[p2p-research] Abundance Destroys Profit [was: Tick, tock, tick, tock… BING]

[J. Andrew Rogers]

On Sat, Dec 12, 2009 at 7:43 PM, Ryan Lanham <rlanham1963 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Interesting ideas 250 years ago.  Now rather silly...as you imply.  Of
> course people have been saying it since at least the 1950s. Ironically, with
> the new budget operations, the Senate has grown in power and so has
> seniority. Seniority tends to be more likely in small states. Thus, we have
> empowered people from minor states to run our government disproportionately
> when they were already disproportionately in charge.


The obvious solution is to restrict the Federal government to its
intended role. This way, no one will have to worry about senators from
small States micro-managing the lives of people 2,000 kilometers away.
Of course, the reverse is true as well. Some of the larger ecological
disasters in the mountain West were created by policy forced on the
region by clueless politicians in New England, applying patterns from
their locales and ignoring local advice.

A big part of the problem is the idea that the US can be governed as
though it is a homogenous monolithic country. Far too many people in
politics think the prevailing provincial outlook in their neighborhood
has some kind of relevance to the rest of the country in the absence
of any evidence.


> The electoral college
> is downright silly.  Even in 1800 people knew it was silly.  So the US is
> effectively ruled by our most backward and small states...West Virginia,
> South Dakota, Wyoming, Utah, etc.  California and NY are relatively weak by
> comparison.  Odd to say the least.


Non sequitur.  The President has no jurisdiction over individuals,
only the States. Even though the States have equal representation in
the Senate, the votes for President of the States is *still* weighted
for population.

Most Americans do not know that the President and Executive have very
little authority over individuals. The Federal executive operates in
US states at the pleasure of both the executive of the State *and* the
county sheriff. The last part surprises people, but it has been upheld
in Federal court many times; a county sheriff can revoke the ability
of Federal agents to operate in a county at any time for any reason. A
similar but slightly more complicated relationship exists with the
States. Just because the State governments allow the Federal
government to operate in their State does not imply that the Federal
government has the right. In practice, when a State gets touchy (every
decade or two some States will pull rank over some issue) the Feds
just bribe them with giant bags of "free" money.

(And honestly, the US should be so lucky as to have a modest firewall
between the Federal government and the gross incompetence and
malfeasance that is the hallmark of the governments created by e.g.
Californians.)


> There really isn't a good democratic constitutional system around now.  The
> US system relies on the president who is increasingly powerless over the
> Senate.  Those enamored of Obama are finding rapidly just how naive they
> were.   Another element of the perfect storm...governments unable to change.


Is the Swiss system any good?  It seems to function reasonably well,
though I know very little about the details.

While I agree there aren't any really good examples of a
constitutional system in practice right now, there is nothing wrong in
principal with having a strong US Senate. The US Senate is arguably
*the* primary organ of the US Federal government. The President is not
even supposed to make substantive decisions, and judging by what
happens in parliamentary (and other) systems I would say this is a
good thing. The US was very intentionally designed to avoid any
quasi-autocratic democratic outcome.


-- 
J. Andrew Rogers
realityminer.blogspot.com