4 ms·

I'm really curious how many of our democracies fail in this specific case. There aren't a lot of wealthy people, so if politicians are pandering to the majority

by eloff 6y ago

I'm really curious how many of our democracies fail in this specific case. There aren't a lot of wealthy people, so if politicians are pandering to the majority, this is the wrong call. It's well known not to work for a long time, so logically it's also the wrong call. Are most politicians wealthy? Is that why they seem to overly protect the interests of this group over the rest of the population? Straight up self-interest or corruption?

slindz 6y ago
From my perspective, it costs an awful lot of money to run for office. If the only way to reach office is to convince wealthy people to fund your campaign, it shouldn't be a surprise if their interests wind up getting preferred treatment.
- Florin_Andrei 6y ago
  The way church and state are supposed to be separate (lots of potential comments here, but let's move on), we should have a separation of money and politics. And for reasons that are quite similar. It's a public office, where public servants work, for the good of everyone, not for personal enrichment. It's a job just like all the others. It should not be a place where oceans of cash keep sloshing around. No more lobbying. No more private funding of politics.
  - souprock 6y ago
    That thinking led to the corruption. Any normal senator, governor, or president has the skills to work at a high level in corporate America. That pays better, counting only the legitimate pay. It should be no surprise that voters are seldom able to hire (elect) anybody non-corrupt. We aren't paying market rate for the desired skills or for the level of responsibility. Senators get about $200,000 and the president gets about $400,000. At an S&P 500 company, CEO pay is about $15,000,000 on average. Elon Musk gets around $595,000,000. Tim Cook gets around $133,000,000. Sundar Pichai gets around $280,000,000. Satya Nadella gets around $77,000,000. None of those CEOs have responsibility for tariffs, military operations, hundreds of millions of people, thousands of nuclear weapons, or over 10 million employees. You get what you pay for. Proper pay: The senate splits 0.1% of GDP, the house splits 0.1% of GDP, the supreme court splits 0.1% of GDP, and the president gets 0.1% of GDP. Lump the VP in with the senate, probably. That totals 0.4% of GDP for the whole group.
    - Florin_Andrei 6y ago
      > Senators get about $200,000 and the president gets about $400,000. That's a heck of a lot of money for the vast majority of people. If that's the real issue, then we're attracting the wrong kind of people to those jobs. Let them stay at the hedge fund instead, do hopefully more limited damage there. > You get what you pay for. No, not always. And it's precisely this narrow vision, this absolutization of money that's one of the major causes of the woeful state of the world nowadays. People in government ought to be focused on doing what's good for the nation, first and foremost. If they go "well, $200k isn't enough for me to do this job", kick them out. That's precisely the wrong kind of person for the job. I think actually the oodles of money being pumped into politics these days are responsible for drawing some awful characters to it. Remove that motivation, and perhaps you'll have people with very different goals running the show. You get what you, collectively, value and believe in. America believes in money above all. Well, yeah, then the piles of cash end up ruling supreme. Good luck fixing that mess.
      - souprock 6y ago
        You can pretend that money doesn't matter. You'll get corrupt career politicians and the occasional retired billionaire. Lots of people are more than willing to pretend they don't care about money, if that's your qualification, so that their children and siblings can collect foreign "investment" and "work" as board members for companies wanting influence. The USA is literally at the bottom in terms of salary divided by GDP. At first I thought we beat a few countries, but they have a head of state that is a distinct job from head of government. I'm also leaving out Pope Francis and a few countries for which GDP data isn't available. Singapore pays $3,052,000 yearly, about half to the president and half to the prime minister. In dollars for one individual, unadjusted for GDP difference, the USA pays less than: Switzerland, Singapore, Austria, and Ireland. Would you say that those countries are attracting the wrong kind of people as leaders? Counting the sum of head of state and head of government, these also pay more: Iceland, Hong Kong, Australia, Canada, Germany, and numerous kingdoms. Anyway, do you like what you're getting for politicians? Without change, you'll get more of it. You can wish for the most fantastic altruistic leader with no family to support, and just hope that people will recognize that despite the underfunded campaign, or you can recognize that there is no escape from the money issue.
Florin_Andrei 6y ago
> if politicians are pandering to the majority, this is the wrong call Unless you somehow convince the majority to vote in a way that is clearly harmful to them, but useful to you and your clique. Then you only need to be "pandering" to their engineered beliefs, even re-enforce them while you're at it. Which of course is exactly what's happening. > It's well known not to work for a long time It only needs to last for the active career span of the politician.
adamredwoods 6y ago
I have an arm-chair theory that pure capitalism eventually evolves into plutocracy. Some cultures/countries define a high monetary value as success, so humans naturally look to success as characteristic for leaders.
marcosdumay 6y ago
> Are most politicians wealthy? I suggest you look this one up. Where politicians are not wealthy, taxing rich people happens more often. But I don't think the causality goes the way you imply there.

by eloff 6y ago

slindz 6y ago

From my perspective, it costs an awful lot of money to run for office. If the only way to reach office is to convince wealthy people to fund your campaign, it shouldn't be a surprise if their interests wind up getting preferred treatment.

Florin_Andrei 6y ago
The way church and state are supposed to be separate (lots of potential comments here, but let's move on), we should have a separation of money and politics. And for reasons that are quite similar. It's a public office, where public servants work, for the good of everyone, not for personal enrichment. It's a job just like all the others. It should not be a place where oceans of cash keep sloshing around. No more lobbying. No more private funding of politics.
- souprock 6y ago
  That thinking led to the corruption. Any normal senator, governor, or president has the skills to work at a high level in corporate America. That pays better, counting only the legitimate pay. It should be no surprise that voters are seldom able to hire (elect) anybody non-corrupt. We aren't paying market rate for the desired skills or for the level of responsibility. Senators get about $200,000 and the president gets about $400,000. At an S&P 500 company, CEO pay is about $15,000,000 on average. Elon Musk gets around $595,000,000. Tim Cook gets around $133,000,000. Sundar Pichai gets around $280,000,000. Satya Nadella gets around $77,000,000. None of those CEOs have responsibility for tariffs, military operations, hundreds of millions of people, thousands of nuclear weapons, or over 10 million employees. You get what you pay for. Proper pay: The senate splits 0.1% of GDP, the house splits 0.1% of GDP, the supreme court splits 0.1% of GDP, and the president gets 0.1% of GDP. Lump the VP in with the senate, probably. That totals 0.4% of GDP for the whole group.
  - Florin_Andrei 6y ago
    > Senators get about $200,000 and the president gets about $400,000. That's a heck of a lot of money for the vast majority of people. If that's the real issue, then we're attracting the wrong kind of people to those jobs. Let them stay at the hedge fund instead, do hopefully more limited damage there. > You get what you pay for. No, not always. And it's precisely this narrow vision, this absolutization of money that's one of the major causes of the woeful state of the world nowadays. People in government ought to be focused on doing what's good for the nation, first and foremost. If they go "well, $200k isn't enough for me to do this job", kick them out. That's precisely the wrong kind of person for the job. I think actually the oodles of money being pumped into politics these days are responsible for drawing some awful characters to it. Remove that motivation, and perhaps you'll have people with very different goals running the show. You get what you, collectively, value and believe in. America believes in money above all. Well, yeah, then the piles of cash end up ruling supreme. Good luck fixing that mess.
    - souprock 6y ago
      You can pretend that money doesn't matter. You'll get corrupt career politicians and the occasional retired billionaire. Lots of people are more than willing to pretend they don't care about money, if that's your qualification, so that their children and siblings can collect foreign "investment" and "work" as board members for companies wanting influence. The USA is literally at the bottom in terms of salary divided by GDP. At first I thought we beat a few countries, but they have a head of state that is a distinct job from head of government. I'm also leaving out Pope Francis and a few countries for which GDP data isn't available. Singapore pays $3,052,000 yearly, about half to the president and half to the prime minister. In dollars for one individual, unadjusted for GDP difference, the USA pays less than: Switzerland, Singapore, Austria, and Ireland. Would you say that those countries are attracting the wrong kind of people as leaders? Counting the sum of head of state and head of government, these also pay more: Iceland, Hong Kong, Australia, Canada, Germany, and numerous kingdoms. Anyway, do you like what you're getting for politicians? Without change, you'll get more of it. You can wish for the most fantastic altruistic leader with no family to support, and just hope that people will recognize that despite the underfunded campaign, or you can recognize that there is no escape from the money issue.

Florin_Andrei 6y ago

> if politicians are pandering to the majority, this is the wrong call Unless you somehow convince the majority to vote in a way that is clearly harmful to them, but useful to you and your clique. Then you only need to be "pandering" to their engineered beliefs, even re-enforce them while you're at it. Which of course is exactly what's happening. > It's well known not to work for a long time It only needs to last for the active career span of the politician.

adamredwoods 6y ago

I have an arm-chair theory that pure capitalism eventually evolves into plutocracy. Some cultures/countries define a high monetary value as success, so humans naturally look to success as characteristic for leaders.

marcosdumay 6y ago

> Are most politicians wealthy? I suggest you look this one up. Where politicians are not wealthy, taxing rich people happens more often. But I don't think the causality goes the way you imply there.