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Okay, I'll say it; good. Democracy is fine as a method to run a government, but democracy is a terrible way to run an economy. Not nearly everyone should have

Okay, I'll say it; good. Democracy is fine as a method to run a government, but democracy is a terrible way to run an economy. Not nearly everyone should have a say in what happens in the economy. Democracy ought not be a meritocracy, but the economy should be, which means some people will and should be left out of decisions. I would love it if the government could grow the number of people who, on their merits, help guide the economy, and there are groups of people who are unfairly barred from access to the economy and that is bad, but the idea that everyone should get a say in what happens in the economy is very much against the capitalistic principles upon which the US economy is built upon.

jldugger 5y ago
> Not nearly everyone should have a say in what happens in the economy. Alternative take: everyone already does have a say in what happens, as they participate. Nobody gets to dictate their own terms, though, but neither does anyone in politics.
- TameAntelope 5y ago
  Fair enough, though I think the point of contention is that 10% of Americans have 89% of the say, which means the remaining 11% gets divvied up amongst 90% of people, which isn't a lot per-person, comparatively. But generally yeah, I do think everyone does get to participate, and that's a Good thing.
  - jldugger 5y ago
    The other consideration is that apparently a lot of Americans have their wealth tied up in their primary residence. It's a lot harder to own a lot of stock when single family homes cost a million dollars, and you have to live there to get access to the metro's Good Schools.
vegai_ 5y ago
>Not nearly everyone should have a say in what happens in the economy. I mean sure, democracy isn't optimal for selecting the best people, but do you think those 10% that do own most of that stock were selected by their skills and abilities?
- TameAntelope 5y ago
  Within an admittedly fairly wide margin of error, yes. I'm open to, and often am, wrong, but I know of no other, more accurate, less corruptible system.
cmrdporcupine 5y ago
Before you can make this claim, you'll need to put your definition of merit out there, and additionally defend that the 10% we're talking about here truly has this meritorious status.
- twoquestions 5y ago
  In addition to this, OP should also prove that these people have others' best interest in mind. Without some sort of accountability, increasing most people's standard of living is irrational. I've read enough early US industrial history and the history of the East India Company to see how this can get horrifying with a quickness.
- TameAntelope 5y ago
  Honestly? I don't know, and if pressed I'd have a hard time coming up with a usefully specific answer, but I still believe what I do; that not everyone should be forcibly allowed to participate. Maybe that's helpful? I do think there are marginalized groups and that should be accounted for (ideally, in my limited understanding of the problem, by raising those groups up), but I don't think "baseline" should be, "Everyone is equally involved in steering the US economy."
  - avgcorrection 5y ago
    > > Okay, I'll say it; good. Democracy is fine as a method to run a government, ... > [...] > Honestly? I don't know, and if pressed I'd have a hard time coming up with a usefully specific answer, but I still believe what I do; Strong words spoken from atop the pile of sand.
    - TameAntelope 5y ago
      Yes, I believe something with low certainty, at least partially because I can't fully articulate it. That doesn't mean I don't believe it, however, and I can't think of a better way to grow my understanding of something than to take a position on it on the Internet! Almost all of my beliefs/opinions are built on some form or another of sand. Certainty is the real mind killer, IMO.
newsclues 5y ago
Do you still think it’s good if you aren’t part of the 10%, nor do you own part of the 11% the 10% don’t own, and when you try to amass wealth policy created by and for the 10% harm your meritorious attempts to improve?
alasano 5y ago
Your last paragraph pretty much sums it up for the US. The primary objective of the US government for its people should be to provide everyone with the same basic opportunities. What they do with those opportunities is up to them, like it is in any other country which already does these things. Access to education and universal healthcare + a livable minimum wage at the very least. Once your children are fed, happy and healthy and you don't have to work 2 jobs to make ends meet, you have more time to spend with your kids and provide them with an upbringing which will allow them to have a fair chance at becoming one of the people who make those decisions. There's obviously a major influence on US democracy coming from the decision makers of the "economy". So the question is, which is more important, and to whom? The majority doesn't have much of a say in the economy unless they band together, which is nearly impossible in a diverse and (intentionally) divided US. A flawed democracy also means that the kind of drastic change that's needed to correct this imbalance can't happen.
- nobody9999 5y ago
  >The primary objective of the US government for its people should be to provide everyone with the same basic opportunities. What they do with those opportunities is up to them, like it is in any other country which already does these things. >Access to education and universal healthcare + a livable minimum wage at the very least. I'd add that doing so is also smart economic policy and is good for capitalism. By expanding the pool of folks who are decently paid and educated, we expand consumer spending (which is ~70% of the US economy) and the skilled labor pool. Both of those will encourage the broader pool of healthier, better educated people to engage in entrepreneurship, growing and stabilizing the economy over the medium to long term. And even with such spreading the wealth, the top 10% will still be plenty wealthy. It's a win-win, IMHO. tl;dr: There are compelling economic/capitalistic reasons to increase wage floors, enhance the social safety net, improve edudcation and generally spread the wealth around, not just those around societal good.
  - imtringued 5y ago
    The surprising part (maybe it is not very surprising) is that economic elites advocate for policies that are bad for economic growth in the long run. It's surprising because the policies that will result in economic growth are quite obvious. It's unsurprising because those who are in power don't want to give it up for the greater good.
VictorPath 5y ago
> Democracy ought not be a meritocracy, but the economy should be The Walton heirs have over $200 billion. I guess Alice Walton ($60 billion), who killed someone with her car in 1989, nine years before being charged with DWI for driving her car into a gas meter is one of those epitomes of meritocracy. Or the Koch heirs, the Mars heirs and so on and so forth. The economy is designed for the benefit of the heirs of the St. Grottlesex set, of this meritocracy you speak of.
- TameAntelope 5y ago
  Those seem like legal and not economic matters, unless you're saying all matters are economic matters, to which I'd carve out the matters that are legal as not meritocratic and therefore not "good" that we leave it up to "merit" (however that's defined).
  - mahogany 5y ago
    But still, according to your economic meritocracy, it would follow that Alice Walton is of higher merit than, say, the totality of: your five favorite economic think tanks, the entire economic faculty at Harvard, and the CEOs of the Big Four. Actually, scratch that -- Bezos dwarfs them all. We should defer to his wisdom first and foremost on all matters economic.
    - TameAntelope 5y ago
      ...yes? I don't see what the problem is with this. The people you've named own portions of organizations and therefore get to decide (to the degree with which their ownership allows) what those organizations do. I prefer that vastly over the idea of every organization being governed by popular vote. I think you're getting stuck on the word "merit". It has context; there isn't some universal concept of the worth of a person being discussed here.
      - ModernMech 5y ago
        I think you’re confusing the word “merit” with the word “ownership”. Merit cannot be measured objectively, so you are using ownership stakes in large corporations as a proxy for merit. But you haven’t shown that ownership in a corporation is correlated with merit. You’ve just automatically assumed they have merit because the corporations they own are large and successful, and it seems you’ve defined merit by owning a large and successful corporation. This is circular reasoning, unless you want to try for a better definition of merit. But large and successful corporations are large and successful precisely because of the work of tens of thousands to millions of people. You are trying to say they shouldn’t have a say in our economy? In the work they do? Even though they are the ones on the ground doing actual work, building actual products and technologies with their hands? Amazon and Walmart do not exist without this army of workers to make them operate every day. Jeff Bezos could die tomorrow and Amazon would continue unabated, just as Apple did the day after Steve Jobs died. Why? Because Amazon and Apple and Walmart are not one person or even one family. Why then, should we give such an outsized role over our lives to single individuals at these companies, when we can’t even prove the success of these companies is due to their individual “merit”?
ls-lah_33 5y ago
The US was founded as a rebellion against aristocracy. However, in 1825 Jefferson noted that, much like today, the country was becoming increasingly controlled by what he termed 'monied in corporations' and therefore seemed to be eroding the achievements of the revolution: [T]his opens with a vast accession of strength from their younger recruits, who having nothing in them of the feelings or principles of ’76 now look to a single and splendid government of an Aristocracy, founded on banking institutions and monied in corporations under the guise and cloak of their favored branches of manufactures commerce and navigation, riding and ruling over the plundered ploughman and beggared yeomanry. this will be to them a next best blessing to the Monarchy of their first aim, and perhaps the surest stepping stone to it. https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/98-01-02-5771 https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/98-01-02-5...

jldugger 5y ago

> Not nearly everyone should have a say in what happens in the economy. Alternative take: everyone already does have a say in what happens, as they participate. Nobody gets to dictate their own terms, though, but neither does anyone in politics.

TameAntelope 5y ago
Fair enough, though I think the point of contention is that 10% of Americans have 89% of the say, which means the remaining 11% gets divvied up amongst 90% of people, which isn't a lot per-person, comparatively. But generally yeah, I do think everyone does get to participate, and that's a Good thing.
- jldugger 5y ago
  The other consideration is that apparently a lot of Americans have their wealth tied up in their primary residence. It's a lot harder to own a lot of stock when single family homes cost a million dollars, and you have to live there to get access to the metro's Good Schools.

vegai_ 5y ago

>Not nearly everyone should have a say in what happens in the economy. I mean sure, democracy isn't optimal for selecting the best people, but do you think those 10% that do own most of that stock were selected by their skills and abilities?

TameAntelope 5y ago
Within an admittedly fairly wide margin of error, yes. I'm open to, and often am, wrong, but I know of no other, more accurate, less corruptible system.

cmrdporcupine 5y ago

Before you can make this claim, you'll need to put your definition of merit out there, and additionally defend that the 10% we're talking about here truly has this meritorious status.

twoquestions 5y ago
In addition to this, OP should also prove that these people have others' best interest in mind. Without some sort of accountability, increasing most people's standard of living is irrational. I've read enough early US industrial history and the history of the East India Company to see how this can get horrifying with a quickness.
TameAntelope 5y ago
Honestly? I don't know, and if pressed I'd have a hard time coming up with a usefully specific answer, but I still believe what I do; that not everyone should be forcibly allowed to participate. Maybe that's helpful? I do think there are marginalized groups and that should be accounted for (ideally, in my limited understanding of the problem, by raising those groups up), but I don't think "baseline" should be, "Everyone is equally involved in steering the US economy."
- avgcorrection 5y ago
  > > Okay, I'll say it; good. Democracy is fine as a method to run a government, ... > [...] > Honestly? I don't know, and if pressed I'd have a hard time coming up with a usefully specific answer, but I still believe what I do; Strong words spoken from atop the pile of sand.
  - TameAntelope 5y ago
    Yes, I believe something with low certainty, at least partially because I can't fully articulate it. That doesn't mean I don't believe it, however, and I can't think of a better way to grow my understanding of something than to take a position on it on the Internet! Almost all of my beliefs/opinions are built on some form or another of sand. Certainty is the real mind killer, IMO.

newsclues 5y ago

Do you still think it’s good if you aren’t part of the 10%, nor do you own part of the 11% the 10% don’t own, and when you try to amass wealth policy created by and for the 10% harm your meritorious attempts to improve?

alasano 5y ago

Your last paragraph pretty much sums it up for the US. The primary objective of the US government for its people should be to provide everyone with the same basic opportunities. What they do with those opportunities is up to them, like it is in any other country which already does these things. Access to education and universal healthcare + a livable minimum wage at the very least. Once your children are fed, happy and healthy and you don't have to work 2 jobs to make ends meet, you have more time to spend with your kids and provide them with an upbringing which will allow them to have a fair chance at becoming one of the people who make those decisions. There's obviously a major influence on US democracy coming from the decision makers of the "economy". So the question is, which is more important, and to whom? The majority doesn't have much of a say in the economy unless they band together, which is nearly impossible in a diverse and (intentionally) divided US. A flawed democracy also means that the kind of drastic change that's needed to correct this imbalance can't happen.

nobody9999 5y ago
>The primary objective of the US government for its people should be to provide everyone with the same basic opportunities. What they do with those opportunities is up to them, like it is in any other country which already does these things. >Access to education and universal healthcare + a livable minimum wage at the very least. I'd add that doing so is also smart economic policy and is good for capitalism. By expanding the pool of folks who are decently paid and educated, we expand consumer spending (which is ~70% of the US economy) and the skilled labor pool. Both of those will encourage the broader pool of healthier, better educated people to engage in entrepreneurship, growing and stabilizing the economy over the medium to long term. And even with such spreading the wealth, the top 10% will still be plenty wealthy. It's a win-win, IMHO. tl;dr: There are compelling economic/capitalistic reasons to increase wage floors, enhance the social safety net, improve edudcation and generally spread the wealth around, not just those around societal good.
- imtringued 5y ago
  The surprising part (maybe it is not very surprising) is that economic elites advocate for policies that are bad for economic growth in the long run. It's surprising because the policies that will result in economic growth are quite obvious. It's unsurprising because those who are in power don't want to give it up for the greater good.

VictorPath 5y ago

> Democracy ought not be a meritocracy, but the economy should be The Walton heirs have over $200 billion. I guess Alice Walton ($60 billion), who killed someone with her car in 1989, nine years before being charged with DWI for driving her car into a gas meter is one of those epitomes of meritocracy. Or the Koch heirs, the Mars heirs and so on and so forth. The economy is designed for the benefit of the heirs of the St. Grottlesex set, of this meritocracy you speak of.

TameAntelope 5y ago
Those seem like legal and not economic matters, unless you're saying all matters are economic matters, to which I'd carve out the matters that are legal as not meritocratic and therefore not "good" that we leave it up to "merit" (however that's defined).
- mahogany 5y ago
  But still, according to your economic meritocracy, it would follow that Alice Walton is of higher merit than, say, the totality of: your five favorite economic think tanks, the entire economic faculty at Harvard, and the CEOs of the Big Four. Actually, scratch that -- Bezos dwarfs them all. We should defer to his wisdom first and foremost on all matters economic.
  - TameAntelope 5y ago
    ...yes? I don't see what the problem is with this. The people you've named own portions of organizations and therefore get to decide (to the degree with which their ownership allows) what those organizations do. I prefer that vastly over the idea of every organization being governed by popular vote. I think you're getting stuck on the word "merit". It has context; there isn't some universal concept of the worth of a person being discussed here.
    - ModernMech 5y ago
      I think you’re confusing the word “merit” with the word “ownership”. Merit cannot be measured objectively, so you are using ownership stakes in large corporations as a proxy for merit. But you haven’t shown that ownership in a corporation is correlated with merit. You’ve just automatically assumed they have merit because the corporations they own are large and successful, and it seems you’ve defined merit by owning a large and successful corporation. This is circular reasoning, unless you want to try for a better definition of merit. But large and successful corporations are large and successful precisely because of the work of tens of thousands to millions of people. You are trying to say they shouldn’t have a say in our economy? In the work they do? Even though they are the ones on the ground doing actual work, building actual products and technologies with their hands? Amazon and Walmart do not exist without this army of workers to make them operate every day. Jeff Bezos could die tomorrow and Amazon would continue unabated, just as Apple did the day after Steve Jobs died. Why? Because Amazon and Apple and Walmart are not one person or even one family. Why then, should we give such an outsized role over our lives to single individuals at these companies, when we can’t even prove the success of these companies is due to their individual “merit”?

ls-lah_33 5y ago

The US was founded as a rebellion against aristocracy. However, in 1825 Jefferson noted that, much like today, the country was becoming increasingly controlled by what he termed 'monied in corporations' and therefore seemed to be eroding the achievements of the revolution: [T]his opens with a vast accession of strength from their younger recruits, who having nothing in them of the feelings or principles of ’76 now look to a single and splendid government of an Aristocracy, founded on banking institutions and monied in corporations under the guise and cloak of their favored branches of manufactures commerce and navigation, riding and ruling over the plundered ploughman and beggared yeomanry. this will be to them a next best blessing to the Monarchy of their first aim, and perhaps the surest stepping stone to it. https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/98-01-02-5771 https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/98-01-02-5...