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They'll cozy up to the Dems. It's not rocket science. All the corporations pay both parties to further their interests, due to the most idiotic ruling in history: citizens united, which effectively decided that legally in the US, money = speech.
Well make sure to remind everyone who Elon really is if he tries to pull that.
We'll see what Vivian has to say about that...
It's known as a plutocracy ... a political system based on money and wealth
As compared to a democracy ... a political system based on the will of the people.
America has always worked like the first and it's debated as to whether or not it ever was the second.
Just in case anyone is curious as to what you mean, here's a brief historical context.
Up until Trump and adjusting for inflation, George Washington was the wealthiest president in history with his net worth contributing an actual percentage of the US wealth at the time. I mean, we were still getting national loans to the tune of a few million dollars per deal and that was considered adequate at the time.
Jefferson used the White House as his personal palace while he was President and spent as much time throwing dinner parties and receiving guests in his dressing gown as being President and trying to undo everything Hamilton left behind out of pure spite.
It wasn't until damn near Lincoln (1828) that your average man was able to vote, as only those who owned land were considered educated enough to have a say in government, and when Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation we had the "who can vote" conversation all over again, and then once more and with feeling for the women after that.
I'm in Canada and I have this debate often with my friends. One prime example is our federal governments Westminster system of government ... where we have a house of parliament filled with elected officials from across the country, who can draw up, debate issues and pass laws ... but then those laws are sent to a senate that provides 'a sober second thought' to everything ... the senate is filled with unelected officials that are placed there by appointment.
Historically, the senate was just filled with friends and associates by the ruling government at the time ... basically it meant that every democratic law in the country was first given over to unelected elites and business friendly people to water down anything that went through government ... in recent decades, they've modernized the system and now it is still appointed people but appointed through a system disassociated with individual political parties or political leaders - apparently senators are appointed by committee
But its still filled with heavily influential people with money and monied interests ... they keep arguing that any canadian citizen can be appointed but it never happens because you have to be a fairly wealthy individual, have influence and know lots of people before you could ever be considered for appointment ... one of the prerequisites they point out is that individuals considered for appointment must own a minimum wealth of $4,000 (or something like that, I forget the actual figure but it was only a few thousand dollars), which most will argue is not a barrier to many in this day in age. What they don't point out is that $4,000 in 1867 when the country was founded was equivalent to saying someone should own roughly almost a million dollars in wealth. It was always geared and built into the system to have wealthy overseers watch over the country and protect the wealth of the most powerful people.
Which makes you question, like I do with America, whether we ever did have a democratic system here in Canada
That's interesting, I didn't know that about the Canadian Senate.
Honestly though, and this is something I've been thinking about a lot lately, the bicameral legislative system in general is a vestige of old social stratification from a bygone age.
The lower chamber (in the US that's the House of Representatives, but in Canada I suppose it's the House of Parliament) is basically a derivative of the House of Commons from England/UK. I think it was established by the Magna Carta (if I remember correctly) to give commoners (peasants) a say in government.
The upper chamber, being the Senate, in a similar way derives conceptually from the English House of Lords. In other words, from its inception, the Senate as a concept was always intended to be the house representing the nation's aristocracy.
Things have changed over time of course, but there are still echos of its origins in the way it functions as the upper chamber, and also in the way people are selected as Senators versus as Representatives.
I'm not saying we should immediately abolish the bicameral system. There are certainly still good reasons to keep both chambers in place (and honestly we could potentially even eventually expand it to a tricameral or quadracameral system, adding a chamber that represents different career fields, or one that that represents different academic disciplines). But it's just something to be aware of about the history of senates in general.
One thing I think every modern government should employ is a way or means to either change, upgrade or renew a nations constitution or overall governing laws. To change it or update it every 100 hundred years - or every 50 years or after every 10 elections or something. Basically to enshrine into law that the whole system has to be updated to modern standards every few generations to keep up with changing times .... a constitution or set of laws that are allowed to change or evolve over time.
I know that the current system tries to employ change over time ... but all those changes are based on the laws, system and regulations of a bygone era ... systems like 'senates' in Canada ... or the electoral college in the US
Existing or old laws and regulations were meant to deal with problems or issues from a hundred or even 200 years ago but usually those problems are no longer applicable centuries later .... and those insitutionalized changes are only abused to manipulate the democratic system. Updating and upgrading the system every hundred years would serve to evolve the system over time and prevent forces from abusing existing regulations that no longer function.
I am sure that any new system that would be developed would have its own abuses but at least everyone would have an opportunity to do something about it all rather than just sit still and maintain the status quo, even if it means a degraded democratic system.
No matter the country ... every nation should have a way to update its system to better represent people in its current age. How do we expect to represent the modern American or Canadian governments using regulations from 100 - 200 years ago when everyone lived with horse and buggy and didn't have world wide mass communication? And in the future, how do we except future generations to deal with their problems 200 years from now using regulations from the 1900s?
Human society and civilization is in constant change and evolution and technology ... we can't expect our governing systems to stay static over generations while everything changes.
I can see that. I've thought a great deal about that two. On the one hand, societies and cultures evolve, so it's important for governments and institutions to evolve with them. I think building that concept into the framework itself would be important.
On the other hand, it comes with a different set of challenges. Of the two most obvious that stand out to me, one is ideological and one is practical.
On ideological grounds, the point of a government charter such as a constitution is to create a stable system based on certain principles that are at least in theory permanent, inherent, or universal. In modern times, often that includes provisions for certain immutable human rights.
If we make constitutions more malleable, then a side effect of that would be that the rule of law also becomes more flexible. How can we guarantee that over time, in a century or two or even longer, those human rights might gradually become more mutable, until they eventually start to disappear altogether?
On practical grounds, it comes down to how the changes themselves would be implemented. Would the constitutions be updated by citizen's referendum, by a constitutional convention of state/provincial governors and/or legislatures, by federal-level legislatures? How could that work? And how could the courts provide oversight to such changes if their key role is to ensure the other branches are following constitutional law?
It seems the opportunity for a constitutional convention is rare, because according to the safeguards that are rightfully built into said constitutions, changes require widespread support. That isn't guaranteed to occur every few generations, nor even every century. And do we really want to impose some rigid schedule for changes and watch politics degrade into a hectic battle for a supermajority every few dozen years?
Furthermore, what if in a century or two, a new wave of fascism happens to take a supermajority and enough state/provincial governments to hold a constitutional convention? That would be like a reversal of the intention, the dark flipside parallel to the bright promise of a governmental system that can adapt to the changing needs of the times. There's no guarantee that it would be a progressive government in power when it comes time to make updates to the fundamental structure and function of government.
So in that respect, I think stability is important, and some parts of government/constitutional law should be immutable.
Maybe a layered charter could provide a good solution. Some parts that are permanent and can never be changed, and some parts that must be updated on a schedule; say at the turn of each new century.
The challenge then remains in deciding, from a present standpoint, what aspects are enduring and universal, and what aspects are relevant to time-and-place.
Great point ... I still think that the governing system should be upgraded and changed over time and given a major overhaul every few generations just to shake off the old ways of doing things.
But I like your point ... 'some parts of government/constitutional law should be immutable.'
There should be a simple straight forward core of government ... something so simple that it would only be expressed in about a hundred words. Something basically stating the basic rights of 'people' (stating it as people rather than 'man' because it would encompass all genders or any other identity that people might have now or in the future)
That core should be agreed upon to never change because it would be the basis of the current generation and future generations of people far into the future.
Everything else surrounding that core would be up for change, upgrading or even removal ... so that every generation could lose all the old methods of doing things and create new ways of governing in order to support and maintain that single core constitutional idea that never changes.
Yeah, I agree with you in principle. I merely think we need to exercise caution in how to implement it in practice.
If our generations ever get the opportunity to do major reforms or even overhauls of government institutions, organizational structures, foundational principles, and key functions, we need to remember not to throw the baby out with the bath water for one thing.
For another, we need to avoid tunnel vision. It's so easy to get caught up in the needs of the current political moment, and lose sight of the bigger picture. That's why I would caution against changing constitutions for mere political expediency, or as a means toward temporary goals.
It should only be done to update the structures and functions of government to be better suited for ensuring enduring principles such as liberty, justice, and human rights (as long as those terms are clearly defined so they can't be distorted or corrupted in the future; I'm talking Rawlsian and Senian views of justice, and liberty should be about protecting people from oppression, not affirming the entitlement of the powerful to anything-goes. So maybe a more Keynesian view of economics).
As for your ideas of an immutable core, I generally agree. We might need to expand on it further, and I think that task is largely suited to career academics with multidisciplinary expertise ranging from political science and political philosophy, to ethics, sociology, behavioral and developmental psychology, and even economics (with the caveat that the entire field of economics needs to be overhauled and reworked from first principles).
It needs to be collaborative, but right now the environment in academia is overly competitive, and that's extremely toxic to human progress. It's a side effect of the commodification of education though.
But if we're just brainstorming, then this is how I'd expand it, in rough outline form.
Beyond these things, which again I acknowledge is just a rough outline, a brainstorm if you will, and must be elaborated on further by an interdisciplinary collaboration of experts, I believe most of the other details can be more mutable and stand somewhere in between "core constitutional charter" and "temporal legislative law."
Perhaps there could even be a new branch of government whose entire purpose and role is to ensure these middling details stay up to date with the needs of the current century and decade. Perhaps a built-in review/audit every ten years, and a scheduled convention/rework every hundred. Something along those lines.
Thank you for contributing your ideas, I think we're cooking something awesome here. Even if it's ultimately destined to become no more than a message in a bottle cast into the sea. At least the ideas are finding expression in words somewhere.
I don't often find someone willing to brainstorm like this, so really thank you.
I like a lot these ideas but like you suggest, it should be left up to debate amongst a community of people to represent the time, age and level of technology and capabilities of the times they are debated in.
One core thing I often suggest when I debate these things is the idea of wealth and wealth distribution ... it is a hotly debated subject whenever I suggest it because it is always clouded by the prospect or suggestion of communism or socialism and by extension totalitarianism and authoritarianism.
Of everything that could or couldn't be done about government or society, I think instituted wealth equality would make the greatest difference to human development. And it's a simple idea but an idea so controversial that most people disagree with it, question it or just don't even want to think about it.
The idea that an UPPER WEALTH LIMIT should be instituted and permanently set into society. And the limit would still be a high ceiling ... for instance, set it at $100 million ... how could it be unreasonable to think that anyone could live without wealth beyond that limit? In one lifetime? And the governing system would essentially remain the same, no authoritarian system, no big changes to rights of people, no big changes to how society functions or operates, just that one change - to enact a system where wealth of any one person is capped to an upper limit.
Because many of the problems of developing, redeveloping, reshaping, reconstructing, renewing or upgrading government systems or laws ... are all affected and influenced by those with wealth ... and the more wealth any individual or individuals have, the more they are likely to change or affect changes for better or for worse. And conversely, once wealth is better distributed to more people, the more likely it is to develop better, more representative laws and regulations because everyone (or more people) would be able to better represent themselves and influence control.
If we removed the insatiable greed of individual people from the system, then it would more likely be able to better represent everyone as a whole ... rather than always lopsidely represent only those few people with money and power.
Unless the issue of wealth, especially ultra wealth, is addressed ... the problems of developing any kind of new or old government system will always be crippled by those who want to hold onto or protect their wealth and power.
I like your approach. I think a reason why a lot of people resist the idea is that they're afraid of losing what they have. No working-class person should lose their nest egg in order to redistribute the wealth. Nor do any need to. Because the problem isn't the middle class or even the upper-middle class. The problem is the upper-upper class, the owner-caste, the plutocrats, the zaibatsu, the financial oligarchs.
So when we talk about it, our rhetoric needs to highlight that we're not after any doctors or lawyers or professors emeritus. Those aren't the people siphoning and hoarding the lifeblood of society; they're not the ones who are appropriating the surplus value of labor in order to generate exorbitant personal wealth to the detriment of everything and everyone around them.
We need to communicate better about working-class solidarity, and how that includes the middle classes, yes, even up to and including the upper-middle class. They can keep their mcmansions and their corvettes. That's not the means of production that needs to be seized.
Personal possessions are fine. It's privately-owned business empires that need to die. And the "public" stock market should be nationalized, and governed by democratic civil institutions, like a hybrid between a union and a bureau, or something along those lines.
Especially–and starting with–public utilities and other infrastructure, which honestly needs to include communications infrastructure such as cell towers & satellites, internet, and even social media. But there I'm starting to get a little radical, and I don't know if the broader social conscience is ready for that leap quite yet. The key idea is that these things should be treated as public goods rather than commodities to be exploited for profit by individuals or business entities.
And yeah, there definitely needs to be an upper wealth limit. $100 million seems reasonable. You reach that, you win. Nobody needs more than that, so at any point if a person's net worth goes over it, every dollar over should be taxed at 100%.
I'd caution against applying wealth tax to anything under that limit though, because the thing about wealth is that it's a static amount unlike income, so a recurring wealth tax would actually tax the same wealth redundantly. So it's probably best to only apply it to any amount over the upper limit.
And lastly, but arguably most importantly, capital gains need to be taxed more fairly. Currently, in the US at least, the highest tax bracket for capital gains is taxed at a rate comparable to the income tax bracket of about a $40,000 salary. It's so bullshit.
"The arc of history moves towards progress"
We might take a couple steps backwards for every few steps we take forward, but no one can deny that we have moved forward.
We move forward with the hopes of the younger generation
We are held back by the fears and anxieties of the older generation
The movement is balanced by the lack of wealth and resources of the young, who have the energy and drive compared to the vast material riches of the old, who are shortsighted and can only see their near end.
That's insightful. But doesn't it also seem to indicate that progress is inevitable?
In broad terms, the younger generation will outlast the older.
So it might be frustrating at times, even painstaking, but overall doesn't that tip the scales toward reason to be optimistic?
I agree and it probably worked a lot better and faster generations ago when our elderly grew old faster and died off quicker. In our modern age, we have modern medical technology that can keep people alive longer and also healthier for longer parts of their lives ... the problem is that much of that medical technology and knowledge is wrapped up with the only the wealthiest people. So those same dinosaurs I'm talking about get to spend way too much of their elderly lives in positions of power and basically holding everyone back for longer.
One of the biggest things every government around the world, especially in first world democratic developed nations is to institute a more strict retirement age for these positions. How can we expect a leader to lead a nation of new young people looking for hope to be led by a 70 or 80 year old who doesn't want to think about the next ten years?
Things are likely to get very weird in the not-too-distant future - where people have longer and longer healthspans, and also keep more nimble minds.
The viewpoints of the very old may change a lot due to that. Everyone, but most especially the young, may have to completely recalibrate how they think about age.
I think we're still a long way away from that Charlie ... in the near future (within 100 years) I'm guessing long life will look and act more like Mitch McConnell ... they will be there and relatively healthy but whether or not their mind is OK will be questionable.
Yeah that one's a tricky thing to discuss. On the one hand, we tend to view death as a bad thing and longevity as a good thing. Anyone who's ever lost a loved one understands why. There's no real argument against that.
But it's precisely because of the unprecedented nature of technological and medical breakthroughs that have extended human lives that we face new challenges that human society has never needed to confront at this scale. And it's difficult to discuss those in earnest without being accused of ecofascism.
Like clearly, forced population decline is evil. But education and access to contraceptives can help stabilize the population on a more voluntary basis. It's less simplistic to implement, but ethical solutions typically involve more complexity than unethical ones.
Artificially increasing mortality rates would likewise be evil. If the technology exists to extend human lives, then everyone should have equal access to that.
But we're going to run into very real practical limitations such as: what is the max carrying capacity of the Earth? Can the human population continue to grow without exacerbating extinction-level events for other species that are already happening due to human activity? Can the population level-off before surpassing 11 digits, and can a population of this size exist sustainably while offering universal access to a reasonable minimum basic standard of living? Can we produce enough food and water for this many people without negatively impacting the environment?
I recognize that some of these answers are as technical as they are ethical, and some of them are easier to answer than others. Some merely require systemic-level structural changes, some require collective willingness and participation. Others may still be more open-ended questions that can't be fully answered until we experiment with a few potential solutions.
But overall, the reality is this: there are no more new frontiers, at least not until space colonization becomes a possibility. We can't simply expand into uncultivated wilderness. And we're already seeing some world powers trying to take land by force from their weaker neighbors. It's not even limited to the most obvious examples (Israel, Russia, US, etc.). It's happening in Sudan, in West Papua, in Myanmar, across Himalaya.
And things are only going to get worse as climate change accelerates, until we can stem the tide and reverse course, which may take centuries even if we start immediately. Millennia if we don't start very soon.
So yeah I digressed on a few tangents, but coming back to your main point, yes, I agree that medical breakthroughs should be available to everyone equally, and I also agree that once a politician turns 70 they should be allowed to finish their term but should not be allowed to run for reelection.
The problems of the world will always stay the same no matter what generation the world is in ... it's just human nature and it may get better or worse with time. But having the oldest members of our society take control of how to deal with those issues and problems is not a good idea.
And yes, any new technology to lengthen lifespans will first be made available to the ultra wealthy first ... and maybe shared with everyone else later.
And I never enjoy the arguments that people have about population control. Yes I agree that in our current world and current way of doing things ... if we keep adding a few more billion people to the planet, then yes it is very unsustainable. However, if we changed the way we lived and worked and shared all the world's resources, provided education to every person, gave them food, water, medical care and opportunities to live productive lives, then we would have billions of people working towards solutions instead of spending their time maintaining a destructive system in order to survive. Wealth is completely centralized in the world right now to only a few people with the majority of every other human doing their best to just survive ... so their only recourse is to just keep participating in a system that is destroying the planet ... and when you keep adding people at the bottom of that system, it only makes the problem worse.
So the problem is not population size ... its how our world governing system and wealth system works. Because once you feed people, give them comforts, educate them and make their lives livable, then over time, they have fewer children and if done over a couple hundred years, the population would stabilize (and even decrease) to a manageable level. But it would only work if wealth and resources are equally shared and available to everyone everywhere.
And none of these kinds of conversations much matters to someone who is 70 or 80 years of age because they can see their exit and they have no real investment in a future they will never see ... which is why they should not be allowed to stay in power to lead nations.
I agree wholeheartedly.
My only caveat is that I don't care if there's still a modest amount of social stratification. I think that's inevitable, because human activity is a dynamic process. Even if we were to reset the playing field to perfectly level, it wouldn't stay that way for long.
But if the richest people in the world are only ten-millionaires, and the poorest people in the world have enough to build a comfortable nest egg and have access to everything needful for a healthy and thriving life (we can use Maslow's hierarchy as a compass here; I'd say the lower three tiers at a bare minimum should be considered bottomline universal rights; there's room to expand that as society progresses); if we can achieve that, then I believe a just and equitable society is possible even without a perfectly even distribution of resources.
(And I say that as someone at the lower end of the middle class, so it's not like I have any assets to defend. I just think everyone deserves the same basic standard of living that I have access to. It should be a right, not a privilege).
But it would of course require adequate government oversight in accordance with democratic processes to ensure it doesn't snowball over time into a new oligarchy/plutocracy.