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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quis_custodiet_ipsos_custodes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quis_custodiet_ipsos_custodes?

dredmorbius 3y ago
Checks and balances, electoral accountability, independent branches of government, multiple levels of governance (city, county/parish, state/province, national, global). Independent actors within and outside government. The work of democracy is to continuously resist capture. There is no end of history. There is no state of rest for democracy. Democracy is the work of resisting capture by powerful interests and restoring power-sharing just over and over and over again. -- Danielle Allen, on the Ezra Klein podcast <https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/14/podcasts/ezra-klein-podcast-transcript-danielle-allen.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/14/podcasts/ezra-klein-podca...>
- n4r9 3y ago
  That's a great quote, as "powerful interests" rightly refers to either government or corporate bodies. A country where the media is lobbied by business is less democratic for it.
  - dredmorbius 3y ago
    Late response, but: yes. There's a reason why I chafe greatly with viewpoints which focus exclusively or even significantly, on, say, corporate vs. government power as the greater evil or risk. I'll note that within the past century, religious power was a frequently-cited risk even amongst great power states (it's largely a factor in less-powerful states, though not entirely absent from today's stage). The true concern is actually power itself, however that is manifested. That might be political, it might be commercial, it might be religious, it might be cultural or social, it might be technological. I'm informed here by the "four estates" (church, nobility, burghers, commoners), sometimes a fifth (press), as well as Lawrence Lessig's Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace: Law, Norms, Market, Architecture. Ultimately, power devolves from some control nexus from which a lesser effort need be asserted than the benefit or result which comes from it.

dredmorbius 3y ago

Checks and balances, electoral accountability, independent branches of government, multiple levels of governance (city, county/parish, state/province, national, global). Independent actors within and outside government. The work of democracy is to continuously resist capture. There is no end of history. There is no state of rest for democracy. Democracy is the work of resisting capture by powerful interests and restoring power-sharing just over and over and over again. -- Danielle Allen, on the Ezra Klein podcast <https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/14/podcasts/ezra-klein-podcast-transcript-danielle-allen.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/14/podcasts/ezra-klein-podca...>

n4r9 3y ago
That's a great quote, as "powerful interests" rightly refers to either government or corporate bodies. A country where the media is lobbied by business is less democratic for it.
- dredmorbius 3y ago
  Late response, but: yes. There's a reason why I chafe greatly with viewpoints which focus exclusively or even significantly, on, say, corporate vs. government power as the greater evil or risk. I'll note that within the past century, religious power was a frequently-cited risk even amongst great power states (it's largely a factor in less-powerful states, though not entirely absent from today's stage). The true concern is actually power itself, however that is manifested. That might be political, it might be commercial, it might be religious, it might be cultural or social, it might be technological. I'm informed here by the "four estates" (church, nobility, burghers, commoners), sometimes a fifth (press), as well as Lawrence Lessig's Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace: Law, Norms, Market, Architecture. Ultimately, power devolves from some control nexus from which a lesser effort need be asserted than the benefit or result which comes from it.