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The extractive rent-seeking (slavery being the most extractive economic and political institution possible) South was significantly lagging even before the rebe

The extractive rent-seeking (slavery being the most extractive economic and political institution possible) South was significantly lagging even before the rebellion, which was crushed by the United States whose other regions had more inclusive economic institutions. In more recent times the authors compare two towns across the US-Mexico border: Nogales, AZ to to Nogales, Mexico. Even thought the language and ethnicity is mostly the same (95% Hispanic), with same climate and what not - Nogales in the United States has three times the GDP per capita of Nogales, Sonora. The difference is more inclusive economic and political institutions in the United States - while Mexico has suffered under one party rule for decades.

monoideism 6y ago
> while Mexico has suffered under one party rule for decades Yet now we suffer under two-party rule.
- nickalaso 6y ago
  Which has been the case since almost the inception of the country, as it is a direct consequence of the First-past-the-post voting system that the US government has implemented.
  - monoideism 6y ago
    You're correct, and I've love to have something other than first-past-the-post. However, throughout our history, our two-party system has generally (with some notable exceptions) been able to work and work together. That's no longer the case. As such, it's hard to tell if the political polarization is a reflection of society, or if society is just adopting the polarization of our political elites. So I stand by my original statement.
    - viridian 6y ago
      This is a tremulously rose colored portrait of history. The most openly hostile, contentious election in American history didn't happen in 2016, or 2008, or 2000, it happened in 1828. Many American institutional families would say that Jackson being a jackbooted thug was the very least damning of his odious traits. Meanwhile Jackson's largely populist supporters would go on to accuse the current poltical body of being wholly corrupt, and hellbent on creating a new feudal aristocracy, where the people's wills and desires were controlled through the national bank. Honestly 2016 just reads like a rerun of 1828, except Clinton wasn't publishing articles about how Trump was likely to gun her down in cold blood if he lost.
      - monoideism 6y ago
        I suggest reading more carefully. I wrote “with some notable exceptions” very deliberately. I had exactly the Jackson presidency and the 1850s-1860s in mind. But I figured that HN is an educated audience, so no need to specify the few exceptions I had in mind. BTW, 2008 and 2000 don’t even compare with 1828, or 2016. The election of 2016, and the (only partially merited) furor that has followed it will unquestionably stand out in US history, quite possibly as a prelude to our descent into another civil conflict. And what’s rose-colored is making an oblique claim that our current political situation is nothing more than business as usual.
        viridian 6y ago
        While I think a slow trend of increasing contention exists, I don't buy that hostilities were really so much better in '08 than in '16, and I think we've a ways to go yet before we starting debating whether capping our political enemies is a barbaric but necessary practice.
    - int_19h 6y ago
      Ironically, I believe it's the increase in democratic processes in American politics that's responsible for this. See, historically, when we spoke about parties, we really spoke about their respective establishments. The voters decided which one would be running the show at any given moment, but internal party politics were not readily accessible to the outsiders, and thus candidates and platforms were also vetted by the party establishment. Since establishment tends to be conservative by its very nature, this provided a screen against more extreme positions. To be clear: the politicians would still run on extreme positions, if they saw it as advantageous - but that didn't mean they'd govern accordingly if they won. Then we got primaries. It's not that they didn't exist before - the first ones date back to before the Civil War. But they weren't anywhere near as common until the second half of the 20th century, and even then most were non-binding (and their results were often ignored when the "wrong" candidate won them). And the primaries themselves changed over time, generally so as to broaden eligibility. In most other countries (where primaries are internal party matters), you have to actually be a member of the party in good standing in order to participate in that party's primary. The American system, where you merely need to register party affiliation in advance, is much more lax - and by now, even that formality is no longer necessary in many states. So, voters now have a lot more influence over party politics. And this caused a nasty feedback loop, where agitprop that's thrown by the establishment at the voters, solely for the purpose of convincing them to vote one way or the other (appealing to emotions, especially fear and anger, since it's the most effective way), is regurgitated and injected into internal party matters and policies. So the party platform moves further away from the center, and its agitprop shifts accordingly, creating even more radicalized supporters, who again feed it back into the party etc. Tea Party was a wake-up call in that sense, when a bunch of traditional Republican candidates lost to grassroots crazies who said mostly the same things, but who also sincerely believed in those things. Trump is also part of the same phenomenon - he might not be a sincere believer, but he appears as one to his followers. And there's some evidence of similar processes happening in the Democratic party. Slower, because its electorate is a broader coalition with more conflicting goals, and so the direction in which the voters move the party is less clearly defined. But you can see the internal radicalization spill out on some issues already, and there's more to come.
      - monoideism 6y ago
  - bbarnett 6y ago
    It has nothing to do with first-past-the-post. You can have 10 parties, 100 parties, in fact first past the post is designed for more than two parties. If you have people in 5 parties to vote for in your riding(district?), then first past the post is the only way it works easily! Seldom will one of those 5, get 50.1% of the vote! And why would they? The most popular wins, the people have spoken.
    - slaymaker1907 6y ago
      Why not have a runoff election or instant runoff voting? Additionally, why do we need to have a single representative for any individual instead of say 10 people representing a larger district?
      - bbarnett 6y ago
        Why does someone need a magic number of 50.1% to be valid? Why is that "the number"? Because it's more than 1/2? You're thinking "two parties". If you're worried about "most people's support", then why isn't the number 80%? 99%? 100%? Why does '50.1%' make it 'OK' and less 'not'? I don't get this arbitrary fixation on "but, that guy didn't get 50.1% of the vote!!". So? Let's say there are 5 parties. One gets 40% of the vote. Yet if each party had equal votes, that would be 20% each. The party with 40% of the vote, received 2x the votes compared to the number of parties. Is that OK? Why not? I don't get what's wrong with a number less than 50%. I don't get why anything above 50% is fine. Let's say you have 10 people, and 4 plans. Plans to defend the city from invasion. Each plan has its merits. You ask people to vote. 2 abstain. The next 2 receive two votes each. The last receives 4 votes. 4/10 is less than 50%, yes? Yet, clearly it is the most popular. Must the 2 abstainers vote? Must those that don't agree, be forced to vote for a plan they don't agree with? How is this undemocratic? Were the people's voices heard? Was the most popular plan voted on? I literally don't get it, or understand the issue.
    - Groxx 6y ago
      I... think you may have some reading to do. The subject is pretty well studied. The main reason FPTP ensures at most 2 parties is that, say you have parties 1, A, and B, where A and B are relatively similar to each other. And say A and B are together more populous than 1, like a 40/30/30 split. By splitting those 60% mostly-similar votes between A and B, both lose to the less-popular 1. It becomes in A and B's best interest to not cannibalize each other's votes, i.e. merge and dominate (or at least compete). The less fragmented ideology wins, not the most desired. It's even more compelling during the formation of new parties when there are only 2: by not voting for one of the two dominant ones, you are literally throwing your vote away because it has no chance, and it's worse for your ideology than if you had chosen the most-similar of the dominant party.
- maerF0x0 6y ago
  Two parties at least can compete with each other. One party would only have internal competition.
  - loceng 6y ago
    Indeed. This seems to be a natural progression of yin-yang where these processes will unfold as part of an education process, and then once policy is implemented to counter the two party system then I can only imagine society beginning to thrive immensely relative to before; ranked choice voting, $100/year budgeted for each eligible voter to contribute to politician of their choice, etc - a few ideas Andrew Yang was running on.
- hanniabu 6y ago
  Two parties, but one set of rulers - the oligarch elites.

monoideism 6y ago

> while Mexico has suffered under one party rule for decades Yet now we suffer under two-party rule.

nickalaso 6y ago
Which has been the case since almost the inception of the country, as it is a direct consequence of the First-past-the-post voting system that the US government has implemented.
- monoideism 6y ago
  You're correct, and I've love to have something other than first-past-the-post. However, throughout our history, our two-party system has generally (with some notable exceptions) been able to work and work together. That's no longer the case. As such, it's hard to tell if the political polarization is a reflection of society, or if society is just adopting the polarization of our political elites. So I stand by my original statement.
  - viridian 6y ago
    This is a tremulously rose colored portrait of history. The most openly hostile, contentious election in American history didn't happen in 2016, or 2008, or 2000, it happened in 1828. Many American institutional families would say that Jackson being a jackbooted thug was the very least damning of his odious traits. Meanwhile Jackson's largely populist supporters would go on to accuse the current poltical body of being wholly corrupt, and hellbent on creating a new feudal aristocracy, where the people's wills and desires were controlled through the national bank. Honestly 2016 just reads like a rerun of 1828, except Clinton wasn't publishing articles about how Trump was likely to gun her down in cold blood if he lost.
    - monoideism 6y ago
      I suggest reading more carefully. I wrote “with some notable exceptions” very deliberately. I had exactly the Jackson presidency and the 1850s-1860s in mind. But I figured that HN is an educated audience, so no need to specify the few exceptions I had in mind. BTW, 2008 and 2000 don’t even compare with 1828, or 2016. The election of 2016, and the (only partially merited) furor that has followed it will unquestionably stand out in US history, quite possibly as a prelude to our descent into another civil conflict. And what’s rose-colored is making an oblique claim that our current political situation is nothing more than business as usual.
      - viridian 6y ago
        While I think a slow trend of increasing contention exists, I don't buy that hostilities were really so much better in '08 than in '16, and I think we've a ways to go yet before we starting debating whether capping our political enemies is a barbaric but necessary practice.
  - int_19h 6y ago
    Ironically, I believe it's the increase in democratic processes in American politics that's responsible for this. See, historically, when we spoke about parties, we really spoke about their respective establishments. The voters decided which one would be running the show at any given moment, but internal party politics were not readily accessible to the outsiders, and thus candidates and platforms were also vetted by the party establishment. Since establishment tends to be conservative by its very nature, this provided a screen against more extreme positions. To be clear: the politicians would still run on extreme positions, if they saw it as advantageous - but that didn't mean they'd govern accordingly if they won. Then we got primaries. It's not that they didn't exist before - the first ones date back to before the Civil War. But they weren't anywhere near as common until the second half of the 20th century, and even then most were non-binding (and their results were often ignored when the "wrong" candidate won them). And the primaries themselves changed over time, generally so as to broaden eligibility. In most other countries (where primaries are internal party matters), you have to actually be a member of the party in good standing in order to participate in that party's primary. The American system, where you merely need to register party affiliation in advance, is much more lax - and by now, even that formality is no longer necessary in many states. So, voters now have a lot more influence over party politics. And this caused a nasty feedback loop, where agitprop that's thrown by the establishment at the voters, solely for the purpose of convincing them to vote one way or the other (appealing to emotions, especially fear and anger, since it's the most effective way), is regurgitated and injected into internal party matters and policies. So the party platform moves further away from the center, and its agitprop shifts accordingly, creating even more radicalized supporters, who again feed it back into the party etc. Tea Party was a wake-up call in that sense, when a bunch of traditional Republican candidates lost to grassroots crazies who said mostly the same things, but who also sincerely believed in those things. Trump is also part of the same phenomenon - he might not be a sincere believer, but he appears as one to his followers. And there's some evidence of similar processes happening in the Democratic party. Slower, because its electorate is a broader coalition with more conflicting goals, and so the direction in which the voters move the party is less clearly defined. But you can see the internal radicalization spill out on some issues already, and there's more to come.
    - monoideism 6y ago
- bbarnett 6y ago
  It has nothing to do with first-past-the-post. You can have 10 parties, 100 parties, in fact first past the post is designed for more than two parties. If you have people in 5 parties to vote for in your riding(district?), then first past the post is the only way it works easily! Seldom will one of those 5, get 50.1% of the vote! And why would they? The most popular wins, the people have spoken.
  - slaymaker1907 6y ago
    Why not have a runoff election or instant runoff voting? Additionally, why do we need to have a single representative for any individual instead of say 10 people representing a larger district?
    - bbarnett 6y ago
      Why does someone need a magic number of 50.1% to be valid? Why is that "the number"? Because it's more than 1/2? You're thinking "two parties". If you're worried about "most people's support", then why isn't the number 80%? 99%? 100%? Why does '50.1%' make it 'OK' and less 'not'? I don't get this arbitrary fixation on "but, that guy didn't get 50.1% of the vote!!". So? Let's say there are 5 parties. One gets 40% of the vote. Yet if each party had equal votes, that would be 20% each. The party with 40% of the vote, received 2x the votes compared to the number of parties. Is that OK? Why not? I don't get what's wrong with a number less than 50%. I don't get why anything above 50% is fine. Let's say you have 10 people, and 4 plans. Plans to defend the city from invasion. Each plan has its merits. You ask people to vote. 2 abstain. The next 2 receive two votes each. The last receives 4 votes. 4/10 is less than 50%, yes? Yet, clearly it is the most popular. Must the 2 abstainers vote? Must those that don't agree, be forced to vote for a plan they don't agree with? How is this undemocratic? Were the people's voices heard? Was the most popular plan voted on? I literally don't get it, or understand the issue.
  - Groxx 6y ago
    I... think you may have some reading to do. The subject is pretty well studied. The main reason FPTP ensures at most 2 parties is that, say you have parties 1, A, and B, where A and B are relatively similar to each other. And say A and B are together more populous than 1, like a 40/30/30 split. By splitting those 60% mostly-similar votes between A and B, both lose to the less-popular 1. It becomes in A and B's best interest to not cannibalize each other's votes, i.e. merge and dominate (or at least compete). The less fragmented ideology wins, not the most desired. It's even more compelling during the formation of new parties when there are only 2: by not voting for one of the two dominant ones, you are literally throwing your vote away because it has no chance, and it's worse for your ideology than if you had chosen the most-similar of the dominant party.
maerF0x0 6y ago
Two parties at least can compete with each other. One party would only have internal competition.
- loceng 6y ago
  Indeed. This seems to be a natural progression of yin-yang where these processes will unfold as part of an education process, and then once policy is implemented to counter the two party system then I can only imagine society beginning to thrive immensely relative to before; ranked choice voting, $100/year budgeted for each eligible voter to contribute to politician of their choice, etc - a few ideas Andrew Yang was running on.
hanniabu 6y ago
Two parties, but one set of rulers - the oligarch elites.