How to make the government function.

Political Philosophy
1

The main problem that I see with government is how to keep it accountable in a day to day sense. It is not the problem of preventing the government from violating rights. A vigilant populace and good intellectuals can ensure that. I am talking about how we can make sure the government is doing all it can to do its job in a positive sense. A proper government is not necessarily a good government because a proper government is just a government whose function is to protect individual rights. That does not mean that the government is actually going about this correctly.

Most people are held accountable at their jobs by the processes of the marketplace. Competition makes sure that people do not get to lazy, irresponsible, or incompetent. The government precedes the market however. The market has a limited ability to keep the services provided by the government high quality.

What we need then is a set of incentives that will reward the rational running of government, and punish irresponsibility, incompetence, and laziness in government.

Solution 1:

Society organizes itself into districts that vote together. These districts do not have any actual government of their own. These organizations only vote together. What they vote on is whether or not the government is doing its job correctly. These organizations do not even vote on decisions that the government makes. If they vote that it is doing something bad, they can renegotiate with the government (get better sheriffs and judges, other things) or secede from the government and create/hire a new one. Secession is a drastic measure, and probably wouldn’t be selected for often, but it should be an option.

For example, lets say my city has a terribly sheriff. I and a bunch of people get a petition to call a for a vote about this sheriff. We vote that he is bad. So we call the state and ask for a new one to be installed. The most likely would do this. If they don’t however, we can fire the sheriff, and the government who wouldn’t replace him, and create/hire a new government.

My idea is to create a literal social contract system. Where the state is separated from society in an institutional way. The founding fathers talked about “the people” having the ability to reject their government if it violated their rights or wasn’t doing what it was supposed too, but they never really made it clear how this was supposed to happen outside of a revolution. In fact I think the way our system is set up is severely flawed because it makes “the people” and the government the same thing. When that happens, the state becomes socialized, it has no legitimate interests of its own, so it then becomes a tool for power and abuse.

Solution 2:

The fact that a proper government does not tax people means that it has to make it worth while to people to buy their services rather than risk going without its services. Even a monopoly has to make its services better than the absence of its services.

Solution 3:

In addition to this, governments can sell the right to vote on how things are ran in order to raise money for themselves and also to give people a direct way of influencing the quality of services. I think it is important that the government ultimately controls who gets voting privileges. The government is made up of people who are providing services, and no one has a right to the services of another no matter how essential they are. So the government would make an exclusive club of voters who would be able to vote on different issues. The voting arrangements can be very flexible. Sometimes the vote would only call for people that come from certain districts to vote, and sometimes people who had training in certain disciplines would have the right to vote.

2

Solution 1 strongly hints at it, but I’m going to plainly state it anyways: Localism.

Localism is a valid means of making sure the government is run well.

By “localism” I mean the idea that local communities should directly run the services in their area. This way police would get the funding and take policies proper to their local community.

3

Solution 3 seems potentially dangerous. When you speak of a “right to vote on how things are ran”, you are talking about a “right to choose how force will be applied”. Basically, the government would be selling the application of force against one’s fellow citizens.

Sure, some people would try to buy suffrage out of a rational interest in objective law. But they could likely be outbid by those seeking to make money through government force. The system you propose could easily lead to government initiating force on behalf of private parties.

“I think it is important that the government ultimately controls who gets voting privileges”

I think this would produce something near a dictatorship. By asking the government to appoint its own watchdog, you are effectively asking the government to be its own watchdog.

In my view, a constitutionally limited democracy is the best answer to the question you pose, by virtue of its robustness against corrupt policymakers.

4

What about a system that sees each elected official evaluated (through a vote) yearly rather than electing virtual Kings for four or five year stints as we do now.

Now I’m not talking about an election campaign but a simple “Is the Sheriff doing a good job. Yes or No?” with an established baseline of 50% or more to determine if there will be an election to replace the Sheriff.

I would go farther though and say that the Sheriff or whoever would not be permitted to run for that office again, having lost the confidence of the people. (After all corporations do not rehire executives who loose the confidence of the board and are fired.)

Now this could mean that a person who continues to do a good job could hold that job after his/her initial election for as long as he does a good job but in my opinion that does not contravene the principle of electoral accountability because the people would have expressed their confidence in this person on a yearly basis.

5

Solution 3 seems potentially dangerous. When you speak of a “right to vote on how things are ran”, you are talking about a “right to choose how force will be applied”. Basically, the government would be selling the application of force against one’s fellow citizens.

Sure, some people would try to buy suffrage out of a rational interest in objective law. But they could likely be outbid by those seeking to make money through government force. The system you propose could easily lead to government initiating force on behalf of private parties.

I think this would produce something near a dictatorship. By asking the government to appoint its own watchdog, you are effectively asking the government to be its own watchdog.

In my view, a constitutionally limited democracy is the best answer to the question you pose, by virtue of its robustness against corrupt policymakers.

If someone came up to me, after doing years of education and training, and told me that they have a right to tell me how to do my job and how I should do it for, I would say that they are enslaving me. We all know that we don’t have the right to the services or goods of others. Police Officers, Judges, and Soldiers (Airmen, Sailors) all need produce the services they provide with their minds do they not? So why do we have a right to their services?

I find it interesting that in our society, a economic group getting in power usually starts with people from the outside of their group have a right to their stuff. Certain doctors convince consumers that the consumers have a right to all of the doctors services and goods, and this in the end empowers those certain doctors. This happens because the regulations set up to control the industry in the end are controlled by certain groups within that industry so that the consumers who thought they were getting a better deal from creating a right to health care are actually getting a much worse deal.

I fear that if we create a right to participatory government, we will be setting up a similar situation.

Another problem I have with a right to participatory government is that it destroys the incentive structure that can help limit the irrational growth of government. When everyone has a vote, then everyone essentially owns the state. This socializes the state apparatus. This means that no one owns the state, there are only care takers, people who have it for a time. This creates what Austrians call a “high time preference”, which means that it encourages impulsive action and short term thinking.

Just like if everyone owned the utility companies, I think that the government, while distinct from any other kind of social activity, would still be negatively affected by this.

6

What about a system that sees each elected official evaluated (through a vote) yearly rather than electing virtual Kings for four or five year stints as we do now.

Now I’m not talking about an election campaign but a simple “Is the Sheriff doing a good job. Yes or No?” with an established baseline of 50% or more to determine if there will be an election to replace the Sheriff.

I would go farther though and say that the Sheriff or whoever would not be permitted to run for that office again, having lost the confidence of the people. (After all corporations do not rehire executives who loose the confidence of the board and are fired.)

Now this could mean that a person who continues to do a good job could hold that job after his/her initial election for as long as he does a good job but in my opinion that does not contravene the principle of electoral accountability because the people would have expressed their confidence in this person on a yearly basis.

That is an interesting idea, but why don’t we take it further and make it so that the executive branch can be fired/dissolved if at any time a a petition with a certain amount of people having signed it is presented, and then a new election is called.

That way a Sheriff needs to always be on his toes.

7

That is an interesting idea, but why don’t we take it further and make it so that the executive branch can be fired/dissolved if at any time a a petition with a certain amount of people having signed it is presented, and then a new election is called.

That way a Sheriff needs to always be on his toes.

I thought of that but it is problematic in my opinion for a couple of reasons. You might have a good sheriff or whatever who makes a single mistake (which is capitalized on by his enemies) and as a result of a spur of the moment petition we end up throwing the baby out with the bath water and secondly I don’t think that a lot of people want to babysit their government all of the time. There is always going to be someone upset about something and I don’t want to be living in a hyper political society where at any moment a writ can be dropped for an election. The once a year is a compromise. You still have to give folks the time and scope to get the job done. Micro-management is not conducive to efficient running of anything.

8

If someone came up to me, after doing years of education and training, and told me that they have a right to tell me how to do my job and how I should do it for, I would say that they are enslaving me. We all know that we don’t have the right to the services or goods of others. Police Officers, Judges, and Soldiers (Airmen, Sailors) all need produce the services they provide with their minds do they not? So why do we have a right to their services?

We have no right to their services of government officials. On the other hand, poorly performing government officials have no right to remain in government. I see no violation of a police officer’s rights in telling him that he can no longer use force outside of self-defense.

Besides, government is a monopoly. An inept government that fails to protect rights is also preventing anyone else from protecting rights. By preventing the formation of a new, more effective government, the inept government is initiating force without justification.

I think you’re confusing the basic rights of government officials with their extraordinary powers. The freedom to refuse to work is a right. A (near-)monopoly on the use of force is an extraordinary power outside the scope of rights.

However, you are right about the problem of time preference.

9

We have no right to their services of government officials. On the other hand, poorly performing government officials have no right to remain in government. I see no violation of a police officer’s rights in telling him that he can no longer use force outside of self-defense.

Besides, government is a monopoly. An inept government that fails to protect rights is also preventing anyone else from protecting rights. By preventing the formation of a new, more effective government, the inept government is initiating force without justification.

I think you’re confusing the basic rights of government officials with their extraordinary powers. The freedom to refuse to work is a right. A (near-)monopoly on the use of force is an extraordinary power outside the scope of rights.

However, you are right about the problem of time preference.

Point taken on about their rights.