Modern Democracies - a case of tragedy of the commons?

[Radical]

I was just thinking about how modern societies are basically made up of different interest groups each pushing its agenda without much regard to the damage it causes.

If you accept that your country is the "commons", do you think that different interest groups, regions and social classes are destroying, or trying to destroy, the "commons" because of personal interests?

[Mirehn_Bielann]

Democracies work because of special interest groups. Special interest groups are neither good nor bad. They are pushing their own agenda in order to highlight a problem that is near and dear to them.

For every interest group lobbying for something you don't like, there is a special interest group lobbying for what you like.

You probably are represented by at least ten special interest groups that you don't even know about.

And are they trying to destroy the country? No. The parts make up the sum total. If they are people that have different beliefs than yours and you don't like them, fight back. Put more money into your favorite interest groups.

Democracy is only representative of those who engage in democracy.

[snrjefe]

No, they aren't trying to destroy the country, they are trying to improve it from their perspective. Sometimes special interests aren't in the best interest of the country, but as Mirehn_Bielann correctly points out, there are going to be other organizations opposing them. Should one group grow inordinately powerful (crazy leader wins lottery), the collective wealth of the best interest will smash it flat. NAMBLA can lobby all they want, there won't be any laws allowing grown men to have sex with little boys any time soon.

[Radical]

But still, some of these groups are clearly at odds when it comes to goals - ie, one wants lower tax and another wants more social services. Yet clearly, neither option is a solution that's in favor of the country as a whole.

Wouldn't it make more sense for everyone to discuss and agree on what is in everyone's benefit and then work toward it in unison rather than having each group trying to push its own agenda at the expense of another group?

[Robert Frazer]

To make a brief comment before I have to dash off, one thing that's struck me is how limitred debate can be between groups - most is conducted by volume rather than discourse. I've lost count of the number of articles I've read where an opponent says "this is a very dangerous issue" or something similar, without troubling themselves to explain why.

[Paladin]

Radical: It's not possible to achieve that level of consensus.

[Black]

I think Radical is just upset that humanity doesnt have a hive mind.

[Radical]

@Paladin

Maybe not in a way that the demands of every interested party are met, but perhaps it is possible to reach a consensus on things all of the parties need.

Basically, a return to a grassroots society where the reason for every party's participation, which is personal interest, is acknowledged and society is based on the needs we all have in common rather than on how much popular support or political leverage one party can gather at a given time.

@Black

*laughs*

No, no it's hardly that. That's a very dismal idea indeed - a world where untold millions can be sacrificed for the good of the "hive". Then again, being a free thinker, I can't really call myself impartial, since I would probably be the last person to relinquish my free will.

[The5thElephant]

I have less of a problem with interest groups than I do with democratic elections being decided by a largely uneducated and simple populace.

Yeah I'm an elitist schmuck, but I think a benevolent dictatorship run by the right people would make for a much better country.

Go Plato!

[Paladin]

There's just no way you could get people to compromise like that.

[The5thElephant]

Paladin - Half the reason our government is so inefficient is because politicians DO compromise to get a bill through, and then that bill is completely incapable of doing what it promised because of all the compromising handicaps.

The real problem though isn't the compromising, it is what we use to determine the value of a change. Politicians measure ideas in their political influence and money/constituents behind them, not in how valid the evidence/logic backing up the idea is.

This is a problem found throughout human society. There is little respect for critical thinking, empirical evidence and statistics. People respond to anecdotal experiences and identities, not science or research. We would have a very different government and set of laws if they were all based on proper research and evidence.

[Paladin]

But that will never happen.

[Unknown Target]

"Special interest groups" have been derided lately as something of evil influence, and when you think of them you usually conjure up images of Big Oil or some other entity, trying to squash the little guy for their own nefarious deeds and yadda yadda yadda. Special interest groups are literally any group that represents a smaller sub-set of society. There's a special interest group for teachers, one for environmentalists, one for drug users - there's pretty much a group for everything under the sun, and they lobby Congress to have their needs met.

That being said, while many times if one group is granted unilateral favoritism in government, it does harm the whole; however, these small groups are central to a democratic government. When the US was still being formed, there was concern that such a large republic could not function, because the government would be too far removed from the people and it would allow a single interest group to dominate everything, and subjugate the others. I believe it was Jackson who argued in the Federalist papers that it was NECESSARY to have different special interest groups (or "factions" as they were known), so that they would act as a check and balance on each other - this was demonstrated in...Virginia, I believe, where one church tried to make itself the official Church of VA - a special interest group trying to gain power. However, other special interest groups (other churches) rallied together to block the measure from passing, thus using special interests (factions) for the betterment of the whole, by acting as a balance on each other.

There is always a group that opposes another group - and they are generally beneficial to the nation as a whole, IMO - at least in certain (most?) cases.

[Invictus]

@ Paladin: The mathematical equation "firing squad + wall = compliance" might beg to differ ;)

In all seriousness 5th is probably right, but Paladin is also. Everyone wants to feel important and as such everyone's quest for a piece of attention means that fuck all gets done, except in abnormal circumstances, such as a major armed conflict, virus epidemic etc.

Come to think of it, a large event really is needed for the vast majority of people to shut up with their tit-for-tat bitching and mewing and just get things done. Then there's the person who will take charge of the mess and steer society in the right direction, (which would be nice except there's no way to guarantee that this person won't just subjugate everything and everyone).

Which makes a democracy the lesser of all evils in terms of running a society. Everyone is entitled to an equal say, but things get done slowly. Best the average person could hope for, I would think.

[Unknown Target]

The American democracy was actually designed to be inherently less efficient than it could be; the logic was that if things could go really fast, then impulsive, often subjugating, legislation could be passed in the heat of the moment, instead of letting it travel through the bureaucracy for a time to let people's heads calm down and view the issue more rationally. I agree with this, and say that a super efficient government could only harm most of the time.

[Lomax]

I feel Democracy is only special because of the relative flexibility with which it allows interest groups to gain influence.

[Harmanoff]

What is it with people complaining about government inefficiency? Show me a more efficient system please. You can't throw out a benevolent dictatorship here i'm afraid because they don't exist and never have. When in history did we get shit done more efficiently? Am i entirely alone in thinking we are in fact getting more shit done now in modern democracies than ever before?

Don't get me wrong, there is always room for improvement but people generally complain about government inefficiency on these boards like everyone is supposed to know exactly what that means. Well i don't, at least not in the sense that i find it to be our main problem at this point.

[Bowkers]

Democracy in Britain is ok to me. The only thing that would be useful in changing,but will give more representation to radical parties, is the election system. However, I am content with it, maybe you think I am blind, but I am happy.

[The5thElephant]

The system would work fine if people actually understood the rules it follows. Religious dogma has absolutely no place in determining law, yet time and time again it strongly influences the legislation that is passed with a bare veil of saying its to protect the "social conscience" or something like that.

I know this is a completely different topic, but if the US government followed its own laws and logic to the full degree then gay marriage would be legal, many drugs would be legalized, and many areas of scientific research would get proper funding. Society and the country would improve significantly, which would immediately discount all the bitching from the people who disagreed on dogmatic or moral grounds.

Same thing with our budget. The only reason so much money goes to the military is because the military-industrial-complex interest groups have convinced us that not building super advanced fighter planes means we are all going to die. Education doesn't matter if there are no children left alive to go to school is basically what they are claiming. It may sound harsh but just look at the numbers, the amount of money that goes to the military is DISGUSTING. We could support our military properly (actually sending them the equipment they need) while nearly halving the amount of money spent on R&D.

Re-invest those saved multiple hundreds of billions into R&D for civilian purposes, education, social security, healthcare, infrastructure, public transportation, etc. People will appreciate their tax money going towards things they can actually see help their community, particularly if they can be convinced that they are safe and still well protected by our military (as if they are protecting us anyway, pfah!).

[Robert Frazer]

religious dogma has absolutely no place in determining law,

Why not? "Religious dogma" pretty much is a corpus of law. If society demonstrates that those are the rules under which it wishes to operate, then that's the regime that will prevail.

"Separation of Church and State" doesn't mean that every session of Congress begins with hymns in praise of the Blessed Dawkins and ritual burning of the Talmud. It just means that the State doesn't endorse or officially adopt a Church, such as in the way that the Church of England is formally Established in the U.K., for instance. We often praise legislators for acting according to their own personal conscience, rather than meekly toeing the party line on an issue - if someone votes in a specifcally religious frame of mind, they're only acting by conscience themselves.

[[Vertigo]]

There is little respect for critical thinking, empirical evidence and statistics.




statistics



Don't lump your hack pseudo-science with the real thing, 5th.

:handbag:




The system would work fine if people actually understood the rules it follows.


If they could make the rules understandable I would agree. The tax codes alone take a specialists to understand. Of course if the laws were easy to understand we wouldn't need courts, lawyers, or judges.



Same thing with our budget. The only reason so much money goes to the military is because the military-industrial-complex interest groups have convinced us that not building super advanced fighter planes means we are all going to die.


I can make the exact same claim on foreign aid. Why waist money on other countries when ours could put it to better use?

[No Surrender]

Why not? "Religious dogma" pretty much is a corpus of law. If society demonstrates that those are the rules under which it wishes to operate, then that's the regime that will prevail.
That's one of the reasons the Bill of Rights exists, to prevent a tyranny of the majority from developing. Imagine if you will, that 95% of all voters decide to outlaw a religion. By your system, that religion ought to be outlawed. Does that mean that particular religion should be outlawed? No, and that's why religion really shouldn't figure into things such as gay marriage. In fringing upon a group of people's rights is a serious matter. It should not come to pass because a 2,000 year-old book that not everyone believes in says so.

[TESB]

@The5th
If you say that one men can rule an other because he has an higher education, then any men that can prove he is more educated/ capable ect. has the right to rule over you and on a more general level to rule over all men. With your System power is not justified and it would lead at best to a aristocracy.
Also given the nature of men it must be stated that such system where a highly skillfull administration rules too long and becomes entrenched in power it is almost inescapable that such an administration will rule for itself and not for the unwashed uneducated dumb ingorant masses.

[n0z3k1ll3r]

Don't get me wrong, there is always room for improvement but people generally complain about government inefficiency on these boards like everyone is supposed to know exactly what that means. Well i don't, at least not in the sense that i find it to be our main problem at this point.Democratic governments only enact short term measures because they have absolutely zero incentive to look beyond their current electoral term. If it doesn't show results NOW, it doesn't give them something to point at the voters and go "look aren't we great" about.

Changing of parties is similarly inefficient because Party A will spend money enacting legislation and policy and then Party B will come along when Party A loses power and overturn half of that. And then Party A will reenact it etc etc etc. Money being wasted right there.

[The5thElephant]

Okay I'm gonna take this one at a time. Why oh why do I only browse the forums at the wee hours of the morning?


If society demonstrates that those are the rules under which it wishes to operate, then that's the regime that will prevail....

....We often praise legislators for acting according to their own personal conscience, rather than meekly toeing the party line on an issue - if someone votes in a specifcally religious frame of mind, they're only acting by conscience themselves.

The first part is the very problem that democracy has that I am talking about. Most of the masses have no idea what they are talking about. It may sound insulting, but ask your average American to give you specific details about any political issues. Many will only know what is related to their specific situation, and what the news says about that, and that is better than the many who don't follow the news in any depth at all. If only scientists determined policy, and were allowed to do their own research on decisions, then we would have a far better system.

The second part is also something that is a problem. It's ridiculous when politicians act on their "conscience". Ignoring the fact that they don't have to be and aren't always honest about what they truly believe (their beliefs cater to their audience), it would be better to have a politician who ignores the beliefs they have developed or been raised with and figure out the right decision based on logic, research, and evidence. The more objective the better the decision. Conscience is anecdotal.


Don't lump your hack pseudo-science with the real thing, 5th.

If they could make the rules understandable I would agree. The tax codes alone take a specialists to understand. Of course if the laws were easy to understand we wouldn't need courts, lawyers, or judges.

I can make the exact same claim on foreign aid. Why waist money on other countries when ours could put it to better use?

Statistics don't claim to be exact. They tell you about general trends and can be very informative when properly applied in an objective manner. Don't blow something off just because a few people misuse it.

By "understood the rules" I meant law that more directly pertains to the issues people care and know about these days. Like marriage. The ever increasing number of courts stating that the ban on gay-marriage is un-constitutional shows that the loosening of society's tight-assedness is allowing Judges to actually follow what the law dictates (equality to everyone as long as nobody gets hurt and nobody gets hurt by gay marriage to put it really simply). I can't wait until the day we get a computer which can understand the concepts we are discussing, and runs the law through its head and spits out what the proper interpretations of all these debates should be. Precedent in law can go fuck itself as well (sorry I'm on the long end of a good J). I wish we could determine each case by itself, but it just isn't efficient enough.

I agree about the foreign aid though. I don't know enough right now (I'll look into it), but I would want any foreign-aid to be spent efficiently and in the areas that will make the most long-term benefit, not just the latest atrocity/disaster in society's fickle conscience (Darfur, tsunami, earthquake, Katrina, etc).


If you say that one men can rule an other because he has an higher education, then any men that can prove he is more educated/ capable ect. has the right to rule over you and on a more general level to rule over all men. With your System power is not justified and it would lead at best to a aristocracy.

It isn't an aristocracy, it is a meritocracy. One in which merit is determined by your knowledge in a subject that is related to the policy decision involved and your access to objective data and research (which should be accessible to everyone ideally).

I'm talking about an ideal here. I know many humans are corrupted by power. I'd like to think that I wouldn't be one of those, but I'm not likely to be in governmental power anytime soon. But it is my belief that many people in the scientific community would be able to remain objective and goal oriented (since that is what they do for their research).

PS Spellcheck.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

Democracies - in theory - can't suffer from a tragedy of the commons. It would require a majority of people making irrational decisions; the tragedy of the commons assumes rational decisions.

[n0z3k1ll3r]

Shoe: Care to expand on that? You can easily have people making rational decisions that result in everyone being worse off.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

The point of the tragedy of the commons is that what is rational for an individual isn't always what's rational for the group. In a democracy you have the group as a whole making decisions. You need the group to act irrationally for there to be a tragedy of the commons.

[Radical]

The point of the tragedy of the commons is that what is rational for an individual isn't always what's rational for the group. In a democracy you have the group as a whole making decisions. You need the group to act irrationally for there to be a tragedy of the commons.

I don't think it's that simple. For one, democracy is made up of countless groups and conflicting interests. And to get a tragedy of the commons, all you need is one group trying to satisfy its personal interests at the expense of others. Recent events go to show.

I think what it boils down to is which is better for society - a system that caters only to the needs we all have in common and thus, is in everyone's interest all the time or the current system of balancing where different interest groups/social classes/regions try to use shared resources for personal interests?

[TheDeadlyShoe]

In a democracy a minority cannot satisfy its personal interests at the expense of the majority. The majority would have to permit it, which is irrational.

Real life isn't this simple, no. There is no such thing as rational decisionmaking because there is no such thing as perfect information. Only crappy approximations of both. Every democracy also has its counterdemocratic tendencies, for better or worse. Life is messy...

Gonna quote an earlier post for this bit.


Wouldn't it make more sense for everyone to discuss and agree on what is in everyone's benefit and then work toward it in unison rather than having each group trying to push its own agenda at the expense of another group?

That's what democracies do. Elected officials discuss what's in everyone's favor, then the Government works towards it in unison. The interest groups come in at the 'discuss/decide' phase, not at the 'work towards it' phase.

[Bowkers]

Interest Groups are invaluable to governments imo. They give advice to the government over policy making etc. They prove useful tools in setting up policies as well. I dont regard them as cumbersome.

[Radical]

In a democracy a minority cannot satisfy its personal interests at the expense of the majority. The majority would have to permit it, which is irrational.

What happens if the majority makes a choice based on its personal interests that ends up harming everyone but benefiting itself?


That's what democracies do. Elected officials discuss what's in everyone's favor, then the Government works towards it in unison. The interest groups come in at the 'discuss/decide' phase, not at the 'work towards it' phase.


I seriously doubt it works like that. Last I checked, democratically elected parties have a certain goal and represent a certain part of society - saying that every elected official supports everyone's interests makes absolutely no sense - governments might, in theory, support everyone's interests due to the balancing effect. But saying that Marco Pasta, the elected official of the Italian minority is going to look out for everyone's interests is well, silly. He's going to look out for the interests of the people that voted him into power.

[Vaarok]

Republics have fallen into democracies through the tragedy of the commons. A republic is supposed to weigh the good of the many against the good of minorities and find a minimally intrusive balance. To this end, special interests and lobbying are good, but too much of this has dissasociated the legislators from their constituents and the system has grown too complicated for it to be responsive, because in an effort to pander for votes, every time they can propose a law to be seen as doing something, legislators do, choking off freedom and keeping themselves in the business of "solving" "problems".

[TheDeadlyShoe]

What happens if the majority makes a choice based on its personal interests that ends up harming everyone but benefiting itself?

The majority is harming itself, therefore it's an irrational decision.

Again, everyone in the tragedy of the commons is making rational decisions in their terms. They can be aware that what they are doing is bad overall and favor restrictions on their own actions. People do it all the time.


I seriously doubt it works like that. Last I checked, democratically elected parties have a certain goal and represent a certain part of society - saying that every elected official supports everyone's interests makes absolutely no sense - governments might, in theory, support everyone's interests due to the balancing effect. But saying that Marco Pasta, the elected official of the Italian minority is going to look out for everyone's interests is well, silly. He's going to look out for the interests of the people that voted him into power.
Marco Pasta isn't making the decisions. Elected officials as a group (that is, the representatives of everyone) are making the decisions. Legislatures are a means to an end - creating the best policy for the whole country. It doesn't always work, no.

But what would you suggest? There will always be disagreements over what the best policy will be. There has to be some method of resolving these disagreements and majority rules (with caveats) works pretty decently.

[Radical]

The majority is harming itself, therefore it's an irrational decision.

Again, everyone in the tragedy of the commons is making rational decisions in their terms. They can be aware that what they are doing is bad overall and favor restrictions on their own actions. People do it all the time.

What if the damage is worth the benefits for the majority?

And I have serious trouble imagining people practicing self-restraint for the benefit of everyone unless, of course, that benefit is greater than the damage incurred by the majority.



But what would you suggest? There will always be disagreements over what the best policy will be. There has to be some method of resolving these disagreements and majority rules (with caveats) works pretty decently.

I'm not suggesting anything, I just posed a theoretical question - would society be better off working only on things that everyone benefits from or would it be better off with interests groups compromising between their interests even if said interests conflict (and in which case, whichever group has more political power wins)?

Majority rules has problem because the majority may pick the choice that is of greatest benefit of itself but somewhat detrimental to everyone or in other words, the majority gets something it wants and the price of it is spread over all of society, rather than being concentrated at its source (the majority that made the choice).