and the consumers and any externalities of the products and services. > without a compulsory 42% draw against the population. The figures I’ve seen put German tax revenues at (2014) €593 billion from a GDP of €2.938,6 billion, or 20.2%. I pay more than that because I am well paid, something something whales something, it doesn’t bother me. Then there’s the matter of what counts as compulsory: Amazon sales fees seem to be “the average seller paying 15%”, but they also have enough profit margin — effectively though not literally a tax on the employees, because it’s wealth the employees created but don’t get — for Bezos to gave his own private space race with Musk. You might reply that this isn’t compulsory, to save time I repeat: I chose to move to Germany, my taxation in any particular nation is not compulsory because I can move away if I don’t like it. Therefore any argument along the lines that “business fees are not compulsory” also applies to taxes.

sirkneeland 7y ago

also, feedback is more granular by several orders of magnitude. In a political democracy we roll up every single issue (including mutually contradictory ones) into a bundle of policies, multiply that by an uncertainty factor of the personality of the person you are voting for, and then a fraction of us actually turn out to make the decision. Meanwhile in the market I can decide down to the level of "no, these oranges aren't sufficiently orange-y for me". I'm no market fundamentalist, mind you. I'd rather find ways to make the public sector more responsive to public feedback than through occasional elections.

ben_w 7y ago

There are other feedback mechanisms in governments besides elections, which are pretty much the same as those you get in businesses. Shareholders ~= party donors (varies by country, certainly in UK and US, my German is nowhere near enough to follow politics); opinion polls ~= customers surveys; exchange rates (yes, I know the Euro is shared by many nations) ~= share prices; tax base ~= business-to-business (not B2C!) customer base; EU-internal migration ~= B2C customer base. For much the same reasons as in the private sector, anyone who can demonstrate a way to save 20% — heck, even 5% — of a national budget would have their idea taken up by any party: a big-government party has more national improvements to spend on (e.g. “let’s put half the country through university!”); a small-government party would want to pay off the national debt.

justinmk 7y ago
You have convinced yourself with a "~=". It doesn't address passive feedback as I mentioned, and the volume of transactions matters quite a lot, and is not even close to comparable. Companies like Amazon, Walmart, and many more, solve problems at a scale and difficulty far exceeding any government, without a compulsory 42% draw against the population.
- ben_w 7y ago
  What do you even mean by “passive feedback”? The only things I would (grudgingly) give that description to are available to governments and businesses alike. > volume of transactions matters quite a lot Why? I only see a reason to divide between “lots” and “not much” (a spreadsheet vs a census) rather than anything more fine-grained, otherwise fridge manufacturers would be meaningfully different to Amazon because they sell so much less. > Companies like Amazon, Walmart, and many more, solve problems at a scale and difficulty far exceeding any government I think you’re radically underestimating the scale and difficulty of government. For one thing, governments have to balance the interests of all the businesses which operate in their jurisdiction against not only each other, not only against national security, but also against the interests of those working for those businesses and the consumers and any externalities of the products and services. > without a compulsory 42% draw against the population. The figures I’ve seen put German tax revenues at (2014) €593 billion from a GDP of €2.938,6 billion, or 20.2%. I pay more than that because I am well paid, something something whales something, it doesn’t bother me. Then there’s the matter of what counts as compulsory: Amazon sales fees seem to be “the average seller paying 15%”, but they also have enough profit margin — effectively though not literally a tax on the employees, because it’s wealth the employees created but don’t get — for Bezos to gave his own private space race with Musk. You might reply that this isn’t compulsory, to save time I repeat: I chose to move to Germany, my taxation in any particular nation is not compulsory because I can move away if I don’t like it. Therefore any argument along the lines that “business fees are not compulsory” also applies to taxes.