PLAYER57832 wrote:Gillipig wrote:When I hear americans talking about getting money out of politics I agree with them that it's a good idea, but what they don't seem to understand is that your politicians actually won't be making good decisions once the money motivator has been removed either. Because then they will be listening to the people, and even if that is a good thing theoretically, when applied to the real world it results in equally bad politics.
Unfortunately people are stupid, and not fit to determine what's best for their country. They will be requesting more rights and less taxes, stupid shit like that. I know this because I live in one of the least corrupt countries in the world, where big businesses aren't affecting the political system. Instead the politicians are hellbent on doing exactly what the people ask for, so they can get (re)elected. They follow polls like they're laws meaning parties each year gravitate closer and closer to each other as they're following the same polls.
If only people asked for things that would benefit the country in the long run this would not be a problem, heck it would be a dream democracy where the people got exactly what they wanted. But because people are inherently selfish and shortminded, as well as ignorant of economy, all that comes out of it is more and more bad political decisions.
You might think that "oh well, all you need to do is educate the people then." Not that easy it turns out, Sweden is one of the most overeducated countries in the world, you need a university degree to do almost anything over here, and yet we can't get ourselves together and vote for what's best in the long run. And in America, not only is the average american way less educated but there's also a nation wide love for individualism, something that I believe is disastrous when you're trying to convinve people to think for the nation as a whole and making longterm decisions.
I think you fail to give your countrymen credit when due. No country is a Utopia, but the overall standard of living and general well-being of people in Sweden far exceed the US. Ironically, a lot of the recent problems and failings are because Sweden is facing a global marketplace heavily driven by the US on one side and developing world peoples on the other. Swedes care neough to allow some immigrants, but have such a small country their culture is being overrun. Economically, Swedish companies might want to do what people ask, but wind up having to compete with US interests, which are mostly about feeding a handful of very greedy stockholders.
That happens in the US precisely because of eroding education in the US. When discussing long term impacts, you HAVE to take real environmental issues into account, not just current market fluctuations. Markets follow climates, environmental issues. Too, too many wish to pretend that the world around is nothing more than a giant market place. They see polar bears, dolphins and redwood trees as nothing more than commodities that can be replaced when people wish. Even w hen people don't actually believe that (I don't, for example, think greekdog would say that.. at least not in past discussions), they tend to wind up saying "but we have to look at economic realities".
History shows us that most of the past civilizations have collapsed, in large part, because of environmental issues and the country's inability to properly respond. Sure, they were taken over, but the reason that could happen was because the basis of the ecnomic systems, the basis of their power, failed.
Here in the US, knowledge is failing, partially as an unintentional consequence -- science equipment costs money, training teachers well in science takes more time and money than training teachers to write well or do basic math. When industry is demanding machinist and computer programmers, the pressure to just skirt "how the world actually works", to leave that to "specialists" who study it in college, is pretty tempting. Add in that there is real reason for some companies to plain not want folks to know about the harm they are causing or might cause.. and we have an education system heavily geared to training a population to be corporate peons, not corporate challengers in any way.
Sadly, challenge is what provides innovation. When you add this poor education direction onto a system geared to respond to money, you have disaster. The US, right now, still does lead a large part of the world in many ways. Unfortunately, while we allow ourselves to be drawn in by fights over not paying taxes to support schools and roads, folks like Putin are happy to waltz in and just TAKE what they want.
I question your Sweden-expertise, but in general agree with what you wrote. Sweden is still a relatively prosperous country but that is due to past events and past policies, not the current. What Sweden didn't used to be ruled by was populism, when it wasn't ruled by populism it could make good decisions, and in combination with laws that forbade big companies to influence politics, decisions beneficial to the country was made, and could be made because it had a system that allowed for it. There was one big flaw however, and that flaw set in motion all the flaws I see in my country today, that flaw was that politicians was in charge of their own salaries. A HUGE flaw, as inevitably they raised their own salaries, and when they did that, it had a number of negative impacts;
They started being more concerned with keeping their job, and that meant being re(elected) became more and more important to them, thus opening the door for populism and mindless short term vote fishing. Politicians in Sweden used to be payed a very low salary, it was not a desirable job, doubtlessly that also affected who wanted to be a politician. Low salaries scares away the careerists, the leaches who are just in it for the cash and don't give a rats ass about the people they represent. When salaries went up, not only did the politicians who were actually concerned with what's best for the country start being more careful with what they said, posers started taking over politics. They're not at all interested in doing what's best for anybody but themselves, they see it as a game, the game of trying to lure the public into thinking they care about them. All the while they just sit there and collect as much money as they can while they can, and vote 'yes' whenever a new suggestion is made to raise their salaries.
One might naively think that when you raise salaries you get better, more qualified politicians, but what do they get better at? Better at speaking? Yes! Better at furthering their own agenda? Yes! Better at lying? Yes! Better at caring about the country's best? No!
There's no advantage in having better, higher educated politicians if they're not motivated to do what's best for the country. That seems to be the issue in USA as well, it's not that you don't have competent qualified politicians, the problem is that they're corrupt, spineless and only care about themselves. That can be fixed by lowering their salaries to such an extreme extent that being a politicians is no longer considered a high payed job. All the careerists would leave, they'd go to the private sector, or they'd be lawyers (I don't want them there either but it seems to be the spineless and corrupts favorite occupation), the ones who'd stay would be the ones who actually care about politics. Of course to lower their salaries with, say, 80% would have to require
one of them suggesting it, and a
majority of them approving it. <laugh here>
Nothing within the democratic system can change this problem, the great irnoy is that when even when you get money out of politics, because the salaries are so good, money is
still affecting politicians, it's affecting them to blindly following polls and doing whatever dumb thing people want short term. The leaches won't leave until being a politician is at least an average payed job.
