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Politicians without power incentives? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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When I looked at the different political systems currently in place around the world. I noticed one core issue. Power corrupts people, be it democratic elected, rich or authoritarian there is always an incentive to abuse said power for personal gain. It also attracts people who strive for power, who usually experienced a lack of control in life and are unsatisfied.

In an ideal world politicians should work for the good of the people, but that seems impossible in current systems.

So how do you build a system that doesn't insitivise using political power for personal gain. I think it is a rather tricky question.

Some of the ideas I had feel free to discuss:

Strictly limit the legislative period without exception. (minimizing the time exposed to power and possibility to using it for personal gain)
A politicians elected get permanently limited in their private posetions, in exchange for the opportunity to change policy. (you need to give away personal benefits in order to gain power)
Punishment for thresholds of personal gains. In our capitalist society for example, I cannot imagine any billionaire, who did not exploit and therefore use violence against other people in order to reach these riches. I think it is fair to assume, that no one can reach this amount of wealth, without any moral wrong doing. It therefore could be classified as a crime and procecuted as such.

Any criticism and ideas are welcome. I'm no expert, so excuse me if I got something wrong. These are just ideas.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago

You should read up on Anarchism. Given your thoughts on heirarchical power structures, I think you'd find it interesting.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (2 children)

How about we just vote on everything. Any time there's a change, the voting app or website lets you log your vote.

[–] GregorGizeh 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)

The problem with that is that the average citizen cannot possibly keep up with and stay informed on all issues that the government makes decisions on, and for the most part they don’t want to have to either.

That is why representative systems were created in the first place, so the average person would not have to bother with politics and instead would vote for someone they trust to represent their interests for a while.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

@GregorGizeh @eezeebee but we have too many laws and regulations in the first place. Most are arcane and set up to benefit someone rich. If we had direct democracy, we could all vote only necessary laws and regulations. With less ones that affect everybody (where a whole country votes) to more ones that affect local communities.

[–] GregorGizeh 2 points 10 months ago

That’s simply unrealistic to implement right away though. The best realistic system I could see would be the Swiss system except online.

There the citizens vote on all major decisions, requiring politicians to either take on issues of importance to the people or to make their policies palatable to the general population if they hope for it to pass.

This seems like a reasonable middle ground to ensure that citizens stay informed and engaged - at least on big issues - and that their leaders are generally required to consider the wishes of the people.

I could see monthly or bimonthly digital voting on a handful of current issues work out well, provided they are presented in a digestible format to the average citizen.

If people have to do hours of research to even understand what the question is they will very likely just vote whatever or ask their friends what they voted. Worst case even sell their votes on issues they don’t care about.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Check out Liquid Democracy.

The problem with representative systems are that you're forced to trust the person you elected will actually represent your interests after they get given power, which invariably never happens.

There's also no mechanism to revoke that power during their term, so they're free to do whatever they (or their lobbyist backers) want, without your consent.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

I agree, it would be hard to keep up. Though I would argue that I while I personally wouldn't care to vote on things which don't greatly impact me, I would be more inclined to participate on the issues that did. This might give more of a voice to the people affected by the decisions that are currently made by the few. I think it would certainly incentivize law makers to follow the will of the people rather than their own/corporate agendas, and keep power trippers in check.