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Alternative voting schemes sound good, because we all can recognize that our democracy is broken. But the underlying problem isn't the voting scheme, it's the l

Alternative voting schemes sound good, because we all can recognize that our democracy is broken. But the underlying problem isn't the voting scheme, it's the lobbying and corporate money in politics. Changing out the voting system while leaving Capitalism in place would just have the corporations buying different politicians. Not surprising that the economist doesn't mention this angle.

bedobi 5y ago
Economists are universally in favor of things like carbon pricing, healthcare for all etc etc, don't be so quick to judge
- HamburgerEmoji 5y ago
  If you amend your statement to "some economists are in favor of ..." then it becomes trivially true but not very useful. As is, it's obviously untrue. Does anyone care whether what they say is true or even has the appearance of reasonableness? Number of times I saw "you're posting too fast" while trying to submit this comment: 7.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
Green_man 5y ago
I think your comment means that the "will of the people" isn't why democracy is broken, but it's the extra-democratic processes involved in making legislation that is the problem. Do you have an example of some policy that is generally popular, but not passed because of corporate lobbying? I think solutions to immigration/health care/climate change are generally contentious and don't have a popular consensus. Something smaller like a "simpler" tax code seems more convincing, where a small industry of tax preparation software or something lobbies to keep income taxes complicated. At the same time, many deductions are quite popular, and these are necessarily complications to the tax code. I'm just not entirely convinced that lobbying is hurting us in any meaningful way, though a stronger example or argumentation might change my mind.
- cycomanic 5y ago
  In fact health care is an example where the majority favors a government (or primarily government) paid solution [1], but it does seem unlikely to ever be implemented. Climate change is another issue which actually has majority support in the US, but action is very little [2,3]. In fact I believe the perception of it being contentious issues is largely due to a relatively small minority which has a disproportionate influence on policy (and likely corporate lobbying will have influence as well). This is actually on e of the issues that alternative voting schemes want to address, diminishing the influence of a minority which has very strong/extreme views. [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/09/29/increasing-share-of-americans-favor-a-single-government-program-to-provide-health-care-coverage/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/09/29/increasing-... [2] https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2020/06/23/two-thirds-of-americans-think-government-should-do-more-on-climate/ https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2020/06/23/two-thirds-of... [3] https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2019/11/25/u-s-public-views-on-climate-and-energy/ https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2019/11/25/u-s-public-vi...
  - Green_man 5y ago
    When I look at these health care charts, I don't see a real consensus, even when oversimplifying health care to 4 broad categories (36 20 30 6 percent respectively). I don't know who the respective corporate interests would be for each of the categories, though I'd guess that there's big corporations that favor 2 or 3 of these potential solutions, and only a third (at most) of Americans that support one of them. A third of the populace doesn't make a popular mandate, and it certainly isn't enough for a senate majority (especially for democrats). The climate change one might be more convincing, but I actually think we've seen some real progress on this. Alternative energy is getting cheaper, there's tax incentives for installing solar panels or EV chargers in many areas, and tax incentives for buying EVs. There's certainly more we can do, and the polls were phrased to suggest that the general public thinks so too. But if the admittedly significant oil and gas lobby is trying to hold this issue back, I'm not sure how successful they've been. Finally, this isn't an actual bill or anything. Every "green" bill I've seen is opposed by conservatives based on their constituency, whether they're a red conservative from texas, or a blue conservative from west virginia. I don't know if Joe Manchin takes donations from coal companies, but he'd unquestionably support coal either way.
vbuterin 5y ago
Glen Weyl (the economist who has done a lot of work on quadratic voting, mentioned in the article) has also written and talked extensively about Harberger taxes and quadratic funding; the former is a fairly deep change to how property rights work, and the latter is a way of democratically allocating funds to public projects. I would definitely encourage reading up on both of those!
- INGELRII 5y ago
  (outside the United States point of view) In Democracies with a reasonable proportional representation (PR) improving how to choose from N options, or how to allocate M resources, is secondary to the problem of how to select and parametrize N and M. In PR democracies mechanism design should focus more on how to improve participation and deliberation before final voting. Deliberation is a process of selecting and articulating options and figuring out problems. Mechanism design for deliberation can emphasize cooperation, dialogue, creativity and reason, as opposed to the use of power that is voting for given choices.
chriswarbo 5y ago
> the underlying problem isn't the voting scheme, it's the lobbying and corporate money in politics There are certainly many problems, but voting schemes appear to be a very powerful lever. In particular: - Representative democracy incentivises parties rather than independents, since like-minded candidates can pool and target their campaign resources - Plurality/first-past-the-post voting incentivises a two-party duopoly, since voting for a third-party is a 'wasted vote' (they won't win outright, hence they'll get nothing) - A two-party system incentivises 'least-bad' voting (i.e. voting for someone we don't actually want, to stop the other candidate who we want even less) - A two-party system gives no choice on issues which benefit both parties (i.e. maintaining the status quo; e.g. lobbying, pork, military budgets, etc.); whilst polarising along irrelevant issues (e.g. 'culture wars') There's no agreed-upon 'ideal' voting method; but most alternatives are regarded as better than first-past-the-post. Any system which doesn't 'waste' votes for third-parties (e.g. preferences, scores, fall-backs, proportions, etc.) would allow voters to indicate what they'd like (rather than what they'd dislike least); that gives a chance to candidates who don't benefit from the status quo; and that brings important topics like lobbying back into the political arena.

bedobi 5y ago

Economists are universally in favor of things like carbon pricing, healthcare for all etc etc, don't be so quick to judge

HamburgerEmoji 5y ago
If you amend your statement to "some economists are in favor of ..." then it becomes trivially true but not very useful. As is, it's obviously untrue. Does anyone care whether what they say is true or even has the appearance of reasonableness? Number of times I saw "you're posting too fast" while trying to submit this comment: 7.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

Green_man 5y ago

I think your comment means that the "will of the people" isn't why democracy is broken, but it's the extra-democratic processes involved in making legislation that is the problem. Do you have an example of some policy that is generally popular, but not passed because of corporate lobbying? I think solutions to immigration/health care/climate change are generally contentious and don't have a popular consensus. Something smaller like a "simpler" tax code seems more convincing, where a small industry of tax preparation software or something lobbies to keep income taxes complicated. At the same time, many deductions are quite popular, and these are necessarily complications to the tax code. I'm just not entirely convinced that lobbying is hurting us in any meaningful way, though a stronger example or argumentation might change my mind.

cycomanic 5y ago
In fact health care is an example where the majority favors a government (or primarily government) paid solution [1], but it does seem unlikely to ever be implemented. Climate change is another issue which actually has majority support in the US, but action is very little [2,3]. In fact I believe the perception of it being contentious issues is largely due to a relatively small minority which has a disproportionate influence on policy (and likely corporate lobbying will have influence as well). This is actually on e of the issues that alternative voting schemes want to address, diminishing the influence of a minority which has very strong/extreme views. [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/09/29/increasing-share-of-americans-favor-a-single-government-program-to-provide-health-care-coverage/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/09/29/increasing-... [2] https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2020/06/23/two-thirds-of-americans-think-government-should-do-more-on-climate/ https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2020/06/23/two-thirds-of... [3] https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2019/11/25/u-s-public-views-on-climate-and-energy/ https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2019/11/25/u-s-public-vi...
- Green_man 5y ago
  When I look at these health care charts, I don't see a real consensus, even when oversimplifying health care to 4 broad categories (36 20 30 6 percent respectively). I don't know who the respective corporate interests would be for each of the categories, though I'd guess that there's big corporations that favor 2 or 3 of these potential solutions, and only a third (at most) of Americans that support one of them. A third of the populace doesn't make a popular mandate, and it certainly isn't enough for a senate majority (especially for democrats). The climate change one might be more convincing, but I actually think we've seen some real progress on this. Alternative energy is getting cheaper, there's tax incentives for installing solar panels or EV chargers in many areas, and tax incentives for buying EVs. There's certainly more we can do, and the polls were phrased to suggest that the general public thinks so too. But if the admittedly significant oil and gas lobby is trying to hold this issue back, I'm not sure how successful they've been. Finally, this isn't an actual bill or anything. Every "green" bill I've seen is opposed by conservatives based on their constituency, whether they're a red conservative from texas, or a blue conservative from west virginia. I don't know if Joe Manchin takes donations from coal companies, but he'd unquestionably support coal either way.

vbuterin 5y ago

Glen Weyl (the economist who has done a lot of work on quadratic voting, mentioned in the article) has also written and talked extensively about Harberger taxes and quadratic funding; the former is a fairly deep change to how property rights work, and the latter is a way of democratically allocating funds to public projects. I would definitely encourage reading up on both of those!

INGELRII 5y ago
(outside the United States point of view) In Democracies with a reasonable proportional representation (PR) improving how to choose from N options, or how to allocate M resources, is secondary to the problem of how to select and parametrize N and M. In PR democracies mechanism design should focus more on how to improve participation and deliberation before final voting. Deliberation is a process of selecting and articulating options and figuring out problems. Mechanism design for deliberation can emphasize cooperation, dialogue, creativity and reason, as opposed to the use of power that is voting for given choices.

chriswarbo 5y ago

> the underlying problem isn't the voting scheme, it's the lobbying and corporate money in politics There are certainly many problems, but voting schemes appear to be a very powerful lever. In particular: - Representative democracy incentivises parties rather than independents, since like-minded candidates can pool and target their campaign resources - Plurality/first-past-the-post voting incentivises a two-party duopoly, since voting for a third-party is a 'wasted vote' (they won't win outright, hence they'll get nothing) - A two-party system incentivises 'least-bad' voting (i.e. voting for someone we don't actually want, to stop the other candidate who we want even less) - A two-party system gives no choice on issues which benefit both parties (i.e. maintaining the status quo; e.g. lobbying, pork, military budgets, etc.); whilst polarising along irrelevant issues (e.g. 'culture wars') There's no agreed-upon 'ideal' voting method; but most alternatives are regarded as better than first-past-the-post. Any system which doesn't 'waste' votes for third-parties (e.g. preferences, scores, fall-backs, proportions, etc.) would allow voters to indicate what they'd like (rather than what they'd dislike least); that gives a chance to candidates who don't benefit from the status quo; and that brings important topics like lobbying back into the political arena.