Asymmetrical Information

Eh - not crazy. Just Barbarian.

In the strict sense.

"Personal Law" was a commonplace in Early Medieval Europe; WHAT the person was dictated the law under which he or she fell -- free 'Roman' male (man under Roman law)? Slave male of a Roman? Free Burgundian female of child-bearing years? Semi-free Frankish male? It was all very confusing, but not insane.

I was about to make a sarcastic/funny remark, so I'll try to clarify first:

Does this mean, for example, only those who favor high taxes would pay those high taxes?

This sounds very much like what is described in the science fiction book "Snow Crash" by Neal Stephenson.

And who would fill the potholes on this road to perdition?

Like this?

"And who would fill the potholes on this road to perdition?"

"..who would fill the potholes on this road(?).."

Literally, the Owner of the Road, that is, if he/she wanted to maximize potential Revenues from Individual Toll-Payers(Users)...

American-style democracy pretty fundamentally depends on at least the theoretical ability to vote somebody out of office. Setting up some no-loser "virtual Federalism" (ie, perfect gerrymandering) seems like it would have the opposite effect. It sounds superficially similar to parliamentary setups where you vote for a party and the party decides which of its candidates actually get elected, which is completely incompatible with Federalism.

Anything taken to extremes will be absurd and impractical. But why couldn't we have a limited range of "political plans" that correspond to the different plans that big corporations offer their employees regarding medical insurance? If you want plan A, you can't be taxed any more than X percentage of your income, but things like Social Security and Medicare don't exist for you. If you choose plan B, you can't be taxed any more than X+Y percentage of your income, but the social safety net improves, and so on. People in each plan should be able to elect representatives who could determine under what circumstances people from other plans would be allowed to change over into theirs, so as to prevent the free rider problem. Libertarians could have their rugged individualism, and Progressives could have their own little version of Sweden. What's not to like about it?

What's not to like about it?

The way I see that crashing and burning is, lower income brackets are the most likely to want greater benefit levels; they may consent to being in the corresponding tax bracket, but they are likely to draw well beyond their net tax contributions. Who funds the difference? Presumably, not wealthy progressives, judging by the 'do as I say' mentality that wealthy leftists in the capitol are famous for.

In Robert Heinlein's "Double Star", the Parlimentary democracy had representation based on social/economic group as well as geography. One might run to be the representative for single college graduate females, or married software engineers. Reading between the lines, a voter could choose which group they registered for. In "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", Professor DeLaPaz suggested representation by petition as an alternative: get 5000 signatures, get a seat in parliament.

Also, a huge amount of the non-libertarian objection to other forms of government has to do with either externalities or moral principles.

For example, while many people like public education of some kind on general principles, there's a pretty strong argument to be made that an educated society is a nicer one in which to live. Someone who accepts that argument isn't going to think it's okay that you don't want to pay for other peoples' education, partly because he thinks you benefit from it. Other examples are assistance to the poor and basic research. Should I be allowed to opt out of paying for national defense, on the grounds of pacifism?

On another level, some people want to see pornography banned, not because they personally don't want it in their house, but because they think it's an evil thing. Others think inequality is inherently evil, or that racism is, or that homosexuality is. In all cases, this isn't just about "what law applies to me," it's about what law should apply to others. Should the wife of the Hell's Angel be able to opt out, on her wedding day, of the laws against wife beating?

And many of the laws we argue about center around managing shared resources or risks. I don't want someone putting an explosives factory next door to me, even if they *are* clients of a set of laws that allow it.

It seems like many (not all) these objections could be addressed by the older kind of federalism, based on local governments having a bigger role and the central government having less. One issue is that free migration and free trade can undermine some kinds of rules. It's hard to be a socialist paradise next to a libertarian one, when all the young, healthy people go next door to get rich, and come back if they fail or get sick. And a highly-mobile society makes other things hard to do--if a single state refuses to recognize interracial marriages, this has a big impact on people coming into the state.

Part of the beauty (and horror) of our current political process is that it encourages moderation. If there's one thing our current winner-take-all system selects against it's pandering to a devoted yet unpopular group in order to get some 5-10% of the political representation. It's considered a truism that the bulk of Americans are in the political middle. I've always wondered if that's specifically because our system rewards moderate political views. Wouldn't a system like the German Bund or Israeli Knesset reward extremist polititians? I don't know enough about those systems, but I'd speculate so.

I should clarify. I know Jane wasn't talking about a Bund-stye system. But does the thoght still apply?

Also, how would somthing like Medicare work if every city has a different plan? What specific laws would be defined locally?

This strikes me as entirely logical. And totally crazy.

Well Jane, you are half right. It is crazy and totally illogical.

First episode of the 2004 season of Real Time with Bill Maher had two year 2000 Ralph Nader voters (Michael Moore and Bill Maher) on their knees begging Ralph Nader in person, not to run in 2004. Why? WHy would they do that?

Well, that is because Bill Maher and Michael Moore aren't crazy. They know that their man was unelectable and his presense in the election only removes votes from the candidate who could win, the candidate that could remove the incumbant that they hate so much. In that sense, a Ralph Nader is as good an ally to George W Bush as Ross Perot was for Bill Clinton.

The moderates have all the power in this country, politically. They decide who wins the elections. They look at the issues and they judge which candidate is best given the circumstances in the world in which we all live. Problem is, there are so few true moderates. Most people would like to consider themselves a moderate, but if you get to know them, there is usually one or two issues that become a political litmus test for them that removes them from the pool of true moderates.

No, we only have two parties. And that is all we are ever going to have, sad to say. But that is the way politics works in countries where it isn't all about winning so much as it is all about making sure somebody else loses.

My two thoughts for better government are:

1) Top 100 vote getters in the Senate: --- Allow the Senators to be elected at large with the ones who get the most serving. Thus their might be a few representatives from other interest groups and thus might have their voices heard. -- The states, that are now represented in the Senate are no longer shared interest areas and so lets let the House represent geography where as the Senate represent diverse interests.

2) Let each State's income tax be indexed to the amount of money that is spend for geographic projects in that state: --- Thus "earmarks" would not only benefit a state, but also cost the states tax payers and thus they would be more likely to prefer to have the projects that they want managed by their local governments rather than have the money funneled through the federal government.

Crazy and unworkable. Anyone with the merest PoliSci training knows that a "let individuals choose" system is a default libertarian system and a "let everyone choose, but be able to change their minds" system (like being libertarian until you fail, then you're a socialist) inevitably defaults into a mixed/statist system--the only kind that can accomodate people who want it both ways.

I think the biggest problem with government is not the choice of policies, but politics itself. The easiest way to depoliticize government is to select representatives by lot (the way we do juries, more or less) instead of by vote. It's no accident that our judiciary is, relatively speaking, the least politicized and the most trusted part of our government.

Selecting representatives by lot is not a perfect system, but it's a heck of a lot better than our current, wasteful, increasingly expensive one that polarizing the electorate while creating hopelessly muddled policies.

The biggest issue I see with "interest group" federalism is that it ignores the inconvenient fact that externalities tend to be geographically oriented. Who you live next to is more important than the interests you share with someone across the continent. Compromise is important in geographic clusters. Extremism is acceptable in dispersed interest groups. When the extremism is put into effect, however, it must do so locally/geographically, and then the "virtuality" has to become real. And then someone gets shot.

Political middle? No such beast.

The idea of seperating geography from government is explored tangentially in this wonderful book:

http://www.amazon.com/Snow-Crash-Bantam-Spectra-Book/dp/0553380958/sr=8-1/qid=1159807559/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-8886361-9615334?ie=UTF8&s=books

Voluntary associations of like-minded people in what are effectively micro-states is Nozick's idea for the least-awful way to arrange things, and the framework for creating Utopias, in Anarchy, State, and Utopia.

I'm surprised Kling didn't mention it.

(And I'm also deeply uncertain that it could ever work in the real world, and that the costs don't outweigh the benefits. Logical, but crazy. Describes, to a greater or lesser extent, the entire book, really.)

This strikes me as entirely logical. And totally crazy.

See also the Icelandic Commonwealth, which allowed individuals to sign up with their choice of gothi (chieftain / lawgiver).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icelandic_Commonwealth

One could change gothis, and - in a twist that both free marketers *and* meta-loving-computer-scientists will love, the gotharth itself (status of being a gothi) was tradeable.

True, due to inherent instabilities, it only lasted 332 years, so obviously it's unworkable and crazy next to - say - the Russian Republic (17 years old), the French Fifth Republic (48 years old), German government (57 years old), the People's Republic of China (57 years old), the Untied States (230 years old), or the Westphalian system of nation states (358 years old).

This strikes me as entirely logical. And totally crazy.

See also the Icelandic Commonwealth, which allowed individuals to sign up with their choice of gothi (chieftain / lawgiver).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icelandic_Commonwealth

One could change gothis, and - in a twist that both free marketers *and* meta-loving-computer-scientists will love, the gotharth itself (status of being a gothi) was tradeable.

True, due to inherent instabilities, it only lasted 332 years, so obviously it's unworkable and crazy next to - say - the Russian Republic (17 years old), the French Fifth Republic (48 years old), German government (57 years old), the People's Republic of China (57 years old), the Untied States (230 years old), or the Westphalian system of nation states (358 years old).

This strikes me as entirely logical. And totally crazy.

See also the Icelandic Commonwealth, which allowed individuals to sign up with their choice of gothi (chieftain / lawgiver).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icelandic_Commonwealth

One could change gothis, and - in a twist that both free marketers *and* meta-loving-computer-scientists will love, the gotharth itself (status of being a gothi) was tradeable.

True, due to inherent instabilities, it only lasted 332 years, so obviously it's unworkable and crazy next to - say - the Russian Republic (17 years old), the French Fifth Republic (48 years old), German government (57 years old), the People's Republic of China (57 years old), the Untied States (230 years old), or the Westphalian system of nation states (358 years old).

This strikes me as entirely logical. And totally crazy.

See also the Icelandic Commonwealth, which allowed individuals to sign up with their choice of gothi (chieftain / lawgiver).

One could change gothis, and - in a twist that both free marketers *and* meta-loving-computer-scientists will love, the gotharth itself (status of being a gothi) was tradeable.

True, due to inherent instabilities, it only lasted 332 years, so obviously it's unworkable and crazy next to - say - the Russian Republic (17 years old), the French Fifth Republic (48 years old), German government (57 years old), the People's Republic of China (57 years old), the Untied States (230 years old), or the Westphalian system of nation states (358 years old).

This strikes me as entirely logical. And totally crazy.

See also the Icelandic Commonwealth, which allowed individuals to sign up with their choice of gothi (chieftain / lawgiver).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icelandic_Commonwealth

One could change gothis, and - in a twist that both free marketers *and* meta-loving-computer-scientists will love, the gotharth itself (status of being a gothi) was tradeable.

True, due to inherent instabilities, it only lasted 332 years, so obviously it's unworkable and crazy next to - say - the Russian Republic (17 years old), the French Fifth Republic (48 years old), German government (57 years old), the People's Republic of China (57 years old), the Untied States (230 years old), or the Westphalian system of nation states (358 years old).

The major problem that occurs to me with any of the non-geographic schemes is that, once you move up to the level of a continent-wide polity, you inevitably set the stage for very, very, easy fleecing of the political minority by the majority. For example, consider the option of the top-100 vote getters for Senate. You can rest assured that the resulting politics will involve elimination of farm subsidies, ample conservation provisions, significant gas (not energy, gasoline) taxes, etc. While I might approve of these meausures to greater or lesser degrees, I somehow think folks in Iowa or Montana might look at these policies a little differently.

Regarding the gothi, I've never been totally convinced by systems of government whose primary exemplars are isolated, homogenous societies in harsh environments. Those kinds of societies have fewer centrifugal forces pulling them apart, and deep reserves of non-governmental pressures to keep everybody working together. Same goes for religious communties like the Shakers.

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