Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

MIT economist believes U.S. is shifting to be more similar to developing nations

theintellectualist.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 279 posts

Re: MIT economist believes U.S. is shifting to be more similar to developing nations

#141

Post by ethbro »

unityByFreedom wrote: post #101
alistairSH wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In addition to rolling back Citizens United would be to re-introduce pork-barrel spending. With changes to the legislative process in the 90s, Congressional leaders lost a strong carrot to keep the rank-and-file members playing along. In the current system, with no carrot, legislators are more inclined to follow the wishes of their constituents. And with extreme gerrymandering, those constituents can be very extreme.

Pork barrel spending is special interest funding. It's not viewed as a good thing

There was a pretty strong article a while back (and I assume parent likely also read) that sunshine laws and a decrease in special interest spending ultimately increased partisanship and decreased compromise.

Reason being that previous periods of American legislative politics were characterized by back room deals unknown to the public. This afforded politicans an opportunity to strike bargains with the opposition without having a spotlight trained on them (and being crucified in the next primary for "working with the enemy").

The check was that every 2/4 years voters still had an opportunity to toss out the incumbent based on his or her track record of results. (Admittedly without knowing how the sausage was made)

While I agree that transparency is a good thing, I'm humble enough to admit that the US legislative / election process is complex and has a lot of feedback. So the article's thesis seems plausible.

Which do you want more: non-partisan cooperation or absolute-transparency?

Re: MIT economist believes U.S. is shifting to be more similar to developing nations

#142

Post by [deleted] »

kristofferR wrote: post #2

Am I wrong in attributing/connecting most of Americas problems with its flawed constitution/democratic system? The first version of something is rarely the best version, and while the US constitution contained a lot of fantastic elements and freedoms that every educated American knows about, it also contained a democratic system (first past the post/two party system) that is mathematically bound to breed divisiveness…

[deleted]

Re: MIT economist believes U.S. is shifting to be more similar to developing nations

#143

Post by alistairSH »

unityByFreedom wrote: post #101
alistairSH wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In addition to rolling back Citizens United would be to re-introduce pork-barrel spending. With changes to the legislative process in the 90s, Congressional leaders lost a strong carrot to keep the rank-and-file members playing along. In the current system, with no carrot, legislators are more inclined to follow the wishes of their constituents. And with extreme gerrymandering, those constituents can be very extreme.

Pork barrel spending is special interest funding. It's not viewed as a good thing

That's true, which is why efforts were made to do away with it. However, as noted in the sibling, several political scientists have posited that the result was worse than the previous state of affairs.

In the previous system, if a legislator worked across the aisle on some big project, he might get a relatively small kick-back. A new bridge, funding for a pet project, whatever. At election time, he could point to that and say "hey, I worked across the aisle, and got this thing for you!"

Now, that pet project doesn't get funded. So, at election time, if the legislator goes across the aisle, he gets crucified by more extreme opponents. There is nothing to point to and say "I got you THIS!" The only incentive is to cater to the most extreme constituents to ensure a primary victory.

Re: MIT economist believes U.S. is shifting to be more similar to developing nations

#144

Post by unityByFreedom »

kristofferR wrote: post #112
jasonlfunk wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The constitution we have now isn't the first version. It was created with the ability to be changed with the process of amendments. We have 27 of them so far. More could be added to change the voting system or whatever else, if there was political will to do so; but currently there isn't. (And this is ignoring the idea of the judiciary reading into the constitution new rights that weren't there to begin with.)

My initial instinct were to agree that while changing the voting system is obviously theoretically possible, it would never happen. Why would the parties vote for solutions that would destroy the duopoly they currently enjoy? Then I actually researched it a bit, and it turns out that quite a few countries have actually moved away from FPTP. [1] That's interesting, and something to be hopeful about. [1] https://en.wik…

> it turns out that quite a few countries have actually moved away from FPTP

Yeah, to bring alternative ranked voting to the US, it needs to happen at the local level first, as done in Maine.

Re: MIT economist believes U.S. is shifting to be more similar to developing nations

#145

Post by naasking »

unityByFreedom wrote: post #70
phkahler wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think most of the division in US politics comes from the way representatives are influenced. By co-locating them all in Washington we enable destructive lobbying while keeping them away from the people they are supposed to represent. The party system is also destructive - I advocate against any legal recognition of political parties and against campaign ads funded by anyone outside the state a person is running in.…

> By co-locating them all in Washington we enable destructive lobbying while keeping them away from the people they are supposed to represent Representatives do spend time in their own states. They also need a central place to meet. No country or system does this differently. > The party system is also destructive - I advocate against any legal recognition of political parties and against campaign ads funded by anyon…

> They also need a central place to meet.

Not anymore. I'm sure the last 20 years of technological advancement hasn't escaped your notice. I think eliminating colocation is an idea that deserves serious consideration.

Re: MIT economist believes U.S. is shifting to be more similar to developing nations

#146

Post by mac01021 »

9090local wrote: post #139
kristofferR wrote: post #2

Am I wrong in attributing/connecting most of Americas problems with its flawed constitution/democratic system? The first version of something is rarely the best version, and while the US constitution contained a lot of fantastic elements and freedoms that every educated American knows about, it also contained a democratic system (first past the post/two party system) that is mathematically bound to breed divisiveness…

The problem is not the constitution or the existing system. The problem is there is a privileged class that don't follow the rules of the law. And privilege is one of most inefficient thing in a system!

Who is not following the rules of the law?

Which rules?

Re: MIT economist believes U.S. is shifting to be more similar to developing nations

#147

Post by naasking »

ethbro wrote: post #141
unityByFreedom wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pork barrel spending is special interest funding. It's not viewed as a good thing

There was a pretty strong article a while back (and I assume parent likely also read) that sunshine laws and a decrease in special interest spending ultimately increased partisanship and decreased compromise. Reason being that previous periods of American legislative politics were characterized by back room deals unknown to the public. This afforded politicans an opportunity to strike bargains with the opposition wit…

> Which do you want more: non-partisan cooperation or absolute-transparency?

Except you can have both as long as you ensure factual standards for news reporting.

Re: MIT economist believes U.S. is shifting to be more similar to developing nations

#148

Post by usmeteora »

kristofferR wrote: post #2

Am I wrong in attributing/connecting most of Americas problems with its flawed constitution/democratic system? The first version of something is rarely the best version, and while the US constitution contained a lot of fantastic elements and freedoms that every educated American knows about, it also contained a democratic system (first past the post/two party system) that is mathematically bound to breed divisiveness…

"results suffer while the ideological conflict is enhanced"

exactly. The most disconcerting part about the state of American politics is the focus on a predecided ideology of the other party being wrong.

proving the other party wrong is apparently worth everyone suffering over.

When each party is increasingly controlled by less people, then we now have a country where 300million people are willing to shoot themselves in the foot in the name of their party, with the ruling groups of each party having the interests of neither in mind.

Now youve just created an ideology of sacrificial progress in the name of a party.

There is more loyalty in this country to ones party than there is to the country and the progress of the country. The emotions and irrationality of attachment, and continual degredation of the other party just to be in the right, approaches religion.

The only thing more demoralizing than this is the fact that this conversation is continually broadcast on two news stations each owned by billionaires, who curate the "news" themselves. The biggest progress I've seen in news lately is Bill Oreily being fired for 11 pending and accumulating harrassment lawsuits. Must be nice to get paid $75million to be fired. True journalism shines through again.

It's extremely....disconcerting.

Re: MIT economist believes U.S. is shifting to be more similar to developing nations

#149

Post by unityByFreedom »

naasking wrote: post #145
unityByFreedom wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By co-locating them all in Washington we enable destructive lobbying while keeping them away from the people they are supposed to represent Representatives do spend time in their own states. They also need a central place to meet. No country or system does this differently. > The party system is also destructive - I advocate against any legal recognition of political parties and against campaign ads funded by anyon…

> They also need a central place to meet. Not anymore. I'm sure the last 20 years of technological advancement hasn't escaped your notice. I think eliminating colocation is an idea that deserves serious consideration.

I'm a software engineer, working remotely, and still prefer face-to-face conversation over phone or internet-video chats.

I'm glad that our representatives meet to discuss things. If they didn't, I imagine there would be more miscommunication about what's best for America than there already is.

Re: MIT economist believes U.S. is shifting to be more similar to developing nations

#150

Post by coldtea »

nirav72 wrote: post #6

I'm thinking MIT economists haven't lived in a third world. (I was born in one) The U.S is not even remotely close to being a third-world or will be one anytime soon.

Being born in a third world country probably blinds one to some issues though, as they don't have a historical basis within the US for comparison -- they only compare with their own country.

Of course the US wont be a "third world country" anytime soon. But it can regress closer to one than it was before.

That said, there are places in Mississippi, South Dakota, Alabama, Colorado, the Appalachia, etc. that are not that better of (if at all) than some developing nations.

Post reply on HN