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As an aside, For all those who talk about corruption and getting money out of politics I suggest reading Federalist 10 by Madison. Its a deep analysis of a n

As an aside, For all those who talk about corruption and getting money out of politics I suggest reading Federalist 10 by Madison. Its a deep analysis of a need for a republican democracy. Any government that depends on human virtuousness will fail. The only way to have a sustainable government is to have strong checks and balances and putting multiple factions with different interests against one another.

gottorf 3y ago
> Any government that depends on human virtuousness will fail. The only way to have a sustainable government is to have strong checks and balances and putting multiple factions with different interests against one another. Absolutely! Any form of government that depends on an unbroken line of "good people" in power will fail, and fail much sooner than anybody thinks. Modern China has already reached the end of their system, a scant 50 years after Mao Zedong. "Ambition must be made to counteract ambition". And government should only have as much power as you think the worst possible people in charge should have. Otherwise, people suffer.
- tw04 3y ago
  > And government should only have as much power as you think the worst possible people in charge should have. This immediately falls apart, by that logic we should literally have no government or society to speak of. "Only as much power as you think the worst possible person should have" would mean literally no power - there isn't a single decision in my life I would pass off to the worst person I could think of. What you're describing is anarchy. You build checks and balances, but you cannot have a functioning government without the assumption that the people you put in charge will act in good faith, but also have a reliable means to remove them from power if they act in bad faith.
  - mikepurvis 3y ago
    I think that's the right take, with particular attention to overall transparency, since otherwise you have nothing— how do you hold someone accountable if you don't have the right to see what they're up to?
  - gottorf 3y ago
    > but also have a reliable means to remove them from power if they act in bad faith. That answers your concern -- that's a reduction in the power of government. The worst possible person being in charge is OK if that person cannot unilaterally make things worse for everyone. I don't think it necessarily describes anarchy, though I do take your point. As for people acting in good faith, well, POSIWID[0] is a thing; ideally the system should be designed such that it shouldn't matter whether any individual within the system is acting in good faith or not, because the incentive structures set up therein will lead to positive outcomes. Besides, for any politically divisive topic, someone will always think you're acting in bad faith, anyway. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_what_it_does https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_wha...
  - brightball 3y ago
    > there isn't a single decision in my life I would pass off to the worst person I could think of This is actually the point though. You shouldn't have to give power to an individual. If you're going to, you should give that power to a group of individuals who have to agree for the thing to move forward. And then have checks on that group as well. I live in South Carolina and one of the things I like about how this state works is that the governor is virtually powerless, so you never really have to worry about who is elected. There's certainly some degree of power outside of the veto, but for the most part the real power is with the state senate. There are pluses and minuses to it. On the plus side, it means that things are slower to change. On the minus side, it means that things are slower to change.
    - ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
      The discussion was about giving power to an entire government, not an individual.
    - verve_rat 3y ago
      Sounds like South Carolina follows a Westminster style government. Look at the UK, NZ, AU governments (and I assume Canada, don't know for sure): A King, or Governor-General, with the theoretical power to override parliament. A Head of State which can issue decrees and makes important decisions "on the advice of the Prime Minster". Basically a figure head and a bunch of legal fictions wrapped up in the concept of "The Crown". But the real power lies with the PM and their Cabinet. But the party in charge can change the PM whenever they want, and if it ever got bad enough Parliament can change the party in charge without waiting for an election. The PM is responsible to the Cabinet and to their party and to the rest of Parliament. It is all one big mess of ambitious people pointing guns at each other, constantly evaluating their position ahead of the next election.
      - int_19h 3y ago
        Westminster system is not a particularly good example of checks and balances, though, given that whole parliamentary supremacy thing. A Westminster-style Parliament is essentially unanswerable to anyone but the voters; and even then it can unilaterally change election laws, so it can circumvent the voters as well. If the courts deem some act of Parliament unlawful, the latter can just pass another act explicitly declaring it lawful (the recent Safety of Rwanda Bill was a good example of just such an attempt).
  - not2b 3y ago
    "people in charge" doesn't just include elected officials, it also includes heads of corporations. Checks and balances has to apply to them as well, meaning that regulation is necessary.
    - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
      This goes both ways. The merchant class is one of the checks and balances on the government because it serves as a separate power base that should find it in its own interest to oppose government misconduct. One of the most important things for checks and balances to do is ensure the separation of commerce and state. Prevent the merger of state and corporate power. So they must restrain the government from inhibiting competition at the behest of crony incumbent corporations. Which requires you to restrict what kinds of regulation the government can impose, when that regulation impairs competition or otherwise advantages crony corporations. The last thing you want is to give a government official the power to do a corporation's bidding.
    - Nevermark 3y ago
      And it should apply to parties. Especially in systems like the US where single party rule is actually attainable. Political parties work hard to centralize and consolidate power across disparate voting districts, pushing and incentivizing their elected members to be more loyal to their party than to their districts. Then the party as a coordinated whole just works for itself. The whole point of having diverse representatives from diverse districts gets nullified. National level seat limits, and cross state party limits for local elections, would eliminate any chance of single party rule and evaporate the dysfunction that spreads from seeking and holding that crown.
  - DANmode 3y ago
    What they're describing is infrastructure, which is what government should be. Not a ruling class.
  - akira2501 3y ago
    > we should literally have no government or society to speak of I don't think society is dependent on government. > would mean literally no power Literally no power ensconced in the hands of a _single individual_, I think was the point.
    - autoexec 3y ago
      > I don't think society is dependent on government. Is that a hypothetical or are there large and successful societies around today that don't have one (or a group by some other name fulfilling the same function)?
      - akira2501 3y ago
        You'd have to more thoroughly define "successful." You'd also have to explain why you think the lack of one would prove any point.
        autoexec 3y ago
        It's not that the lack of one proves it's impossible, but if one existed it'd sure be evidence that government isn't a requirement. As for "successful" I suppose that is very much subjective. Is there one you'd consider to be successful?
    - int_19h 3y ago
      There are no historical or current examples of societies larger than a tribe that are lacking any form of government. The thing that is not mandatory, however, is the state, which is not a synonym. State-based government is centralized government, but government does not necessarily need to be centralized to the point where the result is a state.
      - akira2501 3y ago
        You are limiting your definition of society to one that can be described by defended political borders. It's circular and tautological. I would argue that the internet is a society that's broader than these political borders, obviously exists, and does so entirely outside of government control. I would suggest you both missed this definition of society.
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    > This immediately falls apart, by that logic we should literally have no government or society to speak of. "Only as much power as you think the worst possible person should have" would mean literally no power - there isn't a single decision in my life I would pass off to the worst person I could think of. What you're describing is anarchy. Not at all. Suppose the worst possible person is in the prosecutor's office. They get to decide who to prosecute. But they can't just file false charges against someone and throw away the key, they have to prove it in court with evidence and convince a jury of the defendant's peers. Moreover, we could prohibit prosecutorial misconduct and set up an independent agency for investigating and punishing it. And we could require vague laws to be construed in the defendant's favor and strike down excessively broad ones as unconstitutional. It's possible for these checks and balances to fail -- there is some evidence that they have -- but in principle we could have stricter ones that work better. And if they work as intended, it doesn't matter how bad the prosecutor is, they don't have the power to cause harm, and they themselves are punished if they try to exceed the limits of their power. But if they just do their job, i.e. investigate crimes and prosecute the offenders, they do have the power to do that. And so it is with any other office in the government.
    - mulmen 3y ago
      There is another failure mode. The prosecutor can refuse to prosecute a guilty party. This can happen for several reasons. 1) corruption, don’t prosecute your friends. 2) ideology, the law or punishment are “unfair” or the defendant is “misunderstood” or “disadvantaged” according to the prosecutor. 3) politics, to advance their political careers prosecutors want an unblemished record of successful convictions. It is good that our system biases toward avoiding wrongful conviction but there’s no check that forces a party to “do their job.”
      - LeroyRaz 3y ago
        You can have multiple prosecutors. E.g., if one does not want to prosecute (and so not get paid) then another will. While you can't ensure an individual does their job, market forces and competition can ensure the job gets done (by someone).
  - nomel 3y ago
    Many good answers, but to put it simply, ideally you create a system that assumes abuse, which will then make abuse difficult or obvious. If you make any positive assumptions about someone in power, then they will, eventually, be used against you.
  - gretch 3y ago
    In addition to all of the theoretical responses provided, I would also say that the US has withstood the test (so far). Trump is probably one of the “worst”* people and held the highest office. And yet despite the fact that it happened, the US is still chugging along. Bad things happened but the quality of life is similar to pre-trump presidency (as long as you are willing to discount for covid’s impact on the world). *Some say there are worse ppl than djt, but I argue very few has his combination of badness + boldness + tenacity. A bad+meek person thrust into presidency would probably just go with the flow.
    - dpkirchner 3y ago
      > Bad things happened but the quality of life is similar to pre-trump presidency (as long as you are willing to discount for covid’s impact on the world). And are male, of course.
    - blibble 3y ago
      > Trump is probably one of the “worst”* people and held the highest office. And yet despite the fact that it happened, the US is still chugging along. until the next election occurs we haven't really seen the effect of the damage done in 2020 1 in 3 voters no longer believing that the electoral system is fit for purpose ("the election was stolen") is really very scary
      - zmgsabst 3y ago
        A large fraction doesn’t view the government as fit for purpose either — as they allowed widespread, coordinated arson attacks across major cities totaling $2B+ in damages and then sent the FBI after peaceful demonstrators, based on which political faction people belonged to. That’s some real fascism.
    - p1esk 3y ago
      Interesting, if Trump is so bad, why do you think half of the country will vote for him?
      - 3y ago
  - Geisterde 3y ago
    Thats the point, the power will be abused. Free markets subvert toxic heirarchies and inefficient industries, thats how america was designed to work, private capital formation and the ability to compete freely. When you need to resort to political means to achieve your ends you violate peoples rights, those rights are considered above the authority of the government.
    - JohnFen 3y ago
      > Free markets subvert toxic heirarchies and inefficient industries But a free market cannot exist in the absence of regulation, and regulation is a form of government.
      - pdonis 3y ago
        > a free market cannot exist in the absence of regulation As you are using the term "regulation" (see below), this is false. A free market is in fact exactly what you do get in the absence of government regulation: all transactions are voluntary. Only governments can force people to engage in market transactions they don't want to engage in, or prevent them from engaging in market transactions they do want to engage in. > regulation is a form of government Not necessarily. A true free market is regulated by the voluntary choices of all of its participants. No government is required. Government regulation replaces or overrides regulation by voluntary choices of market participants.
        JohnFen 3y ago
        > A free market is in fact exactly what you do get in the absence of government regulation No, you don't. At least not for very long. In the absence of regulation, a free market will always devolve into monopoly as one player leverages their advantages to absorb more and more of the market. This effect snowballs -- the more successful a company is, the more easily they can monopolize ever larger parts. And that's not even mentioning that in the absence of regulation, companies will engage in profitable activities that are very harmful for everyone. Environmental issues, externalizing business costs, etc.
        3y ago
  - wegfawefgawefg 3y ago
    I know countries are different, but there are many people who are pro severely minimal government in the USA. And it does not seem so unlike the initial intentions for the country either. If you frame it as anarchy it sounds like screaming chaos. But consider for a moment that the vast majority of laws that exist that are enforcable now only recently came to be.
    - zmgsabst 3y ago
      There’s also real trade offs: I had fiber to my condo a decade ago in Thailand, but still don’t reliably in the US. Regulations and government monopolies on poles and conduits slow development at the same time they reduce fires and clutter on the poles. (Whoa are there some real tangles in Thailand.) There’s a reasonable debate on where and how much we should regulate things.
      - wegfawefgawefg 3y ago
        I'm not concerned with slow development and the occasional fire. I'm more concerned with rampant over-regulation. Being required to have a license to put up a non load bearing wall in my own house... The homeless in the US that cannot afford the minimum ordained "humane" dwelling size. Minimum parking lot size requirements. Minimum wage. The fed modulating the currency value with the goal of INCREASING unemployment. Homes being required to have running water and electricity, be above a certain size, or you aren't allowed to live in them (Even if they are way wayy out in the middle of the woods). $20,000 driveway concrete keying fees intended to hurt companies that prevent basic individual rights on personal property. Regulation raises costs, and raises price floors. Generally you gain some quality, but don't see the ghost it unleashes. I understand we need building codes in cities so fires don't burn down all of New York, and train, plane, drug inspection laws. But I think overall, non-violent crime in the world is absolutely over-regulated. For some reason people usually assume there are no costs to regulation, and only benefit. I think its a just psychology. Regulation is a thin line that requires dancing on. Always assume there's a ghost cost behind a decision, even if it seems harmless. Even something as well intended as banning candy from the front of grocery stores to cut childhood obesity could unroll into a huge problem as each actor solves their local issue, and generate an emergent behavior. I'll function as an annoying representative of this concept.
  - roenxi 3y ago
    Taking an argument to it's logical conclusion isn't "falling apart". The best scenario for governance is anarchy; ideally we could all just do what we want. It is a tautology that anything we're forced to do by the police is something we don't think is a good idea/in our interests. The problem with anarchy is that it will get toppled by a group - probably internally to the society - that is organised and forms a standing military. Organised factions tend to grow. The US is creeping in the same direction as a group like the USSR or China - an overdeveloped and too-powerful central bureaucracy - but much more slowly because it started from a well designed system with lots of checks and balances. But just because centralised power tends to be stable doesn't mean it is good, decentralised power is much more pleasant to live under. So the ideal government is anarchy, the practically ideal government is as close to anarchy as we can get without being destabilised by a military, and the reality of the situation is militarys form and tend to move away from anarchy towards tyranny. But that doesn't make them good.
    - Nevermark 3y ago
      > The problem with anarchy is that it will get toppled by a group The benefits of anarchy get “toppled” the first moment someone violates another persons freedom, leaving them no recourse but ad hoc retaliation, and the unlimited risks of further repercussions to themselves and those they care about. Assuming they are left in any shape to do so. No group needed.
    - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
      What this is missing is that you can be forced to do something by someone other than a military. If a corporation pollutes the air, you're being forced to breathe polluted air. It's not in your interest for them to pollute the air, but it's in their interest because it's cheaper and they value money over incrementally cleaner air. Then you need a means to stop them from doing something they find to be in their own interest, because it isn't in yours and you didn't consent to it. The problem with this is that if you extend it to its logical conclusion, now you're not allowed to breathe because I didn't consent to you emitting CO2 from your lungs. The key here is to limit the government to the things that are both important and can only be feasibly accomplished through a monopoly on force. Prohibiting violence and monopolies, pricing major externalities, funding certain types of fundamental research, etc. Not prohibiting entirely consensual behavior or micromanaging marginal commercial activity or impairing your view of the bay by having the gall to construct housing during a housing shortfall. There can be some disagreement around the edges on what these things are, but the real hard part is finding a way to create checks and balances effective enough to resist when a wave of populism wants to stop imposing all of these restrictions on Their Guy. Because the thing that follows that is invariably centralization of power, corruption and injustice.
- TylerE 3y ago
  > And government should only have as much power as you think the worst possible people in charge should have The problem is the worst people NOT IN GOVERNMENT already have more power than that, and can thus easily crush such a government and turn it into a de facto oligarchy.
  - cracrecry 3y ago
    More power than the Government has? Which company or individual has nuclear weapons? Could send you to war like Russia in Ukraine to die? Could print as much money as they want. Can raise arbitrary taxes and people have to pay or you just incarcerate them. Can send you to prison. Spy everything you do by force. Governments can kill you, rob you, kidnap you, spy you, without consequences. I don't know any individual or company with as much power as Governments have.
    - TylerE 3y ago
      If you think the worst people cannot have nuclear weapons, then by your own logic governments should not have nuclear weapons, because a bad person could get elected and then have nuclear weapons.
- baryphonic 3y ago
  Just for reference, the "ambition must be made to counteract ambition" line comes from Federalist 51, also by Madison.
- janalsncm 3y ago
  What they failed to recognize is that factions (i.e. political parties) will inevitably form so they should be regulated. There is nothing in the Constitution about political parties. They found the time to mention the Post office but not political parties. > Ambition must be made to counteract ambition Sounds nice but it’s fundamental a recipe for getting nothing done. And just because the government doesn’t do it doesn’t mean it won’t be done. Private entities, with far fewer restraints (any ambitions to restrain them are of course counteracted) will naturally fill in the gaps. It’s why the US has private companies selling expensive tax software rather than a simple system which would benefit everyone.
- huytersd 3y ago
  China hasn’t reached it yet but once Xi is out they have to hope they can find another benevolent king or the entire system is going to come crashing down.
- graemep 3y ago
  > Modern China has already reached the end of their system, a scant 50 years after Mao Zedong. I do not think you have picked a good example. Mao was a pretty nasty piece of work. The relatively prosperity of modern China is the result of abandoning his ideology - and a large chunk is the result of reversing the damage he and his followers did. There has been no line of good people in communist and post communist China. It failed from the start.
- OtherShrezzing 3y ago
  Strangely the UK, which has a no formal constitution and an unimaginable number "gentleman's agreement" parliamentary traditions - with absolutely no recourse for political malfeasance - has faired remarkably well for hundreds of years. The entire system is built on the notion that "the next leader will probably not undermine the entire system". It's only really faced a couple of real internal systemic threats throughout its history and was (until the last decade) considered a bastion of political stability.
  - nobodyandproud 3y ago
    With the French Revolution, the American Revolution, then Imperialism, then World War 2 and then its loss of influence: The UK faired remarkably simply because of the Enlightenment and later, the consequences of fighting against the people. Then antagonizing ally that shared many common interests. Still, I can totally see the UK’s democracy devolving quickly, if in the decades and generations ahead governments trend towards authoritarianism.
  - blibble 3y ago
    > It's only really faced a couple of real internal systemic threats throughout its history and was (until the last decade) considered a bastion of political stability. the political instability was an unintended consequence of a small change in 2011: the Fixed Term Parliaments Act the Act removed the ancient power of the PM to call an election early (ironically intending to provide stability) it resulted in a situation where parliament couldn't agree on anything with the usual way out (government calling a general election) no longer possible the Fixed Term Parliaments Act has now been repealed, so hopefully this was a one-off
- ajmurmann 3y ago
  I think a better way of phrasing that is "We cannot ask for better people. The right system makes the wrong people do the right thing". Russ Roberts sometimes says something like this and probably quoted someone else who I forgot
  - JellyBeanThief 3y ago
    > The right system makes the wrong people do the right thing. The words "right" and "wrong" in that sentence could make light of the Ardblair stones.
    - ajmurmann 3y ago
      The statement isn't about what we want to get out of a system or government, but about how to approach shaping the system to create the desired outcome. You can fill in "good" and "bad" with your own subjective values and it continues to hold true. How you make the collective decision to agree on what's desired and what's not is a whole other can of worms.
- PKop 3y ago
  >Any form of government that depends on an unbroken line of "good people" in power will fail They all depend on this. There is no set-it-and-forget-it algorithm that you can put in place that self-perpetuates good government. There are "people" at every point along the chain of any government including those writing its laws, enforcing them, interpreting laws in court and in many bureaucratic institutions that may or may not ignore these rules or undermine them. I think every system has a life-cycle like an organism, and some aspects of degradation and corruption are almost unavoidable in practice if not in principle.
- wolverine876 3y ago
  > Modern China has already reached the end of their system, a scant 50 years after Mao Zedong. Off topic, but are you implying that Mao was 'good people'? It seems that for the Communist 'dynasty', it fell apart immediately - that is, it never got anywhere. I'm not sure the Communist dynasty is any worse than the Qing or Ming or others before it, at least in that respect.
  - gottorf 3y ago
    > are you implying that Mao was 'good people'? No; Mao was a dictator, and the country suffered so much under him that there was an informal agreement between the leaders of the country after him that power should be distributed among multiple people (the Politburo), and that no one person acting as the paramount leader should be in power for over 10 years. That system lasted for roughly 50 years, with Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao, and Xi Jinping at the helm. The last of whom, of course, decided he didn't want to be bound by that pesky 10 year thing anymore. So there was a short streak of "good people", which is over.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  > And government should only have as much power as you think the worst possible people in charge should have. That doesn't make real sense to me, because that means that government is impossible. I prefer the idea that "desire for office should be disqualification for office."
- philistine 3y ago
  Every Westminster-style democracy by your logic should have turned into a dictature. There is nothing stopping a governor general from seizing power but tradition and expectations.
Waterluvian 3y ago
Over many discussions with American friends I have been persuaded that a governmental system that is fundamentally untrusting of the various components is one of the main features of American democracy.
blibble 3y ago
> Its a deep analysis of a need for a republican democracy. > The only way to have a sustainable government is to have strong checks and balances this is a very US centric view constitutional monarchies seem to work as well, if not better by the various democracy/stability indicies > Any government that depends on human virtuousness will fail. the near term survival of the current US system certainly looks far from certain at present
- hangonhn 3y ago
  Aren't most modern constitutional monarchies just a veneer over a republican democracy anyways? The monarch wields no real power -- even if on paper they may still retain a great deal. The US system is notoriously bad to get working and really seems to only work for the US. Anywhere else we have tried it has ended with some kind of failure. However, it's reasonable to call the parliamentary systems like the UK republican democracies and those have been emulated else where with a higher degree of success.
  - blibble 3y ago
    > Aren't most modern constitutional monarchies just a veneer over a republican democracy anyways? it's the other way round, by the time of the rebellion absolute monarchy was long gone, the things the colonists didn't like were being passed by parliament the US then gave its presidency more power than George III would have dreamed of (in practice the presidency also seems to be prone to dynasties)
    - InTheArena 3y ago
      Absolute monarchy was still a thread at this time. They just called it enlightened despotism. The colonists were objecting to taxation (and really any form of government) without representation, which both the monarch and the parliament were at fault for. Enlightened Despotism died when George III didn't apply reason (as the colonists saw it) to rectify the problem. In terms of power then George III would have dreamed of - yes, we live in a era when the power of government is still orders of magnitude greater then what anyone could have imagined at the time.
foldr 3y ago
If the goal is just sustaining government then there are lots of countries without those features that have a longer history of sustained government than the US.
- quickthrowman 3y ago
  There are three governments that have existed longer than the US. Sweden, UK, Denmark. https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Foldest-governments-on-earth-nations-ordered-by-most-recent-v0-9ekizihkw39a1.jpg%3Fs%3Da28f338ec8cf3fe23b830ba6fefe50c789f048ea https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fo... Microstates don’t count.
TylerE 3y ago
While the Federalist Papers are great works, I don't agree with taking them as enlightened guidance from on high. They were theorizing. No one of them really knew how a modern democracy/republic would actually work in practice. Remember, the authors of the constitution (large overlap) stated on the record that they expected they got a lot of it wrong, and expected large swathes of it to be amended and replaced once actual experience was obtained. Yes, for those on one side of the spectrum the ruling orthodoxy is textual originalism. The founders themselves would have told the modern Supreme Court that it's bonkers.
- adamisom 3y ago
  you could even say that the USA founders’ vision is the worst ever tried—except for all those others.
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    There are plenty of other countries that have similar or even better (depending on the viewpoint of the observer) systems of governance, this sort of American exceptionalism isn't rooted in an objective evaluation but simply a nice soundbite and a riff on the 'democracy' one, which has a lot more substance to it.
- gottorf 3y ago
  > The founders themselves would have told the modern Supreme Court that it's bonkers. > expected large swathes of it to be amended and replaced Would they have? There exists a mechanism to amend the Constitution, and it seems reasonable to me that the Supreme Court would insist on textual originalism until the text is amended through that legal process.
  - TylerE 3y ago
    Here's Thomas Jefferson writing to James Madison in the early 1790s: "The question Whether one generation of men has a right to bind another, seems never to have been started either on this or our side of the water… (But) between society and society, or generation and generation there is no municipal obligation, no umpire but the law of nature. We seem not to have perceived that, by the law of nature, one generation is to another as one independant nation to another… On similar ground it may be proved that no society can make a perpetual constitution, or even a perpetual law. The earth belongs always to the living generation… Every constitution, then, and every law, naturally expires at the end of 19. years. If it be enforced longer, it is an act of force and not of right." That's one founding father to another. Funny how the "originalists" never bring this quote up. It's one founding father, later our 3rd president, writing to another founder who would later be our 4th. Edit: Here's the full letter, and it's actually from late 1789: https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-12-02-0248 https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-12-02-024...
hash872 3y ago
>The only way to have a sustainable government is to have strong checks and balances and putting multiple factions with different interests against one another Completely American myopic POV. Stable, healthy democracies that are unicameral parliamentary systems include Norway, New Zealand, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Lithuania, Portugal, and Sweden. (Most of those countries don't have strong judicial review either. Or federalism). That's without even getting into bicameral countries where the upper house is actually a lot weaker/just for show. You don't have to separate the executive & the head of state, and you don't need to have checks & balances- that's propaganda for presidential systems. In fact I'd say the opposite is true- it's the countries with the checks & balances (by having a separately elected legislature and president) that are much more unstable and prone to autocracy. See Juan Linz on the Perils of Presidentialism
- iteria 3y ago
  Look at all those nations you listed that are very homogeneous. I want a nation with significant culture tradition differences listed that is like that. American exceptionalist is mostly BS but we do have some ways that we are very unique as a nation and that is how many different kinds of major cultures we have hanging out in US. People handwave the US as all the same but that is very much not the case. Even for as good as American indoctrination is, nothing is gonna change that living in Montana is nothing like living in Florida. What rural urban even means in both states is so different. And we've been this heterogeneous. I'm willing to accept your premise, but I want an example where there isn't one overwhelmingly dominant culture. I'll accept 2 equally dominant cultures.
  - nneonneo 3y ago
    Canada is bicameral but with a dysfunctional senate, meaning that it's effectively a unicameral system - and it's a highly diverse country.
  - hash872 3y ago
    >nothing is gonna change that living in Montana is nothing like living in Florida The problem with this argument is that Montana and Florida vote for the same political party, and then their representatives generally vote the same way once in Congress
notJim 3y ago
> The only way to have a sustainable government is to have strong checks and balances I don't think this viewpoint can be supported empirically. The US government has much stronger checks and balances than most parliamentary systems where the prime minister is elected by the parliament. This means that there's no split possible between the executive and legislative branch. I think the result of this in the US is that the government tends to deadlock, and has a lot of difficulty compromising, which leads to dissatisfaction and instability. Conflicts heighten without compromise or resolution for decades until they reach a breaking point. In a parliamentary system, the need to build a governing coalition can result in greater incentives to compromise. Similarly, judicial review seems to be much much weaker in most countries. In the US, the supreme court can strike down a law with immediate effect of nullifying that law. It's been hard for me to find comparisons, but it seems like in other countries, there's some combination of judicial review being only advisory, or not having immediate effect. So in some countries, the judicial branch says a law is un-constitutional, and the legislative branch can ignore it, or has some period of time to defend or revise the law, rather than the law being immediately struck. This is fundamentally undemocratic. That's a good thing some times, but not good other times. In practice, parties tend to govern by attempting to control the supreme court, because there's no possible way to pass their agendas due to our vaunted checks and balances. This does not seem like the hallmark of an effective democracy to me.
- returningfory2 3y ago
  > In practice, parties tend to govern by attempting to control the supreme court, because there's no possible way to pass their agendas due to our vaunted checks and balances. I agree that the the Supreme Court is more important because of the inability of Congress to pass regular legislation. However I don't think the root cause is "checks and balances". I think the root cause is the (unconstitutional) Senate filibuster. This prevents parties who control both Houses of Congress and the Presidency from passing laws. It is often the case that this happens (2016-18 for Republicans; 2020-22 for Democrats) and in those periods it should be possible to pass many laws and thus diminish the role of the Supreme Court. But the filibuster prevents this.
  - 3y ago
baryphonic 3y ago
Madison elaborates also on this theme in Federalist 51, but with separation of powers rather than federalism & factions.
Consultant32452 3y ago
The form of government is irrelevant compared to the culture that is being governed. Japanese cities are incredible because the Japanese culture demands safety, cleanliness and beauty. You could make just about any change to the form of government you want and the result will be the same.
throw0101d 3y ago
> For all those who talk about corruption and getting money out of politics I suggest reading Federalist 10 by Madison. Its a deep analysis of a need for a republican democracy. Any government that depends on human virtuousness will fail. And yet in Federalist 55 virtue is needed to sustain self-government: > Republican government presupposes the existence of these qualities in a higher degree than any other form. Were the pictures which have been drawn by the political jealousy of some among us faithful likenesses of the human character, the inference would be, that there is not sufficient virtue among men for self-government; and that nothing less than the chains of despotism can restrain them from destroying and devouring one another. * https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed55.asp https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed55.asp > The only way to have a sustainable government is to have strong checks and balances and putting multiple factions with different interests against one another. A particular faction can gain control over the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial in the US, and then they can collude unless individuals choose to follow the Constitution. > Donald Trump urged two Michigan election officials not to certify Democrat Joe Biden's victory in the state following the 2020 presidential election, personally calling them in a pressure campaign reminiscent of his Georgia tactics, the Detroit News reported. > In a Nov. 17, 2020, phone call, the then-president told two fellow Republicans on the Wayne County Board of Canvassers not to sign the state election's certification, saying they would look "terrible" and must "fight for our country," according to recordings of the call reviewed by the Michigan news outlet. * https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-pressured-michigan-officials-throw-out-bidens-2020-win-report-2023-12-22/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-pressured-michigan-of... There are no "institutions" (to protect things), only people.
- blibble 3y ago
  > Donald Trump urged two Michigan election officials not to certify Democrat Joe Biden's victory in the state following the 2020 presidential election, personally calling them in a pressure campaign reminiscent of his Georgia tactics, the Detroit News reported. it is utter madness that politicians are involved in anyway in certifying the results of elections
janalsncm 3y ago
> Any government that depends on human virtuousness will fail. All governments fail, it’s only a question of when. The stability of the US is in no small part due to its geography and natural wealth. Having two oceans on each side and more arable land than you know what to do with is far more of an asset anything written on paper. It seriously reduces the threat of external and internal conflict, and the US got this for a song. Further, there’s a strong argument to be made that the US did not last this entire time. The centralization that happened after the Civil War created a fundamentally different government than was created in 1789. Through the process of incorporation, constitutional amendments were enforced on states which created a far more uniform country.
deleted 3y ago
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happytiger 3y ago
This is precisely why the Department of Homeland Security was such a bad idea. For anyone interested, the only thing I can add of use to this thoughtful comment is a link to the paper: https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed10.asp https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed10.asp
ed_balls 3y ago
> government that depends on human virtuousness will fail. that was the crucial difference between communism and capitalism. Communism used virtuousness only, when capitalism used virtuousness and greed. Communism failed.
jltsiren 3y ago
Checks and balances will fail without virtue. There are plenty of examples of that around the world. Checks and balances are fundamentally nothing more than words on a paper. They cannot be stronger than the elites' belief in their legitimacy.
- refurb 3y ago
  That's true to an extent, but you're viewing it in too black and white a way. A system with checks and balances can be subverted, but it's still better than a system without them.
wolverine876 3y ago
In addition are other essential solutions, which accept the reality that we all have virtue and evil inside us; we are all biologically the same as MLK and Stalin, as Lincoln and the slave-owners (and the slaves). * Good people, which is people who are at that moment able to bring out the virtue in themselves, must act to promote virtue. If they sit on the sidelines, the results are predictable - other people won't do it. * Good people can specifically develop and institutionalize systems - of government, society, culture - that bring out the good in people. It won't happen by accident, and plenty of bad people will do the opposite with intent. If you think these things aren't possible, look at the incredible accomplishments of our ancestors, as we live in a world of freedom, peace, and prosperity absolutely unmatched in human history. What will we build for our descendents? Or will we throw away our inheritance?
pyuser583 3y ago
Sounds very Puritan.
soperj 3y ago
> putting multiple factions with different interests against one another wasn't that how we ended up with WW1?
smrtinsert 3y ago
But some guy told me disbanding congress and the Supreme Court was the way
eduction 3y ago
Neither this nor any of the top replies make even a cursory effort to connect these thoughts to the friggin article this conversation is supposed to be about. It’s literally dozens of irrelevant comments sitting like deadweight at the top of the post.
smdyc1 3y ago
This makes me think about the Roman Republic. Yes, it failed in the end, but the idea of having two Consuls is appealing to check each others ambition. As an aside, Dan Carlin's Hardcore History podcast has a multiparter called Death Throes of the Republic which is highly entertaining. Edit: can you imagine what it would be like though if the US had a dual presidential system and Trump and Obama were both in power at the same time? Somehow I think it would be more dysfunctional.
PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
that assumes one side doesn't win, which is why we're having problems now. That's literally what "too big to fail" means, it means they've won.

gottorf 3y ago

> Any government that depends on human virtuousness will fail. The only way to have a sustainable government is to have strong checks and balances and putting multiple factions with different interests against one another. Absolutely! Any form of government that depends on an unbroken line of "good people" in power will fail, and fail much sooner than anybody thinks. Modern China has already reached the end of their system, a scant 50 years after Mao Zedong. "Ambition must be made to counteract ambition". And government should only have as much power as you think the worst possible people in charge should have. Otherwise, people suffer.

tw04 3y ago
> And government should only have as much power as you think the worst possible people in charge should have. This immediately falls apart, by that logic we should literally have no government or society to speak of. "Only as much power as you think the worst possible person should have" would mean literally no power - there isn't a single decision in my life I would pass off to the worst person I could think of. What you're describing is anarchy. You build checks and balances, but you cannot have a functioning government without the assumption that the people you put in charge will act in good faith, but also have a reliable means to remove them from power if they act in bad faith.
- mikepurvis 3y ago
  I think that's the right take, with particular attention to overall transparency, since otherwise you have nothing— how do you hold someone accountable if you don't have the right to see what they're up to?
- gottorf 3y ago
  > but also have a reliable means to remove them from power if they act in bad faith. That answers your concern -- that's a reduction in the power of government. The worst possible person being in charge is OK if that person cannot unilaterally make things worse for everyone. I don't think it necessarily describes anarchy, though I do take your point. As for people acting in good faith, well, POSIWID[0] is a thing; ideally the system should be designed such that it shouldn't matter whether any individual within the system is acting in good faith or not, because the incentive structures set up therein will lead to positive outcomes. Besides, for any politically divisive topic, someone will always think you're acting in bad faith, anyway. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_what_it_does https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_wha...
- brightball 3y ago
  > there isn't a single decision in my life I would pass off to the worst person I could think of This is actually the point though. You shouldn't have to give power to an individual. If you're going to, you should give that power to a group of individuals who have to agree for the thing to move forward. And then have checks on that group as well. I live in South Carolina and one of the things I like about how this state works is that the governor is virtually powerless, so you never really have to worry about who is elected. There's certainly some degree of power outside of the veto, but for the most part the real power is with the state senate. There are pluses and minuses to it. On the plus side, it means that things are slower to change. On the minus side, it means that things are slower to change.
  - ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
    The discussion was about giving power to an entire government, not an individual.
  - verve_rat 3y ago
    Sounds like South Carolina follows a Westminster style government. Look at the UK, NZ, AU governments (and I assume Canada, don't know for sure): A King, or Governor-General, with the theoretical power to override parliament. A Head of State which can issue decrees and makes important decisions "on the advice of the Prime Minster". Basically a figure head and a bunch of legal fictions wrapped up in the concept of "The Crown". But the real power lies with the PM and their Cabinet. But the party in charge can change the PM whenever they want, and if it ever got bad enough Parliament can change the party in charge without waiting for an election. The PM is responsible to the Cabinet and to their party and to the rest of Parliament. It is all one big mess of ambitious people pointing guns at each other, constantly evaluating their position ahead of the next election.
    - int_19h 3y ago
      Westminster system is not a particularly good example of checks and balances, though, given that whole parliamentary supremacy thing. A Westminster-style Parliament is essentially unanswerable to anyone but the voters; and even then it can unilaterally change election laws, so it can circumvent the voters as well. If the courts deem some act of Parliament unlawful, the latter can just pass another act explicitly declaring it lawful (the recent Safety of Rwanda Bill was a good example of just such an attempt).
- not2b 3y ago
  "people in charge" doesn't just include elected officials, it also includes heads of corporations. Checks and balances has to apply to them as well, meaning that regulation is necessary.
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    This goes both ways. The merchant class is one of the checks and balances on the government because it serves as a separate power base that should find it in its own interest to oppose government misconduct. One of the most important things for checks and balances to do is ensure the separation of commerce and state. Prevent the merger of state and corporate power. So they must restrain the government from inhibiting competition at the behest of crony incumbent corporations. Which requires you to restrict what kinds of regulation the government can impose, when that regulation impairs competition or otherwise advantages crony corporations. The last thing you want is to give a government official the power to do a corporation's bidding.
  - Nevermark 3y ago
    And it should apply to parties. Especially in systems like the US where single party rule is actually attainable. Political parties work hard to centralize and consolidate power across disparate voting districts, pushing and incentivizing their elected members to be more loyal to their party than to their districts. Then the party as a coordinated whole just works for itself. The whole point of having diverse representatives from diverse districts gets nullified. National level seat limits, and cross state party limits for local elections, would eliminate any chance of single party rule and evaporate the dysfunction that spreads from seeking and holding that crown.
- DANmode 3y ago
  What they're describing is infrastructure, which is what government should be. Not a ruling class.
- akira2501 3y ago
  > we should literally have no government or society to speak of I don't think society is dependent on government. > would mean literally no power Literally no power ensconced in the hands of a _single individual_, I think was the point.
  - autoexec 3y ago
    > I don't think society is dependent on government. Is that a hypothetical or are there large and successful societies around today that don't have one (or a group by some other name fulfilling the same function)?
    - akira2501 3y ago
      You'd have to more thoroughly define "successful." You'd also have to explain why you think the lack of one would prove any point.
      - autoexec 3y ago
        It's not that the lack of one proves it's impossible, but if one existed it'd sure be evidence that government isn't a requirement. As for "successful" I suppose that is very much subjective. Is there one you'd consider to be successful?
  - int_19h 3y ago
    There are no historical or current examples of societies larger than a tribe that are lacking any form of government. The thing that is not mandatory, however, is the state, which is not a synonym. State-based government is centralized government, but government does not necessarily need to be centralized to the point where the result is a state.
    - akira2501 3y ago
      You are limiting your definition of society to one that can be described by defended political borders. It's circular and tautological. I would argue that the internet is a society that's broader than these political borders, obviously exists, and does so entirely outside of government control. I would suggest you both missed this definition of society.
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  > This immediately falls apart, by that logic we should literally have no government or society to speak of. "Only as much power as you think the worst possible person should have" would mean literally no power - there isn't a single decision in my life I would pass off to the worst person I could think of. What you're describing is anarchy. Not at all. Suppose the worst possible person is in the prosecutor's office. They get to decide who to prosecute. But they can't just file false charges against someone and throw away the key, they have to prove it in court with evidence and convince a jury of the defendant's peers. Moreover, we could prohibit prosecutorial misconduct and set up an independent agency for investigating and punishing it. And we could require vague laws to be construed in the defendant's favor and strike down excessively broad ones as unconstitutional. It's possible for these checks and balances to fail -- there is some evidence that they have -- but in principle we could have stricter ones that work better. And if they work as intended, it doesn't matter how bad the prosecutor is, they don't have the power to cause harm, and they themselves are punished if they try to exceed the limits of their power. But if they just do their job, i.e. investigate crimes and prosecute the offenders, they do have the power to do that. And so it is with any other office in the government.
  - mulmen 3y ago
    There is another failure mode. The prosecutor can refuse to prosecute a guilty party. This can happen for several reasons. 1) corruption, don’t prosecute your friends. 2) ideology, the law or punishment are “unfair” or the defendant is “misunderstood” or “disadvantaged” according to the prosecutor. 3) politics, to advance their political careers prosecutors want an unblemished record of successful convictions. It is good that our system biases toward avoiding wrongful conviction but there’s no check that forces a party to “do their job.”
    - LeroyRaz 3y ago
      You can have multiple prosecutors. E.g., if one does not want to prosecute (and so not get paid) then another will. While you can't ensure an individual does their job, market forces and competition can ensure the job gets done (by someone).
- nomel 3y ago
  Many good answers, but to put it simply, ideally you create a system that assumes abuse, which will then make abuse difficult or obvious. If you make any positive assumptions about someone in power, then they will, eventually, be used against you.
- gretch 3y ago
  In addition to all of the theoretical responses provided, I would also say that the US has withstood the test (so far). Trump is probably one of the “worst”* people and held the highest office. And yet despite the fact that it happened, the US is still chugging along. Bad things happened but the quality of life is similar to pre-trump presidency (as long as you are willing to discount for covid’s impact on the world). *Some say there are worse ppl than djt, but I argue very few has his combination of badness + boldness + tenacity. A bad+meek person thrust into presidency would probably just go with the flow.
  - dpkirchner 3y ago
    > Bad things happened but the quality of life is similar to pre-trump presidency (as long as you are willing to discount for covid’s impact on the world). And are male, of course.
  - blibble 3y ago
    > Trump is probably one of the “worst”* people and held the highest office. And yet despite the fact that it happened, the US is still chugging along. until the next election occurs we haven't really seen the effect of the damage done in 2020 1 in 3 voters no longer believing that the electoral system is fit for purpose ("the election was stolen") is really very scary
    - zmgsabst 3y ago
      A large fraction doesn’t view the government as fit for purpose either — as they allowed widespread, coordinated arson attacks across major cities totaling $2B+ in damages and then sent the FBI after peaceful demonstrators, based on which political faction people belonged to. That’s some real fascism.
  - p1esk 3y ago
    Interesting, if Trump is so bad, why do you think half of the country will vote for him?
    - 3y ago
- Geisterde 3y ago
  Thats the point, the power will be abused. Free markets subvert toxic heirarchies and inefficient industries, thats how america was designed to work, private capital formation and the ability to compete freely. When you need to resort to political means to achieve your ends you violate peoples rights, those rights are considered above the authority of the government.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    > Free markets subvert toxic heirarchies and inefficient industries But a free market cannot exist in the absence of regulation, and regulation is a form of government.
    - pdonis 3y ago
      > a free market cannot exist in the absence of regulation As you are using the term "regulation" (see below), this is false. A free market is in fact exactly what you do get in the absence of government regulation: all transactions are voluntary. Only governments can force people to engage in market transactions they don't want to engage in, or prevent them from engaging in market transactions they do want to engage in. > regulation is a form of government Not necessarily. A true free market is regulated by the voluntary choices of all of its participants. No government is required. Government regulation replaces or overrides regulation by voluntary choices of market participants.
      - JohnFen 3y ago
        > A free market is in fact exactly what you do get in the absence of government regulation No, you don't. At least not for very long. In the absence of regulation, a free market will always devolve into monopoly as one player leverages their advantages to absorb more and more of the market. This effect snowballs -- the more successful a company is, the more easily they can monopolize ever larger parts. And that's not even mentioning that in the absence of regulation, companies will engage in profitable activities that are very harmful for everyone. Environmental issues, externalizing business costs, etc.
      - 3y ago
- wegfawefgawefg 3y ago
  I know countries are different, but there are many people who are pro severely minimal government in the USA. And it does not seem so unlike the initial intentions for the country either. If you frame it as anarchy it sounds like screaming chaos. But consider for a moment that the vast majority of laws that exist that are enforcable now only recently came to be.
  - zmgsabst 3y ago
    There’s also real trade offs: I had fiber to my condo a decade ago in Thailand, but still don’t reliably in the US. Regulations and government monopolies on poles and conduits slow development at the same time they reduce fires and clutter on the poles. (Whoa are there some real tangles in Thailand.) There’s a reasonable debate on where and how much we should regulate things.
    - wegfawefgawefg 3y ago
      I'm not concerned with slow development and the occasional fire. I'm more concerned with rampant over-regulation. Being required to have a license to put up a non load bearing wall in my own house... The homeless in the US that cannot afford the minimum ordained "humane" dwelling size. Minimum parking lot size requirements. Minimum wage. The fed modulating the currency value with the goal of INCREASING unemployment. Homes being required to have running water and electricity, be above a certain size, or you aren't allowed to live in them (Even if they are way wayy out in the middle of the woods). $20,000 driveway concrete keying fees intended to hurt companies that prevent basic individual rights on personal property. Regulation raises costs, and raises price floors. Generally you gain some quality, but don't see the ghost it unleashes. I understand we need building codes in cities so fires don't burn down all of New York, and train, plane, drug inspection laws. But I think overall, non-violent crime in the world is absolutely over-regulated. For some reason people usually assume there are no costs to regulation, and only benefit. I think its a just psychology. Regulation is a thin line that requires dancing on. Always assume there's a ghost cost behind a decision, even if it seems harmless. Even something as well intended as banning candy from the front of grocery stores to cut childhood obesity could unroll into a huge problem as each actor solves their local issue, and generate an emergent behavior. I'll function as an annoying representative of this concept.
- roenxi 3y ago
  Taking an argument to it's logical conclusion isn't "falling apart". The best scenario for governance is anarchy; ideally we could all just do what we want. It is a tautology that anything we're forced to do by the police is something we don't think is a good idea/in our interests. The problem with anarchy is that it will get toppled by a group - probably internally to the society - that is organised and forms a standing military. Organised factions tend to grow. The US is creeping in the same direction as a group like the USSR or China - an overdeveloped and too-powerful central bureaucracy - but much more slowly because it started from a well designed system with lots of checks and balances. But just because centralised power tends to be stable doesn't mean it is good, decentralised power is much more pleasant to live under. So the ideal government is anarchy, the practically ideal government is as close to anarchy as we can get without being destabilised by a military, and the reality of the situation is militarys form and tend to move away from anarchy towards tyranny. But that doesn't make them good.
  - Nevermark 3y ago
    > The problem with anarchy is that it will get toppled by a group The benefits of anarchy get “toppled” the first moment someone violates another persons freedom, leaving them no recourse but ad hoc retaliation, and the unlimited risks of further repercussions to themselves and those they care about. Assuming they are left in any shape to do so. No group needed.
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    What this is missing is that you can be forced to do something by someone other than a military. If a corporation pollutes the air, you're being forced to breathe polluted air. It's not in your interest for them to pollute the air, but it's in their interest because it's cheaper and they value money over incrementally cleaner air. Then you need a means to stop them from doing something they find to be in their own interest, because it isn't in yours and you didn't consent to it. The problem with this is that if you extend it to its logical conclusion, now you're not allowed to breathe because I didn't consent to you emitting CO2 from your lungs. The key here is to limit the government to the things that are both important and can only be feasibly accomplished through a monopoly on force. Prohibiting violence and monopolies, pricing major externalities, funding certain types of fundamental research, etc. Not prohibiting entirely consensual behavior or micromanaging marginal commercial activity or impairing your view of the bay by having the gall to construct housing during a housing shortfall. There can be some disagreement around the edges on what these things are, but the real hard part is finding a way to create checks and balances effective enough to resist when a wave of populism wants to stop imposing all of these restrictions on Their Guy. Because the thing that follows that is invariably centralization of power, corruption and injustice.
TylerE 3y ago
> And government should only have as much power as you think the worst possible people in charge should have The problem is the worst people NOT IN GOVERNMENT already have more power than that, and can thus easily crush such a government and turn it into a de facto oligarchy.
- cracrecry 3y ago
  More power than the Government has? Which company or individual has nuclear weapons? Could send you to war like Russia in Ukraine to die? Could print as much money as they want. Can raise arbitrary taxes and people have to pay or you just incarcerate them. Can send you to prison. Spy everything you do by force. Governments can kill you, rob you, kidnap you, spy you, without consequences. I don't know any individual or company with as much power as Governments have.
  - TylerE 3y ago
    If you think the worst people cannot have nuclear weapons, then by your own logic governments should not have nuclear weapons, because a bad person could get elected and then have nuclear weapons.
baryphonic 3y ago
Just for reference, the "ambition must be made to counteract ambition" line comes from Federalist 51, also by Madison.
janalsncm 3y ago
What they failed to recognize is that factions (i.e. political parties) will inevitably form so they should be regulated. There is nothing in the Constitution about political parties. They found the time to mention the Post office but not political parties. > Ambition must be made to counteract ambition Sounds nice but it’s fundamental a recipe for getting nothing done. And just because the government doesn’t do it doesn’t mean it won’t be done. Private entities, with far fewer restraints (any ambitions to restrain them are of course counteracted) will naturally fill in the gaps. It’s why the US has private companies selling expensive tax software rather than a simple system which would benefit everyone.
huytersd 3y ago
China hasn’t reached it yet but once Xi is out they have to hope they can find another benevolent king or the entire system is going to come crashing down.
graemep 3y ago
> Modern China has already reached the end of their system, a scant 50 years after Mao Zedong. I do not think you have picked a good example. Mao was a pretty nasty piece of work. The relatively prosperity of modern China is the result of abandoning his ideology - and a large chunk is the result of reversing the damage he and his followers did. There has been no line of good people in communist and post communist China. It failed from the start.
OtherShrezzing 3y ago
Strangely the UK, which has a no formal constitution and an unimaginable number "gentleman's agreement" parliamentary traditions - with absolutely no recourse for political malfeasance - has faired remarkably well for hundreds of years. The entire system is built on the notion that "the next leader will probably not undermine the entire system". It's only really faced a couple of real internal systemic threats throughout its history and was (until the last decade) considered a bastion of political stability.
- nobodyandproud 3y ago
  With the French Revolution, the American Revolution, then Imperialism, then World War 2 and then its loss of influence: The UK faired remarkably simply because of the Enlightenment and later, the consequences of fighting against the people. Then antagonizing ally that shared many common interests. Still, I can totally see the UK’s democracy devolving quickly, if in the decades and generations ahead governments trend towards authoritarianism.
- blibble 3y ago
  > It's only really faced a couple of real internal systemic threats throughout its history and was (until the last decade) considered a bastion of political stability. the political instability was an unintended consequence of a small change in 2011: the Fixed Term Parliaments Act the Act removed the ancient power of the PM to call an election early (ironically intending to provide stability) it resulted in a situation where parliament couldn't agree on anything with the usual way out (government calling a general election) no longer possible the Fixed Term Parliaments Act has now been repealed, so hopefully this was a one-off
ajmurmann 3y ago
I think a better way of phrasing that is "We cannot ask for better people. The right system makes the wrong people do the right thing". Russ Roberts sometimes says something like this and probably quoted someone else who I forgot
- JellyBeanThief 3y ago
  > The right system makes the wrong people do the right thing. The words "right" and "wrong" in that sentence could make light of the Ardblair stones.
  - ajmurmann 3y ago
    The statement isn't about what we want to get out of a system or government, but about how to approach shaping the system to create the desired outcome. You can fill in "good" and "bad" with your own subjective values and it continues to hold true. How you make the collective decision to agree on what's desired and what's not is a whole other can of worms.
PKop 3y ago
>Any form of government that depends on an unbroken line of "good people" in power will fail They all depend on this. There is no set-it-and-forget-it algorithm that you can put in place that self-perpetuates good government. There are "people" at every point along the chain of any government including those writing its laws, enforcing them, interpreting laws in court and in many bureaucratic institutions that may or may not ignore these rules or undermine them. I think every system has a life-cycle like an organism, and some aspects of degradation and corruption are almost unavoidable in practice if not in principle.
wolverine876 3y ago
> Modern China has already reached the end of their system, a scant 50 years after Mao Zedong. Off topic, but are you implying that Mao was 'good people'? It seems that for the Communist 'dynasty', it fell apart immediately - that is, it never got anywhere. I'm not sure the Communist dynasty is any worse than the Qing or Ming or others before it, at least in that respect.
- gottorf 3y ago
  > are you implying that Mao was 'good people'? No; Mao was a dictator, and the country suffered so much under him that there was an informal agreement between the leaders of the country after him that power should be distributed among multiple people (the Politburo), and that no one person acting as the paramount leader should be in power for over 10 years. That system lasted for roughly 50 years, with Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao, and Xi Jinping at the helm. The last of whom, of course, decided he didn't want to be bound by that pesky 10 year thing anymore. So there was a short streak of "good people", which is over.
JohnFen 3y ago
> And government should only have as much power as you think the worst possible people in charge should have. That doesn't make real sense to me, because that means that government is impossible. I prefer the idea that "desire for office should be disqualification for office."
philistine 3y ago
Every Westminster-style democracy by your logic should have turned into a dictature. There is nothing stopping a governor general from seizing power but tradition and expectations.

Waterluvian 3y ago

Over many discussions with American friends I have been persuaded that a governmental system that is fundamentally untrusting of the various components is one of the main features of American democracy.

blibble 3y ago

> Its a deep analysis of a need for a republican democracy. > The only way to have a sustainable government is to have strong checks and balances this is a very US centric view constitutional monarchies seem to work as well, if not better by the various democracy/stability indicies > Any government that depends on human virtuousness will fail. the near term survival of the current US system certainly looks far from certain at present

hangonhn 3y ago
Aren't most modern constitutional monarchies just a veneer over a republican democracy anyways? The monarch wields no real power -- even if on paper they may still retain a great deal. The US system is notoriously bad to get working and really seems to only work for the US. Anywhere else we have tried it has ended with some kind of failure. However, it's reasonable to call the parliamentary systems like the UK republican democracies and those have been emulated else where with a higher degree of success.
- blibble 3y ago
  > Aren't most modern constitutional monarchies just a veneer over a republican democracy anyways? it's the other way round, by the time of the rebellion absolute monarchy was long gone, the things the colonists didn't like were being passed by parliament the US then gave its presidency more power than George III would have dreamed of (in practice the presidency also seems to be prone to dynasties)
  - InTheArena 3y ago
    Absolute monarchy was still a thread at this time. They just called it enlightened despotism. The colonists were objecting to taxation (and really any form of government) without representation, which both the monarch and the parliament were at fault for. Enlightened Despotism died when George III didn't apply reason (as the colonists saw it) to rectify the problem. In terms of power then George III would have dreamed of - yes, we live in a era when the power of government is still orders of magnitude greater then what anyone could have imagined at the time.

foldr 3y ago

If the goal is just sustaining government then there are lots of countries without those features that have a longer history of sustained government than the US.

quickthrowman 3y ago
There are three governments that have existed longer than the US. Sweden, UK, Denmark. https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Foldest-governments-on-earth-nations-ordered-by-most-recent-v0-9ekizihkw39a1.jpg%3Fs%3Da28f338ec8cf3fe23b830ba6fefe50c789f048ea https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fo... Microstates don’t count.

TylerE 3y ago

While the Federalist Papers are great works, I don't agree with taking them as enlightened guidance from on high. They were theorizing. No one of them really knew how a modern democracy/republic would actually work in practice. Remember, the authors of the constitution (large overlap) stated on the record that they expected they got a lot of it wrong, and expected large swathes of it to be amended and replaced once actual experience was obtained. Yes, for those on one side of the spectrum the ruling orthodoxy is textual originalism. The founders themselves would have told the modern Supreme Court that it's bonkers.

adamisom 3y ago
you could even say that the USA founders’ vision is the worst ever tried—except for all those others.
- jacquesm 3y ago
  There are plenty of other countries that have similar or even better (depending on the viewpoint of the observer) systems of governance, this sort of American exceptionalism isn't rooted in an objective evaluation but simply a nice soundbite and a riff on the 'democracy' one, which has a lot more substance to it.
gottorf 3y ago
> The founders themselves would have told the modern Supreme Court that it's bonkers. > expected large swathes of it to be amended and replaced Would they have? There exists a mechanism to amend the Constitution, and it seems reasonable to me that the Supreme Court would insist on textual originalism until the text is amended through that legal process.
- TylerE 3y ago
  Here's Thomas Jefferson writing to James Madison in the early 1790s: "The question Whether one generation of men has a right to bind another, seems never to have been started either on this or our side of the water… (But) between society and society, or generation and generation there is no municipal obligation, no umpire but the law of nature. We seem not to have perceived that, by the law of nature, one generation is to another as one independant nation to another… On similar ground it may be proved that no society can make a perpetual constitution, or even a perpetual law. The earth belongs always to the living generation… Every constitution, then, and every law, naturally expires at the end of 19. years. If it be enforced longer, it is an act of force and not of right." That's one founding father to another. Funny how the "originalists" never bring this quote up. It's one founding father, later our 3rd president, writing to another founder who would later be our 4th. Edit: Here's the full letter, and it's actually from late 1789: https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-12-02-0248 https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-12-02-024...

hash872 3y ago

>The only way to have a sustainable government is to have strong checks and balances and putting multiple factions with different interests against one another Completely American myopic POV. Stable, healthy democracies that are unicameral parliamentary systems include Norway, New Zealand, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Lithuania, Portugal, and Sweden. (Most of those countries don't have strong judicial review either. Or federalism). That's without even getting into bicameral countries where the upper house is actually a lot weaker/just for show. You don't have to separate the executive & the head of state, and you don't need to have checks & balances- that's propaganda for presidential systems. In fact I'd say the opposite is true- it's the countries with the checks & balances (by having a separately elected legislature and president) that are much more unstable and prone to autocracy. See Juan Linz on the Perils of Presidentialism

iteria 3y ago
Look at all those nations you listed that are very homogeneous. I want a nation with significant culture tradition differences listed that is like that. American exceptionalist is mostly BS but we do have some ways that we are very unique as a nation and that is how many different kinds of major cultures we have hanging out in US. People handwave the US as all the same but that is very much not the case. Even for as good as American indoctrination is, nothing is gonna change that living in Montana is nothing like living in Florida. What rural urban even means in both states is so different. And we've been this heterogeneous. I'm willing to accept your premise, but I want an example where there isn't one overwhelmingly dominant culture. I'll accept 2 equally dominant cultures.
- nneonneo 3y ago
  Canada is bicameral but with a dysfunctional senate, meaning that it's effectively a unicameral system - and it's a highly diverse country.
- hash872 3y ago
  >nothing is gonna change that living in Montana is nothing like living in Florida The problem with this argument is that Montana and Florida vote for the same political party, and then their representatives generally vote the same way once in Congress

notJim 3y ago

> The only way to have a sustainable government is to have strong checks and balances I don't think this viewpoint can be supported empirically. The US government has much stronger checks and balances than most parliamentary systems where the prime minister is elected by the parliament. This means that there's no split possible between the executive and legislative branch. I think the result of this in the US is that the government tends to deadlock, and has a lot of difficulty compromising, which leads to dissatisfaction and instability. Conflicts heighten without compromise or resolution for decades until they reach a breaking point. In a parliamentary system, the need to build a governing coalition can result in greater incentives to compromise. Similarly, judicial review seems to be much much weaker in most countries. In the US, the supreme court can strike down a law with immediate effect of nullifying that law. It's been hard for me to find comparisons, but it seems like in other countries, there's some combination of judicial review being only advisory, or not having immediate effect. So in some countries, the judicial branch says a law is un-constitutional, and the legislative branch can ignore it, or has some period of time to defend or revise the law, rather than the law being immediately struck. This is fundamentally undemocratic. That's a good thing some times, but not good other times. In practice, parties tend to govern by attempting to control the supreme court, because there's no possible way to pass their agendas due to our vaunted checks and balances. This does not seem like the hallmark of an effective democracy to me.

returningfory2 3y ago
> In practice, parties tend to govern by attempting to control the supreme court, because there's no possible way to pass their agendas due to our vaunted checks and balances. I agree that the the Supreme Court is more important because of the inability of Congress to pass regular legislation. However I don't think the root cause is "checks and balances". I think the root cause is the (unconstitutional) Senate filibuster. This prevents parties who control both Houses of Congress and the Presidency from passing laws. It is often the case that this happens (2016-18 for Republicans; 2020-22 for Democrats) and in those periods it should be possible to pass many laws and thus diminish the role of the Supreme Court. But the filibuster prevents this.
- 3y ago

baryphonic 3y ago

Madison elaborates also on this theme in Federalist 51, but with separation of powers rather than federalism & factions.

Consultant32452 3y ago

The form of government is irrelevant compared to the culture that is being governed. Japanese cities are incredible because the Japanese culture demands safety, cleanliness and beauty. You could make just about any change to the form of government you want and the result will be the same.

throw0101d 3y ago

> For all those who talk about corruption and getting money out of politics I suggest reading Federalist 10 by Madison. Its a deep analysis of a need for a republican democracy. Any government that depends on human virtuousness will fail. And yet in Federalist 55 virtue is needed to sustain self-government: > Republican government presupposes the existence of these qualities in a higher degree than any other form. Were the pictures which have been drawn by the political jealousy of some among us faithful likenesses of the human character, the inference would be, that there is not sufficient virtue among men for self-government; and that nothing less than the chains of despotism can restrain them from destroying and devouring one another. * https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed55.asp https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed55.asp > The only way to have a sustainable government is to have strong checks and balances and putting multiple factions with different interests against one another. A particular faction can gain control over the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial in the US, and then they can collude unless individuals choose to follow the Constitution. > Donald Trump urged two Michigan election officials not to certify Democrat Joe Biden's victory in the state following the 2020 presidential election, personally calling them in a pressure campaign reminiscent of his Georgia tactics, the Detroit News reported. > In a Nov. 17, 2020, phone call, the then-president told two fellow Republicans on the Wayne County Board of Canvassers not to sign the state election's certification, saying they would look "terrible" and must "fight for our country," according to recordings of the call reviewed by the Michigan news outlet. * https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-pressured-michigan-officials-throw-out-bidens-2020-win-report-2023-12-22/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-pressured-michigan-of... There are no "institutions" (to protect things), only people.

blibble 3y ago
> Donald Trump urged two Michigan election officials not to certify Democrat Joe Biden's victory in the state following the 2020 presidential election, personally calling them in a pressure campaign reminiscent of his Georgia tactics, the Detroit News reported. it is utter madness that politicians are involved in anyway in certifying the results of elections

janalsncm 3y ago

> Any government that depends on human virtuousness will fail. All governments fail, it’s only a question of when. The stability of the US is in no small part due to its geography and natural wealth. Having two oceans on each side and more arable land than you know what to do with is far more of an asset anything written on paper. It seriously reduces the threat of external and internal conflict, and the US got this for a song. Further, there’s a strong argument to be made that the US did not last this entire time. The centralization that happened after the Civil War created a fundamentally different government than was created in 1789. Through the process of incorporation, constitutional amendments were enforced on states which created a far more uniform country.

deleted 3y ago

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happytiger 3y ago

This is precisely why the Department of Homeland Security was such a bad idea. For anyone interested, the only thing I can add of use to this thoughtful comment is a link to the paper: https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed10.asp https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed10.asp

ed_balls 3y ago

> government that depends on human virtuousness will fail. that was the crucial difference between communism and capitalism. Communism used virtuousness only, when capitalism used virtuousness and greed. Communism failed.

jltsiren 3y ago

Checks and balances will fail without virtue. There are plenty of examples of that around the world. Checks and balances are fundamentally nothing more than words on a paper. They cannot be stronger than the elites' belief in their legitimacy.

refurb 3y ago
That's true to an extent, but you're viewing it in too black and white a way. A system with checks and balances can be subverted, but it's still better than a system without them.

wolverine876 3y ago

In addition are other essential solutions, which accept the reality that we all have virtue and evil inside us; we are all biologically the same as MLK and Stalin, as Lincoln and the slave-owners (and the slaves). * Good people, which is people who are at that moment able to bring out the virtue in themselves, must act to promote virtue. If they sit on the sidelines, the results are predictable - other people won't do it. * Good people can specifically develop and institutionalize systems - of government, society, culture - that bring out the good in people. It won't happen by accident, and plenty of bad people will do the opposite with intent. If you think these things aren't possible, look at the incredible accomplishments of our ancestors, as we live in a world of freedom, peace, and prosperity absolutely unmatched in human history. What will we build for our descendents? Or will we throw away our inheritance?

pyuser583 3y ago

Sounds very Puritan.

soperj 3y ago

> putting multiple factions with different interests against one another wasn't that how we ended up with WW1?

smrtinsert 3y ago

But some guy told me disbanding congress and the Supreme Court was the way

eduction 3y ago

Neither this nor any of the top replies make even a cursory effort to connect these thoughts to the friggin article this conversation is supposed to be about. It’s literally dozens of irrelevant comments sitting like deadweight at the top of the post.

smdyc1 3y ago

This makes me think about the Roman Republic. Yes, it failed in the end, but the idea of having two Consuls is appealing to check each others ambition. As an aside, Dan Carlin's Hardcore History podcast has a multiparter called Death Throes of the Republic which is highly entertaining. Edit: can you imagine what it would be like though if the US had a dual presidential system and Trump and Obama were both in power at the same time? Somehow I think it would be more dysfunctional.

PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago

that assumes one side doesn't win, which is why we're having problems now. That's literally what "too big to fail" means, it means they've won.