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I think the existence of a Political Class (which as Charlie points out, is an inevitable outcome of our current system) is one of the main problems. Personall

I think the existence of a Political Class (which as Charlie points out, is an inevitable outcome of our current system) is one of the main problems. Personally I would like to see a random election system whereby every X years a random group of Y people are chosen to be MPs for the next parliament. It would be a civil obligation, similar to jury duty. Each person would only be allowed to serve once. That way the MPs would not be insulated from the world outside of the political sphere.

arethuza 14y ago
In the UK at least there might be some, for me, rather undesirable consequences of such a scheme - for instance we'd probably get the death penalty back.
- cstross 14y ago
  Luckily they couldn't do that -- not without quitting the EU, which would result in an entirely different clusterfuck. (And I need to blog about the second-order consequences of that at some other time. For starters: the way the City of London would respond (mostly by pulling the eject handle and relocating to Frankfurt and Paris), the way the US multinationals who use the UK as an Anglophone business centre in the EU would respond (ditto), and how the Commonwealth would respond ("we only loved you because you were a cheap way to get our exports into the EU. Bye!") ...
  - arethuza 14y ago
    Unfortunately, the UK (or a post-independence Former United Kingdom) leaving the EU seems to be a clusterfuck that seems to be gaining a surprising amount of momentum.
  - iuguy 14y ago
    The City of London cannot pull the eject handle and relocate. The City of London is a separate legal entity[1] with it's own laws and rules, and it's those rules that meant that the trading that took down Lehman Brothers was conducted in the City of London, because it couldn't have really legally taken place elsewhere. [1] - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrObZ_HZZUc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrObZ_HZZUc
    - cstross 14y ago
      You're missing the point: the institutions that are headquartered there conduct a huge volume of Euro-denominated derivatives trading, which becomes impossible if the City loses its license to do so, and it's hard to see them retaining it if the UK leaves the EU. So those banks would have to relocate their investment arms to somewhere in the EU. That's got to be worth several points off the UK's GDP. Instant recession -- and it's not recoverable.
martinced 14y ago
That's not a bad idea! I personally would like to see very simple laws passed: a) to be able to work as a politician you must first have been working at least x years in the private sector b) if you're father / mother is a politician, you cannot become a politician This would solve two of the biggest issues with politicians in Europe: a) gross incompetence b) conflicts of interest In Belgium there are a lot of "son of..." which are becoming ministers and whatnots. And there are regularly scandals about public funds disappearing in the pockets of families where both the father and one of its son are in power.
- arethuza 14y ago
  "a) to be able to work as a politician you must first have been working at least x years in the private sector" So someone coming out of the armed forces wouldn't be able to directly stand for election - that strikes me as an awful idea. e.g. Paddy Ashdown was in the SBS and MI6 (!) before becoming a diplomat and then a politician. I'm not a supporter of the Liberal Party but he strikes me as precisely the kind of person who should be in politics - he actually has opinions and views based on his experience in the real world! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paddy_Ashdown http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paddy_Ashdown
  - NickPollard 14y ago
    Any kind of restriction to this leads to abuses and disenfranchisement. Must have X years experience? Must have a University Degree? Must be at least Y years old? Must Earn Less than/greater than/between a certain value? All you do is just cut people out who aren't part of the status quo.
KMag 14y ago
The ancient Athenians agreed with you that sortition is more fair than election, for many metrics of fairness.
humanrebar 14y ago
That would just make lobbyists and bureaucrats more important. Would your grandmother know how to draft a law governing water purity standards? Also juries are known to be easy to manipulate. Perhaps legislators are as well, but I don't see government-by-jury as being clearly superior.

arethuza 14y ago

In the UK at least there might be some, for me, rather undesirable consequences of such a scheme - for instance we'd probably get the death penalty back.

cstross 14y ago
Luckily they couldn't do that -- not without quitting the EU, which would result in an entirely different clusterfuck. (And I need to blog about the second-order consequences of that at some other time. For starters: the way the City of London would respond (mostly by pulling the eject handle and relocating to Frankfurt and Paris), the way the US multinationals who use the UK as an Anglophone business centre in the EU would respond (ditto), and how the Commonwealth would respond ("we only loved you because you were a cheap way to get our exports into the EU. Bye!") ...
- arethuza 14y ago
  Unfortunately, the UK (or a post-independence Former United Kingdom) leaving the EU seems to be a clusterfuck that seems to be gaining a surprising amount of momentum.
- iuguy 14y ago
  The City of London cannot pull the eject handle and relocate. The City of London is a separate legal entity[1] with it's own laws and rules, and it's those rules that meant that the trading that took down Lehman Brothers was conducted in the City of London, because it couldn't have really legally taken place elsewhere. [1] - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrObZ_HZZUc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrObZ_HZZUc
  - cstross 14y ago
    You're missing the point: the institutions that are headquartered there conduct a huge volume of Euro-denominated derivatives trading, which becomes impossible if the City loses its license to do so, and it's hard to see them retaining it if the UK leaves the EU. So those banks would have to relocate their investment arms to somewhere in the EU. That's got to be worth several points off the UK's GDP. Instant recession -- and it's not recoverable.

martinced 14y ago

That's not a bad idea! I personally would like to see very simple laws passed: a) to be able to work as a politician you must first have been working at least x years in the private sector b) if you're father / mother is a politician, you cannot become a politician This would solve two of the biggest issues with politicians in Europe: a) gross incompetence b) conflicts of interest In Belgium there are a lot of "son of..." which are becoming ministers and whatnots. And there are regularly scandals about public funds disappearing in the pockets of families where both the father and one of its son are in power.

arethuza 14y ago
"a) to be able to work as a politician you must first have been working at least x years in the private sector" So someone coming out of the armed forces wouldn't be able to directly stand for election - that strikes me as an awful idea. e.g. Paddy Ashdown was in the SBS and MI6 (!) before becoming a diplomat and then a politician. I'm not a supporter of the Liberal Party but he strikes me as precisely the kind of person who should be in politics - he actually has opinions and views based on his experience in the real world! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paddy_Ashdown http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paddy_Ashdown
- NickPollard 14y ago
  Any kind of restriction to this leads to abuses and disenfranchisement. Must have X years experience? Must have a University Degree? Must be at least Y years old? Must Earn Less than/greater than/between a certain value? All you do is just cut people out who aren't part of the status quo.

KMag 14y ago

The ancient Athenians agreed with you that sortition is more fair than election, for many metrics of fairness.

humanrebar 14y ago

That would just make lobbyists and bureaucrats more important. Would your grandmother know how to draft a law governing water purity standards? Also juries are known to be easy to manipulate. Perhaps legislators are as well, but I don't see government-by-jury as being clearly superior.